The Player, The Thief and The Broken Heart - Chapter Eighty-Five - A New Day

Jimmy lay half-asleep and half in dreams and only dimly aware of the hard cold floor of the van vibrating underneath his body. For miles, they drove into the night. Every now and then the van would turn and he would rouse, just a little. The road was smooth and they sped along, other cars and trucks whizzing past. They were still on the highway. Then they turned again and descended coming onto a rougher road. Slowing. Adjusting to a lower speed limit. Something in his brain told him he should ask where they were headed and another part of his brain told it to shut up. It didn't matter. He'd find out where they were going when they arrived.

The van turned again sometime later, onto an unpaved road similar to the kind his momma used to take him on way back when, when he was little, maybe even as a baby, if he was having trouble sleeping. He felt her spirit with him now although he knew for sure she was gone, having witnessed her body ravaged by cancer and later the pneumonia that killed her.

They stopped suddenly and his dad's voice burst into the stillness of the night, "You still alive back there, Jimmy?"

"Yeah," he croaked, lifting his head. The blows from the guard that had initially grabbed him hadn't been that hard, but he still hurt a little from it.

"You're right," the other man said. He was sitting in the front passenger seat of the van. "Boy's as blind as a bat."

"Bats can see in the dark," his dad said, pressing a button to switch on the overhead light.

Jimmy's mind blanked as he stared across at her. She was curled up against the back of the front seats of the van. She smiled, but her eyes were tearing. He propped himself up on one elbow as she crawled over. She draped her arms around him and kissed his cheek. One of her tears dripped onto his face as she nestled against him.

"I love you Jeannie," he said, kissing her lips. "I always loved you. When I left you that message ... I ..." he couldn't tell her he'd been about to kill himself. Then she'd only worry that he'd think of doing it again at some point.

"Rebecca had told me it was a lie, but you'd never said it wasn't. You don't have to tell me why anymore," she whispered, combing her fingers through his hair. "I know you were messed up at the time and maybe it was better we stayed away from each other for a while back then. I don't know." She looked like she wanted to say more, choked on the words coming up, and fell onto him again, sobbing.

"I'm so sorry Jeannie. I'm an idiot is all I can say." Her body felt so light and fragile in his arms, like a kitten or a baby bird. A kitten or baby bird with gin on its breath.

She sniffled and wiped her eyes. "Yes, you are an idiot. But so am I. Okay? We're two idiots who were made for each other and too stupid to realise it sooner."

Each of them was barely aware of a quiet shutting of each of the van doors up front. They were alone in here now. He snaked his arms more tightly around her, not caring about anything else in the world. Except for one thing. His dad was alive.

Wind blew into the back of the van as the doors were flung open. Jimmy craned his head to peer out. They were at the warehouse that had functioned as their hideout; he could tell by the cracked lakebed and the blocky silhouette in the distance lit from behind by, he guessed, the headlights of another vehicle. Or several other vehicles. The sun had yet to rise above the jagged mountains but it was no longer completely dark out here.

"They've said for us to hang back for a few minutes," said Jimmy's dad. "But you should probably come out for now."

Jimmy helped Jeannie clamber out and they stretched the stiffness out of their legs. The air was chilly. To the east the sky was taking on a deep indigo cast; the sun would be a while in rising yet. Jimmy's dad sidled across the flat, dusty terrain. Not knowing what else to do, Jimmy followed.

Now that he was closer to the hideout and his eyes had adjusted, he could see Rebecca's Lexus parked near the side door. Half a dozen SUVs sat in a row several yards further away. Jimmy didn't know his makes of most vehicles for anything manufactured in his lifetime, but they looked military or cop-like. One of them had an array of antennae poking out that, from this distance, made it look like a sea urchin that had got in a bad fight.

"What's going on?" Jeannie asked, clinging to him for warmth. Or maybe for comfort.

"No idea. I don't even know if I'm awake or not."

"You're awake," his dad (his dad!) said, shambling toward the hangar-like building. "Wait here until I come get you. If you think last night was weird, you ain't seen nothing yet."