Don't Look Back (37 page)

Eve stared at Sue. She felt neither horror nor disgust nor sadness. She felt nothing at all.

When she opened the back door, she saw what Harry had been reaching for in his last moments of life. A carry-on bag. She nudged his stiff hand aside, unzipped it. There on top of some folded clothes rested a two pack of EpiPens. Just out of reach.

The smell inside was nearly unbearable. Eve dumped the bag, and then the two others, but found no food. There were several partially full water bottles on the floor mats and a protein bar, thrown there presumably by the crash. When she reached for the protein bar, the intact wrapper collapsed into nothing—the ants had slipped inside and heisted the bar itself. That explained why she’d found no cheese or fruit. The swarm had stripped the Jeep of all edibles, leaving everything else more or less as it was. She couldn’t risk catching Sue’s stomach bug, so she did not take the water.

She backed out of the rear seat and stood regarding the mess inside, then circled to the front where the hood was tented up. Reaching through the gap, she wriggled the positive-terminal lead free from the battery. It was scorched from the collision, one end snapped off. Disappointed, she cast it aside.

One of the turkey vultures swooped down to land on the hood with a great scraping of claws. Peering through the shattered windshield, it shifted its weight from leg to leg.

Eve looked from Harry and Sue to the bird.

She left it to its business.

Threading between gorges, she searched the foliage more closely. She found an orange tree, but the green orbs were still inedible. Some distance farther, she noticed hard spiky balls dangling from branches and recognized them as the soursop fruit Neto had served by the cascade. She cracked open a hard shell and slurped at the white pulp like a monkey, spitting out the black seeds. It tasted unripe, a ways from the sweetness she remembered. By the third one, her stomach began to ache, and she knew she’d have to move on to something else or she’d pay for it. She continued her search.

Ahead, she came upon a patch of agave plants. Stopping, she stared at one of the smaller
piñas
that had sprouted less pronounced spikes. She tore it free from the earth.

With effort she snapped the spikes off to reveal the barrel of the core beneath. There, squirming like maggots, were the little orange worms. She felt her gorge lift, press at the back of her throat.

Eat.

She ate.

After, lying beside the grove, she tried the satphone once again for a signal, to no avail. The clouds had made the sky impenetrable, so for now it was just her and the covered stars. She sent a quiet good-night thought to her boy, latitudes away.

She used the paperback, still wrapped in its Baggie, for a pillow. A memory hit her of Will smiling at her across the picnic table: Moby-Dick
is your Moby-Dick.

As she closed her eyes, the paperback pressed against her cheek, and her last waking thought was that she’d probably die without reading it.

WEDNESDAY

Chapter 49

When Eve wound her way back to the riverbank in the frail, straw-colored light of early morning, she stood for a moment above the rushing water, crushed at how little progress she’d made. The gnarled guanacaste root that had walloped her across the chest last night protruded above the river only a few hundred yards up. All her wanderings in darkness had taken her in a loop. Whatever invigoration she’d felt from last night’s nourishment and the few hours’ sleep now drained away.

If she was going to undertake the days-long hike to the coast, she would require a lot more food, and the river was the best place to find it. Despite the intermittent rain that had persisted since the fierce downpours, the water level had dropped slightly. Minnows and trout churned in the clear swells, and, below, she made out a few wobbly shadows that she thought might be crayfish. After last night’s painful crossing, she knew she wouldn’t allow even her hunger to drive her back into the rapid current, but she stood there looking at all that food, there for the taking. As if to mock her, a shiny green kingfisher dove artfully again and again, coming up each time with a bigger beakful.

She focused her attention on the near bank. Any sandbars that might have existed were either washed out or submerged, so there’d be no digging for shrimp. A few slider turtles sunned on rocks. She’d read somewhere that their meat, though tough, was edible, but smashing the shells would be loud and work-intensive.

Fighting her way south along the steep bank, she looked for boulders at the river’s edge. Beneath an overhang of vines, she finally found what she was looking for. Numerous hand-size brown crabs rested on the stone, ripe for plucking.

