Page 16 of Rough Choice

Using the entire novelty size bottle of motel shampoo she’d been provided, she scrubbed the five-day-old grease out of her hair and had used the entire bar of soap to wash her body and shave. She hadn’t realized how gross she felt until she’d scraped off the layer of grime she’d been sporting. The motel offered an on-sight laundromat for the long-term tenants, but they accepted quarters. She’d tossed in a load of laundry, even feeling generous enough to wash a few of Grier’s things, in exchange for him going to town and buying them a real meal.

“If it’s served in a paper sack with little packets of ketchup I’m going to murder you,” she’d yelled at Grier as he left. He’d waved a hand back at her and driven off, though not without several warnings that if she left the motel room for any reason other than to switch the laundry he was going to intentionally drag out their trip another week. She didn’t want to risk that threat. So here she sat in a bathtub of warm water, feet propped on the edge, reading her book of Spanish phrases and vocabulary, happy to be anywhere but in that damned car.

When the water turned too cold for her to bear, she stood and wrapped herself in a large towel and shuffled into the room. The air-conditioned unit in the window was on full blast and, with the curtains drawn, she dropped the towel and let the icy air blow over her skin. Compared to the near heat stroke she’d suffered that morning, this was pure bliss. Dressing in shorts and a t-shirt, she slipped on the only pair of flats she’d brought and scuffled down to the laundry room.

There was a woman sitting in the corner reading a magazine with headphones in, but otherwise, the room was unoccupied. Eliana didn’t have a basket, so she was forced to carry their clothes in her arms on her way back up to their rooms. The TV was on and playing afternoon news stories while she folded the clothes. When she’d stacked Grier’s clothes in a neat pile, she decided to drop them off in his room.

He’d insisted that they keep the doors between their rooms unlocked so it was easy to cross over. She noted that he’d brought in the duffle bag of guns and left it sitting on the edge of the bed. “Jeez,” she breathed when she saw how many there were. Even though she knew he’d brought them for protection, having so many guns around didn’t make her feel any safer.

She still remembered what it had felt like holding that gun to her temple. Not knowing at the time it wasn’t loaded, it had been the real deal in her mind when she’d pulled that trigger. The clicking sound still haunted her. Eliana never wanted to know what it was like to be on the receiving end of the barrel of a gun ever again. Holding one of the weapons in her hand, it felt heavier than the gun she’d held before. Assuming that meant it was loaded, she set it back down.

In the side pockets of the duffle were four blank passports, a massive envelope of hundred-dollar bills, and a second one full to the brim of several types of foreign currency. Zipping the side back up, Eliana looked one more time in the main compartment. That’s when she saw it.

Tossed haphazardly in the bag was Grier’s cell phone. As if seeing some strange anomaly, she picked it up the way you might hold a large wad of cash you just happened upon in the street. Before she knew what she was doing, Eliana was turning it on and watching the screen light up. Her breathing had stopped as she held it, and when the single message of ‘one missed call’ came up, she shuddered and hit the voicemail icon.

“On my way.”

A sob burst suddenly out of her. It was Kye! It had been Kye’s voice. Her fingers forgot how to function as she desperately tried to figure out how to check the time when the call had come in. Finally figuring it out, the unmarked number registered that it had come in the day before. Her elation blinded her temporarily, but as she thought longer on it, she wondered why Grier hadn’t checked his phone. Why didn’t he have it on him now? Had he given up hope that Kye was alive? Then what was the point of leaving the country? Was he really so committed to escaping from anywhere Max might find them that he was going to leave the country with her? He didn’t even like her!

Eliana tried to dial the number back, but the automated message that the number she was trying to reach had already been disconnected deflated any bubbling hope that she might be able to speak with him. It wasn’t enough to completely dampen her mood, though. Kye was alive, and he was coming to meet them. Now it didn’t matter where they were headed or how long it took to get there, he was on his way, and soon they’d be together!

* * *

“Where is it?” Grier snapped as the door between their rooms slammed open. Eliana was lounging on her motel bed watching TV and hadn’t realized he was back until just this moment. He carried take-out in one hand and a grocery sack in the other, but the furious look on his face was what caught her attention.

“Where is what?” she asked, feigning ignorance.

“You know what!”

“I do?”

“I swear to God, Eliana, you might be my best friend’s girl, but I will shoot you in the face. Where is the cell phone?”

“Oh, this?” she asked, pulling it from under the pillow next to her. Grier lunged forward, but she held it at bay. “Before I give it back, you need to tell me why you didn’t have it on you and why it hasn’t been turned on this whole time!” He looked startled for a moment. “Yeah that’s right, I figured it out, Road Boy,” she taunted. “You kept it plugged into the console so I’d think you were monitoring it, but you weren’t. The phone hasn’t even been turned on! That’s why you never checked it, and that’s why it didn’t ring when Kye called yesterday!”

“What?” he asked, and the bags fell out of his hands. “Give it to me.”

“No!” she protested, but he grabbed it out of her hand anyway. He scrolled through the phone and saw there was a saved message. She allowed him a moment to listen to the message before smiling in satisfaction. “See? An intellectual mind isn’t always a bad thing.”

“It’s not always a good thing, you idiot,” he said, pocketing the device. “You know why I didn’t turn it on? Because we’re not at the meeting spot yet!”

“Huh?”

“God,” he breathed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Kye and I use synced burner phones. When I turn mine on it pings to his letting him know I’ve turned it on.”

“So?”

“So, I’m not supposed to turn it on until we’re at the Luxury Motel in El Paso. I rent room 44 and turn the phone on. He knows that I’m in the motel waiting for him with clean passports and ready to cross the border. He was supposed to arrive the next day, with you might I add, and the three of us would cross together. Obviously, things got a little reversed, but now he’s going to think that we’re there instead of here!”

“What’s the big deal, we just get in the car and drive to El Paso. We can be there in, what? Fifteen hours? That’s cake compared to how long we’ve been driving!” Eliana defended and swung her legs over the side of the bed to stand.

“You’d think it would be that easy,” Grier said, stooping to pick up the fallen containers of take-out food and setting them on the small, round table across the room.

“Why isn’t it?”

“Because this damned heatwave we’re experiencing burnt out the radiator in the Hummer!” he practically shouted. “I managed to get it back to the auto shop we got the tow truck from, but it’s going to be at least a two-day repair. We’re stuck here.”

“Can’t we get another car?”