Chapter 45
Forty-Five
Islept while Marc drove. I hated doing it, but being thirty weeks pregnant, I was exhausted.
He kept his hand on my leg the entire time, his fingers caressing my thigh, and I dreamt about him. About us. About our baby.
We were in the middle of nowhere when I woke, surrounded by mountains that were outlined by the moon’s rays and fields that seemed to go on forever.
The radio was on low, and Marc’s hand was still on my leg, and I was so groggy that not until the baby twisted inside me did I realize it was what had woken me.
It was also when it hit me that Marc hadn’t had the opportunity to feel it yet.
Without explaining why, I took his hand and placed it on my stomach, just to the left of my belly button. He glanced my way, his mouth opening as if to say something, but before he could, our son moved again.
“Holy shit,” he breathed, his eyes widening before quickly darting back to the road. “Is that what I think it is?”
“Our baby,” I said, smiling.
I’d almost said our son but held back. I wanted to tell him we were having a boy more than I’d ever wanted anything in my life, but if we got caught, if we were ripped apart again and our baby was taken away, living in ignorance would be easier for Marc.
He kept his hand on my stomach as he drove, glancing my way every now and then as if to reassure himself I was here. The baby was active. He twisted and turned like he was doing somersaults, and every time, Marc shook his head like he couldn’t believe what he was feeling.
“I missed you,” he said eventually. “You have no idea how much.”
“I missed you, too,” I replied. “So much it hurt.”
Marc let out a long, weary breath.
I stared out at the passing landscape, but there wasn’t much to see. Pastures with cattle, the occasional abandoned house, mountains and trees. That was it.
“Are we still in Colorado?” I asked when I turned back to face him.
“Wyoming,” Marc replied.
We’d crossed into another state, which was significant for two reasons. One, we were farther from the Stanley. Two, Marc had crossed state lines with a fugitive. There was no going back now. Not that either of us would.
“How long was I out?” I asked instead of bringing up the felony he’d committed.
“A couple hours,” he said, then shot me a grin. “You were snoring like a chainsaw.”
I laughed for the first time in ten weeks. “I don’t snore.”
“Believe me,” he replied, his smile stretching wider, “you do.”
His hand was still resting on my stomach, and I covered it with mine.
The contact was electric and not just because I’d missed him so desperately.
I’d also missed people, which wasn’t something I’d ever thought would happen since I wasn’t exactly a social butterfly.
Trevor had been my only real friend until Bette elbowed her way in, and at this point, I wasn’t sure if I’d ever see either of them again.
The song that had been playing ended, and the voice of a male commentator filled the car.
“Shit.” Marc took his hand off my stomach and turned up the radio.
It had been so low I might not have heard what was going on if he hadn’t done it, but once he did, dread pooled in my stomach.
“Authorities in Colorado are asking for help in finding a couple on the run,” the man was saying.
“Twenty-six-year-old Arabella Murphy and twenty-eight-year-old Marcos Ramirez were last seen holding up a gas station in Estes Park, Colorado shortly after sunset. The suspects are traveling in a stolen 2065 black Honda Civic and are believed to be heading north toward Canada. Murphy is seven months pregnant and described as a white female, five feet six inches, with long brown hair and green eyes. Ramirez is a Hispanic male, five feet eleven inches tall, dark hair and brown eyes, and weighing approximately two hundred pounds. Residents in Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana should be on the lookout for the couple. If you spot them, call authorities right away, as they are considered armed and dangerous.”
“Son of a bitch!” Marc slammed his hand against the steering wheel. “I thought we’d have more time. How the hell did they realize we were gone so fast?”
“Maybe the wristband?” I suggested.
The thought hadn’t occurred to me before, but it made sense. If it transmitted an increase in my heart rate to Hilary, it stood to reason it would alert her to a lack of heartbeat as well. Which was something I should have considered.
“Shit,” Marc muttered.
“We’re fine,” I assured him. “We’re going to be fine. Yes, they know we’re gone, but they don’t know when we left or how far we’ve gotten. We’ll be okay.”
Like him, I’d thought we would have more time, but despite the fear coursing through me, I knew there was no point in freaking out. There were thousands of miles between Canada and the Stanley Hotel, and they had no idea which way we’d gone. They still had to find us.
