In the two weeks they had now been here, Rolf had been the only source of tension between them. Ty couldn’t understand how she could love a man who had treated her so cruelly. Abbie hadn’t told him the half of it and sometimes had trouble understanding it herself. To Ty it was all so black and white: The guy was evil and to blame for all that had happened. It was a clarity she envied and might have gotten closer to sharing had it not been for what was happening inside her. Though barely yet formed, the baby seemed to blur her vision of both present and past, tempering even the shock and violence of the night she had fled.
Whatever Rolf had done, however heartless and harsh he had sometimes been, no other human being had ever touched or possessed her so intensely. She was aware, of course, that he had found her at her most vulnerable. But how could that possibly explain her feelings for him now, more than three years on? The fact was she still admired his resolve, envied his fearlessness and independence. And though, in her most objective moments, she had to acknowledge the darkness in him, surely the fact of her love for him suggested something matching in herself? Resilient to reason, that darker part of her still saw him as a warrior, whose seed now lodged within her. And their child would be the best of both of them.
To talk with Ty about a subject so hurtful with any sort of candor was naturally impossible. But it ran like a brooding river beneath their many long discussions about how best to organize her surrender.
More than anything, Abbie wanted to see her parents. And not through the glass of some heartless prison visiting room. She had to see them before she gave herself up, had to be able to hug them and hold them and say she was sorry. To her mother, for everything of course, but especially for being so selfish in her rage and grief and for giving so little support when her dad had walked out. But also to him. For what had happened that night at the mall and for being so cruel to him before her life unhinged.
Ty considered the issue from a more practical angle. He believed that if she could first contact her parents, they might be able to broker some kind of deal. These things happened all the time, he said. With good attorneys, they could secure the promise of some lesser charge in exchange for Abbie giving herself up. The corollary, of course, was that, with the help of whatever might be on the laptop, most of the blame could be shifted to Rolf. But the first step, they agreed, was to call Josh.
Choteau, the nearest town, was small enough for strangers to be noticed. So they drove another forty-five minutes to Great Falls and found a pay phone and Abbie called Josh’s prepaid cell and left a coded message. They came back the following evening and waited for the phone to ring but it didn’t. They didn’t want people to start noticing them so they found a gas station across town with an outside phone and no security cameras and this time she left Josh a fuller message without the code.
When they came back the next evening, while Ty filled up with gas, Abbie stood by the phone, with her finger discreetly on the hook, pretending she was on a call. And at six on the dot the phone rang and it was Josh. She told him she was going to turn herself in and he got all excited and said how it was so the right thing to do and how incredibly happy their mom and dad were going to be when they found out. Abbie said he mustn’t tell them until things were a little more figured out. She told him where she was and only then did he announce that he was in Colorado. He said he would come collect her, he would borrow a car and drive straight there or he’d fly or get a bus or whatever. But he would come, he said, there was no way he wouldn’t come. Abbie told him to keep the phone switched on and she would call him in a couple of hours when he had checked things out.
To pass the time they drove to a supermarket and got a few things they needed, then they walked awhile. Clouds were rolling in from the west and Ty said the air had the smell of rain. They found a place to eat and by the time they were done it was coming up to eight o’clock and Abbie went to the phone and again called Josh. He said he couldn’t find a car to borrow, so he’d booked himself a flight from Denver to Great Falls the following afternoon. He gave her the flight number and the arrival time and Abbie said Ty would be there to meet him. With all the security at airports nowadays, she didn’t want to risk being recognized.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said.
“Okay. Hey, Abbie?”
“What?”
“Almost peace, man.”
“Almost peace.”
She hung up and was about to walk away. Across the restaurant she could see Ty talking with an old cowboy at the adjoining table. She picked up the phone again. This might be her only chance to do what she had been thinking about doing for days. She didn’t know if she had the guts. But he had a right to know, both about the baby and about what she was intending to do. If he got angry or tried to bully her, she would simply hang up. But at least she would have told him. With her heart thumping, she took some more quarters from her pocket and dialed Rolf’s cell number. He answered on the first ring.
“Yes?”
“It’s me.”
“My God. Where are you?”
“Rolf, listen—”
“I’ve been so worried. Are you okay?”
“Yes. Listen, there’s something I—”
“I’ve been driving myself crazy. Baby, I’m so sorry about what happened. I don’t know what it was, I was out of my head that night with all the shit that’s been going on. Please, Abbie. Please, come back.”
The sweet contrition in his voice almost floored her. She had been braced for him to yell at her.
“I can’t,” she said. “I’m going to turn myself in.”
“You’re what?”
“Rolf, I’m pregnant. And I’m going to turn myself in.”
There was a long pause.
“I was going to tell you that night, but . . .”
“Oh God, Abbie. I am so sorry. Listen, I’ve got to see you.”
She swallowed hard. Her eyes were fixed on Ty and for the first time he turned around and briefly looked at her.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Please, Abbie. We have to talk about this. We can work something out. I know we can. Where are you, baby?”
“Rolf—”
“Tell me, please. I’ll come straightaway.”
