Lose the Road
By – TempestRaces
Chapter 3 – Big Girl World
"It's a big girl world now, full of big girl things. And every day I wish I was small."
When they finished up and he came back inside, Tempest was still asleep on the couch. It was just turned five, and he decided that another few hours would kill no one. He left her sleeping after tossing a light blanket over her body. When seven came, he knew if he didn't wake her up and send her on her way, she'd fillet him alive for his efforts. He shook her shoulder gently. "Mia Angelo, it is time to wake up."
"Wha?" she murmured sleepily, rubbing her eyes with the sides of her balled fists.
"It's gone seven. You'll want to be on your way."
"I wanna sleep," she sighed petulantly.
"You always wish to sleep more when first woken Tempest. But you wanted to be on your way last night without even taking a rest. And now that I've made you rest longer than you intended, when the time truly sinks in, you'll be angry to have waited even this long. So wake up, my angel, and get ready to finish your trip." There was no one on earth who knew her as well as he did. Not her Jesse, not her mother, not even herself. He understood her nature and her mind so well sometimes it scared him. He knew she didn't even ascertain just how well he knew her. She had no secrets from him. Even if she wanted to, she could not. But he had her pegged in this at least, and it was time to get her on her way. She was in for a rough time, a long drive to find out how badly hurt her much loved and revered cousin was.
She sat up with a sigh. "The car is ready to go?"
"Your vehicle is prepared, yes. I've taken the liberty of putting your baggage into it."
"You're a star Angelo. I mean it."
"I know you do and I know I am. I wish I could go with you Tempest. You know this?"
"I know. But you might get caught. And if you get caught out of the country without permission, that's the end of you. You can't handle going back to jail, and I can't handle another period of time in my life without you in it. So you gotta stay here. It's ok though. I'll be ok."
"I don't doubt it. Go, find your cousin and reassure yourself that everything is going to be fine. Come home this way, and fill me in on everything. And keep your phone with you. If you need anything, call me. Right away, no matter the time. Yes?"
"For sure."
They headed for the front door of the sprawling house. Angelo pulled it open and ushered her onto the front step with a hand on the small of her back.
"Uh-huh," she uttered inarticulately, shaking her head no from side to side. "No way."
"Yes way."
"I'm not driving that huge monstrosity across two countries."
"It's only one, really. You won't be driving across enough of Canada in it for it to count."
"Angelo! It's a fuckin' Cadillac Escalade. I might as well hang a huge 'hey, look at me' sign around my neck."
"Perhaps on your island that would be true. But in the rest of the world, especially Los Angeles, the truck will not be out of place. You'll be comfortable and safe in it and I won't have to worry about that decade old car of yours breaking down on the way."
"I'm equipped to fix my six year old car if it breaks down, and I can't afford to put gas in a damn Escalade the whole way across the USA."
"There is a gas card in the truck. Use it until you get within one state of California and then start using these." He handed her the credit cards and ID of Jessica Adams.
"Jessica Adams?"
"Your temporary identity. His twin sister. I thought you would approve. Of course you share his birthday. A history is set for you. You've lived in New Mexico your whole life. You work from home as a freelance designer. You couldn't get away from a huge project the day you heard about Jesse, but you came as soon as you could. The Visa card has no limit, nor does the Master Card. They're real enough. You can discard them once you're on your way home. You'll have to stop someplace hidden a state away and swap out the Massachusetts tags for these New Mexico plates. And again on the way home. Switch to the gas card I've left you on the way home too. Cut the cards with Jessica's name on them into pieces the minute you're outside of California. The ID too. The back seat of the truck will fold down. Should you need to rest, you can nap in the back for a time at a rest stop. It also has a concealed compartment in the driver's foot well. There is a 9mm hidden there. I want you safe."
He was rapidly taking away everything she could use to object to taking his truck. "It's too damn slow."
"You made sure it was not 'too damn slow' the week after I bought it. Remember?"
Yes she did. They had spent the whole week upgrading it. High flow exhaust, K&N cold air intake system, chipped ECU, the works. It was pretty quick, as far as Cadillac Escalades went. She sighed. "I'm not getting out of here in my own car, am I?"
