The Big Fix, page 14
I glanced down at our appearance and ironically smiled that she had no idea how correct she was.
She listened again, and I hoped she was friendly enough with Dave to convince him of this favor if the two hundred bucks alone didn’t do the job. I imagined she was, considering he knew where she worked without her needing to tell him an address. Maybe they were in a financial-aid-kids side-hustle club. “Okay,” she said, and lowered her phone. “He said he’ll do it. He’s finishing a run nearby, but he’ll be here in five minutes.”
I squeezed my fists in victory and heard Anthony let out a breath of relief. “Thank you!”
“Yep. Please don’t murder him. Dave is a cool guy.” And with that, she slipped inside her car, slammed the door, and sped off.
Anthony and I were left alone again. This time, not completely in the dark, but still dark enough to blend in with our clothing. Which was good, because we didn’t need the neighborhood watch sounding the alarm on us.
“What time do you think it is?” I asked while I stared up at the sky. We were far enough from any big city to see the stars. They twinkled in the warm night, immune to the trivialities of human existence below them.
“Probably nine or ten.”
“Hmm,” I hummed inconsequentially and mostly out of exhaustion. The funeral felt like a thousand years ago, when it had only been hours. “How are you feeling?”
“I’ve been better.”
“You know, there’s probably an urgent care within walking distance. Actually, Stanford is one of the best hospitals on the West Coast, we could—”
“Penny, no.”
I knew he’d refuse, even before I made the suggestion. “But you’re hurt.”
He turned to me with a gravely serious look in his eyes. The streetlight highlighted a blotch of dried blood on his neck. “I know, but the people who are on our tail are never going to stop. So, if we stop, that will only slow us down and let them catch up. We have to keep moving. At least until we are somewhere safer.”
A frightened lump pushed its way up into my throat at his tone. I forced it down with a swallow. The fact he didn’t even consider Woodside safe told me enough about trusting his judgment. I took a breath and braved a question I’d been fearing all day. “What about my sister and her kids? If they’ve been following me, they know they are your neighbors.”
Sincerity painted his dark eyes, and he gave me an assuring nod. “They’ll be fine. I called a friend to keep an eye on them.”
“A cop?”
“No.”
I paused and considered my words. “A not bad guy?”
He looked over at me with the same silent acknowledgment—he was saying yes without saying yes—that he’d given me when I surmised his uncle was a fixer.
“So, is there like a network of you all, or something?”
His mouth twitched at the corner like he was considering smiling. “Something like that.”
“Interesting. Well, when we get wherever we are going, can I call Libby to at least tell her I’m alive?”
The way he eyed me, with an uncertain combination of guilt and worry, replaced the nervous lump in my throat, like it had never gone away. “Sure.”
“Thank you.” My voice shook only slightly. I looked back up at the sky. “So, what’s at this storage facility?”
“You’ll see when we get there.”
The smooth, calm sound of his voice, like the concern was minimal, broke something loose inside me.
“You know what? No. I want you to tell me right now. After the day I’ve had—the past few days since you came along, actually—I think I deserve some answers.” My voice snapped louder than I meant.
He flinched at the sound and dragged me a few paces away from the streetlight. “Keep it down!”
“Okay! I will, sorry. But you owe me information.” I realized the words were the same ones I’d said the night I’d taken him the key. He’d been frustratingly vague then, and I wasn’t going to allow him to be now. Not anymore.
I could tell by the look on his face he was reliving the same memory and realizing how unfairly elusive he’d been this whole time. “You’re right. Five questions,” he said.
I snorted. “How about as many questions as I want?”
“Is that one of the questions?”
I glared at him and punched my hands into my hips. “Okay, first question. Where’s Portia?”
He folded his arms with a frown and a wince. “You know I’m not going to answer that one.”
“Why not?”
He leaned in, and his voice became a gravelly growl. “Because if they somehow catch you and you have that information, I don’t know what they will do to get it out of you, and I can’t risk that. So it’s better if you don’t know.” A vein pulsed in the side of his neck. His eyes burned like black coals.
“Oh,” I whispered, thoroughly intimidated and oddly turned on by the intensity in his voice. I cleared my throat to regain my bearings and tried another approach. “Okay, here’s a better question, then. How do you know Portia?”
He cocked a brow at me.
“You said she wanted to disappear, and this was all your idea. The look on your face when I first asked about her that day you came over was nothing short of desperate panic. And you let the tweed man hit you like a punching bag, instead of telling him where she is. Also, you clearly know your way around her house. So that makes me think this all started as more than a 1-800-find-a-fixer situation. I think you know her. From before all this.” I waited for his response, hands still on my hips. I even tapped my foot.
When he decided to tell me the truth, I saw it in his whole body. His posture changed from the rigid, firm wall I’d grown accustomed to and turned soft at the edges. His shoulders loosened; his jaw relaxed. He exhaled in a way that sounded like one would exhale at a homecoming. The pure relief of comfort and family after being away.
“We grew up together. In Queens. Her brother was my best friend.”
As unsubtle as his shift in demeanor had been, my dawn of realization could have lit up the entire night sky in a blaze of light. The keystone of the whole puzzle fell into place. The motivation behind it all.
