“I know a guy. He’s totally off the radar. I could give him a call and have him make you some papers to help you start over somewhere.”
“Look at you. Playing with fire, aren’t you?”
“It’s a long story.” She rolled her eyes, bringing a much-needed smile to my face. “He’s in Columbus, so you’ve got more driving ahead of you. Get out a pen, and I’ll give you his address. As soon as we’re done here, I’ll give him a call and tell him you need a new ID in twenty-four hours. He’s a bit nocturnal, so I’ll set up a meet for one o’clock tomorrow. That should give you time to get there and him time to make what you need.”
“Thank you, Steph. I really do appreciate your help.”
She gave me a sad smile and reached her hand out for mine across the table. “I just want you tucked away somewhere safe. I would offer my own place, but I think, right now, it’s better if you’re totally untraceable.”
I agreed and was relieved she hadn’t pressured me to stay. We finished our food and said our goodbyes.
Now, I was truly on my own.
When I’d gone into the diner, the sun had just started its ascent into the crisp November sky. An hour later, the sky was fully lit and announcing the arrival of another day. I was surprised to find that starting my life over again didn’t feel so scary the second time around. Not that I was happy about it or had any desire to go through the motions, but after doing it once, I felt confident that I could do it again. Having the courage and confidence to uproot my life was as valuable as any stack of money I could receive. I would need all the mental strength I could summon.
With a tiny, microscopic bounce renewed in my step, I walked to the car and slid inside to start the next leg of my journey. I pulled up Columbus, Ohio, on my phone GPS and pulled back onto the highway. It was there, among the hundreds of morning rush hour vehicles jockeying for position, that Tamir chose to make himself known.
“Where exactly are we headed?” His growled warning came from the back seat and nearly scared me to death—literally.
I screamed, and my entire body flinched, causing me to steer us within inches of the car beside me, then overcorrect onto the shoulder, a breath away from the guardrail. Once I’d regained control and was no longer on the verge of hyperventilating, I glared back at my stowaway. “What the actual fuck, Tamir? You nearly killed us!”
“You’re yelling at me? You’re the one who stole my car.”
“Without you in it! How the fuck did you get here?” I snuck glances at him in the rearview mirror, trying to convince myself that this was reality and not just some twisted figment of my imagination.
“I followed you.”
“How? I had your car,” I scoffed.
He maneuvered into the front passenger seat, legs first, limber as a child gymnast, rather than six feet of muscular man. “No need for the reminder; I hadn’t forgotten.” He shot me a glare from beside me as he clicked his seat belt in place. “I borrowed a neighbor’s car.”
“Ha! You mean you stole a car. This just gets better and better.”
“You’re telling me. I’m the one who had a woman sneak out of my apartment in the middle of the night, steal my car, then lead me on a chase across Newark to catch her.”
“Wait … how did you know I’d left, and how did you follow me?”
“I have a silent alarm in my apartment.”
“But there was no panel!”
He smirked. “It’s in my bedroom. The flashing light woke me the minute you left. When I realized you’d taken my car, I used my phone app to locate its GPS position and came after you.”
As he explained what had happened, questions started buzzing through my brain like a swarm of angry bees. Would his neighbor call the police when he noticed his car was missing? Would they trace Tamir back to me and plaster my picture all over the media? What on earth was I supposed to do with Tamir? Was I supposed to take him back to the city? I couldn’t possibly bring him with me. He had a life in New York, and I had no plans to go back there.
“If you keep gnawing on that bottom lip, you’re going to draw blood.” Tamir glared at me, silently insisting I dole out an explanation.
“I’m just a little freaked out. I know I’d already stolen your car, but I planned to abandon it, eventually, and had hoped you’d forgo calling the cops on me. Now, with your neighbor involved, I just don’t know what will happen.”
“Forget about the cars,” he instructed impatiently. “The neighbor is a friend. I already gave him an explanation and have someone taking his car back to our building.”
“Okay, but what am I supposed to do with you?”
“I suppose that takes us back to my original question. Where are we headed?”
“Does it matter?” I gaped at him. “I’m not going back to the city. In fact, this is ridiculous.” I put on my blinker, crossed four lanes of traffic, and took the next exit. “You need to get out and Uber back home.” I pulled into an abandoned gas station and put the car in park, then crossed my arms and stared at him.
He leaned toward me, placing his elbow on the center console. “I need to Uber home? Is this not my car?”
“Well … yes, but I stole it. It’s mine for the moment.”
His lips lifted in a feral grin. “I don’t think you understand. I told you last night I was going to help you, and you’re going to get my help, whether you want it or not.”
“What on earth are you saying? You can’t come with me.”
“Why not?”
“What … why … you can’t just … ugh.” The words were just as choppy and unformed in my mind as they were on my tongue. He’d completely thrown me for a loop, and I had no idea what to say. Only after several deep breaths and an uncomfortably long silence was I able to communicate. “What about your job? Your apartment? You have a life. You can’t just pick up and leave for some stranger. That doesn’t make any sense.”
“I’ll let Matthew know that something came up, and he’ll be able to sort it out. It’s not the first time I’ve had to leave town for an extended period. I don’t pay rent and have no plants to water or animals to feed. There is no great catastrophe that will befall me if I leave the city. And you have to remember, just because I go with you doesn’t mean I can’t ever go back.”
I gripped the steering wheel as if it held all the answers, and if I squeezed tightly enough, I might glean some of them by osmosis. What Tamir was offering was incredibly tempting, while also terrifying. I would love to have someone keep me company and help keep me safe, but the way he’d gone about forcing my hand raised a bevy of red flags.
I didn’t know what to think.
Normal people didn’t just uproot their lives for a stranger. I knew that. I knew there had to be some underlying motivation, aside from his desperate need to be charitable. It could have been as simple as wanting to have sex with me. Men did a lot of outrageous things in the pursuit of sex.
Yet something told me it was more than that.
But what was I supposed to do? He had tracked me down and was there in the car with me on the side of the highway—the car I’d stolen from him—and he was insisting on coming with me. I couldn’t exactly force him from the car. He had me between a rock and a hard place, and he knew it.