One Last Breath

by Lisa Jackson

  “That’s a long ways from me.”

  “I know, but I won’t be staying long anyway.” She switched into the middle lane, a semi on her right, cars whipping past her on the left.

  “I’m sure Liam thinks I’m still in the Seattle area. I only moved this past year and, well, I’d thought he’d moved on.” Darlene added tentatively, “He’s with Bethany Van Horne, you know.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Rory snapped, hoping she didn’t sound as if she cared. “I heard. But he did come looking for me. Somehow. So he might know where you are, too.” As much as she wanted to believe differently, she couldn’t take that chance. Meeting Darlene was a little risky, but staying at her home would be downright dangerous. She eyed the upcoming span across the river, then glanced at her kid again. Still sleeping. “I think I’ll go through Portland and stop somewhere south, maybe around Woodburn.”

  “I’ll meet you there,” Darlene said with uncharacteristic decisiveness. “I can be out the door in five. I’ll keep my cell on. Call me when you’re through Portland.”

  “Will do.” Rory hung up, dropped the phone in the cup holder, and tried to rouse Charlotte again. No luck. She drove across the Glenn Jackson Bridge that connected Washington and Oregon and felt a chill down her spine.

  Welcome to Oregon, the state of the Bastian empire. Her jaw tightened as, still in the center lane, she drove just under the speed limit and past the exit to the airport, its control tower visible to the west while Mount Hood loomed to the east, miles up the river. Biting her lip, she intended to skirt Portland, hoping to stay on I-205 until she saw the backup of cars through her bug-spattered windshield.

  No good.

  She didn’t like the prospect of sitting in traffic. No, no, no, she needed to get past Portland and fast. The quickest route seemed to merge onto I-84 and go right through the heart of the city to I-5. “Great,” she muttered and eased into the exit lane where she at least could keep moving.

  Even if it was through what she thought of as Liam’s territory. She touched her toe to the accelerator, then eased back moments later when she realized she was traveling fast enough to alert a cop. No. No mistakes. She had to be careful, especially now.

  Rory held her breath as the traffic clogged again as she neared Portland’s city center. She crossed the Marquam Bridge, which spanned the Willamette River that divided East from West Portland. The bridge curved downward onto I-5, heading south and offering a display of the skyscrapers standing like windowed sentinels on the banks of the river, the forested cliffs of the West Hills rising behind them. “Oh, God,” she whispered and thought of the Portland attractions: Pittock Mansion and the Rose Garden on the upper hills, Voodoo Doughnut, a favorite visitors’ haunt in Old Town, the Eastbank Esplanade on the east side of the Willamette. Her heart twisted at the thought of the places she and Liam had planned to explore in this, his town, and she cleared her throat, telling herself that she would be through Portland within minutes.

  Good!

  Liam might be chasing her in Canada, but being so close to where he lived gave her the heebie-jeebies.

  As she began to merge with other traffic on the west side of the bridge, Charlotte cried out, “Mommeeee!”

  Glancing into the rearview, Rory spied Charlotte heaved forward against the restraints of her car seat. Her face was white, her eyes wide, her mouth rounded. In a rush, vomit spewed from her mouth.

  “Oh, God! Sweetie!” Rory gasped. Frantically, she looked for an exit. “Hang on!” Charlotte was sobbing between bouts of coughing and vomiting.

  No, no, no! This can’t be happening.

  “Mommee—oh!” She threw up again.

  Rory was frantic as she cut through traffic, easing past a small white sedan, while the driver, an older man in a baseball cap, laid on his horn. “Sorry!” she said as if the jerk could hear her, and sped off the freeway.

  Now what?

  She knew little about the city, but saw a sign for Barbur Boulevard and headed in that direction. Now, Charlotte was sobbing hysterically.

  “It’s gonna be okay,” Rory said.

  “No it’s not!!! Oooh.”

  Spying a taco shop, Rory sped into the parking lot and hit the brakes, parking at one edge where there were no other cars. Cutting the engine, she threw open the door and jumped out, then disengaged the car seat and gathered her crying, scared daughter close, rocking her from side to side, smelling the sour odor of vomit. “Shh, honey. Shh. You’re okay.”

  But was she?

