“He doesn’t start his shift until morning,” Frank said. “So you can all come stay with me tonight if you would like to. My apartment is nearby, and I can bring you back here first thing in the morning and try to get you across. I’ll text him once we get to my apartment and arrange the whole thing.”
Rob started pacing around in impatient circles.
“This is a set-up,” he said. “Come on guys, we’re smarter than this. Going back to a stranger’s house right when we’re this close to crossing the border? A stranger that we literally just saw talking to a cop? How do we know that this guy isn’t the one who murdered Stacy?”
“Murder?” Frank said with a horrified look on his face. “One of your friends was murdered?”
I could already tell by his expression that he was genuinely aghast and repulsed by the thought of it. He didn’t do it.
“Yeah,” Adam said. “In the restroom of your truck stop.”
Frank looked like he was going to be sick. Even in the dark, his complexion looked like it turned a bit green.
“Damn,” he said as he shook his head and wiped his hands across his mouth as if to keep his stomach settled. “I’m really sorry to hear about that. My shift is over, but I’m sure that’s something I’ll hear all about in the morning.”
He looked over at us, waiting for a decision on our part.
“So are you guys coming or are you staying here in the woods?” Frank asked.
“We’re coming,” I said, without waiting for the guys to respond.
I heard Rob groan and I knew that he didn’t agree with my decision. Michael and Adam seemed to be in agreement though, even if they were still standing more protectively closer to me than usual.
“Great,” Frank said. “Follow me then, my truck is in the parking lot. Cops should still be on that wild goose chase I sent them on to look for you south of here. I have food at my place, and anything else that you might need until morning.”
We followed Frank cautiously out of the woods and into the parking lot. The guys looked as if they were ready to attack someone at a moment’s notice if any cops came around a corner or out from behind one of the parked cars. When we got to Frank’s truck, we all piled in and he drove us away from the truck stop and toward what I hoped wasn’t a trap.
“Do you have surveillance of the parking lot?” Rob asked while he was driving. “Our car was stolen here.”
“Yeah, there’s cameras,” Frank answered. “But you don’t need surveillance for that. I can tell you who stole your car.”
“You can?”
“Sure,” he nodded. “The cops did. They took it as soon as you all went to the restroom. They flocked around that vehicle like bees on honey. That’s when I knew you guys were really in trouble. I’ve never seen those local police up here before. Their behavior was strange, and it was obvious that they were up to no good. That’s why I sent them away.”
“Where did you send them?” I asked from the back seat.
“To a motel a few miles south of here. It won’t take them long to figure out that they’ve been duped though, and they’ll be back.”
“You know,” Rob said to him as he glanced over at Frank from the passenger seat. “You could have just gotten yourself in a lot of trouble over this. Those cops don’t mess around. You might be in danger now for helping us.”
Frank shrugged his shoulders.
“Is what it is,” he said. “I would be dead already if it weren’t for Paula. Now I’ve repaid the good deed, so whatever happens, happens.”
“There aren’t many people like you left in the world,” Michael said. “Most people wouldn’t go out of their way to help a stranger. Especially not in a situation like this.”
“Well, the way I think about it,” Frank said thoughtfully as he pulled into a long driveway with a little cabin at the end of it. “None of us are really strangers, are we?”
“What do you mean?”
“We’re all here alone on this Earth together, which is kind of a contradiction in itself isn’t it? I guess I’d just rather believe that we’re all here to help each other if the opportunity presents itself.”
He chuckled.
“Funny,” he mused. “That’s something your mom said I think.”
He glanced at me through the rearview mirror before we all got out of the car. I paused for a minute before stepping out and Michael held the door open for me.
“Everything okay?” Michael asked as he held his hand out for me to take.
“Yeah,” I said. “I was just thinking about how crazy it is that my mom is still helping us—even now.”
Michael smiled at me as I took his hand and stepped out of the car.
“Maybe you got it wrong,” he said. “Her dying wish, I mean. Maybe she wasn’t trying to get you to save all of these other people in the world. Maybe she was trying to get you to save yourself.”
“What does that even mean?” I asked.
He wrapped his arm around me as we walked up toward the door to the cabin behind the other guys.
“It means that you seem to be finding more meaning and memory of your mother the further away we get from Charlotte, and the further away we get from the path you thought you were supposed to be on. Maybe your mother intended for you to leave all along.”
I thought about what he said for a moment. Maybe she did.
“It’s not much,” Frank said as we went inside his cabin. “But it’s mine.”
I looked around and saw that his place was a typical, messy bachelor pad with takeout food containers and empty beer cans on the kitchen table still. I supposed that for some people, just having a place of their own was the dream to aspire to. For me, it was freedom. Freedom from all the crap we left behind in Charlotte, freedom from all of the family drama and crooked legacies that had tormented me since childhood, and freedom to start my own life somewhere else, with someone else. I looked over at Michael, who was inspecting the living situation for the night and glancing down the hall (probably making sure that there weren’t cops getting ready to jump out at us). I just wanted to be with him and live in peace.
