CHAPTER 64
The border office is maybe five hundred yards away.
A large brown building with two arching doorways.
There’s something ersatz about it, like they’re in a theme park or a miniature village.
It’s made to look official but somehow is not.
Maybe Simone’s brain is simply playing tricks on her; wishful thinking.
They lug their belongings with them, and walk across the sweeping, expansive port.
Tourists dash here and there, shuttle buses, people dragging luggage.
It’s similar to but different from Simone’s trip to Mexico, and she winces as she remembers that.
Before she became a killer, and before she became a fugitive, too.
That was their beginning and maybe this is their end, or maybe this is their new beginning.
Simone doesn’t know. Her entire body is fizzing with adrenaline as she walks.
How has nobody arrested them? The breeze is cooler here, briny and fresh, and she thinks that if these are their final moments, then at least they’ve seen the sea.
They’re almost at the entrance. There are two officers standing outside it, each holding what looks like a machine gun.
Lucy gives Simone a sidelong glance and it’s full of fear.
Simone reaches for her hand but says nothing, thinking how identifiable they are, how slim they have become, two rangy women forced to flee.
Simone suddenly experiences real rage at the kidnapper, at the entitlement of taking a sleeping form from her bed, gloved hand to her mouth. Lucy as object, to bait Simone with.
They split up, walk in and join separate queues.
Green swirled carpets, burgundy rope queue dividers, the smell of polish in the air. It’s quiet, the officials’ voices muted, everyone being checked and stamped through, nobody impatient, generally respectful.
There are four people ahead of Simone, and the wait time on a black and red electronic display board says six minutes, the longest of her life.