Page 144 of The Grave Artist
But Maddie said, “I keep a go bag in my trunk. Fifty thousand. That’ll tide us over till you can get your money.” She looked at GPS on her phone and took the next left, onto a much smaller road, sand-swept asphalt.
“This is safer, back roads. I know a way to La Rumorosa.”
He barked a laugh. Maddie was a constant source of surprise. He asked, “From here?” It was a long way to that dusty town in Sonora.
“I’ve had plans in place for a long time. I always thought someday the murders might catch up to me and I’d have to book on out of the country. Why not now?”
For a time, they chatted amiably, enjoying each other’s company as the scenery blurred by. It was like their felonious pasts were forgotten, and they were just another couple.
Damon had an unfamiliar sensation he couldn’t pinpoint. It took him a few minutes to realize that this must be what others referred to as ... joy. He felt like they were a newlywed couple starting their lives together—their future as wide open as the road stretching before them.
Newlywed.
Some irony there. He smiled.
He wouldn’t be alone anymore.
Maddie turned southeast, in the general direction of Sonora in Mexico, steering onto yet an even smaller and rougher road. “CHP troopers don’t come this way often, and the local cops? Never.”
She had made quite the study of her escape route.
He glanced around at the landscape that had become increasingly rugged and desertlike, filled with scrub oak and green-and-brown ground cover. No other cars, no homes.
As they bounded along the increasingly rough road, he joked, “Are we going to trade the car for a burro when we get to the border?”
She chuckled. “Not a burro, aBronco—as in Ford. We need something that can go off road. I’ve got a contact here in Topanga.”
She turned down a long drive and ahead he spotted a shed with a rusty tin roof. He held his questions as she drove through the open gate of a split rail fence and parked in the dusty front yard.
He saw no one and no structure that seemed to be fit for a residence.
“It’s parked around back.” She got out and beckoned him. “C’mon, I’ll introduce you. If you’re nice, he’ll give you a beer. If he hasn’t finished them all, anyway.”
Who the hell was this contact of hers? A small part of him felt a splinter of jealousy.
Then told himself to chill. She was escaping withhim, wasn’t she?
He climbed out and joined her. They walked to the front door of the shed.
Several sharp raps with her knuckles were met with silence. She tried the handle, which twisted freely. “Looks like he might’ve gotten a head start on the beer,” she said, glancing up at him. “Let’s go roust him.”
“Who exactly is this guy?”
“You’ll see.”
She pushed the door open and stepped over the threshold.
He followed her in, eyes straining to see in the gloom. He turned, looking all around. “I don’t see anybody—”
Something crashed into the back of his skull. Hard.
Darkness engulfed him.
Chapter 69
She wasn’t a bodybuilder, but rage had given her the strength to drag Damon’s limp form out of the shed’s rear door and into a shallow arroyo, where she dumped him, face up, and duct-taped his feet. Then his wrists.
Immobile. He couldn’t climb out.
