I got in the car and drove. The road was only lit by a ghostly moon and impossibly bright stars. It reminded me of a trip we had taken to Australia when Cheryl was still alive.
On queue, Cheryl’s voice drifted up from the backseat. “Going the extra mile, huh?”
“With Sartre dead, Mitnick is going to run this town unless somebody stops him.” I left out what “stopping” would entail – Cheryl had never seen me work and I didn’t feel like having that conversation now.
“I don’t think Sophie cares about that.”
“I think you’re wrong.” Even getting away with Nika was going to be a pretty big swing, so added, “But they’ll get the girl out.”
“So no escape for you then?”
“Doesn’t look that way.”
“You know, you don’t have to be in such a hurry to join me.”
I gripped the wheel in my hands and stared out onto the road, feeling a truth form into words for the first time. “I don’t know what else to do.”
A touch in the head flooded my mind with the past few months, the mind-numbing routine of the casino punctuated by the simple moments of joy with Sophie. I thought of her walking out of the Venice palazzo covered in Verdicchio’s blood, all the way to Capanne to spring me out of prison for my part in that. “Do you think she’d love me if I wasn’t willing to do this?”
“Yes.” That answer came from Cheryl’s ghost without hesitation, but I could feel a conditional sinkhole form around it. Up from that came, “But if you weren’t she’d be doing this alone.”
I thought of all the monsters that had been floating across Sophie’s vision since Verdicchio had thrust her into that world. She lived there now, stalking predators too big and too perpetual for her to ever really harm. But trying anyway. She’d die without help. Or at least she’d die alone and I couldn’t stomach that. I said so.
“Well,” Cheryl said in the exasperated voice she used when she knew I couldn’t be deterred, “I look forward to seeing the two of you.” There was a pause and a happy laugh. “Just, you know, hopefully not tonight.”
Cheryl vanished again as the whiteness of Mitnick’s Greek temple rose up from the cliffs near the sea. I could hear the surf.
Photo courtesy of Ahsen.
To start at the beginning of the story, go here.
To read the previous chapter, go here.
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