He cared about her.
“So you really know her.”
“Yeah.”
As I let the revelation settle, a detail I’d read when I was mining the Web for information on Portia came back to me. “Portia’s brother died when she was thirteen.”
“I know,” Anthony said solemnly. “We were in high school. They didn’t have the best home life—none of us did—and I promised Jake I’d always look out for her. After he died, I kind of took over in his place.” He stepped toward me with a plea in his eyes, as if he wanted me to absolve him of some sin. “I tried to talk her out of marrying Connor, but she didn’t listen to me. He’s a monster, Penny. I knew it from the very start, but Portia only saw a way out from a life she hated. It was a huge mistake. I could see it on her face every time she visited—literally. She tries to hide it all with her online image, but she’s miserable and not safe.”
His words were coming faster and faster, as if he’d been holding his breath and waiting to tell someone this story for ages and had to get it all out before he ran out of air again. “A few weeks ago, she visited me in New York, and . . . something bad happened. Something worse than anything before. I had to help her. So we made a plan.”
I was floundering for what to say. He’d just confessed that the billionaire’s missing wife was essentially his little sister and they’d made a plan to make her disappear on purpose. And now we were fleeing from said billionaire and his henchmen in an effort to get to Portia and, I assumed, finish the job.
Anthony desperately searched my face, as if I held the answer to an unspoken question. Or perhaps the solution to all our problems.
“I—” I started, but didn’t know where to go. I felt like I needed a diagram to keep straight all the information I’d learned in the past few hours. “What was the plan?” I managed to ask.
He gave me a hard look. “I’ll tell you the whole story when we’re someplace safer.”
I opened my mouth to protest right as a silver minivan turned the corner blaring pop-punk out the windows at far too loud a volume for this neighborhood and time of night. The driver, a twentysomething kid, with buzzed hair minus his topknot, leaned out the window.
“Yo! Tall dude with headband and girl in pink shoes, your chariot has arrived!” He thumped his palm against the outside of the door twice as if to say saddle up!
“This is Dave?” Anthony muttered.
“What were you expecting, a tinted limo?”
Dave whistled along to the song pumping from his speakers and drummed his fingers on the door.
I gave him a friendly wave as I approached.
He tipped an invisible hat, still whistling, and pushed a button to automatically slide open the side door.
The smell of artificial fruit came billowing out of the van in a cloud thick enough to make me cough.
“Hi, Dave,” I said as my eyes watered. I climbed in and moved to the far middle seat to allow Anthony to climb in behind me. “Thanks for the ride, I’m P—”
“Pamela,” Anthony cut me off.
I turned and glared at him as I sank into my seat. He shook his head with a scolding frown and mouthed, No names, like it should have been obvious.
I realized with a flare in my cheeks it should have been. “Right,” I said. “I’m Pam. And this is Tommy.”
Anthony rolled his eyes and buckled his seat belt.
“Right on. Pam and Tommy,” Dave said, bless his oblivious little Gen Z heart. “Nice to meet you. Where are we headed?”
Anthony gave him the name of the storage facility, and he punched it into the phone mounted on his dash.
I noticed then the cluster of fruit-shaped air fresheners dangling from the rearview mirror like a bunch of rainbow-colored grapes. Every air vent had a clip-on freshener too, giving the van the fruity, cotton-candy odor reminiscent of a middle-school locker room.
I coughed again.
“Don’t mind the smell,” Dave said, and flipped a U-turn. “All part of the experience when you ride with Designated D. People puke in here a lot. Gotta keep it fresh.”
I instantly yanked my hands off the seat’s armrest and pointed my feet up on my toes as if he’d said there was a mouse on the floor. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Anthony frown and noticed not only were our seats fashioned with rubbery upholstery, but the floor was rubber too.
“That’s the difference between me and other rideshares,” Dave said. “I don’t charge you for puking in my car. I know what I’m signing up for when I accept the job. Plus, my uncle owns a power wash in Menlo Park. I take old Starla there and hose her out whenever I need to.” He lovingly patted the dashboard above the wheel. Then he whipped around in his seat and pulled a business card out of his shirt pocket. “You guys don’t look like my normal clientele, but I’m expanding my fleet next semester. I’m trying to take on a few new drivers. Hit us up if you need another ride sometime.”
I took the card from between his fingers, fully convinced we’d just met the friendliest person on the planet. “Thanks, Dave.” The card was clean and simple. DESIGNATED DAVE, with a QR code I was sure linked to his app. If I’d had my phone, I would have scanned it and assessed his work. But if I’d had my phone, we wouldn’t have been in the backseat of a college puke trolly, to begin with.
“No problem, Pam. Hey, are you guys hungry?” he asked as we cruised past a Taco Bell near the freeway on-ramp. “I’m happy to stop.”
“Yes, please,” I said; right as Anthony said, “No, thanks.”
I shot him a glare and mouthed, I’m starving.
He glared back and mouthed, Later.
“Sooo no?” Dave said, slowing with his turn signal on.
“No,” Anthony confirmed.
“Right on, boss.”
