The Doll 29（文稿）

英文有声《第43条疤痕》三部曲

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Chapter 29
OUTSIDE LE GAYAN, PEILLE, FRANCE
Out of Monaco, up into the hills, roundabout to roundabout, Munroe headed away from the coast.
The rearview offered no glimpse of Lumani, but she didn’t need to see him to know that, like a shadow following the beacon, a shark circling for blood, he was out there.
The danger wasn’t in the running, the danger was in the stopping, and eventually she would have to stop.
They could find sanctuary if they stayed just one step ahead for a little while longer.
In Nice, the closest sizable chunk of civilization beyond Monaco, there was an American consulate—
not the same level of protection as an embassy, sovereign territory on foreign soil, with its Marines and high security, but safety nonetheless.
In Nice, Neeva could contact her parents, get a passport, and go home.
In Nice, Munroe could contact Bradford. Find out about Logan. Regroup. Think. Sleep. God, she needed sleep.
In Nice was a refuge, a place where, for a time, she could stop running, but she wouldn’t be able to get there in the Opel.
Not with the evidence that tied her to the murder in Monaco, a murder for which she wasn’t willing to keep running for the rest of her life.
Scanning, hunting, Munroe scouted the area, time ticking off inside her head.
At every turn, every junction, she opted for provincial signage and smaller roads until they were thoroughly into countryside.
Neatly kept fields rose and fell with the rises and dips in the terrain. Farmhouses abutted the roadway, and traffic was sporadic at best.
A flash of red caught her attention, and she pulled the Opel off the road and followed a gravel track fifteen meters in,past laundry drying on the line and well-tended vegetable and flower gardens still in the young stage of early spring,to a courtyard between a three-story farmhouse and a building that was either storage or a barn.
She stopped next to the motorbike that had caught her attention: the flash of color against the whitewashed wall.
Munroe shut off the engine. Waited for any sign of occupancy in the house, and when there was no rustling of curtains, no face peering from window or door, and no dogs coming to greet her, she got out of the car.
Down the road in either direction the quiet hum of nature replaced the traffic noise.
Birds in a territorial screech flushed from a nearby berry bush, all of it a relative silence that made it easy to hear a car approach from far away,which meant neighbors who’d heard the Opel’s engine would have taken the time to glance out windows;
meant that no matter how secluded this particular set of buildings, someone had inevitably seen her pull in and was now curious.
Five minutes to be here and gone again, if she could find what she wanted.
Munroe leaned toward the car window, put finger to lips, and motioned Neeva to follow;
strode across the gravel parking area and up the steps to the farmhouse door.
Peered through the glass; rapped on the frame; was answered by silence.
The predictability of human nature said that the keys to the motorbike were inside.
Would be found someplace familiar and routine: an office desk, a kitchen drawer, a key rack, or a decorative bowl—
a spot intended to spare the house owners the ordeal of always having to hunt them down.
Munroe tried the lock, and when the door swung inward, stepped in after it.
Motioned for Neeva to wait on the threshold, a decision intended to keep egress clear, but especially to keep the girl from touching anything or getting underfoot.
The side entry into the house opened at the end of a long wood-paneled and runner-lined hallway.
The air inside smelled of a mixture of wax and dust.
Munroe peered down the hall, stopped short at the sight of several sets of keys hanging from a rack.
Softly on the runner she moved inward to snag them and then, securing them, backtracked to the kitchen;
searched through cupboards and shelves, conscious of every wasted second, requisitioning as she went:
long-handled broom, bottle of vodka, bottle of cognac, large tub of flour, box of matches, and knife.
Returned to the side door and, arms full, nodded Neeva, with her inquisitive and unhelpful stare, out of the way.
Munroe dumped the bounty on the ground beside the car. “Wait here,” she said, and continued to the laundry lines.
Tore off a dry bedsheet and brought it to Neeva. With her foot, Munroe nudged the knife toward the girl. “Cut strips,” she said. “Lengthwise. As quickly as you can.”
Neeva set to work without asking why, and Munroe strode toward the motorbike. Checked the tires. Tried the keys until she found the one that brought the machine to life.
