Page 107 of The Dead Come to Stay
“Then you should call the police,” Jo said. She thought:Thirty steps to the parking ramp.
“I will. I’m going to.” Foley had recovered from the shock of seeing her. His manner smoothed. “But I don’t want to get Lina in trouble.”
“Why would she be in trouble?” Jo asked.
Foley sighed. “Because the system is broken, that’s why. She’s an asylum seeker.” He waited for Jo to understand. She didn’t. “Undocumented, I suppose, you’d say. She fled to the UK and applied for asylum. But she’s been denied.”
Jo was backing up, slowly.
“What does that mean?”
“Itmeansshe’ll be deported. But Lina is safe with me.” Foley looked over his shoulder and gestured to the car. “Do you want to meet her?”
Jo could smell the exhaust; whoever started the engine, it wasn’t Foley. And that bothered her. Everything bothered her almost as much as the not-dead Foley. There were questions she ought to be asking, but they’d bottlenecked:Why was he here, who was the girl... who was thedeadguy?
What she said was: “Let her out of the car.”
Foley stood with his hands in front of him, palms open, facing out—nonthreatening. He took a step backward, his face near the window of the passenger side. It was, Jo noticed, cracked open.
“Lina, do you want to come out?” he asked. Jo’s breath came quick in her throat as she watched the rear of the SUV. Her brain felt itchy. Something wasn’t right. On the other side of the vehicle, Jo heard a door open and shut.Run, she told herself.Run and don’t look back.Jo spun around and sprinted for the garage doors; she could make it to the street then back to the bridge—
“Gotcha!” Two arms wrapped tight around her middle, and the force almost sent her colliding with the pavement.
“Letgo!” Jo shouted, writhing and kicking.
“Put her in the back,” Foley said. He remained exactly where he was, unhurried, arms folded. Jo threw her head backward, trying to find a nose to break.
“She bloody feral,” the man growled. “Open the door!”
Jo saw the back of the SUV in mental flashbulb: black leather seats, black interior, blacked-out windows, and cowering in the far corner wasLina. Under the yellow coat she wore an oversize shirt and leggings. She wasn’t hurt, but the look on her face was one of hypervigilant attention—and possibly confusion. These men werenother rescuers. Jo raised both her knees, shifting the center of gravity. Her captor arched backward to compensate, and Jo kicked down as hard as she could, Doc Martens connecting solidly with both shins.
“Fucking hell!”he squealed and Jo wrenched free.
She didn’t get far. Two rough hands closed on her shoulders, lifted and tossed her into the vehicle as if she was a cast-off rag.
“Nebby hinny, yar?”
Jo caught a glimpse of the man’s heavy jowls and squared-off shoulders before the door closed. The Geordie. She dived for the handle, only to hear the child-safety locks click into place.
“For your own protection, you understand,” said Foley, now from the passenger seat. Jo couldn’t reach him; the SUV had been fitted with a caged partition. The other man—the one she’d kicked—climbed into a seat just in front of it. Jo threaded her fingers through the grate and gave it a shake.
“This is kidnapping!” she shouted.
In the front seat, Foley turned to face her. “I promise, we can work all of this out,” he said. And then, to the man in front of her: “Close the curtain.”
Jo watched as he tugged black fabric. Her window on the world closed by degrees until there was nothing but darkness.Then the SUV lurched forward, knocking her onto the bench seat. Her phone was dead, and no one—not Gwilym, certainly not MacAdams—knew where she was. Jo felt her chest constrict with the urge to hyperventilate... and then, a small hand reached out and clutched her own.
“I am afraid,” whispered the girl in yellow.
Jo stared into puffy, red eyes. She couldn’t be more than eighteen.Get a grip, Jo told herself.Vagus nerve. Autonomic stimulation. Four belly breaths and hold...She gave the girl’s hand a squeeze.
“I’m Jo,” she said.
***
Sherlock Holmes would count the turns in the streets or identify route by sense of smell. Jo didn’t know Newcastle well enough for any of that to matter, but she paid special attention to thetime.Thirteen minutes from where she’d been; that was the radius. She tried to think of the GPS map and scale; it included a lot of ground on both sides of the river, but they were still in the city’s center... somewhere. The vehicle came to a halt in a pouring rain; Foley opened the door, holding an umbrella.
“I need you both to come with me,” he said.
