Liars, Inc. (11 page)

December 6th

AND JUST LIKE THAT, MY
birthday went from a sleeping dream to a waking nightmare. I barely remember brandishing the gun, running from the feds, leaping from the cliff into the frigid water below.

But I've passed the last fifteen minutes or so in the river, mostly beneath the surface. That's one good thing about surfing. You spend enough time getting sucked under by rogue waves, you get good at holding your breath.

My lungs finally give up the last little bits of air and I pop up into the night, just far enough to suck in a couple more deep breaths. Around me, the roar of the water sounds muffled. My ears are still throbbing from the
sound of the gun going off.

With a start, I realize the gun is weighing down the side pocket of my cargo pants. I don't even remember putting it away. Hopefully, I won't need it. Pretty sure guns aren't made for swimming.

I let the current carry me to the opposite bank, where I hide in a tall patch of reeds and try to figure out what to do next. McGhee and Gonzalez will either call for backup from a police department around here or set up some kind of river blockade downstream. I'm not sure if I should get out of the water or use the current to float even farther away. I wish Parvati were with me. She'd know. She'd quote some military escape manual. But Parvati is gone. Unreachable. The phone she left me is back at the cabin. I still have my own phone, but even if by some miracle it works after it dries out, calling her on it isn't safe.

That gives me an idea. I reach my hand below the surface of the murky water and pull my phone out of my hoodie pocket. The screen stays dark when I try to turn it on, but I throw it as hard as I can up onto the riverbank. Maybe it'll buy me some extra time if it dries out and someone decides to track me by GPSing it.

I take in another big breath of air and let the water carry me farther downstream.
Think, Max.
Nine years ago, I was the survival expert, not Parvati. There were some seriously
bad people trolling the streets and beaches where I lived, and avoiding their psychotic wrath took mad skills. Have I gotten soft since the Cantrells adopted me?

A patch of rapids appears out of nowhere and I adjust my body so that I'm heading into the whitewater feet first to protect my head. The river curves to the left and then back to the right. An owl, or maybe a bat, soars across my field of vision.

I glance up at the sky. It's black, just like the water. I have no idea what time it is. I think I finally fell asleep around ten thirty, and it seemed like at least an hour passed before McGhee and Gonzalez found me, so now it's probably somewhere around one in the morning. I'm hoping the feds got distracted by Preston's phone and hard drive—the thought of them finding those sex clips almost makes me want to drown myself—before they started looking for me. But either way, they won't stop until they find me. I need to either ride the river far enough away from the cabin that I won't get caught in a manhunt, or get out of the water and try to hide in plain sight.

I decide to take my chances in the river for a while. It's cold, but I feel safer in the water. And I'll be able to see anyone coming before they get close.

My wallet is still in the back pocket of my cargo pants. Thanks to Liars, Inc. I should have enough soggy cash to
buy another prepaid phone and some food. All I have to do is eventually find a safe place to get out of the river and make myself into someone other than Max Cantrell. How hard can it be?

I stay in the water for what feels like hours, curling my body into the fetal position to maximize warmth. In a couple places, the river is so shallow that I have to slither along on my elbows and knees to stay hidden beneath the surface. Soft sticky mud clings to my hands and coats the fabric of my pants.

When the current carries me past a wide stretch of gravel and sand I recognize as a canoe pullout, I work my way over to the bank. There's a painted wooden sign here. I squint to read it in the dark:
LAZY DAYS CAMPGROUND AND FLOAT TRIPPING
. Score. I peel off my waterlogged hoodie and let it float downstream. Maybe someone will see it, and McGhee and Gonzalez will think I went farther than I did. Maybe they'll think I drowned. Even better.

I follow a winding path through a dense grove of trees and emerge into a campground. Most of the tents are still zipped closed for the night, which is good. Even in the “anything goes” atmosphere of most campgrounds, I'd probably raise a few eyebrows strolling up from the riverbank soaking wet and covered in mud.

