Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
ROXY
The motel room smells like lemon detergent and old smoke. I don't mind though, as it's temporary. Everything is temporary now.
I set up my darkroom in the bathroom with blackout curtains taped over the window, red light bulb screwed into the fixture above the sink. The solutions smell sharp and chemical and real. Acetic acid. Sodium thiosulfate. The smell of transformation.
Dom sleeps in the other room. I can hear him through the thin wall, the steady sound of his breathing, the occasional shift of weight on the mattress. He's resting. Preparing. I'm doing the same, just differently.
The photographs are spread across the bathroom counter in the red light. Thirty-seven images. The last three days of Roxy and Dom.
There's one of Dom sleeping, his tattooed forearm across his chest, the marks I left on his neck visible even in the dim light.
A picture of the van from the outside, our home, soon to be abandoned.
There is also one of my hands holding the dark web laptop, the screen glowing with the final account deletions.
There's one of the hickeys on my own collarbone, taken in the motel mirror, my big brown eyes staring back at me like I'm already invisible to the world, like I never existed.
I slide the first negative into the enlarger and adjust the focus. The image appears on the paper, Dom's sleeping face, magnified and precise. I expose it for twelve seconds, then move it to the developer tray.
The image blooms in the chemical bath, as his face emerges from nothing. This is what I do. I make the invisible visible. I document what people don't want to see.
I've been documenting our death for three days now.
The first day, I burned my old sketchbooks.
The ones from before Dom at a time where I was drawing dead things alone, trying to understand the world through death instead of living it.
I took them to the parking lot behind the motel and burned them in a metal trash can along with Dom’s bloodied shirt, watching the pages curl and blacken before turning to ash.
Roxy's old art. Roxy's old obsessions. Gone.
The second day, I destroyed my phone. Not the burner, but the old one.
The one with my real number, my real contacts and digital footprint.
I took it apart piece by piece. SIM card snapped in half.
Hard drive smashed with a hammer. Battery removed and disposed of separately.
I scattered the pieces across three different dumpsters in three different towns.
Dom also destroyed Gary’s phones, along with his wallet. No traces of us linked to him physically anymore.
Roxy's old connections. Severed.
The third day, which is today, I'm documenting our death and preparing for the resurrection.
I move the photograph from developer to stop bath to fixer. The image stabilizes, becoming permanent. Dom's face, frozen in sleep, will exist forever now. Even after he stops being Dom.
I hang the print to dry and start the next one.
By the time I finish, there are thirty-seven photographs hanging from clothesline strung across the bathroom. Thirty-seven images of the last moments of our old lives. The van. Dom's hands. My reflection. The motel room. The highway. The sky. The darkness we've been living in.
I stand in the red light and look at them all.
This is my goodbye and how I process death, by telling its story, making it beautiful and refusing to look away.
These photographs will stay with me, hidden from prying eyes.
Our history of how we came together and what we went through.
When I look at these it will remind me of a special time.
The temptation to leave some of these pictures here for the police to find is my intrusive thoughts trying to take over.
To tease the authorities, to make them see they can’t touch us.
That Dom will always make sure that we’re five steps ahead.
But I will resist as luck always runs out eventually.
I turn off the red light and step out of the bathroom.
Dom is awake, sitting on the edge of the bed. He's watching me with those dark eyes, and I can see the understanding there. He knows what I've been doing. He knows I've been saying goodbye the only way I know how.
"You okay?" he asks.
"Yeah."
I sit beside him and he pulls me against his chest. His hand finds my throat, a move I’ve come to love, but not squeezing, just resting there.
"Soon we become new people," he says.
"Soon."
"You ready?"
I think about the photographs hanging in the bathroom and the burned sketchbooks. I think about the destroyed phone and the old Roxy, the one who was alone and afraid and searching for truth in death.
"Yeah," I say. "I'm ready."
He kisses the top of my head and we sit together, both of us preparing for the end.
Part 2: Marcus & Reno
The parking lot only has three cars. A gray sedan. A blue pickup and a black SUV. Dom says Marcus is the one waiting in the sedan with the engine running and the windows tinted dark.