Noted the fuel level, then switched off the ignition and dropped the rest of the keys on the ground, where they’d be discovered easily enough.
She had her way out, and a compromise between lost time and forensic evidence.
Munroe returned to the Opel. Dumped the bottles of alcohol over the seats and then took three of the strips Neeva had torn and cut.
Knotted the material, and with time moving faster than her fingers, the strips became a braid.
She paused again to listen: No sound of traffic. No sign of Lumani. At least not yet.
Her initial five minutes had come and gone, and although she understood his mind, his strategy, knew he was content to hold back and let her run, she also knew they’d lost the lead and he would begin to circle in for the kill.
Munroe removed the Opel’s gas cap and used the broom handle to push most of the cloth into the tank.
When the braid was soaked, she pulled it out and repeated the procedure with the other end.
Reached into the back of the car to snag the backpack and tossed the bag to Neeva.
Lowered the rear window on the Opel just enough to feed the wick far into the interior, place it on a puddle of alcohol. When it was set, she moved to the front.
From the driver’s seat, she scattered the flour in the interior until it filled the air, then tossed it against the windows, over the dash, several kilos’ worth of the stuff until the inside was full of dust.
Dumped the container on the ground and shut the door. “Step back a few feet,” she said, and when Neeva complied, she lit a match and set the wick alight at its center.
Took Neeva by the elbow and hurried her toward the bike.
The flame traveled in both directions, the dust explosion inside the car louder and flashier than the slower burn of the fuel in the gas tank,all told not enough to destroy the vehicle in an exciting ball of flame, but enough.
Fibers and hair were gone and the fuel would continue to feed the fire and raise the surface temperature inside the car enough to warp plastic and rid it of any prints that were left.
Mouth agape, Neeva stared at the car. “Flour can do that?” she said.
Munroe prodded her forward. “We’re in a hurry,” she said. “We need to go.”
TWO-WHEELED VEHICLES WERE not created equal. The motorbike, closer to scooter than motorcycle, was a world away from the Ducati abandoned in Dallas, black-on-black with speed and torque and adrenaline rush,but in the moment, as a way of escape and of pushing closer to ending the madness, it was every bit as beautiful.
With the Opel billowing black smoke, Munroe revved away from the farmhouse, bike tires spitting gravel, instinct adjusting for the differences between the power with which she was familiar and this lesser thing.
Neeva squeezed hard and pressed her forehead into Munroe’s shoulder.
Reaching the asphalt, Munroe gained speed and traction. Down the road to the left, in the direction they’d come, activity announced itself in flashes of color.
Not Lumani, but neighbors, inevitably curious about the noise, the smoke.
Munroe took the turn hard and Neeva yelped; they headed in the opposite direction of whatever was going on down the road.
Without access to the GPS, without a solid bearing on roads that twisted and wound in no specific direction,sporadic signs to tiny and unrecognizable towns became meaningless markers forcing them to wander toward the edge of lost
until the roads became larger, the signage pointed to the familiar, and the refuge of Nice, which had begun to dissipate like a mirage, phased back into a solid, viable destination.
Into towns, along two-lane streets that ran through the heart of them, the journey segmented into one roundabout and junction to the next;
curving with mountain ridges and through tunnels, traffic often backing up in long stretches behind slower-moving vehicles.
Not once did Neeva lift her forehead from the shoulder she’d planted it against, and her squeeze tightened whenever Munroe pulled out of the traffic queue and straddled the line, weaving ahead of cars in a way that would have brought on aggression back home, but here was no different than the erratic riding of the many other mopeds and scooters on the road.
They couldn’t move as fast as Lumani, not if he was driving anything similar to Arben’s Passat,but by zigzagging and maneuvering, cutting through traffic, they would gain a time advantage nothing on four wheels ever could.
Downhill and up again, Munroe bought minutes, bought Neeva’s life in increments,until finally the road wound steadily downward and they reached the city, and neared the coast with the same humidity and salt-tinged breeze that had caressed Monaco’s air.