She grabbed one, but it twisted in her hand and, freaked out, she dropped it. A stupid girlish impulse, one she could no longer afford. It took some stalking, but she came up on another and snagged it. It squirmed and pinched, and she dropped it as well, but on dry land. She pinned it with her sneaker while she grasped for a rock, and then she lifted her foot and smashed the shell. Sitting, she picked out the cold white meat and ate it.

As she rose to search out another crab, she found herself staring at al-Gilani across the river. He stood perfectly still, his hands at his sides, as if he had known all along where she’d been. Perhaps he had.

Again she felt that sensation of slow-unfolding terror, the familiar, bone-deep dread of a recurring nightmare. Here again. Staring from bank to bank, a torrent of well-placed water her only protection from this man who wanted her dead.

The river here was wide and the current vicious. There was no threat right now, or even five minutes from now, but it would be the two of them in the jungle for days and nights, and the next time she slept or slowed, his hands could very well close around her neck.

The machete was slung across his shoulders. Welts rose along his arms, likely from the
mala mujer
with which she’d lined his shirt, and she felt a stab of vindication, even pride. He regarded her without malice or rage, but simply as an object he’d like to possess. It was her first full daytime view of him, and she noticed black molelike freckles across his cheeks and the bridge of his nose that she hadn’t before.

She thought about shouting something at him, but the rush of the water would have drowned her out.

She started south, picking along the bank.

He mirrored her.

She halted.

He halted.

So it was going to be like this, then, for days and miles? It seemed inconceivable she could progress out of the mountain range to the coast under the pressure of his constant presence. But she supposed that was the point.

On his side the bank was wider and unobstructed, giving him an easier go of it. A few times she had to detour through the jungle to get around a bad patch, but when she came back, he was right across from her point of reentry. Now and again he’d veer off briefly and pop back into view, having held pace even when he was out of sight. She tried dropping behind the jungle’s edge and backtracking, but sure enough she reemerged to find him there waiting across the water.

“Leave me alone!” she screamed.

He regarded her, barely even blinking, his calm countenance only underscoring her foolishness at not preserving her energy. Well, then, enough of that. She imagined Claire beside her, mocking her hysteria:
Great job, Eve. Wanna hurl a high heel at him, too?

Eve knew better. She had to keep her head down. There was nothing left to do but prevail and outlast.

She put her energy toward making progress, and he stalked her along the opposite bank. Every few seconds she looked over, gauging his location, quelling her fear. They kept on like that for the better part of an hour, and then, all at once, she looked across and he was gone.

She whirled, instinctively checking behind her, as stupid as that was. Then she ran up the slope and searched among the foliage, panicked. There was movement all around, bobbing fronds, flicking vines, her eyes fastening on everything and nothing. He could be standing right beside her, lost in a car-wash rage of movement. But of course there was no sign of him here; he hadn’t teleported across the river. As she’d learned last night, crossing required great effort and risk. There was no way he’d slipped across in the short interval she’d taken her eyes off him.

So, then, no choice but to keep going. Darting glances all around, she crept back to the riverbank and stumbled her way around an outcropping.

The sight downriver set her scalp tingling.

A tree, fallen in the
tormenta,
had lodged lengthwise in a narrow stretch of water below, buffering the current. Behind the log al-Gilani’s broad shoulders and head bucked into view at intervals as he forded the river like a beast, paddling hard, holding his face aloft. He had a ways to go, but it was clear he would make it.

She slipped back behind tree cover and ran, at first in a blind terror and finally slowing to find a pace she could hold. He was older and heavier and would not catch her unless she twisted an ankle or made a tactical mistake. As she settled into a jog, she realized she was running the wrong way, up into the mostly deserted mountains, and it struck her that that was precisely what al-Gilani had intended her to do. Her thoughts blurred.

Will and Claire in that dank grotto, blinking up at the circle of sky, perhaps the last they’d ever see.

