wheel. What Melody needs is unfettered freedom; being tied to me in any way would be more damaging than what she has now.
I’m lucky if I drive three miles before my attention drifts to her again. I look down and notice the smoothness of her neck, fully exposed by her short hair. I bite my lip and carefully bring my hand to her neck and gently caress the skin from the edge of her hairline down to the top of her shirt. I do this for the next half hour.
Self-control has never been a strong suit of the Bovaros.
The sun sets as we retravel the eastbound lanes of the highways I’d covered hours earlier. With the tinted windows of my car and the cloudy sky, the cab has been nearly blackened. Crossing over Braddock Mountain on I-70, the last mountain range on our journey back toward Baltimore, my cell vibrates. I carefully shift to the side, pull it from my left pocket, and flip it open.
Gardner finishes a yawn and mutters, “No update.”
Quietly, I respond, “I have to say I’m becoming increasingly less concerned with the capabilities of your employer.” Melody wriggles her body a little.
Randall mumbles something out of range, sounds like he may have hit the sauce before heading back to the office to check for new information. “I don’t know, maybe they haven’t moved her. Maybe she’s still in Columbia.”
“Stay a technologist, buddy. You have no future in operations. What, you think they’d keep her there forever? ‘Got an idea, let’s just drive around in a big circle and take her back home.’ ” Melody shifts again.
“What do I care?”
“I admire your commitment to excellence.”
Then, with boozy sarcasm: “No update.” When I finally get around to seeing Gardner again, I’m going to beat his head with a nine iron just for the sheer pleasure of it. “Look, the system will catch up, and you’ll find her nearby, blah, blah, blah.”
“She’s probably in North Dakota.”
“Listen, I was thinking maybe I could start getting a bigger boost, considering how helpful I’ve—”
“Yeah, I’ll let you know what I find out.” I hang up on the scumbag.
“Jonathan?”
Melody’s voice startles me and I jerk up in my seat and accidentally slam her head into the bottom of the steering wheel and throw our car across two lanes of traffic. I overcompensate and slide back into the fast lane then off onto the shoulder, then back again.
“Geez,” I say, “you scared me to death.” Cars behind us slow down as we get back up to cruising speed.
“Sorry.” Melody sits up and rubs her neck and head. “How long was I asleep?”
My eyes move from mirror to mirror, make sure no police lights are coming up the rear. “About three hours.”
She nods a little. “We must be getting close to Philadelphia.”
“Baltimore, actually.”
She rubs her eyes and yawns. “Wouldn’t it have been faster to take the Pennsylvania Turnpike?”
I glance her way, then back to the road. “We’re avoiding Philly. For the moment.”
She stops rubbing her eyes. “What’s in Philadelphia?”
“Some bad people, who were given some bad information.”
I feel like a parent trying to avoid telling his daughter that her puppy got run over. The bad people are various members of our crew who had several targets to eliminate in Philadelphia. Two crew members were in DC, taking out one very important target. Baltimore was technically my location, and despite the fact that my target moved, I claimed it as my own—and claimed to have made a successful hit: the bad information. My goal for now is to keep us between the two cities, allow the rest of the crew to finish its business—according to Peter all is well—and return home; I don’t want anyone trying to check in or meet up with me while they’re in the area. I want them all settled and in one place when we arrive back in New York.
“And who knows where the marshals and the FBI are at this point,” I add. “They’re a completely separate issue.” That’s no exaggeration. The only insight I have into what they’re thinking is the confirmation from Gardner that they know nothing.
Melody doesn’t say a word, merely digests everything I’ve told her. I have no doubt she’s wondering what she’s done, putting her trust in the hands of a mobster, of a monster, to protect her. I can’t begin to imagine how miserable her life has been, though I’m certain it’s led her to desperation. It is far easier to embrace hopelessness than