"Your own car isn't prepared. It would take many more hours to get another set of VIN numbers for a Nissan. The Escalade is fully fuelled, totally incognito, fast enough to get you there, and safe enough to make me happy. Take it and go. I've left a map programmed into the nav system to show you where you'll need to cross the border. The radar detection system is fully functional and totally integrated with the GPS. It will show you any police presence along your route miles before they can become an issue. And it will do it all on a voice activated colour touch screen. You need the GPS, you need the passive radar detection and you know it. You also know you will be far more comfortable in the truck. So take it and go. You're coming home this way anyway, remember?"
"Fine, I'll take the damn Escalade."
"Good girl. Be careful." He handed her up into the truck and shut the door once she was seated. She started it and waved good bye before starting down the driveway. He watched his favourite thing in the whole world drive away from him with a heavy heart. He wasn't thinking of the truck, either. She was the one thing he would do anything to protect. But so often he couldn't protect her from herself. Some of her discomfort with what she was driving into transferred to him. He was worried about what sort of situation he was sending her into. What about the scenario gave his little she wolf the idea she needed fake id and fake registration information for her car? Her instinct for trouble, she being trouble incarnate, was almost infallible. Which was why the truck had a tracking device in it that he could monitor from his home PC. She wasn't getting away from him without some way of keeping an eye on her. Not when she was so sure there was trouble coming.
The first thing Tempest did on leaving Angelo's was hit a drive thru for Pepsi. She was still only half awake, and knew she wouldn't likely allow herself to stop for more than gas and food until she hit Los Angeles. She was going to need the caffeine. The GPS system in the dash kept her on track. True to Angelo's word, when she needed to slow down due to police presence, the dash mounted unit informed her well in advance. She was doing well, pushing well in excess of one hundred and forty miles an hour when the GPS informed her it was safe to do so. All that mattered was getting to Jesse as fast as she could. She thought about calling her mother, just to let her know she was ok, but she knew at this point it would bring up questions about where she was and why. She wasn't ready to answer those questions just yet so she didn't call.
She drove for eight hours, stopping only when the truck told her it was hungry. She bought caffeine and food when she bought gas, and used the bathroom. She tried to keep every stop for fuel and food under fifteen minutes. At the speed limit she had a thirty seven hour trip ahead of her. She planned to make it in twenty one hours. That expected an average speed of one hundred and forty miles an hour and very few stops. She had checked on the GPS, which was—as were most of Angelo's electronic toys—very sophisticated. She was sure the damn thing could order her lunch if it knew in what city she would like to dine.
Three hours later she was in Colorado. She didn't even perceive any of the beautiful scenery. It merely flew by the truck unobserved as she watched white lines flash past and worried about her cousin. Brother, she reminded. She had to start getting into character now. Otherwise someone was going to ask her about her brother and she was going to snap back about how she was an only child, and that wouldn't do. Or call her Jessica and she was going to just look through them. Or correct them. And Tempest wasn't a common name. It wouldn't be hard for anyone with an interest to figure that Jesse didn't have a sister named Tempest, but he damn sure did have a cousin by that name. And then her whole plan was fucked. Why she needed the secrecy she didn't know, but she did.
Another five hours of driving later and she was crossing into Utah and was about at the limit of how far she could drive without falling asleep at the wheel. It was one am, and she'd been driving for sixteen hours non-stop at a very high rate of speed and doing it on about four hours of sleep in the previous twenty four before that. She pulled into the next truck stop she found, crawled into the back with the doors locked and the gun under her pillow and slept, after setting her cell phone to wake her with an alarm four hours later.
Angelo was right. If she died on her way to Jesse, while no one knew where she was or why, or even who she was, she wouldn't be any good to anyone. When her phone woke her from her totally dreamless sleep, she got up out of the rear of her ride and went looking for the bathroom. She used it before changing her clothes in the stall. She felt sticky and gross in the clothes she'd been wearing more than thirty six hours and slept in twice. She washed her hands and splashed her face with cold water once she exited the cubical. After brushing her teeth she felt marginally more human, though still not anywhere near awake. Given it was four am and she'd only had eight non consecutive hours sleep in the previous forty eight, she guessed that was only normal.