  Oh, God, why hadn’t she taken Charlotte to a doctor in Vancouver?

  “Shhh.” She kept rocking and hugging her daughter, as slowly her daughter’s shaking shoulders finally quit quivering and her gasping sobs became brittle, foul-smelling hiccups.

  “It’s going to be all right,” she said, barely conscious of a man and woman stepping from a nearby battered pickup. In their seventies, they cast concerned glances in Rory’s direction, glancing over their shoulders as they slowly made their way up to the brightly painted door of the restaurant.

  What was wrong with Charlotte? Half a dozen illnesses flew through her brain, all of them horrible. Meningitis? Severe flu? Lyme disease? Something horrible she couldn’t even name?

  A warm breeze scattered pebbles, dry leaves, and a bit of trash across the dull asphalt. Charlotte sighed heavily against her. This was all so wrong. As much as she needed to escape, to run fast and far, she had to put Charlotte first. And second and third and so on. “Come on, sweetheart,” she whispered into her daughter’s curly hair. “We’re going to see the doctor.”

  Charlotte protested without much enthusiasm. “No.”

  “It’ll be quick. I promise,” she said, setting Charlotte back into her seat.

  “Nooooo!” Charlotte wailed more loudly as Rory opened the passenger door and, grabbing some napkins from the stash in her glove box, cleaned off the little amount of vomit that had caught in her daughter’s hair. “No doctor!” the little girl cried.

  “We need to get you well.”

  “No!”

  Rory tossed the napkin down on the floor with the rest of the mess, then pressed a kiss to her daughter’s sweaty forehead. “It’s going to be fine. You’re going to be fine,” she said, buckling Charlotte into her car seat.

  The little girl began whimpering and tears streamed down her cheeks.

  Rory climbed back into the driver’s seat and checked her cell phone for the nearest hospital. She was heading toward the city of Laurelton, which had its own hospital.

  For the moment she didn’t care about the fact that she was running from the law, that all of her ID was fake, that Liam would find out that he had a child, even if the assassin found her and Charlotte. Not now. All that mattered was that a doctor made sure Charlotte was going to be all right.

  Laurelton General was a couple of miles southwest. She aimed her vehicle in that direction.

  * * *

  Nothing tasted sweeter than freedom, Pete DeGrere thought as he tossed back a double bourbon neat and savored the warmth of the alcohol sliding down his throat to hit his welcoming belly. It had been far too long since he’d had a shot . . . make that several . . . but those days and prison were now in the rearview mirror. As he’d heard the gates clang shut behind him, he’d offered a mock salute to the final guard and thought, Fuck you all, suckas. Pete DeGrere is on the outside. For goddamned good!

  Now, as he contemplated another drink, he eyed the dancer who was going through the motions of making love to a long, shiny pole. Her heart wasn’t in it. She wiggled and stripped, acted as if she were really getting off as the music pounded—some kind of tribal beat overlaid with something kind of techno, but she, a bleached blonde, gyrated without much enthusiasm. Her painted-on smile looked as phony as a three-dollar bill, but she had great tits, and, well, Pete didn’t much care anyway. He was just grateful to be here, watching her, drinking bourbon, being on the fucking outside. Yeah!

  The place was pretty empty in the middle o
f the day. Just a few losers, regulars he guessed, wetting their whistles and maybe privately jerking off in the darkened room. Yup, some of ’em had that glassy-eyed stare that comes with self-stimulation. Then again, maybe they were all just wasted on bad drugs and weak drinks.

  But who cared? He was free. Free after nearly five years, which was over eighteen hundred days. What a waste in that shit hole! And for what? They hadn’t even gotten him for the really big stuff.

  Holy shit, he thought with a grin he couldn’t quite swallow. He glanced around the cavernous room. Yeah, just a few sorry souls, though he felt as if there was something off about the place, got a creepy sensation that he was being watched. But hey, they were all watchers here, right?

  Probably just jangled nerves. He’d been on tenterhooks, hoping for, living for, this day.

