Tyler’s actions are deliberate and focused.
It’s almost as if he knows exactly where he’s going even though I don’t know if he has ever been here before.
I keep asking him what’s going on over and over again, but it’s all to no avail. He doesn’t say a thing.
“This is a trap, Tyler. Whoever this is, they’re going to call the police. You can’t trust him.”
He turns to face me.
“I trust him,” he says with a smile.
“What are the chances that this other person is as trustworthy?” I ask.
“I don’t know if he’s going to be here. Don’t worry.”
“How can you tell me not to worry? I don’t even know what we’re doing here.”
He goes down a main street and then pulls off to one of the side streets. The few people that are walking down the street, he watches very carefully, leaning over the steering wheel. Then he pulls into a parking lot and parks the car.
I don’t know what to do to make him keep driving. I want to get out, but I’m afraid of the repercussions. I want to make him go, but I know that I can’t.
He looks at the time on the clock and waits. His face has a serene quality to it, the kind of expression I haven’t seen before. It’s almost as if he knows that whether this person is here or not, it’s going to be all right.
I am not as sure.
“I can’t wait any longer,” I say, grabbing for the door handle and unlocking the door.
Before I can free myself, he presses a button and locks me in.
“No,” he says sternly. “We have to wait.”
10
Tyler
When we wait...
I can remember distinctly when we made the deal to meet here. We picked a date and a time and that was going to be our only shot.
We were sitting together in the cafeteria, having lunch, talking in hushed tones. No one knew that two days from then we were going to attempt the impossible; escape from a maximum-security prison.
There were three of us there and I’m not sure that any of us understood the gravity of the situation.
I know that Lester won’t meet us here, but what about Mac?
I don’t know where he is.
I don’t even have the faintest idea.
The only thing that I am sure about is that he won’t betray me.
I glance over at Isabelle and I see the tears in her eyes. She thinks that this is all over while I know that this is just the beginning.
Mac is the only person who I know for sure won’t turn me in for the reward money.
Well, Mac and Tessa.
I have never been to Hannibal, Missouri, but it’s smack in the middle of the country and on the way to California.
I read many Mark Twain books as a kid and Mac did as well and I was the one who suggested that we should meet up here. Whether that was possible, I had no idea. We decided to give each other ten days to get here.
Traveling with Isabelle and Mac is probably not a good idea, but I owe him and I made a promise.
Hannibal, Missouri, is dressed up like a pageant girl. It’s a town with little industry and with only one claim to fame; the birthplace of Mark Twain. That’s not a bad claim to fame, actually, most towns don’t even have that.
To draw in tourists, they have his childhood home as a museum as well as a few other cultural points of interest. I look for a mural called “Tom Sawyer’s Fence.”
It’s ostensibly the place where the fictional Tom Sawyer character got his friends to whitewash his fence for him, instead of doing it himself like his Aunt Polly told him to.
Mac, Lester, and I had agreed to meet here today at five in the evening. It’s 5:30 p.m. and I start to wonder how long I should stay.
I see Isabelle getting antsy, so I turn to face her and tell her what’s going on.
She listens carefully, nodding her head, and then exhales slowly.
“You don’t think it’s a good idea?” I ask.
“No, absolutely not.”
“He was my best friend in prison. I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for him. We decided to meet to give ourselves a chance to reconnect. I don’t know how else to put it, but it feels like we have been through a war and he’s the only one that really understands what it was like in there.”
“I know that,” she says, leaning toward me. “Don’t you think I know that?”
I shake my head and say, “If he’s here, he won’t betray me.”
She isn’t as convinced.
“I know that you trust him. I know that you two escaped together, but he’s not like you, Tyler. He’s a murderer.”
“You don’t know anything about him,” I say, turning the radio up.
I don’t know how long I should wait, but I want to give him more time. Maybe an hour.
I don’t think that he will betray me, but he may not be able to get here on time. Perhaps he’s way past this place, somewhere further out west or maybe even in Mexico. After all, he didn’t get hurt during our escape and he didn’t spend a weekend in Pennsylvania.
“Tyler, you were supposed to meet at five, and it’s almost six. Can we just go?”
I should take her up on it, but something tells me to stay put.
“This could be a trap,” she says again.
Her distrust is making me angry. I narrow my eyes and glare at her.
“I know that you don’t believe me and that you trust him,” she says, “but what if he got caught and what if he made a deal?”
I won’t admit it but that has never occurred to me.
“What if they caught him and what if his attorney got him leniency based solely on information leading to your arrest? They would much rather have two of you than one, no matter what kind of deal they make with the first one.”
Blood starts to drain away from my face.
I lick my lips.
They are so parched that I can feel the flakes with the tip of my tongue.
I clear my throat and when that’s not enough, I take a swig from the bottle of water in the cupholder.