I find what I'm looking for along the far side of the clearing,
where a few RVs sit in asphalt parking spaces—a clothesline tied between two trees. Unfortunately, all I see is girls' clothing. Impossibly skinny jeans and ruffled tank tops. Not going to work. But then I see a plain oversized T-shirt advertising last year's Sacramento Fun Run. Good enough. It's a little damp, but not soaked. Either it didn't rain here last night or the trees' dense branches protected the clothes on the line.

I head toward the middle of the campground, past a smaller wooden sign pointing to the shower area. Is it stupid to take a shower when you're being chased by the FBI? Probably, but then being covered in mud is pretty conspicuous. Besides, when I lived on the streets, I sometimes found useful stuff lying around in bathrooms. Since I left all my belongings at the cabin, I should at least check it out.

Unfortunately, this bathroom doesn't have anything to offer except for a vending machine that spits out various toiletries. There's a two-pack of razors I can use to shave my head. It isn't much as far as disguises go, but it's a start.

I slip into one of the showers and decide to rinse myself off, even if I have to put my soggy pants back on. Wet hair will be easier to cut, or so I think.

After all that time in the river, the warm water feels amazing. I have to keep reminding myself that McGhee and Gonzalez could be closing in, because otherwise I'll stand
under the steamy jets all day. I hack at my hair and give up on going bald almost immediately. The flimsy razors are not made for cutting through five inches of tangled mess. I fight through my knots as best as I can, stopping frequently to rinse out the blade. When I finally give up, my hair seems to be several different lengths, but all of it is shorter than it was before. My trademark long bangs are lying on the tile floor of the shower, surrounded by other irregular messy brown clumps.

I start to slide my wet pants back over my legs when I hear footsteps. I hold my breath as a pair of muddy tennis shoes moves past my stall. There are a few beats of silence, and then the shower next to me starts up with a creak of pipes and a whoosh of water.

I exhale hard. What kind of weirdo goes camping and gets up before sunrise to take a shower? I peek out the side of my stall door. Bonus. My shower neighbor has left a towel and a pair of khaki pants hanging on a hook. I've never stolen clothes before, not even when I was homeless, but I'm pretty sure I need these khakis more than he does. I give myself a quick pat-down with the towel before slipping into my new clothing.

The pants are too big in the waist and about two inches too short for me. One of the hems is coming unstitched so the left leg is actually longer than the right leg. Oh well. I almost
leave my wet pants behind for him, but I decide not to risk it. I don't want to leave a trail for McGhee and Gonzalez. Something tells me my stuff wouldn't fit Shower Guy anyway. I ball my wet, heavy clothes up under my arm.

Cruising through the bathroom, I stop for just a second to check out my hair in the mirror. It's sticking up all over. I'm going to look like a douchebag boy band singer when it dries. Either that or a crazy person. Best to find a hat, but not here. I can just imagine skulking around the campsite looking to score a forgotten baseball cap and having Shower Guy catch me wearing his oversized pants.

I follow the main path through the campground to a tall building made out of logs. The sign says that it opens at six. I plop down on the porch for a few minutes, studying the sky's colors. I'm trying to decide what time it is, and whether I should risk hanging around, when an old sports car with a red eagle painted on the hood peels into the gravel parking lot. A kid my age gets out, wearing sunglasses and a T-shirt with the sleeves cut off.

“S'up?” he says as he fishes in his pocket for the key to the front door.

“I lost my hat,” I say. “Just looking for a new one.” I follow him into the store, which thankfully has a whole slew of hats. I skim past the ones with sayings like “fishermen do it with crappie bait” and find a plain black hat with a
brown leather brim. It's still a little lame, but it beats getting arrested. I wear it forward, which is something I haven't done since I played on a baseball team in middle school. I put on the cheapest pair of sunglasses I can find, mirrored “cop sunglasses” I wouldn't normally be caught dead in, and check out my reflection in one of the tiny rectangular mirrors built into the glasses carousel. Along with the hat and shades, I'm sporting a couple days' growth of beard. Even I don't think I look much like myself.

I figure by now Shower Guy has realized that someone stole his styling khakis. He'll probably go back to his tent first and accuse whoever he's camping with, but I should still get lost, just in case he heads up to the store to replace them.

