Andrew Klavan - Empire of Lies

I stole a glance at Serena as I settled in at speed. The sight of her small and sullen there against the window made me hurt inside. God, I hoped to hell she wasn't mine. In my heart, I knew she was, but I hoped to hell she wasn't. I hated to think I had fathered a child and left her alone to this: this life, this trouble. It was more trouble than she knew, I think. I think she probably expected she could cajole and stomp her feet and whine, and it would all go away. But I knew it wouldn't, and I hurt for her.

She sat up suddenly.

"Shit, there they are!" she said. Flashing her face at me, then back at the window, pressing against the glass, looking into the sideview mirror. "They're following us."

I lifted my eyes to the rearview and saw the green Cadillac on my tail.

It was in the center lane, about three cars back. A 1970s Coupe de Ville, that old galumphing monster they called The Tank. Long and sleek from the side and broad across, with a great big angry grille up front like a shark coming at you. The sight of it got to me-as if the thing had leaped alive out of Serena's story, out of the scene at the swamp with the darkness and the frogs croaking and the boy thrashing and dying in the water. I had pictured it all in my mind as she was telling it, and now here it was, real as life on the highway behind me. It made the thing seem inevitable somehow, connected to my own imagination, impossible to shake.

"What are you gonna do?" said Serena. "Don't lead them back to my house, okay? Go somewhere else."

I stepped down on the gas. I pulled into the left lane, passed a car or two, and drew back over to the right. I watched the Caddy in the rearview to see how it would respond. The driver stayed cool, stayed back. He waited for the Toyota in front of him to slide out of his way. Then he moved up naturally, closing the gap between us. As if he was just rolling along the highway, not bothering anyone.

"Are you sure it's them?" I said.

"Yes! Yes! Definitely! I know the car."

Another car, a Volks Passat, cleared out of the Caddy's way. The green monster pressed ahead again, getting closer. Three cars back, same as before.

"Damn it," I said.

I watched it in the rearview. As far as I could tell, there was only one man in the wide front seat, only the driver. If there were others in the back, I couldn't make them out. I couldn't make out the license plate, either. It was too far away and-maybe intentionally, maybe not-it was dark with dirt so the numbers were obscure.

I looked up ahead and around. Where the hell were we? I saw a golf course, a couple of weathered white apartment buildings, a mall at the edge of the highway, a flat gray wasteland of a town petering out in the distance beyond.

"I'm gonna pull off," I said. "If he follows me, then I'll be sure. Then I'll have to call the cops."

I expected Serena to object, but she didn't. I shot a look at her. She was staring eagerly straight ahead. I knew the cops scared her, but it seemed these guys scared her even more. Well, they scared me, too. I didn't want to go to the police yet, either-not without Lauren, and not before Serena had herself a lawyer. But assuming these were our friends from the swamp, I wasn't going to tangle with them alone.

I saw an exit up ahead. I glided out of the stream of traffic, slowing on the ramp. My eyes flicked to the rearview as I pulled to the stop sign at the corner. I couldn't see much of the freeway from there. I couldn't see whether the Caddy kept going or not. But it must have-I figured it must have. I waited at the sign for several seconds. No one came off the expressway after me.

I breathed a sigh of relief. "I think they're gone," I said.

"Maybe we should pull over and wait, you know," she said. "Wait and see if they show up again."

I turned the corner and went down the street. It was a street of small houses, clapboard-and-shingle two-stories with peaked roofs and porches out front. It was one of those sad streets that must've been all right in the old days, before the highway came, before the traffic got to be what it was. People must've scrimped and saved to live in these homes back then. But now the paint was chipped on the clapboards and on the porch columns and some of the shingles had fallen and the lawns were shaggy and pocked with patches of brown. The only person in sight was a shapeless old lady in a shapeless blue dress. She shuffled along the sidewalk, bent over her cane, not going much of anywhere, I thought, just going, just about gone.

There were scraggly plane trees on either side of me. The sun came through their branches on my right. I rolled over the dead yellow leaves on the street beneath them. I heard them crunching under my tires.

There was another stop sign up ahead, and I saw what looked to be a broad boulevard about three blocks beyond that. I figured I'd head up there, put some gas in the car, make sure there was no one after me before continuing on. I slowed to a stop at the sign.

Then-without warning, without a word-Serena leapt out of the car.

It took me completely by surprise. A foolish-sounding half-syllable of protest came up my throat. The next second, the Mustang's door slammed. She took off running.

"Damn it!" I said.

I glanced in the rearview mirror. I saw her racing like hell up the middle of the street, her arms flailing on either side of her. She was gripping her purse in her left hand and her shoes, too. She couldn't run in those pointy little heels, so she'd slipped them off in advance. Son of a bitch! She'd been planning her getaway the whole time!

I pushed my door open. She wasn't going very fast. I was pretty sure I could run her down if I had to. I stepped out into the street.

I remember, for some reason, that when I felt the autumn air and smelled the leaves and got a long view of the road with its porched houses and its lawns and saw the dead leaves blowing over the pavement in a light breeze and heard the rattle of them rising under the whoosh and rumble of the traffic-I remember a pang of loneliness and nostalgia hit me, as if I could feel the dreamless lives of the people who lived here, their loss and disappointment.

I shouted, "Serena!"

She didn't stop. She just kept running down the middle of the street, her pink dress sparkling, then growing dim as she passed through patches of sun and patches of shadow.

I was about to go after her. But just at that moment, the green Coupe de Ville came tearing around the corner.

I heard a screech of tires, and there it was. It came from the right as if it had continued on the highway to the next exit, then doubled back. It came at speed, swerving into the glare of sunlight and bursting ahead on a straight course at the running Serena.

I shouted again. "Watch out!" But there was no time to move, no time to think. I just stood there as Serena ran flailing toward the gleaming teeth of the monster's grille, as the grille plowed at her with a grinding roar. I just stood and watched and waited for the moment of impact.

There was no impact. Suddenly the car stopped with a jolt. Serena never slowed. She kept on running, ran right around the big tank's headlight. The Cadillac's passenger door flew open. Serena clambered into the wide front seat. The car started moving again, was moving even as she pulled the door shut behind her.

It was a rendezvous. She had known they would come for her. She had been waiting for them to rescue her from me.

Now, already, as the car started toward me again, my astonishment and fear were beginning to morph into something else. I felt a poisoned emptiness inside me. I realized I had been betrayed. I realized I had been lied to. It was humiliating. Even as I stood there gaping, I wondered: Was anything she'd told me true? Had I been fooled completely?

In the next second, the big green car rushed past me. I saw Serena inside as it went by. Her face was pressed to the window, twisted in a vulgar sneer. Her hand was held up beside her cheek. Her middle finger was stuck up in the air, stuck up at me.