Nicolas waking up—or, more likely, waking up Lanie instead of her.

Food and time running out and her running the wrong way, toward nothing. She came to what was left of a road, its muddy breadth smeared to one side and heaped with flood-tattered fronds. Still, it made for easier going. Though she was far from the river and truly lost, the hills and trees here resolved into something familiar. She’d seen this before. Below, partway down the slope, a cargo truck lay smashed against a tree, its cracked trailer now empty. Yes, she’d seen this truck before, villagers pilfering grain from the back, but she was too exhausted to place
where
she’d seen it. A brief ways later, the road ended in a cascade of blown-over hillside, and she angled off and in, scaring up a cormorant that scared her right back. It spread its wide, oil-black wings and soared away, leaving her leaning back in a half limbo, hand spread over her fast-beating heart.

She continued. It dawned on her where she was an instant before she pushed through a wall of green and confronted the vast jungle chamber housing the ruins of El Templo de las Serpientes. The
tormenta
had littered leaves and whole branches across the courtyard and the pyramidal rises. Storm water puddled on the ancient stone. Coral snakes, with their bright reds and yellows, sprawled over the steps like worms in the wake of a rain.

If she wanted to rest, she should seek the highest point so she’d have a vantage on the surrounding terrain. She took a few steps toward the sloping staircase of the temple, wincing as the insides of her soaked sneakers wore at her blisters. Remembering Fortunato’s trick in the cemetery, she paused and surveyed the nearby rocks and stone. Sure enough a few green shoots clung to the lowest step. She tore them up and brought them with her on her ascent. The corals proved lethargic and easy to dodge. From beneath one wide limb, she heard a rattle, but the steps were sufficiently broad that she could steer clear.

She reached the top, her head mere feet from the canopy. The sun broke through cloud cover, falling in patches on her face, the warmth hypnotizing. Surveying the grounds like a high priestess, she sat and pried off her waterlogged shoes. Her socks peeled back wetly.

The blisters were horrendous, seeping together around her heels to form half rings of raw flesh. She squeezed sap from the shoots and applied it liberally, then sat, airing out the skin. She scanned the vining roof for boa constrictors but found none. Considering her height here, she gave the satphone another try, and joy surged through her when a single reception bar flickered into view.

She tapped 0 for the international operator. Her thumb coasted back to the
SEND
button, which gave a reassuring click.

And just as quickly the reception bar was gone.

All icons, all images, all lights. The battery finally dead.

She stared at the metal-and-plastic rectangle for a long while. Then she returned it to her bag. After so much time, she couldn’t bring herself to part with it.

She looked out at the commanding view. The breeze up here was pleasant. In this moment she was alive and resting and not in terrible pain. Somewhere in the world, her son was pouring cereal or watching morning cartoons. Rick and Anika might be lunching in an Amsterdammy café, sipping espresso and munching syrup waffles. Claire was making fun of Will or Will was mocking her as they passed the hours in the hidden grotto, pretending not to wait, pretending that everything would be okay, that Eve would come back with the Jeep, the
federales,
the U.S. Marine Corps.

This time Eve sensed it before it even happened. Her gaze shifted to a particular patch of fronds at the edge of the chamber. A blade hacked them aside, and al-Gilani stepped into view.

It struck her that she now shared some heightened connection with her pursuer. They could
anticipate
each other in the wild.

She sat still, her spine erect. He scanned the ruins, not yet seeing her. He strolled across to the sunken courtyard, the machete glinting as he reseated it in its sheath. Watching him beetle his way around down there, she felt not scared but superior. It would be only a matter of time before his gaze lifted and found her.

He paused in the courtyard with his back to her. The clouds shifted overhead, sunlight falling through a break in the canopy and striking the brilliant crushed-oyster patch at the base of the temple. The reflection shot a beam across the courtyard toward the catacomb tunnel, but al-Gilani intercepted it, a heavenly light framing his broad back.

He turned to look over his shoulder. Directly up at her.