“No. I’m going home. Josh is flying up from Denver to get me.”
It was more than she’d meant to say, but he didn’t pick up on it.
“You’re not going home, you’re going to jail. Maybe worse. You can’t have our baby in jail.”
“I can. They work these things out.”
“Abbie, surely I have some kind of say in this?”
“If you want to make things right, do what I’m doing. Turn yourself in. Tell them what happened. It can all be okay, I know it can.”
“Abbie—”
“I’ve got to go now.”
“Baby, please—”
“I love you.”
She hung up, tears flooding down her cheeks. Our baby, he’d said. She turned quickly and ran into the restroom and doused her face with cold water and tried to calm herself. She’d done what she had to. The rest was up to him. When she came out Ty was standing there waiting for her. He looked very worried.
“Are you all right?”
“Yeah. I just got a little tearful. Josh just said some really sweet things, that’s all.” She laughed, unconvincingly, wiping her eyes. “God, these hormones!”
“Is he coming?”
“Tomorrow.”
When they left the restaurant the sky had clouded over and a cold wind was gusting from the north. By the time they reached Choteau it had started to rain.
TWENTY-NINE
Josh had never known such rain. It was like a monsoon. You could hardly see through it. Ty had kindly brought him a slicker to wear but it reached almost to his ankles and on the final scramble up to the cabin he caught a foot in it and almost fell. What with the rush and roar of the creek, Abbie couldn’t have heard them coming, but she mu
st have been watching for them and seen Ty’s flashlight because as they walked toward the cabin the door flew open and she ran out to meet them. She wouldn’t even wait for him to take off the slicker, just threw her arms around him and hugged him and held him and wouldn’t let go.
She had the place all prettily lit with candles and the stove going and supper already cooked. Ty had shot a pair of grouse at the weekend and Abbie had stewed them up with vegetables and wild berries. Josh hadn’t eaten all day and could have finished the whole pot by himself. They pulled the table close to the bed and Abbie perched there between them while Josh and Ty took the two chairs. There was so much to discuss that nobody seemed to know where to start, so they just ate and talked about nothing instead, about the rain and how his flight had been and about Freddie’s party.
He had never seen Abbie looking more beautiful. She was totally transformed from the raven-haired witch she’d been that day in New York. She had a kind of glow to her, which Josh was somehow aware happened when you got pregnant, along with throwing up and wanting to eat lumps of coal. Ty had broken the news on the way here from the airport and thank God he had, because it had knocked Josh almost speechless for about ten minutes. He just sat there like an idiot, saying Wow and Jeez and shaking his head. Ty didn’t need to say how he felt about it. The sadness was written all over the poor guy’s face. What a goddamn tragedy the whole thing was. And yet here she was, radiant and happy in the candlelight. Pregnant and about to go to jail. Josh was having trouble getting his head around it.
The stew was good and by the time he’d downed a second plateful and chewed on the bones, they at last got around to talking about more important matters. Ty and Abbie had clearly spent a long time thinking things through so Josh just listened carefully to what they had to say. They figured the best place for Abbie to turn herself in was New York and because flying with her fake ID was too risky, she and Josh would drive there in Rolf’s car. Ty had done a little work on it and was sure it was sound enough to make it. He said they were welcome to take his tent and sleeping bags if they wanted. Driving all the way across America was something Josh had always fantasized about. But never in a million years could he have guessed that this was how he’d end up doing it, with a sister at his side who was wanted for murder.
Abbie said that because the phones of family and friends were possibly still being tapped, they should wait until they got there before telling anyone. She could hole up in a motel or someplace until Josh told their mom. Their dad would fly up from Santa Fe, they would have their reunion and then get down to contacting lawyers and all the rest and take it from there. Josh asked a few questions but as far as he could see, it all made sense. All they had to do was drive carefully.
“So when do we go?” he said. “Tomorrow?”
Abbie looked at Ty and took his hand and Josh suddenly saw in the poor guy’s face how hard it was going to be to lose her again.
“We figured we’d have just one more day,” Ty said quietly. “It’ll give you a chance to rest up some. You’ve got a fair few miles to go.”
They had already rigged up a makeshift bed for Josh in the corner and after clearing the dishes they blew out the candles and settled down for the night. Tired as he was, Josh couldn’t sleep. His head was whirring with all that was going to happen. So he lay there staring at the fading glow of the stove and listening to the rain hammering on the roof.
Once Abbie cried out No, I won’t! in her sleep and Josh heard Ty quietly soothe her. The cry unsettled him and set him off wondering what she might have been dreaming. He conjured an image of her in handcuffs and a pale blue suit, being walked by guards down a long corridor toward a big steel door, faces watching through bars on either side. He did his best to banish it but it wouldn’t go. And in a fitful half-sleep, it morphed into pictures far worse, plucked from movies and violent video games and the darker reaches of his mind. He woke in a chill sweat and forgot for a moment where he was. There was a first merciful glimmer of dawn at the window. The rain had stopped and all he could hear was the rushing of the creek.