Like the boardwalk in San Diego or South Beach, the coastal avenue of Nice was green and palm-tree-lined,and even this early in the season was filled with locals and tourists alike, cyclists, pedestrians, and skaters, all threading along the walking paths.
Once within the city Munroe knew the way without directions, could find the building that anyone else would be hard-pressed to locate without having been there before.
A stone’s throw from the beach, and two doors down from a police station that filled the corner of the block, just far enough back from the ocean that the crowds were thinner, the consulate was housed three floors up in a nondescript office building.
Only a small square plaque near the intercom buttons announced its presence. No flag. No sign. No nothing.
Munroe took the bike up onto the sidewalk. Thumb-punched the intercom for the consulate before she’d fully switched off the ignition.
“Get off,” she whispered to Neeva, and when the intercom hissed, she said, “American citizens, passport issues.”
After a short delay, the door buzzed and Munroe stretched forward to grab it.
“Hold it open,” she said, and Neeva, still sliding off the seat, reached out, took the handle, and stood in the door frame.
Munroe set the kickstand. Left the key in the ignition and hoped against hope that someone would brave the police station and steal the bike.
She took Neeva by the elbow, prodded her inside, and shut the door behind them.
With the thud, with the silence in the cool empty foyer, with only postal boxes and an elevator bank for company, one world ended and another began.
Munroe slumped against the wall, and for the first time since she’d felt the sting on her thigh those many, many hours ago in Dallas, she truly breathed.
She had brought Neeva to safety. Realization settled, and against the wall, eyes closed and thumb to the bridge of her nose, she allowed the first wave of relief to reach inside.
From here, she could discharge her duty and plot her own way forward.
When she opened her eyes, Neeva, looking as tired and beat-up as Munroe felt, was studying her.
Munroe straightened. Pushed off from the wall and nodded toward the elevator. “Up we go,” she said.
THE ELEVATOR OPENED onto a cramped foyer with a door on either side.
One led to the stairwell; the other, metal-reinforced and CCTV-monitored, to the consulate.
When they stepped off the elevator, a uniformed guard waited for them.
Asked for passports, Munroe offered a modified version of the truth and presented the person of Neeva Eckridge in their stead.
The guard left them. Disappeared behind the metal door. Returned a few moments later and opened the door wide.
They moved from a small foyer to an even smaller entryway, made impossibly cramped by both an X-ray machine and a metal detector,and before allowing them into the consulate proper, the guard X-rayed the backpack and requested all electronics.
Munroe handed over the bag. “Just keep it all,” she said. “I’ll get it on my way out.”
The consulate filled the entire floor of the narrow building and was itself not more than one large room, partitioned by false walls and windowed booths that made it possible for those in the waiting area to see, if not hear, most of what went on beyond the accessible spots.
A young couple sat on one of the couches. Munroe assumed newlyweds, from their body language, and their facial expressions guaranteed that they recognized Neeva.
Were it not for cell phones having been commandeered by the guard, she would have bet thirty seconds before images of Neeva hit the social networks.
The consulate’s one staff member called Neeva to the window, and after a rush of hushed conversation, motioned for her to return to the guard area and from there through the security door that would allow her on the other side of the partition.
Backing away from the window and the woman behind it, turning in the direction she’d been ushered, Neeva glanced at Munroe for reassurance.
Munroe nodded her on.
This was how it should be. The wheels would start spinning, the phones ringing, and the powers-that-be would throw their weight into Neeva’s fight.
As for herself, all Munroe wanted was a phone that could make international calls.
She needed to contact Bradford, and surely the consulate had one, but until the issue with Neeva was settled, until Munroe had been vetted, she wouldn’t bother asking to use it.
The last of Neeva’s dress passed around the corner, and Munroe, depleted beyond empty and with nothing more to do than allow fate to run its course, turned toward the waiting area’s smaller couch.
Ignoring the accusatory stares from the couple and the disapproving look of the guard, she sat, shifting her head to the armrest, her knees dangling over the edge, let go, and fell hard into oblivion.