  Less than three hours earlier, he’d boarded a bus and sat in the back, his knee bouncing, his blood singing, anticipation making him sweat. He hadn’t made it all the way to Seattle. Instead, somewhere south of Sea-Tac Airport, he’d spied a titty bar, one of those long, low, dark buildings with a bright yellow neon sign of a curvy woman over arched, foreign-looking lettering: THE NILE. Yeah, like they were talkin’ about that damned river somewhere in Egypt. Over the yellow panels were silhouettes, not just of the girl with the big tits, but some alligators—or were they crocs over in Africa? didn’t matter—and some palm trees and a pyramid. Like you were in fuckin’ Egypt instead of the good old U.S. of A. Well, everybody had to have a theme, he supposed. So the Nile it was. As long as inside there were strong drinks and a lot of hot women, he didn’t give a rat’s ass what you called the place.

  He hadn’t been disappointed. Okay, some of the dancers looked like they’d been around the block more than a few times, but they still looked good to him, horny as he was. And the liquor was smoky and gave him an immediate buzz that he liked. He liked a lot. He’d forgotten how good it felt. Only trouble was, a guy had to go outside for a damned smoke, and that bugged him. Was nothing sacred anymore? He loved looking at naked boobs through the haze of smoke. Loved letting the cigarette dangle from his lip and just draw on it and squint at a twentysomething chick making love to the pole. Got him hard and aching for a good fuck.

  Shit, he’d settle for a bad one right now. As long as he’d been away, what did it matter, good or bad? As long as it was pussy, he was in.

  He motioned for another drink and a waitress in heels that elevated her at least four more inches quick-stepped his way. One eye still on his surroundings, Pete said, “Another,” motioning with a finger to his drained glass.

  “Sure.” She smiled brightly and he almost thought she was coming on to him, then realized it was because she was hoping for a healthy tip. Forget it. If he was giving out some of his few dollars, it was going to be to stuff them into that tiny scrap covering her twat. Yeah, that G-string was a little bit of nothin’, but it did manage to conceal her most private of parts. He wondered, knowing she was shaved or waxed or whatever, if the thatch of curls that had once been at the juncture of those long legs was anywhere close to the pale blond color of the mane of curls surrounding her Kewpie-doll face.

  He figured not.

  As his fresh drink arrived, he saw a shadow move in the back corner, behind the stage. Probably the manager or a stagehand of sorts. Right.

  So why did he feel as if he was being watched?

  Shit, you probably are. This place is probably crawling with hidden cameras.

  So what?

  He was keeping his nose clean.

  At least so far. His sister had said she’d lined up employment of sorts for him, something about being a neighborhood handyman. That was good. He liked it. What better way to case a joint than to be hired to clean up the yard, or fix a fence, or unplug a toilet? He chortled, low in his throat. Yeah, it would work out just fine.

  Blondie’s music stopped and she sashayed her tired but tight butt off the stage. While there was a break in the action, he decided to go out for a smoke. After an hour and a half of staring and drinking, he definitely felt a buzz. More than a buzz. He was on the verge of being shit-canned drunk, but he slid off his stool, hiked up his pants, patted his breast pocket to assure himself that his trusty pack of Winstons was still tucked safely away, then eased his way outside. He had to be careful about how he walked through the tables, didn’t want anyone to know he couldn’t hold his liquor like he used to.

  Shit, he already needed to take a piss.

  “Candy ass,” he muttered under his breath at himself and stepped outside to the cool of the evening. Maybe he’d just pee outside. If no one was around . . .

  He felt a presence, the same kind of tingling against the back of his neck that he would feel on the inside when Fuck-Face Frank used to troll through the cells at night. Fuck-Face, named due to the fact that his features were messed up from a knife fight and botched surgery, was a favorite of the guards and had his freedom to wander the corridors but had never taken an interest in Pete, thank the gods.

  A glance around showed that he was alone in the back lot where the asphalt was a crumbling layer of dust over the potholes. A solitary tree grew on the other side of a high fence of rotting boards. The fir offered some shade and two Dumpsters gave him a little privacy, so he lit up, took a deep drag, and with the Winston still between his lips, sauntered over to the man-sized space between the two huge, smelly bins and unzipped his fly. Sighing, smoke filtering from his nostrils, the end of his cig burning, he let his bladder release. He still had a good stream, he was thinking when he heard something—a footfall?—behind him. Oh, shit. He’d be caught for indecent exposure or some other penny ante—

  And then breath against his nape.

  Warm.

