Exit (18 page)

“Put this on,” she said, and handed him a pair of disposable sunglasses with large lenses. Solar shields. They screamed: impaired vision. She put on the other pair. Then she stopped at the doorway, turned and looked at Wendy, and pumped her fist. The girl smiled as the receptionist moved in with the speed of a referee.

Rayne and Tim padded down the carpeted corridor, turning left, right, and hit the bank of elevators. They were twelve floors away from freedom.

CHAPTER 22

Fifteen minutes later they were driving over the Charles River and back into Cambridge, Mass General Hospital shrinking in the rearview mirror.

“We’ve got to stop somewhere and hide out, and think this through.” Rayne turned onto a side street about a mile from MIT. “Any ideas?”

Tim turned on the car radio and tuned into WBZ, an all news station. A traffic update was being broadcast.

“I’m working on it. First, we’ve got to find out what happened to James Carney, and how the hell we got implicated. I really need to see that news report.”

“Well, we can’t go home. That’s out. God only knows who or what is lurking inside my apartment. So…no TV, no computer, no online updates. My cheapie cell is good for calls and cameras, that’s it. Not a smartphone, so no internet access.”

The traffic update segued into a commercial for car insurance.

“It’s all I can do to think straight,” Tim said. He took a deep breath.

“I know.” She glanced at him. Fatigue or worry deepened a line in his face.

“I’m wondering if we should just go to the nearest police station and try to clear up any misunderstanding. Did I say ‘misunderstanding?’ I mean ‘hatchet job.’ But why does that move make me so nervous?”

Rayne considered that idea for a moment. “We could. That’s always an option. But for now, let’s get more of the story. We still have time. The TV report said we weren’t ID’d yet.”

“Yet.”

“I know. That could change any time. But we gotta get a better idea of what’s going on before we make a move. We gotta see what’s on the local news, how it’s being reported. Except I don’t want to go into a bar or department store, nothing like that. Too many people around.”

The car insurance ad segued into a weather report.

“Weather?” Tim turned the dial, searching for another station with news. “I’ll tell you the weather. Shitstorm on the way. Wait a minute, I have an idea. I know where we can watch a TV and maybe go unnoticed. There’s a Laundromat near where I live, next to Star, the supermarket. There’s a TV in there, and it’s always on. At this time of day, the place may have one or two people, or it might be empty.”

“Perfect.”

Rayne cut through the side streets and soon turned into a half empty parking lot. She found a spot between two parked cars, and squeezed in.

“If I park it here, the Buick is less visible.”

“Thinking ahead. Rain Angel, you’d make a wonderful fugitive.”

“Darling, I think we already are.” She looked at the supermarket’s plate glass windows, seeing shoppers inside by a row of cashiers. “Someone in Star may know what’s up, and see the two of us walking across the parking lot. So, why advertise? Let me go in first. Wait a minute, then come in.”

Rayne put on her disposable sunglasses. “I feel like Ray Charles.”

“Rayne Charles.”

“Cute. Now put yours on until we can come up with a better disguise. And what happened to your eye cup?”

He blinked, silent for a moment. “I must’ve left it in the exam room back at Pod C.”

“How necessary is it?”

He shrugged “It’s a shield. Protection.”

“You look less obvious. It’s better this way. How’s the eye feel?”

“I don’t know. Good, bad. Horrible, terrific.”

“See you in a minute.” Rayne exited the car, put her head down, and forced herself to walk casually toward the unforgettable sign:

Coin Operated

Laundry

Open 7 Days

A wooden bench was on each side of the glass door. A heavy-set woman with a brown butterfly barrette in her hair was sitting on the left bench, smoking a cigarette and reading a wrinkled, celebrity magazine, which featured celebs on the cover without wrinkled skin. Rayne entered, smelling soap and bleach. The interior felt as warm as a clothes dryer. Posted signs forbade smoking and drinking. Washers and dryers hummed in two-part harmony. High on the back wall over a row of large dryers was a TV set, tuned to a soap opera. A plastic sheet was taped over the top of the TV; evidence of a leaky roof. No one else was inside; praise the Lord.

