Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 79850 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 399(@200wpm)___ 319(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79850 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 399(@200wpm)___ 319(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
“I’m aware.”
“So really, I’ve got it.”
“Okay.”
But from the skeptical look on her face, I was thinking she didn’t believe me. “You sure?”
“I just— If you see anyone who looks out of place, you—”
“Call you. Yes. I got it.”
“I read your file, so I can’t imagine anyone is looking for you away from any large city, figuring you’d never make it anywhere else—”
“Really?”
“Oh, absolutely,” she replied sincerely. “Most witnesses like yourself do not do well in an environment so dramatically different—like night-and-day different—from their original one.”
“So you’re setting me up for failure?”
“Not at all. The chief deputy of the Southern District of New York believes you will thrive here—she says in your file that you need a brand-new start.”
I squinted at her.
“Fine. There’s some flowery language from an FBI agent as well, who believes that you’ll bloom where you’re planted.”
“That’s terrible.”
“I told you it was flowery.”
“Okay, so you think I’ll be fine here.”
“I do,” she assured me. “But if you aren’t, if you need us for any reason, just please reach out, and we’ll get to Rune as soon as we can.”
“It’s a weird name for a town.”
“Not any more so than Chicago, if you think about it.”
“Whatever,” I grumbled.
“Listen, I put the address in your new phone, and it will take you right where you need to be.” She smiled then. “I believe you’re going to be perfectly safe and happy in Rune.”
A place that didn’t even sound real.
“Also, if you get in any trouble with the locals—”
“Because you might,” Byers chimed in.
“Because you might,” Alvarez agreed, “call us. You can get us both night and day.”
I had a new iPhone programmed with their numbers and nobody else’s.
It was becoming important to leave already. I was getting antsy, ready to start. I had to get on the road. “I will follow directions,” I reiterated, then walked around the car, opened the passenger side door, and threw onto the seat my duffel with the few clothes that had been bought in New York—not a designer label in the bunch. I had on the shearling-lined barn coat that Special Agent Lewis had purchased for me because she wanted to make sure I didn’t freeze in Oregon. At the time I was confused because I figured there would be rain, yes, but that it wouldn’t be cold, not in May. It turned out to be a mixed bag. Like today, it was raining, and the high was only fifty-seven. At night, with the showers, it would be down to forty-five. So no, I wouldn’t freeze, but the coat was a good call. It was strange not to have all my old clothes. Normally, people had personal items they took with them when they entered WITSEC. I had nothing, as everything I owned had been divvied up once I was considered dead. It had to be weird for everyone now, knowing I wasn’t.
I had thought at first that I would have loved to see the look on Lev’s face when my father gave him the news I wasn’t dead. But it turned out that the further I got from everything and everyone who used to consume my life in Chicago, the clearer it became that it only mattered what those I loved thought. I only cared about them. I had taken my revenge in the best way possible, and really, it was enough.
I missed my shoes, though. Hiking boots had never really been me. Or Converse sneakers. Even the harness boots currently on my feet were less me and more a hipster or a guy who rode a motorcycle. As I was neither, it all felt weird.
The only things I did have that were mine were the watch I’d been wearing the night Lev tried to kill me—and which was worth more than everything else, including the Jeep—and my locket. I was very thankful for that. Lev could have very well torn it from my neck when he leaned in to shoot me that night, but he would have also had to get closer than he wanted. Because of the formal wear for my brother’s party, Lev would’ve had to loosen my tie and undo suit buttons to get at the locket. There was an interesting number of coincidences that had to occur to save both my life and the personal possessions I still owned. Sava had been my guardian angel, watching me like a hawk, seeing the writing on the wall that I missed completely. Even now, with everything gone and changed, I considered myself a lucky man. My life, which had been predictable, had taken another path. I just needed to figure out what that was.
Getting out of Portland took longer than I thought, but I was on my way half an hour later, around nine in the morning. I drove for almost two hours—including stopping for half an hour for breakfast—and eventually arrived in Seaside, Oregon. This was the closest larger town to where I was going to live, and another twenty minutes away from the fictional-sounding but actually real town of Rune, located between Seaside and Tillamook, on the Oregon coast, up near the border of Washington. There were other towns along the way—Warrenton, Gearhart—but Seaside was the biggest, and that was where the closest police department was that the marshals felt comfortable sending me to in case of trouble. I was to report there in case of emergency. As if I’d go anywhere instead of handling things myself.