  He started to turn, to look over his shoulder, when he felt the blade. Swift and sharp, slipped smoothly between his ribs.

  What?

  “’Bye, asshole,” a harsh voice whispered as he started to shriek and the knife, pulled out of his back, was slashed across his throat and blood—oh, shit, his blood—sprayed the rusted, graffiti-marred Dumpster in a vibrant red splatter.

  He tried to scream but failed. He caught a glimpse of dark sunglasses and his own horrified reflection in the gogglelike lenses. Then he fell forward, his body sliding down one of the Dumpster’s metal sides, his cigarette expelled, his life ebbing as he hit the dirty, crumbling asphalt with a bone-jarring thud.

  Chapter 10

  The hospital ER was half full when Rory ran inside, holding her listless child in her arms. Cold tears of fear had collected on her cheeks, and it was all she could do to remain calm as she cradled Charlotte in shaking arms and related her symptoms.

  “She’s unconscious,” Rory choked out in a waiting area half filled with patients and relatives hanging out on the worn sofas and chairs.

  “We’ll get her in a room,” the woman at the desk assured Rory as she swept her gaze to the listless child. Pert, in her fifties, with short, gray hair and oversized glasses, the receptionist exuded efficiency. Good.

  “When? Now? You’re not going to make me wait, are you?” She heard the rising hysteria in her voice but didn’t care.

  “There’s a lot of summer flu going around this year,” a woman from somewhere behind her in the waiting room said loud enough in a nasal tone for all to hear. Rory expected the remark was intended for her, something in the woman’s tone implying “wait your damned turn.”

  Rory blocked her ears to it. She needed help and now. She was scared she would be left to wait with the others. Should she leave? Find an urgent care clinic? Somewhere that would provide a quicker service? What if she were stuck here for hours and Charlotte got worse, only double-doors away from medical help but left to wait for hours as others, perhaps trauma cases or accident victims, were rushed in ahead of her.

  Stick it out. This will be faster than trying to locate another facility. And though you’re loathe to give up any indication of who you are, you’ll have to offer up your i
nsurance and your credit card. This is Charlotte’s health, maybe even her life. You can’t mess this up. No matter what the consequences.

  “My daughter needs help now,” she said to the woman at the desk, and she was ushered to a desk where she sat down and another hospital worker, a petite Asian woman with kind eyes and fingers that typed at the speed of light took her information.

  She gave the woman Charlotte’s name and said hers was Heather Johnson. Her heart was hammering as she watched her type in her Point Roberts address and then take her insurance card from an American carrier and her credit card for copying. She rocked Charlotte gently, half expecting the police or some member of the Bastian family to burst through the emergency room doors, throw her to the carpeted floor, and cuff her in a wild, guns-drawn arrest.

  Dear. God.

  She silently counted to ten and took a deep breath.

  Remember: You’re Heather Johnson now. Heather Johnson. Not Aurora Abernathy Bastian. All your ID and Charlotte’s are Johnson.

  “You can fill out the rest later,” the woman said, handing Rory back her information, which Rory slipped into her purse.

  “Thanks,” Rory said as a male nurse appeared from behind the very doors and the inner sanctum Rory had thought would be barred to her. Bristling with determination and speed, he was thin and tan, with freckles and neatly shorn brown hair. He spied Rory, still holding limp, unresponsive Charlotte.

  “I’m getting a gurney,” he said, bustling down the hall, only to return in a very short time, transferring Charlotte from Rory’s arms to the collapsible bed. He pushed Charlotte back through the automatically opening double doors with Rory following behind.

  From somewhere behind her that same woman’s shrill voice said, “Now wait a darned second—”

  But Rory didn’t look over her shoulder as the doors swung shut. She was relieved and worried. No one would have responded so quickly, or put Charlotte at the head of the line, unless there was a reason to worry. Oh. Dear. Jesus. Again all those horrible childhood illnesses loomed and whistled through her head. Charlotte had been immunized, yes, but . . . what about serious influenza, or some other deadly virus, or God only knew. Inside she went cold as death. The nurse swept aside the curtain to a cubicle. “I’m Nurse Tom,” he said to Charlotte, then glanced at Rory. “And you’re Heather Johnson. This is Charlotte Johnson, yes?”