“Stay here,” he ordered, shoving his door open and stepping onto the side of the road. But I ignored him and jumped out right along with him.
“I’ll pop the hood,” I said, reaching underneath it before he could stop me and groping for any wire that I could find. I jerked a handful of them before pulling up the hood and stepping back. “Here you go. Hopefully you can figure it out.”
Dawson cursed again and waved at the air. “Piece of shit.” He kicked one of the tires. “Get back behind the wheel. I’ll figure it out.”
I slid into the driver’s seat and eyed the backpack, weighing whether or not he could see me and if it was worth the risk to go through it.Please let someone come by.I’d jump out into the road and create the biggest scene. But no such luck. He banged around underneath the hood until he got it running again.
We rumbled back onto the highway after only twenty minutes on the shoulder. He’d fixed the wire with electrical tape from the backpack, but the truck still coughed like it was struggling to breathe. Dawson bounced his knee.
We rounded the bend. We’d be within the city limits in another hour. What would happen once we were there? Did he plan on killing me along with everyone else?
I kept my eyes on the road and tried to keep my voice calm. “Can you please tell me what we’re doing?”
“I’m making a little video to share with the world, and your job is to film everything I do today. We’re headed to Atticus. As long as you’re with me, everyone will leave me alone. The police aren’t going to shoot me if you’re with me.” He’d replaced the ski mask with a blue baseball cap pulled down low. “We can use your code to get into the building and elevators.”
I wasn’t just his witness—his way to share it with the world—I was also his way into the building. That’s the main reason he needed me. Of course that was it. How’d I miss that? Access codes are the first thing HR disables when someone gets fired or leaves.
Everything clicked into place with startling clarity. That’s why he’d taken me to the cabin first instead of dragging me straight to the office that morning. He needed the time to wait for my head to clear after the blow so I would be coherent enough to help him and terrified enough to be compliant.
Did he really expect me to record him gunning people down? Was there any way that I could warn people? I could call 911 the moment he handed me the phone. Except then he might shoot me. All I could think about were the X’s he had in the lobby on his map of the building. There were so many people down there during the day. There’d be kids too. They’d just opened a pediatric dental office on the second floor.
My voice trembled with nerves, but I forced the words out. “She wouldn’t want this.”
“What did you just say?” he snapped.
“Your daughter.” The words were out before I could reel them back in. “She wouldn’t want you to do this.”
“You’re absolutely right! Of course my daughter doesn’t want this. She doesn’t want any of this. You know what she did want?!” His eyes were wild and lit with fury. “To graduate first grade. To get pink roller skates for her birthday. She was so excited to get her nails done with her mom and cousins. That’s what Aurora wanted.”
“I understand how hard this must be for you. I can’t even imagine what it must be like to lose your daughter. It’s unbelievable and—”
He cut me off. “Shut up! You don’t know anything about my daughter.”
“You talked about her when you fed me soup. When you sat beside me all night. You think this is for her, but it’s not. It’s for you.”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about.” He worked his jaw while he spoke. His breath came sharp and fast. “Everyone’s going to see what a broken system we live in. They let a little girl die.”
“Yes, but hurting other people doesn’t bring her back. Would Aurora want her name remembered that way?”
He smacked me. Right across the face, before I even knew it was coming. “Don’t you dare say her name. Don’t you ever say her name again.” He worked his jaw and dug his fingers into his knees. “You don’t know a damn thing about it. I said be quiet. Drive.”
My cheek stung from where he’d slapped me. The only sound was the tires on asphalt and the shrill ringing in my ears as he lit another cigarette and stared out the window. The blur of trees whipped past us on his side of the truck. His hand trembled every time he brought the cigarette to his lips. Angrily blowing out the smoke.
I’d wanted to trigger something emotional in him so that I could connect with his humanity and make him think like a loving father, but all I’d done was make him angry. More determined. My fingers clenched the steering wheel. Every muscle screamed at me to slam my foot on the gas and fly until the tires lifted off the road.
Chapter Thirteen
The city skyline rose in the distance. Glass and steel jutted into the sun like knives, cutting through the haze of thick smog. My stomach bottomed out. Dawson sat rigid in the passenger seat. The backpack tucked between his boots at his feet. The gun laid across his lap. His eyes burned straight ahead. He’d gone quiet since I’d mentioned his daughter, but the quiet was almost worse than the rage.
Finally, he spoke. “When we get there, you’ll park right in front, just like you always do. You’ll stay with me. Camera rolling. If they see you, they won’t risk a shot.” His mouth twisted. “They won’t shoot me if you’re with me.”
The words landed heavy in my chest. I wasn’t just a witness. I was his shield.
But you couldn’t trust the words of a madman, and he had crossed over. They say that grief can drive you mad, and he’d clearly lost his mind. There was no more time to argue. No more time to try to get inside his brain to change his mind. To tug at his conscience or remind him of Aurora. He was too far gone in his grief and revenge.
Killing other people to avenge your daughter’s death made no sense. Especially when the people’s lives he was on a mission to take didn’t actually have anything to do with his daughter’s care. They were just following protocol andprocedures. They weren’t the insurance company. His logic didn’t make any more sense to me than that of the pro-lifers who blew up abortion clinics. If it is all about the sanctity of life, then why do you kill people?
My fingers slipped on the wheel. Slick with sweat.
