Willing to Die (Alvarez & Pescoli)

Ivy Wilde stared out the grimy window of the bus as it rolled across the high desert of New Mexico. Some kind of sage was sprinkled in the dust, along with cacti that she recognized as yucca and prickly pear; the rest of the terrain was foreign, desolate, as the ground met mountains rising in the distance. The bus’s loud engine continued to rumble, the tires whining, and far off, the sprawling city of Albuquerque was visible. At least she hoped it was Albuquerque, her temporary destination. She’d picked this part of New Mexico because it seemed remote, worlds away from San Francisco.

But it wasn’t far enough.

Though it seemed impossible, Ivy was certain she was being followed. All the way from the Bay Area.

Ivy glanced over her shoulder. She’d picked a spot in the middle of the bus, the row of her seats placed in front of the back tire wells. No one occupied the seat beside her. Thank God. Then again, the big Greyhound wasn’t all that full. Twenty-eight people, if she’d counted correctly, most of them older, senior citizens reading books, playing on their phones, or just dozing, mouths open for the most part. A family of four, the kids under five, the couple continuing to bicker, sat not far behind the bus driver, and in the very back a couple in their twenties were all over each other, apparently believing the coats they’d tossed across their entwined bodies could disguise what they were doing.

None of those people worried her.

It was the singles who caused her stomach to churn: the men.

Scattered around the lumbering vehicle, some of the people traveling alone appeared to be sleeping. Some had earbuds in their ears, others with their heads down, staring at the small screen of their phone or iPad or other device, playing games or texting or surfing the Internet.

Most didn’t pay any attention to her.

Two did.

She’d caught each of them casting her surreptitious glances when they thought she wasn’t looking. At first she’d thought it was because she was pretty and traveling alone, but then she wondered if there was something more to their furtive glances.

She checked them again.

One of the men was near the back of the bus, just two rows in front of the couple making out. He sat on the opposite side of the big vehicle from Ivy, but had a clear view of her seat. Wearing a baseball cap low over his eyes, he pretended to sleep, but if the fading sunlight hit him just right there was a slight reflection beneath his lashes. His eyes were open. He was faking it. Watching her.

The muscles in the back of her neck tightened, knowing his gaze was centered on her.

The other guy was just as bad. And closer. Again, across the aisle, but only one row back from her. He was leaning against the window, angled slightly toward her, earbuds in place, arms folded over his chest, sunglasses hiding his eyes, gelled hair slicked back, a cell phone in his hands. She supposed he was trying to appear as if he was engrossed in the hand-held device, but Ivy wasn’t buying it.

No.

He was staring at her behind his dark shades.

Why? What did they know? Were they working together, trying to throw her off by sitting separately? Or were they independents?

That’s crazy. No one could have followed you. No one! Don’t let your paranoia get to you. Remember what Dr. Yates said . . . how to fight this . . . She drew in a long breath, let it out, and counted slowly in her head: Ten, nine, eight . . .

But the psychiatrist’s trick didn’t work. Not on this bus. Not now. Instead her anxiety ramped up as the bus driver passed a slow-moving van. Her throat closed and her hands gripped her own phone as if it were a lifeline.

By now the police would be looking for her, putting out APBs or whatever they were called now. BOLOs, she thought. Be On The Look-Out for. She bit her lip. With everyone hooked into the Internet and her picture floating around, how would she ever escape?

Her heart clenched and a little shred of fear whispered up the back of her arms, raising the hairs though the interior of the bus was warm.

The kids in the front started acting up again. The father, his LA Dodgers cap on backward, snapped at his exhausted-looking wife, and she yelled right back, then dug into a backpack to retrieve a bag of chips. The sack crinkled as she struggled to open it, and the husband snatched it away, ripping it so fast that some of the chips sprayed and the kids laughed.

“Oh, for the love of Chr—Christmas!” he said as the smell of barbecue flavoring mingled with the faint odor of diesel.

Almost everyone on the bus saw the exchange.

Well, except for the couple who were too into themselves, the few who were sleeping, and the guy in the sunglasses, the man who, like the guy in the baseball cap farther back, would not be distracted by the potato chip incident.

Whether he was malicious or not, she had to shake Sunglasses. At the next stop. She’d been careful, leaving San Francisco via BART, the Bay Area Rapid Transit system, heading across the bay to Oakland, but maybe they’d found her.

How? Had she given herself away somehow? She’d been totally freaked out when she’d climbed onto BART and had hoped since it was the middle of the night, she might just appear to be strung out if any of the other riders had noticed her. She’d been shaking and pale, her hair and makeup a mess from running in the rain, but no one had seemed to notice another young person dealing with what appeared to be the after effects of a bender.

At the nondescript cinder-block building of the bus station on the east side of San Francisco Bay she’d had to wait for several hours before she could board the next bus to LA, and she’d been so upset trying to buy the ticket, she’d dropped the cash onto the counter and had scooped it up, only to fumble with the bills, a couple of fifties drifting to the floor. She’d scrambled for the money, chasing one bill under a bench. As she’d hurried back to the counter, she’d felt more than one set of eyes watching her.

That southbound bus had been crowded, more of a mix of riders, a pregnant woman seated next to her. Ivy had tried and failed to sleep, her stomach rumbling from lack of food, her nerves shot. She hadn’t had a plan when she’d fled San Francisco, just to get as far away as possible.

In LA, she’d been delayed until early morning, something to do with a bus breaking down, so she’d adjusted her plans and instead of heading to Phoenix, she’d taken the bus to Albuquerque, New Mexico. She was tired and hungry and needed a shower after nearly two days of being on the road, not to mention the vision of her mother, a bullet hole in her forehead.