Parallel Lies Read Free

through the woods.
    A train whistle sounded, reminding Alvarez again of last night’s horror and that he had to keep moving. They might not find the body for weeks—or perhaps as soon as that same day—but whatever the timing, he needed to put as many miles as possible between himself and southern Illinois, and fast. The man in the boxcar had known his birth heritage—had teased him by saying “Mexican” first, then waiting and identifying Alvarez’s Spanish father and Italian mother. It meant that Northern Union Security was closer to capturing him than they’d ever been. He’d obviously screwed up—had allowed himself to be seen or recognized, or worse, he’d become predictable. Had they known which train he was on, or had it been random chance, a lucky guess? Had they determined his next target? Did they know he’d sabotaged the bearings? Had they finally made this connection between the various derailments?
    He climbed down from the loft, all his joints aching, cold to the bone, passing a small bicycle hung on the wall and catching a glimpse of his own face in the bike’s tiny rearview mirror. His wife had claimed he looked more Italian than Latino, citing his olive skin, thin face, and sharp features, but he saw his father’s face in the mirror, not his mother’s. He gingerly touched his nose. Bruised, but not broken as he’d originally thought. Like the rest of him, his face was crusted in blood and dirt. He needed a shower, or at least a facecloth.He had a small tear in the skin above his slightly swollen left eye, the cut clotted shut. It would clean up and eventually recede beneath his thick black eyebrows. His dark skin would go a long way toward hiding the discoloration. Now he needed to get back on schedule: he had a plane to catch. But he couldn’t even walk out in public looking like this, much less hitchhike. He glanced around the dimly lit garage, the morning sun just burning the edge of the horizon and sparkling off the fallen snow. Panic struck him: snow. Footprints. A trail to follow.
Them
—right behind him.
    For eighteen months he’d been running, and though in a way he was accustomed to it, he still broke out in a sweat at the thought of capture. He clung to his purpose, confident that God would protect him.
    Ultimately he blamed William Goheen, CEO of Northern Union, for killing his family. But his revenge was no longer focused solely on Goheen. Not only did one life not equal three, but Goheen had not acted alone. The institution, the corporation, had killed his wife and children, intentionally or not. There was no halfway in this.
    A change of clothes—and fast!
he thought, still looking out at the carpet of fresh snow. Time seemed always to be working against him.
    He edged up carefully to the frosted window behind the cat’s bed and peered out at the two-story farmhouse not twenty yards away. Gray smoke spiraled from a brick chimney. Icicles hung from the gutters. A yellowish light glowed from the downstairs windows.
    The kid’s bike hanging on the wall suggested a family, not a single guy gone off to work in his truck. It meant there were others inside: a wife, at least one child old enough to ride a bike. Maybe others, too—perhaps a mother-in-law, more children, houseguests. But he needed a closer look. He wouldn’t get anywhere in his bloody clothes. He could only hope that school might take the mother and child away tocatch a school bus, or that the wife was still asleep, a heavy sleeper. He watched the house carefully for ten long minutes, evaluating his chances of crossing the open space unseen. If there was movement inside, he couldn’t detect it: he decided to make his move.
    He elected not to crouch or sneak. He would run openly. If confronted, he would act as if he were in shock. He would claim there had been a horrible traffic accident, that he couldn’t remember where, or even how he’d gotten there, but that he needed a telephone quickly. He needed help. He