Wes made an appointment to see someone at Amalgamated about investing through Siphon. Different department, not anyone Ivy knew, and not likely to be a successful call. But it got him in the building. He went to Ivy’s break room and sat there with his laptop for two hours. That was all he had to do.
He texted her a picture of the person stealing her lunch. A man, about forty, with a bit of a paunch and sallow skin.
“Oh God,” she’d said. “That’s my manager.”
He had hired her. She reported to him. And he had been at his job for seven years. She hadn’t even made it through her probationary period yet.
That evening, she came home to find Wes already there. He was sitting on the couch, wadding up scraps of paper and tossing them across the room, trying to hit the garbage can.
“I can’t report him to HR,” she said, sitting down next to him. She picked up one of his paper basketballs and tossed it. Nothing but net.
“But you have proof,” he said. “The picture.”
“I don’t know how close he is to the HR manager. I can’t risk it.”
Wes nodded. Tossed another ball of paper. It bounced off the edge and went into the can. “Tomorrow, send me everything you know about him.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to take care of this.”
The next day, she texted Wes with the man’s email, phone number, address, type of car, license plate, and social media accounts.
This is all I can get without asking too many questions.
Three days later, Wes told her to start bringing her lunch to work again.
“What did you—”
“I told you I’d take care of it. That’s what I did.”
He refused to say more, wouldn’t explain.
The next day, Ivy didn’t see bruises on her manager, nor did he look injured. Wes wasn’t the type to beat people up, though for a minute she was afraid that was exactly what he’d done. But the man seemed fine. Acted normal, even pleasant. And he stopped stealing her lunch.
Ivy still doesn’t know how Wes did it. If he called or emailed her manager, maybe threatened him. Or maybe Wes blackmailed him with something. But he’d fixed it. Just like he said he would the other night, when he whispered in her ear.
She taps her nails against the coffee table. Stares at her phone. She should trust him, have faith that he knows what he’s doing. But this isn’t a stolen lunch.
And back then, Wes hadn’t whispered in her ear the way he did last night.
I’ll take care of this. Just don’t say anything.
Not a comment or question, like he usually whispers. An order. One he gave when he thought she was asleep.
Unless he knew she wasn’t.
Ivy jumps up, grabs her keys, and heads for the door. The last thing she’s going to do is nothing.
69
Wes sits at the kitchen table, where he has a view of the driveway. The house is similar to his own, built in the ’70s and about the same size. It’s been updated throughout, the kitchen and bathrooms remodeled, and the hardwood floors have been refinished.
But the back door is the same. He broke one of the glass panes to get in.
Dusk comes, making everything outside look grey. Wes stands up and stretches a little. His entire body aches. It feels like all his muscles have been flexed since leaving his house.
He knows he shouldn’t be here. He should be long gone by now.
The plan to run started the moment he was released from jail. In his mind, it was always an option. A backup, his press-in-case-of-emergency button. But he never thought it would come this soon.
Less than a week after being locked up in his house with no income, no job, and a lifetime of charges against him, he knew he wouldn’t make it. By the time the trial came around, he would be living at Ivy’s, his house in foreclosure, and probably with a public defender, because he wouldn’t be able to pay Bryce.
He would never let that happen.
Even spending another night in his own house had become intolerable. His plan, if he could even call it that, was all he had to think about. And he had time to poke holes in it. A lot of them.
Fake ID, fake passport, new Social Security number.
No, no, and no. Wes didn’t know anyone who can get them—not for any amount of money—and he wasn’t about to blindly stumble around the dark web.
Cash. He has the money he had withdrawn to take to Vegas, which the police returned when he was released from jail. One thousand dollars. That, plus a ten, a five, and two ones.
Additional funds are the one part of this plan he knows something about. Finance. Banks. Money transfers. The problem was he didn’t have much money to do anything with. Getting to his retirement account required paperwork and time, two things he didn’t want to waste. His only option was cash withdrawals from his credit cards. The police would see it, probably right away, but then they’d have to find it.
He routed the money to a new bank account in the Cayman Islands. Easy enough to open online, but they would still be able to find it. Maybe even freeze it if the bank decided to be agreeable. So he transferred it again and again and again—as many times as he could, through a number of websites. PayPal. Online poker sites. Any place that would keep a cash account, all of them set up through his new phone. A pain, but it had to be done.
The police would find all of the transfers, but it would take a little time. That’s all he needed. A few days to get out and get the cash. The current resting place for his money is an offshore account at an online casino, the kind of place that doesn’t care who you are if you have money. No chance they’re going to help police in the U.S. Not without a few interventions from the courts.
By then, it will be back in his hands. Hopefully.
Which left him with one last thing: getting out of town. No car, no way to get on a plane, bus, or train without being spotted on camera. What he does have is a mountain bike, which he used to get away from his house in the first place. He had no idea how quickly the police would be arriving after he cut off the ankle monitor. He jumped on it and rode across his backyard, then the one behind it, over to the next block. From there, it was a straight shot to the Bucket, a dive bar with lots of TVs and drinkers who mind their business.
Wes sat at a table, a baseball cap pulled down low, and ate a mediocre sandwich while nursing a beer. As soon as the news hit that he had disappeared, he left.
He was careful to avoid intersections with traffic cams, sticking to smaller side streets as he made his way across town to the one hiking trail in Fair Valley.
Chances are, they would search it. Eventually. But he was betting they would start with the people he knew. Ivy, his coworkers, and friends from college. He hasn’t contacted any of them. Plus, he has been hiking for years. He knows how to hide.
The second stage of getting out was a rideshare app. He created a new account with a fake name and a blurry picture, along with an open request for anyone traveling east toward the Grand Canyon. A random location, because he had no idea where to go. He just needed to get out of this area and out of California.
Three responses came within a day. Wes chose a young guy who lived the van life and liked to “smoke weed and vibe.” And, hopefully, not pay attention to the news.
The guy was leaving tonight on his trip. All he wanted was good company and help paying for gas along the way. They arranged to meet in the parking lot of the now-abandoned Rolling Hills Mall, where the guy had his van parked in a little community of road warriors.