She bought a gallon of soda and a package of trucker style wake up pills from a tired looking clerk in the convenience store area. Given what the average truck stop patron looked like, she was glad she would never stand out for her haggard, straggly, I-haven't-slept-in-my-own-bed-let-alone-a-real-bed-in-days look. She downed two of her pep pills with a swallow of Pepsi, and mused that if her mom thought she was bad on a normal Pepsi rush, she didn't want to see her when the caffeinated pills kicked in.
After that she gassed the truck again, even though it was only half empty. She figured that if she did it while she was already stopped, she was only saving herself another stop down the line. Five hours and two gas pit stops later, she was about to cross into the state of California at Pasadena. She parked the truck out of sight behind a large brick warehouse and swapped the plates, vin placards, and placed her New Mexico inspection sticker in the place on the windshield Angelo had told her it went on. Then, with a deep breath, she got back in the truck and finished the drive into the sunny state of California. And realized with some shock and disappointment that she was about to celebrate her twenty first birthday far from home. It was now the third of August and her 'real' birthday, not the one she was claiming as Jessica, was only six days away. She doubted very much she'd be content with Jesse's lot and home again in time for a party. The best she could hope for was home with Angelo, but even that didn't seem likely. How was she supposed to walk away from Jesse, leaving him all alone?
She had to find out what kind of situation she was dealing with before she worried any more about it. She fed the name of the hospital that Hector had given her into the GPS and followed the on screen map 'til she found herself in the parking lot. It was ten am. She was wrecked. And it was only going to get worse. She parked the truck, locked it, and armed the security before crossing the black asphalt expanse. With a deep inhale that she blew forcefully out she pushed open the main door and walked into the lobby of the hospital. There were potted plants all around. The name of the facility was proclaimed in gold letters behind a reception desk. The desk was manned by two female receptionists and a male commissionaire. She waited in line for the first available person. When she was up, she happened to get one of the female receptionists.
"Yes, how may I direct you?" the woman asked.
"I'm looking for Jesse Adams. He was shot a few days ago and I was told he was brought here."
The woman typed something into her terminal. She read the screen once, seemed to do a double take, looked at Tempest for a moment, went back to her screen once more, before looking at Tempest again. "Jesse Adams?"
"Yeah. Jesse Mark Adams."
"I'm sorry but Mr. Adams is in the intensive care unit and can only be visited by immediate family."
"I guess I'm sorry to inform you that I'm his sister and that counts as immediate family in my book. I don't know how much more immediate you want it to get," Tempest snapped.
"I'm sorry Miss, but our information doesn't include Mr. Adams having a sister." The woman was clearly taken aback at Tempest's tone.
"I'm sorry to snap at you. Listen, my brother ran away when he was sixteen from where we grew up, and ended up here. We lost touch when he ran off. We were just kids. I haven't seen him in five years. But he's still my only brother. My twin brother. So it took awhile for a friend of his to track down a friend of mine and get news to me that he'd been hurt. So if he didn't tell the people he knew here that he had a family in New Mexico I wouldn't be surprised. And to make it even better once I found out I had to finish a huge project that I couldn't hand off to anyone else, and then hand off about five more that I could. But now I'm here, and my brother is shot, and I haven't slept in about two days and no one can tell me how badly Jess is hurt or how it happened. So I'd really like to see him."
"He's in room 1410 in the ICU. Go up those elevators to floor fourteen. There will be a hall to your left, one to your right, and two like a y right in front of you. Go down the left branch of the y. His room will be the last one on the left."
"Thank you," she couldn't stop the snotty tone of her statement, when the location of her cousin was finally given to her. Tempest walked away and over to the bank of elevators. In her haste and preoccupation, she missed seeing the other woman pick up the phone and place a call, a look of worried concern on her face.
She pushed the up button and waited for one of the cars to open. When it did she stepped on and moved to the back, leaning her head back onto the wall of the car. She watched the numbers go up as the elevator rose skyward. She fought a need to panic when she started to muse about what she might see in Jesse's room. One step at a time was the only way she talked herself through it. Just put one foot in front of the other. And keep breathing. In. Out. Left foot. Right. She got off the elevator on the indicated floor and found the hallway she needed easily before she started reading room numbers. When she found the door to Jesse's room she moved to push it open.