Without thinking twice, he rushed over to the fence, dropped to his knees, and began to squeeze his way headfirst through the tight opening. He could feel the metal wiring scrape down his entire body as he wriggled himself all the way through. A second later, Jake was into the parking-garage level. He hit the floor in a full sprint. The FBI agents were yelling at him to stop. Not wanting to give them the chance to shoot, Jake ducked behind a row of parked cars, kept his head low, and basically crab-walked as fast as he could toward an exit on the opposite side of the garage. He knew one thing for sure. Like earlier when he’d run, he couldn’t stay out in the open for long. There was no way for him to outrun radio signals—especially when dealing with the FBI. They might already have a drone or something else flying overhead.
Rushing out of the parking garage, Jake found his way onto another sidewalk. While the bigger crowds were back on Sixth Street, there were still plenty of people meandering about on Seventh and making their way in that direction. Jake darted to his left, trying not to run so fast that he drew suspicious looks, searching everywhere for a way to disappear. He spotted a taxi parked on the curb up ahead of him. He considered it for a moment but didn’t trust that the driver would adequately speed away. Jake couldn’t risk that. Still, he had to do something quick. The FBI agents would be on him any second.
Cutting across the street, Jake hopped up onto the opposite sidewalk and hustled toward another alley. For now, he would just keep running, alley to alley, staying in the city shadows as much as possible. He was surprised he did not hear police sirens nearby. Was the FBI acting alone? Jake found his way onto Eighth Street and was about to duck into yet another dark alley when he noticed something up ahead of him. Part of the sidewalk was sectioned off by construction barriers. A truck labeled City of Austin Watershed Protection Department was parked on the curb right next to the barriers. It looked like there was an open manhole in the sidewalk. There were no workers standing around. Jake thought he spotted a guy inside the truck, talking on the phone. This would certainly be off the grid. But where the hell would the city’s underground drainage system take him?
There was only one way to find out. Jake slipped around the barriers and then carefully crawled down the manhole on a steel ladder before finally setting foot onto wet concrete inside a drainage tunnel about five feet deep. Pulling his phone out, he turned on the flashlight. He stood in a couple of inches of brown water that looked to be moving to his left. Using his phone to guide him, Jake followed the water’s path while staying hunched over the entire time to keep from banging his head up against the ceiling of the tunnel. He tried not to think about how claustrophobic he suddenly felt while being trapped inside this tunnel. Instead, he focused on getting to Piper. That kept his feet moving forward.
Every fifty yards or so, he would come upon the underside of another manhole cover. He pushed up on one, just to see if he could lift it off. The covers were incredibly heavy but not impossible to slide away. That made him feel less trapped. He also began intersecting with a lot of connecting tunnels. Whenever he was at a crossroads, he decided to keep following the flow of water with the thought that it was likely taking him south toward the river. The farther he went, the safer he felt, until he eventually found himself at the very end of a tunnel looking out over the part of the Colorado River known as Lady Bird Lake. He again thought about Dani, still stunned about coming face-to-face with her. He hadn’t seen her up close and personal since the day they’d broken up fifteen years ago.
“I can’t do this,” Jake said.
Dani was sitting on the park bench. He was standing and sweating. He’d been dreading this moment all day. But he knew it was right. He was a Texas high school football coach. He always would be—it was in his blood. He couldn’t move to DC with Dani. He’d thought he could do it—which was why they’d started talking about getting married a couple of months ago. He regretted that now. It made this so much harder. She had to go. But he had to stay.
“Do what?” Dani said.
“I can’t go with you.”
The shock was clear on Dani’s face. “But . . . you said . . .”
“I know. I’m so sorry.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s complicated. I just—”
Jake watched as her brow tightened up. “It’s her, isn’t it?”
“Who?”
“Sarah Kingston.”
“No, she’s just a friend, Dani. I told you that. Nothing else.”