I folded my arms like a petulant child and pouted. Until he’d offered, I hadn’t realized how hungry I was. The last thing I’d eaten was a mini quiche at the funeral reception. No wonder I was so lightheaded and cranky.
Dave chattered like a happy little squirrel nearly the whole drive. Anthony stayed mute, brooding like a vampire in the shadow, while I did my best to engage without disclosing any personal information that would earn me another glare from my accomplice. Luckily, the drive was relatively short, so late on a weeknight. We flew up 280 without interruption, and soon Dave was slowing outside East Side Self-Storage in Daly City.
“Here’s fine,” Anthony said at the gate. He presented the wad of cash to Dave from over his seat.
“Ah, right on, man,” Dave said, sounding like he’d forgotten he was getting paid for our trip, and maybe was simply doing a friendly favor. “You guys have a nice night.”
“Thanks, Dave. You too!” I sang as I climbed out the door and heaved a breath of non-fruit-scented air. A headache poked at my temples from the ride.
The crisp night hung gritty with fog farther north. The stars were gone now, lost to the hazy dome of light pollution and marine layer. I shivered at the slight chill in the air. Daly City sat directly south of San Francisco on the narrowest part of the peninsula. I couldn’t recall a time I’d intentionally made a trip to the city; I only ever passed through.
“That kid lives on another planet,” Anthony muttered once Dave drove away.
“The smart ones usually do. I’m excited to check out his app.” I flicked his card with a smile. “Will you hold this for me?”
He took it with a frown. “Your dress doesn’t have any pockets?”
I laughed. “Your naivety is adorable. Now, what are we doing here?”
He pocketed the business card and headed for the slatted black gate guarding the entrance. It was a set of gates, I realized: one big enough to drive through and one to walk through flanking its side. Anthony pushed a button inside a metal box mounted on a skinny pole, and the smaller gate opened with a buzz. “Getting supplies. Come on.”
“What kind of supplies?” I asked and followed him through.
“The necessary kind.”
“You know, if you’re more forthcoming to start, I won’t have to ask so many questions.”
“And if you trust me and do what I say, all the answers will become clear.”
I kept quiet and followed him along the ends of several aisles of storage units. Overhead lights buzzed, casting yellow pools on the concrete. The night was quiet, save the distant rush of the highway and our footsteps. I got the sense we were the only ones at the facility.
We eventually turned down one of the aisles and passed several orange garage doors pulled taut in their stucco walls. Each had a padlock, combination lock, or large chain securing it shut. I could only imagine what was behind each—and most important, what was behind the one Anthony stopped in front of.
With a sharp breath and a grunt, he sank to a knee and lifted the dial lock.
“You know the combination to that, right?”
“Thankfully, yes. The combo to this was inside the safe at the house.”
“Ah,” I said, nodding. “A safe inside a safe. So that would make whatever is in here pretty important, then.”
“Yes,” he said as he finished the combo and yanked the lock free. He grabbed the handle at the door’s base and shoved it up. Then he stood with another grunt and wiped the grit off his hands. “Like I told you, it’s the backup plan.”
We stood back as the door rolled all the way open.
I blinked at what I saw inside, not exactly surprised, but not sure how it was supposed to help us.
CHAPTER 10
“A car?” I said once we’d stepped inside the unit, and Anthony had pulled the door shut behind us. He found a switch on the wall that powered on a buzzing fluorescent light dangling from the ceiling.
I looked around as if there might be something else in the unit—a bed, some snacks—things that seemed infinitely more helpful than a car in the moment—but saw nothing other than the hunk of metal on wheels shrouded under a giant gray sheet.
Anthony pulled off the sheet with a flourish, sending dust tickling my nose and exposing a glossy black muscle car straight out of a 1970s action movie.
“That’s discreet,” I said.
He walked its perimeter, gathering the sheet in his hands and checking the tires. “What can I say, Uncle Lou had style.”
I slid my fingers along the shiny hood and felt the power underneath even while it sat at rest. The hulky, two-door, black-on-black bullet, with silver accents and a low profile, had Camaro curled in metallic script outside the fender. “While I can agree with you on that point, I’m wondering how an old sports car is supposed to help us. When was the last time this thing was driven? Will it even start?”
Anthony fished the key out of one of its tailpipes and unlocked the driver’s door. “Yes, it will start. And it’s not just an old sports car.” He rounded to the trunk and unlocked it. “Come here.”
I walked to the back, thinking I’d only be happy if there was a foot-long sandwich in there, but quickly realized my needs went beyond hunger at the sight of what it held.
“Whoa.”
“Backup plan,” Anthony said with a proud smile.
Two suitcases, a duffel bag, and—the thing we both reached for first—a case of bottled water.
Anthony ripped open the plastic and handed me one. I was halfway done with it, shocked by my own ravenous thirst, by the time he tore the lid from his bottle and drank with the same zeal.
“What’s in the suitcases?” I asked, and wiped a dribble from my chin. The water was so refreshing, I wanted to backstroke in it.
He finished his bottle before tossing it aside and reaching for the nearest suitcase. The red hard-shell case came from the same era as the car. He squeezed two silver tabs with his thumbs, and it opened with a pop.