Dom pulls our van into the space next to him and kills the engine. He takes a deep breath before opening the van door.
"Let's go," Dom says.
We get out and slide into the back seat of Marcus's sedan. The interior is very clean, with that new car smell even though the car is old. Marcus doesn't turn around, he hands an envelope over the seat without looking at us.
"Everything's in there," he says. His voice is rough, dull and disinterested. "Passports, driver's licenses, social security cards, birth certificates. Employment history dating back five years. Tax returns. Bank statements. Everything you need to be convincing."
Dom opens the envelope and pulls out the documents.
I watch his face as he examines them. The passports are perfect as far as I can tell, I can see our photographs, but with different names.
James Brennan. Roxy Brennan. Married, from Portland, Oregon.
He's a contractor. I'm a photographer. We've been together for seven years.
It's all there, a complete life, fabricated and normal to the outside world. The average mundane couple.
"The IDs will pass any standard check," Marcus continues. "I've got them in the system, DMV, Social Security, the works. Everything to prove that you existed long before today. It shouldn’t raise any suspicion."
"Thanks. So, we good?" Dom asks.
"Yeah you’re all paid up."
Marcus finally turns around. He's older than I expected, I would say maybe fifty, with gray at his temples and a scar running down the left side of his face. He looks at Dom first, then at me. His expression doesn't change.
"You have trouble on your tail," he says.
"We're being careful, that’s why we need to vanish," Dom says.
Marcus nods slowly. "Just remember if you fuck this up…if you get caught and identified, if you lead anyone back to me..."
"You know me well enough by now to know that’s not gonna be an issue."
"Good." Marcus turns back around. "Then we're done here. I don’t need to remind you to destroy any evidence of us being in contact. Don't contact me again, Dom. This is the last time we speak."
"Understood," Dom says.
We get out of the sedan without another word. Marcus pulls away before we even reach the van.
Dom and I sit in the front seat with the documents spread across our laps. I hold the passport with my photograph and the name Roxy Brennan. It feels so surreal being a different person. Becoming a new character in our story.
"James and Roxy Brennan," I say quietly.
"You like that, baby?"
"We're married."
"I guess we are."
"We have a life."
"Yeah."
I look at him. "Are you happy?"
"Yes."
"Me too. I can’t believe this is happening."
"We need to ditch the van. My contact said he’ll collect it tomorrow," he says. "And we need to pick up the Honda we talked about. The seller said we can drop by anytime today."
"Okay."
"Then we drive to our new home.”
"Well, let’s do it."
Dom drives and pulls out of the parking lot. I watch Reno disappear in the side mirror, the casinos, the array of neon signs, the transient landscape where people come to hide and reinvent themselves. I guess we're doing the same thing, but more permanently.
Part 3: The Drive
The Honda is a 2008 Civic. Gray and forgettable and full of all of my belongings from the van, the shit that mattered.
We bought it in cash from a private seller I found online on the other side of town in Bakersfield.
The guy asks no questions, he just wants the cash.
Dom drives it like he's owned it for years.
We left the van in long-term parking with the keys hidden for Dom’s contact, leaving everything wiped down. Dom’s contact said he has a buyer for it, most likely for parts. The van will become pieces, and hopefully untraceable.
It’s a little later in the day when the first test comes at a gas station outside Lemstow.
I'm nervous, because this part matters, like everything depends on the next five minutes.
Dom pulls up to the pump and gets out to pay inside and I stay in the car, my hands clasping together in my lap, twisting and fidgeting.
I watch him through the window as he walks into the convenience store.
He moves like James Brennan now with his new buzzed hair cut and different clothes.
He still doesn’t wear color, but he has changed from a black t-shirt to a white one.
Progress, I guess. I, however, have ditched wearing the loud colors for now, blending in with more neutral clothing.
Only until we are settled somewhere new.
He comes back with coffee and a bag of chips, as he takes a seat I grab my coffee from his hand, greedy for the caffeine shot.