Rayne pulled a rectangular table closer to the jumbo dryers, climbed atop and stood, and turned the station to a local news channel. She jumped down, relocated the table. Through the windows, she saw a man wearing frightful, black sunglasses advance.

“This was a good idea,” she told Tim as he opened the door.

“Look at us. We’re on a recon mission at a Laundromat. Two days ago, did you ever see this coming?”

“Two days ago I thought I could keep the world at arm’s length, push it away at any time. Today the world is coming at us from all angles. I’m looking up and seeing an avalanche.”

“Actually,” Tim said in a weary voice, “it’s two worlds. Two worlds are coming at us, one from each side. I’m not sure where one ends and one begins, now that EyeSoar is invading this world. And maybe the other drone company, DR1, is over here too. Who knows?”

They both kept an eye on the TV, waiting for any update.

“I’ve been thinking,” Tim continued. “When we escaped back over here last night, the EyeSoar people must’ve been real pissed. You gotta figure we’re the only ones to make it back. So they must’ve freaked that we would spread the word, right? For them, there’s no upside by having us run free out here. Especially if EyeSoar is set to open markets over here. So they have to shut us down to shut us up. We’ve been back since about 11:30 last night. It’s 4:30 now. So we’ve been here for, what, seventeen hours. Every hour we’re here, we pose a risk.”

“I’ve been thinking along the same lines.” Rayne had another thought bubble up. It seemed like it’d been at the back of her mind for awhile, but she couldn’t put it into focus, couldn’t articulate it. Now the concern was emerging from what she called
brain fog
. “When you said seventeen hours, you reminded me of something. If EyeSoar suddenly swoops down and takes us out—”

“A drone strike,” Tim broke in. “How fitting. High-altitude drones track us, then smoke us with a missile strike. Picture some cowboy at EyeSoar Command Center, saying, ‘I’ve got a bead on the substitute teacher. I’ll smoke his silly ass. Say ‘So long,’ dickwad. Wait, hold on. Here comes that uppity high-tone waitress. I been wanting to turn that bitch into charcoal. Her name’s Rayne? I’ll rain some shit on her after the stunt she pulled at Bank of America.”

“Tim, feeling wired?”

He looked at her with raised eyebrows, then hoisted himself onto an empty washer and sat on the lid. “I can easily see it happening. Look how things have been trending. We’ve gone from hurricane alert to Category 5 shitstorm.”

“Listen. Since we’ve been back, they don’t know who we talked to, or what we said. If they suddenly abduct us, or kill us, they’re running a risk.”

He nodded. “If we disappear, that could set off an alarm. They have to worry that others may now know about the Gateway, and EyeSoar, and people disappearing through the exit door.”

“This is where it gets tricky. They can’t leave us alone, and they can’t suddenly make us disappear. So, what would you do? I have an idea what their next move may be.”

Tim fell silent for several seconds. “If we told someone what we know, the story is now out there.”

“Yes.”

“So…” Tim paused, gazing at the concrete floor. “Oh, wait. I get it.”

Rayne smiled. “Actually, the word rhymes with ‘I get it.’”

Tim returned the smile. “Discredit.”

“Yes.”

“Discredit us. Make us sound unbelievable. Can’t be trusted.”

“Uh huh.”

His eyes lit up. “No.”

“Yes. I’m sitting in the waiting room at Mass Eye and Ear. My little friend, my ally, Wendy, appears out of nowhere and says, ‘Wake up, Rayne.’ And there we are on TV, referred to as ‘persons of interest.’”

Tim leaned back on the washer, kicking his feet straight out in the air. “This is…”

“And now it’s all starting to come into focus.” Rayne felt a jolt along her spine.

“They’re setting us up. They’re scared we escaped and sounded the alarm.”

“And now they’re trashing us. Really trashing us.”

“James Carney,” Tim said.

“Uh huh.”

Tim sat up straight. “That scene didn’t make sense. James wouldn’t do that to me. Trust me, I spent enough time with him. The two of us were in the same boat. Us two against another world. He wouldn’t change and act like that. He wouldn’t. What happened made no sense. Even what he said to me made no sense.”

“I believe you. So look at it this way. There’s an explanation, but we’re just not seeing it.”