The day was cold and blustery with sudden bursts of sun and low clouds scudding from the north, their shadows rolling like giant tumbleweeds along the valley. Ty said it felt like the first true day of winter. After breakfast he lent Josh a jacket and the two of them went outside to feed the horses and get some wood for the stove.
“Do you want to ride with us?” Ty said. “We could bring up another horse from the ranch.”
“You know what? I think it would be good for the two of you to have this day to yourselves. I’ll go into town, get a few things for the trip.”
“You don’t need to do that.”
“I’d like to. I was never much of a rider anyhow. Abbie was always bigger on the outdoors than me. I’m more of a town kind of guy.”
Ty smiled and put a hand on his shoulder.
“Thanks, man. I appreciate it.”
“I just hope, one day, you guys’ll be able to, well, you know . . .”
He didn’t know how to finish but Ty seemed to understand.
“Yeah. Me, too.”
They broke open a bale of hay for the horses and leaned on the rail in silence for a while, watching them feed. Then Ty took a short-handled ax from its slot in the lean-to and began expertly to split some logs while Josh stood admiringly by.
“How good are you at computers?” Ty asked.
“Okay, I guess. Why?”
“Do you know if it’s possible to crack a password?”
“I think you can get around them if you know how. My friend Freddie would know for sure.”
Ty swung the ax and left it embedded in the chopping block. He walked across to the outhouse and came back holding something wrapped in a black plastic sack.
“This is Rolf’s laptop. There’s sure to be all kinds of things on it that could help Abbie’s case. She still can’t see straight about him, so she’s not too keen on the idea. It might be best not to mention it, but I figure we’d be crazy not to try taking a look. Maybe you could give your friend a call.”
Josh borrowed the truck and drove to Great Falls. He found a mall and bought himself a warm jacket and some food and drink for the trip, then called his mom on his regular cell phone to say he was safely back in New York. He gave her a parent-friendly account of Freddie’s party and even got a little cocky and—with just the right tone, sulky but virtuous—said the class he’d just been to was so boring it hadn’t been worth coming back for. He was such a good liar, it was almost scary.
He’d tried three times to call Freddie and left a message each time, but it wasn’t until midafternoon, when he was sitting in the corner of a bookstore coffee shop, with the laptop powered up in front of him, that Freddie called him back. Josh pretended the computer belonged to a dumb friend at NYU who’d forgotten his password. Freddie asked a few questions about the make and the model and how old it seemed to be, then told him to take notes in case they needed to do it again and proceeded to talk him through, step-by-step. In about five minutes up popped the Windows screen and Josh was in. Freddie got him to check if the individual files were encrypted. They weren’t.
“Freddie, you’re amazing.”
“I know. That’ll be two thousand dollars.”
“You got it.”
For the next two hours, with his heart racing, Josh rummaged through the files. There was a lot that meant nothing to him, but plenty more that did. File upon file of names and addresses and phone numbers; details of companies, their individual depots and warehouses, lumber-yards, and laboratories; notes that seemed to be based on observation about security and phone and power lines; and, most intriguing of all, tucked away in an alphabetical contacts file under C for cops, a list of about two dozen names and numbers. He tried to access Rolf’s e-mail filing cabinet but found himself blocked by another password.
He would have gone on, but it was coming up to six o’clock and he ought to be heading back. Abbie and Ty would be g
etting worried about him. The only thing he still wanted to do was make a copy of what he’d seen. In case the computer got lost or broken or stolen. Without turning it off, he hurried back to the mall and bought a flash drive no bigger than his thumb and copied as much as it would take.
It was past eight o’clock and getting dark when he drove into Choteau. The gas gauge was almost on empty, so he pulled into the station on Main Street and filled up. When he went inside to pay, his hands were so cold that he dropped a whole lot of coins on the floor and they ran everywhere. The girl behind the counter kindly came and knelt beside him and helped him gather them all up.
“Not the best night to be out,” she said.
“No, unless you’re a polar bear.”
She laughed. As he paid, she asked him if he was just passing through and he said he was and for some ridiculous reason added that he had just driven down from Canada and was on his way to see his dad. When he came back out to the truck, the wind had dropped and it was starting to snow.
The snow was freezing hard too and on the road out to the mountains he skidded twice on patches of ice and was glad when the surface turned to gravel. Once, coming too fast around a corner, he almost plowed into a herd of deer and then he took a wrong turn and had to backtrack, cursing himself all the while for leaving his return so late. By now they’d be halfway up the walls with worry. As he drove past the ranch house and the barns, the land opened before him, transformed to white.
A mile farther, when he got to the place where the road came to an end, he was surprised to see a car parked under the trees where he’d been intending to park Ty’s truck. Josh pulled up behind it and got out to have a look. There was nobody inside and nothing to show whose it might be. He searched for a flashlight in the truck but there didn’t seem to be one. It seemed dumb to carry all the supplies he had bought up to the cabin only to have to haul them down again tomorrow, so he left it all, along with the computer, in the truck and locked the doors. It was snowing steadily now and very cold. He pulled the hood of his new jacket over his head and set off up the trail.
The Divide Page 36