THE COUPLE LEFT. Others entered and were soon on their way again.
Another staff member arrived to tend fully to Neeva: On the edge of sleep, Munroe was aware of all of these things,but she pushed them away and allowed time to pass and a dreamless darkness to consume her until finally the room was quiet.
She begged the use of a phone. The consulate staff member passed the handset under the glass and, on Munroe’s behalf, punched in the number for Bradford’s cell as Munroe recited it.
The connection made, Munroe nodded her thanks, and while it rang, dread and desire mixed, swirling, within a beaker of conflicted emotion.
More than anything, she craved the soothing of Bradford’s voice, craved to drop from the pressure and the pain, from death and the fractured reality of the present back to peace—
the way things were when she was with him, the way they’d been before this nightmare had struck.
But the call would also bring news of Logan, news she could not bear to hear, yet must.
Even accounting for the long distance connection, Bradford answered immediately.
“Michael?” he said, and that one word, her name on his lips, like fire deprived of oxygen, suffocated the adrenaline of rage and suffering, suppressed the voices and tremors rumbling in the background, and she fell instantly into a vacuum of nothingness.
“Me,” she whispered.
“Hey,” he whispered back.
Receiver in hand, the cord taut, she slid down the wall and sat on the floor.
“Did you ever get my messages?” she said. “Were you able to find Logan?”
“We got them and we found him.”
The air went out of her. She closed her eyes, breathing in the words she’d feared she’d never hear. “Thank you,” she said. Paused. “Thank you,” she whispered again.
And then: “I’ve seen some nasty video footage. How is he?” When Bradford hesitated, she said, “Please tell me.”
“They fucked him up pretty bad,” Bradford said. “He’s hospitalized right now— kept sedated for the time being.
“He’s going to need reconstructive surgery at some point, but it’s hard to get information because I’m not a relative.”
She drank in air, one long, drawn-out breath following another. Decompression. Logan was safe, and the joy of that fact washed over her.
She’d given him up for dead to do what she had to do, and somehow, in the midst of everything, running blind and without options, she’d brought Neeva to safety and Logan was still alive.
He might be damaged, but he was, unbelievably, alive.
She wanted to shout. To dance. To scream Fuck you to Lumani, who by now was certainly hidden in some enclave where he could target the consulate entrance.
But her reaction remained muted as she stayed sitting, one hand pressed into the carpet, fingers playing with the fibers.
“If you contact Charity, she might be able to help,” Munroe said. “She holds a medical power of attorney for him.”
Charity, keeper of secrets from Logan’s previous life and mother of his daughter— a child Munroe had risked her life to save.
“How are you?” Bradford asked.
“I’m okay,” Munroe said. “In one piece— no bullet holes. I’m at the consulate in Nice, and I’ve brought Neeva Eckridge with me.”
Bradford waited, and then said, “How are you?”
With the unspoken and valid concerns, her smile faded and she searched for words to properly give meaning and context to what he truly wanted to know.
“They killed Noah,” she said, and on the other end of the line Bradford swore unintelligibly.
She lowered her voice and added, “Truthfully, I’m not well.” They both knew she wasn’t referring to mourning.
“Africa?” he asked.
“Not as bad,” she said, and then after a heartbeat, “Miles, I’ll be okay, I promise. As soon as I fix things on this end, I will be okay.”
“Argentina?” he asked.
She sighed and half-smiled over her failed attempt to get him to let the subject go.
“No nightmares yet,” she said. “Just the darkness, and it fades quickly.”
“I worry,” he said.
“I know,” she whispered.
“Do you need help getting home?”
“Soon,” she said. “I have unfinished business, but I think there might be an APB out for me. Is there any chance Jack could poke around? See what’s out there?”
There was a long pause, the kind of pause even the worst delay on a horrible international line couldn’t account for.
“Jack’s dead,” Bradford said finally. She’d anticipated something like this and steeled against it,and yet the news still hit hard and overwhelmingly, the rawness inside made worse by Bradford’s having fussed over her while giving no clue to the depth of his own cruel anguish.
“How did it happen?” she whispered.
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