Marc’s brown eyes were swimming with worry when he looked at me. “You think?”
“I know,” I said as firmly as I could.
I prayed I wasn’t lying.
After the radio announcement, sleep was impossible.
Every headlight in the distance had the potential to ruin my life, and every car that came up behind us might be the authorities.
There weren’t a lot since we were in such a rural area and in the middle of a pandemic, but it was still nerve-wracking.
I couldn’t wait until we were safely across the border.
We’d changed course after learning the authorities were on to us, taking a longer but much more rural route than Marc had previously planned.
It took us through small towns, many of which had been abandoned years or even decades ago, and through miles of nothingness.
We went for more than an hour without passing a single car, and had we not been on the run, the drive might have been peaceful.
Even cloaked in darkness, the fields and snowcapped mountains were breathtaking.
And there was no light pollution, making it seem totally untouched by man and giving me a false sense of safety.
But things were tense, and we were both too on edge to talk much.
Seven hours into the drive, Marc broke the quiet. “Can you see if there’s a town or something coming up? We’re going to need to stop for gas before long.”
My stomach lurched. It was inevitable since we wouldn’t get anywhere without gas, but we knew how risky it was going to be as well. I just hoped Marc’s friend hadn’t been forced to report his credit card stolen yet, because if he had, we’d be caught the second we used it.
Hands shaking, I grabbed the atlas from between the door and seat. The overhead light was off, but the moon was just bright enough to illuminate the page, allowing me to find our location and see what was coming up.
“Looks like there’s a place in about ten miles or so. Assuming it isn’t a ghost town now.”
“This is why I didn’t want to go this way. There’s too much nothingness.” Marc slapped the steering wheel. “I should have put an extra can of gas in the trunk or something. That was stupid.”
Atlas still on my lap, I put my hand on his leg. “We’re going to be okay. We’ve made it this far, haven’t we? We just have to have faith.”
He wrung the steering wheel. “I’m trying.”
I squeezed his leg encouragingly.
The truth was, I didn’t have much hope we’d make it through this, but I was happy we’d tried. If I had to go down, I wanted to go down fighting. I’d never been one to give up, and I wasn’t about to start now. Not when the stakes were so high.
We were still a few miles away when the town came into view.
The lights shining in the distance cut through the darkness like a beacon leading us home, growing brighter the closer we got.
The town was small, a few dozen buildings, most of which were dark, but I focused on the tall sign shaped like a yellow shell.
When we did reach the town, it was clear by the boarded-up windows and doors of the houses that some had been abandoned, but others still looked lived in.
Old, rusty cars sat in front, and one or two had appliances in their yards that probably hadn’t worked in decades.
It was a depressing place. A place where people went to avoid the outside world.
Something I hoped worked to our advantage.
Marc was tense when he pulled into the gas station.
Like the rest of the town, it was derelict.
One ancient looking pump, a small building beyond with two boarded up windows despite the sign on the door that declared it to be open.
The interior was lit up, but the lights were dim, giving it a creepy vibe, and I was sure the bathrooms were going to be disgusting.
Since I was seven months pregnant and my son seemed to be using my bladder as a conga drum, I didn’t have much choice unless I wanted to pee on the side of the road.
The baby was also demanding sustenance, and I was incredibly thirsty on top of that.
Marc let out a long breath when he put the car in park next to the single pump. “We need to get in and out as fast as possible.”
“I know,” I replied, “but I have to pee, and I need a snack and something to drink.”
His eyes flitted to my stomach, which I was currently stroking, and he frowned. “I should have thought to pack food and water.”
“It’s okay,” I assured him. “You fill up then come inside and we’ll get something. It will be fast.”
“Yeah.” He exhaled. “Okay.”
I moved to open my door, but stopped when he said, “I have some masks.”
“Masks?” I asked as he dug around in the glove compartment.
“Yeah.” He pulled out a handful of blue disposable masks, offering one to me. “There’s a pandemic, and we’ve been secluded from the outside world for months. Neither of us can risk getting sick, but especially not you.”
I took the mask. “Good thinking.”