started printing again, and Danny instantly calmed down. He sat cross-legged on the floor to watch, like it was a TV playing cartoons. After a while he laughed.
“We’re trying this new therapy,” Abbie went on. “We’ve done the research, and it’s definitely got the best weight of evidence behind it. But it’s really hard on Danny.”
She looked over to where Tim was chatting with Mike and Elijah. But Tim wasn’t looking at them. His eyes were following Bhanu across the room. Bhanu was the new project manager he’d just hired from Google. She was slim and sassy and extroverted. Some of us were already predicting that Bhanu wasn’t destined to stay with us very long.
76
The Uber driver doesn’t try to make conversation, for which you’re grateful. You need to think. You’d been hoping to get across the state line before your absence was discovered. That might have to change after what you’ve just done to Sian. Most likely, the school will already have alerted the authorities.
Technically, what you’re doing now is probably child abduction, you realize. But frankly, it can’t make much difference. If you’re caught, you’ll be wiped anyway.
You’ve booked the Uber to take you to Jack London Square Station in Oakland. The traffic’s flowing freely over the bridge, and you’re there in under thirty minutes. Your train doesn’t leave for another half hour.
To pass the time, you take Danny to McDonald’s.
“I had lunch,” he objects, confused by this unexpected change in his routine.
“I know. But you like fries, don’t you? You can have fries as well as lunch.”
“I had lunch,” he insists. “I had fish…fish…” He starts to twitch with anxiety.
“That’s all right, Danny. You don’t have to have anything. Would you like to see the train timetable?”
You get out the timetable and his eyes light up. He spends the next twenty minutes happily working out connections.
* * *
—
You board the train and find your seats. Danny’s still in the mood to treat this as an adventure, with the bonus of added scheduling. While you wait for the train to leave, you get out his Thomas engine and explain that Thomas is especially happy now, because he is a train going for a ride on a train.
A family settles in across the way. The oldest girl, a teenager, immediately demands the Wi-Fi password and logs on to the onboard system. You can see various alerts and messages blipping onto the screen of her phone—
Wi-Fi. You hadn’t thought of that. In your mind, the Amtrak was going to be a bubble, a news cocoon in which no one would be aware of anything happening back in San Francisco. But the reality is that everyone here will have the latest bulletins on their phones. Those smiling conductors settling people into their seats—they’ll have them, too. Already the alerts and lookouts will be going out to all the transport hubs. And once the train starts traveling up the coast, you’ll be trapped, unable to get off, a sitting target for the cops to come and pick you up, farther up the line.
“Change of plan, Danny.”
“Change?” he says anxiously, looking up.
“We’re getting off at the next station.”
“Emeryville. Four thirty-four,” he announces in his staccato mumble.
“That’s right. And soon I might have some more schedules for you to look at.” You log on to the Wi-Fi and start searching.
* * *
—
At Emeryville you transfer to a Greyhound, paying cash. The bus is filthy, full of tired workers with a few crazies thrown in for good measure, but at least no one takes much notice as you find two seats at the back. It gradually empties as people get off at local stops; by eight P.M. you’re the only passengers left. The driver pulls in at a Burger King and cheerfully informs you this will be your only chance to get dinner. You’re glad Danny didn’t have those fries earlier.
And then it’s past eleven and you’re in a small town named Arcata, at the grandly named Intermodal Transit Facility, the end of the line. You start to walk with Danny to the Comfort Inn across the street, then remember the instructions on the website. Don’t use chain restaurants. Don’t use chain motels. Always pay cash. Don’t leave DNA. You’re starting to appreciate just how difficult it is to disappear like this; how incredibly disciplined Abbie must have been, to leave no trace for anyone to follow.
* * *
—
When did the scales finally fall from Abbie’s eyes? Perhaps, after all the other things