"You okay?" he asks.
"Yeah."
"You look nervous."
"I am nervous that someone will recognize us. I want this to work.”
"It will."
"We're actually doing this."
He reaches over and squeezes my thigh. "We're doing this."
He pulls back onto the highway and we continue driving. The landscape is still desert, flat, endless and empty. Nothing that makes it interesting. I will be glad of a different view.
About an hour later, as my mind is drifting elsewhere, the sound of a siren makes me jump to an upright position in the passenger seat.
“Fuck,” Dom hisses. I look in the side mirror and see a cop car signalling for us to pull over.
“Keep calm, baby. Remember, we are not Dom and Roxy from yesterday.”
“Why the hell have they pulled us over? Were you speeding?” I hiss under my breath.
“Of course not!”
A woman, maybe forty, with dark hair pulled back in a tight bun, approaches Dom’s side of the car as he pulls down the window and places his hands on the wheel. She looks bored but professional. Like she's done this a thousand times and is over it.
"Good afternoon," she says, leaning down to the window.
“Do you know why I pulled you over, sir?”
“Err no. I’m positive I wasn’t speeding,” Dom says, as calm as a cucumber.
“Your tail light is smashed.”
The relief almost makes me melt into the seat, but I control myself from showing any emotion, and continue to look out of the windshield, acting indifferent.
“Is it? I didn’t notice. I only bought it recently.”
“Can I see your ID, sir? Registration too.”
Dom leans over to the glove compartment, and pulls out the documents she requested. I glance up at the cop, and she is watching me in a scrutinizing way. Is it my clothes? Is she suspicious? I’m wearing a plain yellow summer dress, so I’m hardly anything to be wary of.
"Where are you headed?" she asks as she checks over Dom’s documents. Why is she asking that?
"San Diego," Dom says, his voice lighter than it usually is, friendly and calm.
My heart is hammering so hard I'm sure she can hear it, and I’m consciously stopping myself from fidgeting.
"You're from Oregon?" she asks.
"Portland," Dom says. "We've been there for five years."
"What do you do?"
"I'm a contractor. My wife's a photographer."
She looks at me. "What kind of photography?"
I force myself to breathe and relax my throat. "Landscapes and travel photography. I sell prints online."
She studies me for a moment, in an examining way. Is she suspicious of me?
"You two look familiar," she says finally and my blood goes cold.
"We have one of those faces," Dom says easily. "People always say that."
She looks back at the IDs and looks at us again. I can feel her mind trying to pinpoint where she has seen us before, and you can see she's about to ask another question. I can see it forming in her mind.
Then her radio crackles with a firm voice coming through, urgent and distracted. From what I can make out, it’s about a multiple car crash. She glances away, annoyed at the interruption.
When she looks back at us, the moment of suspicion has passed.
"Okay," she says, handing back the IDs. "Make sure you get it fixed, otherwise you’ll get a ticket next time. This emergency has saved you."
"Thank you, and we will," Dom says.
We wait until the cop leaves, blue lights and sirens speeding ahead of us. I swear my ass is clenched so tight I may be stuck to the seat.
"We're good," Dom says quietly.
"Thank god. I thought that was it. We nearly got caught because of a fucking taillight."
"I never checked it, but we’ll get it fixed. You can relax."
"I’m trying."
I look in the side mirror and watch the view disappear and there is a finality in it. The old names and old life. The old Roxy and Dom. All of it washing away into the rearview mirror, firmly a part of our past.
We are now left driving to our future. I reach over and put my hand on Dom's thigh and he covers it with his own, as we drive in silence toward San Diego, toward the life we've fabricated and the freedom that comes from being dead.
The sun is setting over the desert, and I close my eyes, enjoying the feeling of not having to look over my shoulder.
"We did it," I say.
"We did."
"We're free."
He squeezes my hand and keeps driving, and I watch the landscape blur past, the highway, the endless road stretching out ahead of us.
Roxy and Dom are dead.
James and Roxy Brennan are alive.
And we're never looking back.