THE BANDIT QUEEN - Chapter 20

CHAPTER 20

Deakin and Eden found themselves driving toward the setting sun on their way back to Los Angeles. Deakin was too keyed up to sleep so Eden flipped her seat back and willed herself to sleep while he drove. She woke an hour or so later when Deakin stopped for coffee. She twisted in her seat and jerked when she felt a hard object in the pocket of the jacket Neal had given her. She stepped out of the car and slipped her hand carefully in the pocket. There she found a small wooden lizard she’d seen in Neal’s workshop. It was a close match to the ones she wore in her ears. She grinned in remembrance and slid it carefully back in her pocket.
This time she drove on through the twilight while Deakin pretended to sleep in the seat next to her. After twenty or thirty minutes, Deakin gave up and pulled out the small books Neal had given him. He slowly read each page and searched for any clues his mother might have left. Then he closed his eyes and ran his fingers lightly across each page. He looked to see if the books had been taken apart and put back together again. He found nothing. Finally he shrugged his shoulders and asked Eden,
“Where are we? And where exactly are we going? On top of that, why are we going anywhere? If we’re only going to find more questions, why don’t we just stay still and see what happens? We just keep running into one dead end after another. What’s left for us to do?”

Eden looked over at the large boy hunched in the seat next to her and smiled at him. “Well, you could get out your cell phone and call Alden. That scientist from Stanford could have left a message with Sam by now. It’s worth a try.”
Deakin pulled out his phone and placed the call. He hung up without leaving a message. He shook his head at Eden and said,
“I think I’ll try Sam. Maybe he’ll answer.”
This time Deakin made contact and listened for several minutes. “Dr. Allen called Sam yesterday to say she was on her way to Seattle to visit my aunt. Damn, I wish we’d known that. I’d like to see her. I could at least talk to her about my mother. There are some other people with her. Sam didn’t quite know who they were or where they fit into the puzzle. She left him a phone number but I’m kind of afraid to call it. It’s too easy to trace phone calls.”
Eden waved away his objections and said, “Don’t worry about that. Even if they find which antenna the call was routed through, we won’t be there any longer. We’re on the move, remember? If ‘they’, whoever ‘they’ are, come to this particular stretch of highway, they won’t find us. Call her. Find out what she’s doing and what’s she’s found out.”
Deakin stared at the numbers on his cell phone for a few minutes before he punched in the numbers. A lovely voice with just a hint of India left in it answered his call. He glanced wildly at Eden and almost flipped his phone off. Then he took a deep breath and asked,
“Is this Dr. Allen? This is Deakin Kimbrough. I just got your message. Uh, did you find my aunt? How was she? Does she want to see me?”
“Deakin, how nice to hear your voice. It’s been so very many years and we’ve all changed so much. Yes, we visited your Aunt Marina. She is doing well in Seattle. She has married and she has three children but she has never forgotten you. She will definitely welcome a visit from you when this situation is over. She remembers many things about your mother and she even has some pictures for you. But, first, we have to get rid of our pursuers. Is there anyone following you right now?”
“No, ma’am, we haven’t seen anyone since we left Sedona. We didn’t talk with Dr. Falk but her brother gave us some children’s books. We’re heading back to California right now. Where are you?”
“We are on our way out of Seattle. We thought we’d drive south from here. Maybe we’ll catch a flight out of Portland.”
Deakin unfolded a map and found Seattle on it. With his finger, he followed the road south through Oregon.
“If you drive down to Oregon, we can try to meet you. That way we’ll all stay out of the airports. Who don’t I call you in four hours or so? Maybe we can meet in Portland or Salem or even somewhere in northern California?”
“Good idea, Deakin. Until then.”
Eden pointed their car in the direction of Bakersfield and the junction with I-5. Deakin flipped restlessly through the books Neal had given him, looking for anything out of the ordinary. This time, in the dim light of dusk, he half-saw, half-imagined slight differences in the thickness of some of the letters. He started over at the beginning of one of the books. He held the pages at an angle and looked across the page instead of directly at it.
“Pull over, Eden. I think I’ve found something and I need your help.”
Eden glanced at the boy and then out at the gathering darkness. The lights of a tiny desert town beckoned in the distance.
“Side of the road or ten minutes to the next town?”
Deakin raised his head and stared blindly in her direction. Then he darted a look out at the vast stretch of open country on both sides of the highway.
“Uh, town is fine, I guess.”
Eden nodded briskly and kept her eyes on the road unwinding in front of them. She soon pulled into the small town. The highway ran down the main street between rows of half-empty stores. A combination gas station/convenience store glittered at the far edge of town. Five or six pickup trucks were parked to the side of the building and teenagers milled around with sodas and cigarettes in their hands. Several boys leaned against the side of one truck and showed off in front of a couple of girls sitting on the open tailgate of another pickup. The girls swung their legs back and forth and smiled brightly at the boys. Seven pairs of eyes watched Eden drive up to the gas pump. The four boys stared out from under the brims of their cowboy hats and elbowed each other as Eden stepped out of the car. She smiled slightly in their direction and nodded as she slid the nozzle into her gas tank. The girls laughed and talked even louder after Deakin unfolded from the front seat and stretched before he headed into the store. Eden quickly followed to pick out snacks and drinks. The girls followed Deakin with their eyes and the boys watched each of Eden’s steps.
Eden then drove the car up next to the building and parked it under a bright floodlight. She and Deakin both forgot about their surroundings as he held the book up to the light. Deakin worked his way slowly through the pages, calling out letters for Eden to write down. When he’d finished the first book, he checked out the second one. This time he found several page numbers had been marked. Eden handed over her page of writing and he looked at the list of numbers first. 4 5 1 2 3 The numbers totaled up to eighteen which meant nothing to Deakin. They could be part of a phone number or an address. How about a birthday? 1/23/45 or 12/3/45. No light bulbs flashed above his head. He mutely held the paper out to Eden. She stared at the numbers blankly and shook her head.
“They could be anything, Deakin. The combination to a safe, the address of their lab, the license plate of their car, part of a Social Security number, a zip code, anything like that. Try the letters while I drive. We need to keep moving, you know.”
Deakin stared into the black desert behind the gas station. What he saw or felt caused a shiver to run through his body. He ran his hand over his face and looked again at the teenagers still leaning against the sides of the trucks. In another life, he would have been one of those boys, laughing and talking and trying to impress the girls. He smiled sadly at them, first feeling sorry for himself, for the childhood he’d missed. Then he looked into the clear eyes of the girl behind the wheel of the car and decided he really had the better deal out of life. Those boys and girls had no idea what the real world was like. They also didn’t know how they’d fare when it was time for them to take care of themselves. Deakin already knew he could fend for himself. He was living proof of it. He smiled slightly as he looked down at the page in his hand and stared at the line of letters Eden had written. They certainly didn’t form any words he could recognize. Several R’s and C’s and a K and some vowels. This was going to be difficult to unravel. Oh, well, as long as Eden was driving, he certainly had time to work on the puzzle in front of him.