“Not yet.”

“For now, these guys are coming after us. In less than a day, we’re already ‘persons of interest’ for a crime we know nothing about.”

“Rayne, something else. Picture it, I’m sitting in the Buick waiting for you in the copy shop. And I spot James Carney through the windshield.”

Rayne looked at him and spoke in a matter-of-fact tone. “Set up.”

“I saw him because they wanted me to see him.”

“Set up.”

“And I chase after him in the Square, and stop him on the street.”

“The footage on TV must be from a security camera from a nearby store.”

“And what’s Carney do straight up? He accuses me. No hi, hello, nice to see you on this side. Nice to see you didn’t get smoked by a drone.”

Rayne recalled a scene in the movie
Casablanca
. “I’m shocked, shocked...” She waited for her fellow film fan to respond. Not a second passed.

“…to find that a
set up
is going on in here!”

She glanced again at the TV set on the rear wall, and noticed a black camera in the corner below the ceiling. “Look, we’re being surveilled. I am
so
sick of this. Every time we turn around, we’re being spied on.” She held her palms up in the air as if juggling invisible balls.

“Think of it this way. The Laundromat’s security camera is now recording our side of the story. We’re establishing a legal defense.”

“Tim, please.”

Tim slid off the washer and stepped toward the camera. He planted one hand on a table for folding clothes, and spoke in a subdued, even tone characteristic of a lawyer approaching the bench. “Just for the record, everything we said is true. Beginning with the Gateway Theater in Harvard Square.”

“Tim?”

“We didn’t kill anyone. We’re innocent. I’m Tim Crowe, a sub by day, screenwriter by night. Rayne Moore, behind me, slightly volatile but—”

“Shhh…look.” She pointed at the TV.

Tim backpedaled and looked up at the screen.

“…breaking news,”
the mustached newscaster announced in a baritone voice.
“Cambridge Police are reporting that the body of a man was found today inside a burning car in East Cambridge. The victim has been identified as James Carney. Authorities said the incident occurred in a secluded area behind a warehouse in the 800 block of…”

Rayne could feel a cold tingle as if the door had opened, allowing a blast of arctic air inside the Laundromat. She heard Tim say something under his breath, something like
Oh my God
.

“…homicide detectives are investigating. Firefighters from the Cambridge Fire Department discovered a body in the backseat of the vehicle. An eyewitness said spikes were driven into each door to prevent their opening, trapping the man inside. The investigation is ongoing.”

“Spikes?” Tim said. “That means he was…
cooked.”

Rayne knew another shoe would drop. She put a hand on his shoulder. “Wait.”

“What a grisly story,”
the female co-anchor said.
“Very disturbing.”

“More details are still coming in.”

The female anchor with perfect teeth adjusted her earpiece, and said,
“It’s now being reported that a word was spray painted in large letters on the car’s trunk. The word is ‘up.’ At this time, investigators have no idea what that means. We have WXZY reporter Lisa Lane standing by in East Cambridge with more details. We’ll be right back.”

A blue sneaker with a red lightning bolt on its side filled the TV screen—a commercial for
Road Runner’s
new line of Zoom Shoes for women on the run.

Tim said, “They know the title of our screenplay.”

“They left out a word. They should have spray painted ‘set up.’”

“There’s only one way they could have known that title.”

She nodded. “Alex.”

“They must’ve grilled him. Now EyeSoar must know our names, where we live, where we work, who knows what else. Feel like I just got hit in the nuts with a sledgehammer. We’re gonna get shredded in the media. We’re gonna be portrayed as…what? Screenwriting sadists? How about tortured artists who torture?”

“We saw this coming.”

“But this? They lock James Carney inside a car and torch it. What next?” Tim rubbed his face with his hands, taking in a deep breath. “And there’s something else, now that I think about it. When I saw James today, he looked different. Now I remember. I saw James only once without a phantom mask, beneath a bridge at night. And he had these red things on his skin, on his face. Small lesions. They look similar to pimples. He said he wondered if he had picked up a disease in this other world, a virus of some kind, and the lesions were symptoms. He didn’t know, but he was clearly worried.”