“You hadn’t thought about this,” she says, sitting back in her seat. “I can’t believe that you hadn’t considered this.”
“Okay,” I say, exhaling slowly.
I don’t want to admit that she’s right, so I just start the engine. “Let’s go.”
“Hey there.” Mac’s voice comes in crystal clear through the crack in my window. “Wait for me.”
11
Isabelle
When we get to Oklahoma...
When Mac climbs into the car, the first thing that I notice is his casual, happy-go-lucky smile. He has big white teeth and dusty blonde hair that falls in his face.
He doesn’t look anything like a person who has just been on the run for ten days. While Tyler looks tired and detached, even like a deer in the headlights at times, Mac has an easy-going quality to him that’s quite attractive.
I get out of the front seat to let him in to the back and immediately he throws his arms around Tyler, giving him a big warm hug.
“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” he says, spreading out and taking over the entire back seat.
It’s not a big space, it is a Honda Accord after all. I wonder if I should sit in the back and let the two of them reconnect upfront.
“You made it,” Mac says, grabbing Tyler’s arm again as he drives. “We fucking made it.”
Mac spreads his arms out over the backs of our seats, sticking his head in between ours.
It’s a little bit claustrophobic, but there’s not much I can do about it.
As we drive out of town, I look around and check for police cars. I don’t think I let out a full sigh until we get back onto the interstate.
“I can’t believe you actually came here,” Mac says, patting Tyler on his shoulder.
“I can’t believe I did either.”
“Hell, I thought that this was going to be a set-up for sure.”
“So did she,” Tyler says, giving me a wink.
There isn’t an ounce of cruelty in that wink, just an acknowledgment of the truth.
“I’m sorry,” I say shyly.
“Hell, don’t be.” Mac shakes his head. “I would’ve thought the same thing. In fact, I did. This whole way here I kept looking over my shoulder checking to see if there were any cops on the horizon. Of course, if they were, they would have stayed hidden until we connected, but that didn’t stop me from looking.”
I let out a sigh of relief as we exchange smiles. Now, I don’t feel like such a traitor.
“Listen, I wasn’t sure you would be here. I wasn’t even sure I’d be able to make it here, but, man, it’s so good to see you.” He throws his arms around Tyler again. Tyler grabs back at him, steering with his knee.
The easiness of their friendship immediately puts me at ease. Perhaps, Tyler was right all along. I should have trusted him.
As we drive through Missouri, darkness falls. It’s almost time to pull over, but Tyler wants to make it to Oklahoma. The further west we go and the more states that we put in between us and Pennsylvania, the better off we’ll be.
I know this, but my eyelids don’t. They start to feel heavier and heavier with each passing moment.
Eventually, I stop fighting it. I simply relax my body and drift off.
I don’t wake up again until we get to the Motel 6 parking lot and they tell me that we are at our destination.
I go inside and get a room. They require a credit card and ID. I pray to God that no one is checking on my whereabouts. I don’t think they are.
I wouldn’t be using the credit card if I had a choice. I have plenty of cash, but the clerk insists.
I want to get two rooms and have some alone time with Tyler, but I know that they have been apart for a long time and have a lot of catching up to do.
Besides, the clerk will definitely remember me and my name if I ask her for two rooms right away. The only way I can figure to do this is to go ahead and get another one sometime later tonight, maybe in a few hours, when there’s a shift change. If it’s the same clerk, then I can at least explain it by saying that we had a fight.
We have plenty of food in the cooler as well as plenty of snacks, so there’s no need to go to the store. Covering their heads with baseball hats and popping their collars up, Tyler and Mac follow me into the room at the far end of the building.
The door goes straight to the outside and faces a big grassy field. The sky is dark as there is no light pollution illuminating and contaminating the view. Somewhere in the distance, I see a swing set with one swing swaying in the wind.
After downing a couple of beers, the guys’ mood livens up even more. Their conversation shifts to their escape.
Tyler had gone over some of the details with me, but I’m eager to hear more details from a man who knows how to tell a good story.
“So, how exactly did you get out of prison?” I ask, finishing my can of low carb alcoholic sparkling water and popping open another one.
It has a light raspberry flavor and I like it because it doesn’t give me a headache like wine or beer.
“How else do you escape from prison?” Mac asks, leaning back in the plush threadbare maroon chair and propping his feet up on one of the queen-size beds.
“It’s a story as old as time. You drill a hole in the wall. You prop up something in your bed so that it looks like someone is sleeping there when the guards make the rounds. You take all of your bedsheets, tie them together, and make your way down the drain.”
Mac intertwines his fingers at the back of his head and winks at me as he relaxes in a way that only a free man can.
“Seriously?” I ask. “Just like that?”
I glance over at Tyler who gives me a nod and laughs.
“Despite all of the advances,” he says slowly. “Despite all of the technology and all of the things they have set up in that prison, yes, that’s the way we did it.”