I grab a couple of energy bars and sticks of beef jerky and line my purchases up on the counter. The cashier is texting on his phone and listening to the radio. As I'm handing him my wet money, the song ends and the DJ comes on for a special announcement. I tense up and one of my soggy bills ends up on the floor. My hands start shaking. I almost make a run for it. But the special announcement turns out to be about a lunchtime interview with a San Francisco band, and I feel stupid for almost blowing it. I'm expecting everything to play out like the movies, where the airwaves and TV stations are full of grave voices announcing that I, Max Cantrell, am
a fugitive, presumed armed and dangerous.

And then I realize with a start that I
am
armed. The Colonel's Glock is still in the side pocket of my wet cargo pants. Jeez! Good thing I didn't leave them behind for Shower Guy.

I finish paying for my purchases and gingerly slide my wet clothes, along with the gun, into the crinkly plastic bag I get from the cashier. It's time to get going.
Like a shark
, I remind myself. I lift my hand to touch my shark's tooth pendant and remember it's not there—I forgot to look for it in my camping gear. “Which way to town?” I ask.

“South,” the cashier says. “Make a left when you get to the road.”

I thank him and head out. I need to find a way to Vegas, but first I need to find civilization.

The Lazy Days gravel driveway ends at a paved two-lane road. All I see in either direction are rocks and trees. I don't dare walk along the street. Just because the radio stations aren't beeping in with special bulletins about me doesn't mean they won't be soon.

There's a ditch that runs along one side of the road, with a dense line of pine trees just beyond it. I duck behind the thick, feathery branches, just far enough to stay out of sight, yet close enough so that I don't lose track of the road.

The air is humid, but cool. I swipe at a cloud of gnats as I step across a fallen branch. Crickets chirp in the grass
around me. An old truck with round headlights and a metal grill that looks like a face passes from the other direction. I hide farther back in the trees until the truck disappears from sight, and then I keep going.

After about a half an hour of walking, the sun starts to rise. I come across a green sign outlined in white that says
EAGLE'S PASS
: 8. Ugh. At least eight more miles to civilization, if a place called Eagle's Pass even counts. It doesn't sound like the kind of place that's going to have a wide variety of prepaid cell phones for newly minted criminals such as myself. I look down at the stiff khakis with their fraying hems. Grand theft pants. Not sure stealing these would even count as a misdemeanor. More like an act of goodwill.

It takes almost three hours to get there, but Eagle's Pass surprises me by having a gas station of unusual size—one of those trucker plazas with gas pumps, a Burger Barn, a doughnut shop, and a convenience store all rolled into one. There are little TVs mounted on the wall behind the cash register, and as I pay for a phone my eyes casually float upward. College football highlights are playing. No picture of me with a moving ticker tape of my alleged crimes flashing below it. So far, so good.

Only now I'm going to have to find a way to Vegas without a car, unless Parvati will come get me. I shouldn't involve her,
but she'll get pissed if I don't. Part of me thinks she's been waiting her whole life for something like this—a chance to use the tactical skills she's been honing since she was old enough to know what her father did for a living. Plus, I have to at least let her know I'm okay.

I duck into the men's room and lock myself in one of the stalls. After quickly activating the phone, I realize I can't call her on her burner phone because I don't know the number. Swearing under my breath, I dial Parvati's regular cell. Just as I expected, she doesn't answer. I don't feel safe leaving a message, so I decide to just hang out here for a while to see if she calls back. It's possible her parents confiscated her phone or she doesn't have it on her since she's expecting me to call the prepaid. I'll give her until lunchtime and then continue on to Vegas by myself.

Somehow.

I have thirty bucks left after buying the phone. I want to spend all of it on cheeseburgers, but the Burger Barn doesn't open for an hour. Keeping the brim of my hat low, I grab a bag of chips and a turkey sandwich and take them to the front register, doing my best not to make eye contact with anyone in the store. I crack my knuckles and scan the items in the glass cases as the clerk rings me up: leather wallets, switchblades, a bunch of cool silver rings shaped like skulls. I've always wanted a ring like that.