I take a big gulp and let the raspberry liquid wash down my throat.
“I need to know more,” I demand, laughing. “Tell me everything.”
12
Isabelle
When we connect...
I like Mac.
I like him a lot more than I thought I would.
He’s fun and easy-going, a lot more than Tyler is. I thought it was just because of Tyler’s situation, but now I see that he has a seriousness to him that makes him very different from his friend.
Mac’s demeanor puts me at ease. He cracks jokes and laughs in a way that only someone without a care in the world would.
Mac is very different from Tyler and that’s a good thing. It’s not that I’m tired of Tyler, not even close, but it’s nice to travel with someone who isn’t so serious all the time. He provides a good amount of comic relief and that’s relieving.
“So, tell me more about how you actually did it,” I say, opening a candy bar and popping a few pieces into my mouth.
“You know, you’re quite interested in this thing, so much so that it’s almost suspicious.” He glances at me but then starts to laugh and I do as well.
“Hey, I just never met anyone who managed to get out of that situation before.”
“Neither have I.” Mac laughs.
“Come on,” I plead. “Tell me.”
“I would’ve thought that your boyfriend here would’ve filled you in on the details.”
“He said that you used power tools,” I admit.
“Oh he did, did he? Did he offer you anymore details?”
I shake my head and glance over to Tyler who stares straight ahead.
“You didn’t tell her?” Mac asks.
He’s genuinely surprised, but I just shrug my shoulders and wait.
“What? What’s the big deal?”
“Why did you need power tools?” I ask, trying a different approach.
“To drill through the wall and work our way down through the other walls. They don’t make escaping from prison particularly easy nowadays,” Mac says with a casual laugh. “We went down a long tunnel and then used the power drills to open up the manhole and climb out.”
“Just like that?” I ask.
“Well, it was a little bit more complicated at the time,” he admits, “but that was pretty much the gist.”
I try to imagine Tyler climbing out of the manhole in the middle of the street.
“Where did the manhole come out to?”
“Just a normal street, nothing too special.”
“It was a two-lane highway,” Tyler clarifies.
“Oh, shit, of course, I completely forgot.”
“Already?” Tyler asks.
“Well, you know me, the details are only moderately important.”
As I listen to them banter back and forth, it occurs to me that their differences boil down to this moment; their individual perspectives on the story.
Tyler remembers every detail, worrying and analyzing about every single one. Mac views life from afar. They got out, and damn the details.
Suddenly, I remember something else.
“How did you get the power tools?” I ask again. “Did someone smuggle them in for you?”
Mac looks at me when I turn back. He raises one eyebrow and smiles with the corner of his lips.
“How much do you want to know?” he asks.
I shrug then glance over at Tyler and back at Mac.
“How much are you willing to share?”
“Well, I could tell you that the power tools were just smuggled in through our connections and that’s it. Or I could tell you who did the smuggling.”
Now I’m intrigued, but I don’t get my hopes up.
I hardly know him and I probably shouldn’t know this anyway.
Mac glances over at Tyler and waits for him to give him the go-ahead.
“Hey, it’s your story. It’s up to you whether you want to tell it or not.”
“I’ve got nothing to be ashamed of
.”
I wait for him to continue. He takes a deep breath and leans closer to me.
He’s so close that I smell the minty freshness of his breath from his gum. He makes a small bubble and pops it, showing himself to be an expert at building anticipation.
“I had a thing going with one of the guards.”
“Really?” I ask, inching closer to him, awaiting the next bit of juicy gossip.
“Yeah. We had a thing for about a year. He was very shy about it. Some guards aren’t. With some, it’s basically an open secret.”
“Is that allowed?” I ask.
“Which part? Same-sex relationships, relationships with guards, or relationships altogether?”
“I guess any of those. I don’t know,” I say, confused.
“Smart girl,” Mac says with a laugh. “You’re absolutely right. They frown upon all relationships in there, but especially the ones between inmates and guards. I’m not really sure how they feel about same-sex relationships though. Tyler? What do you think?”
Tyler shrugs and glances over at me. “You know that he’s fucking with you, right?”
“What do you mean?” I ask. “Did this not happen?”
“No, it did,” Tyler says. “Mac just likes to make everything a little game.”
“Hey, you would, too, if you were in the slammer for as long as I was.”
That sentence strikes me as the most honest thing that Mac has said in my presence up until this point. The reality is that he has been in there for years and that changes people. It can’t not make an impact.
“Listen, I didn’t want to make it this whole serious thing,” Mac says. “I was just joking around. The truth is that Lindsey and I had a thing going for a while. I liked him. He was fine and had a dry sense of humor. He also had a wife and four children that were making his time at home quite miserable. I’m not sure whether there was anything really wrong with his family, but I think that they were just wrong for him.”
The Perfect Cover (The Perfect Stranger Book 2) Page 5
