Unholy Code

Chapter 27

Emma felt out of her element in the heart of Baltimore. She wished she could hurl herself forty-eight hours into the future when she’d have all this behind her: pregnancy, abortion, the city itself.

But maybe it won’t ever be. She’d read about women who’d regretted ending their pregnancies, but also others who’d been doubly glad they’d had them. Almost all agreed, though, that it was complicated and made you more complicated. Your body, your mind, your soul. Changed you in so many ways. After everything Emma had endured in the past two years — almost getting blown up by a backpack nuclear bomb; kidnapped by a Washington DC drug lord, who turned out to be an old business associate of her father’s — she didn’t know how much more complicated her life could get. But she supposed the women who’d been writing about abortion on the Web — pro and con — knew a lot more about the subject than she did.

She swore when she saw a parking ticket on her windshield. The whole country’s falling apart and they’re still giving these things out? She wanted to tear it up, but didn’t dare.

Instead, she pulled it out from under the wipers and threw it on the passenger seat. Then she looked around and put the address into her phone. Right away her phone told her to drive north, adding, “Turn right on West Mulberry Street.”

“Okay, okay,” Emma replied to her phone. “Just give me a chance to get this thing started.”

She fired up the Fusion and drove dutifully north.

More directions followed, taking Emma past men with grocery carts, sleeping bags, filthy blankets, and plastic bags filled with empty cans and bottles. One stumbled to the driver’s-side window, his vacant eyes staring at her.

“Get me out of here,” Emma whispered, as if the voice on her phone might respond to a desperate request.

Instead, it told her to turn left in one block.

Emma did.

“Oh, crap.”

From the homeless to the nearly so: dilapidated housing with broken porch railings and rotting stoops loomed before her, along with the people sitting on them.

Watching me, she realized.

A second later, the vehicle stopped running. Died right in the middle of the street. Cars parked on both sides, leaving her to block the right lane.

Emma tried the starter repeatedly. Not a spark. Dead-dead-dead. She pounded the steering wheel. A car eased around her. Then it was gone. She was alone.

No you’re not.

Two guys were walking up. Gold chains around their necks, jeans around the bottoms of their butts, undershorts showing. Ball caps askew — Orioles and Wizards.

“Hey, girl. Need some help?” asked the bigger, bulkier one. His short bony friend looked on, smiling.

The smaller one promptly started talking a line, too. “Sure she does. Come on, sweet sister, pop the hood on your Fu-sion.” Making a dance out of those two syllables.

“I’m going to call Triple A,” she said through the closed window.

“Sure, you do that,” the big guy said. “You must think you’re in Bethesda and they’ll come running.” He was laughing now, looking at her high school parking permit in the corner of the front window. “Good luck with that shit. Last time I called, I waited days.”

The shorter one laughed, too, and slapped palms with his buddy. “Triple A. Yeah, you’ll be waiting. Least you got some company. Pop the hood. I work on cars. I might be able to help you.”

Did she dare? Did she dare not?

She released the hood. It rose before her. She couldn’t see what the bony guy was doing. The bigger one tapped her window.

“What do you think we’re gonna do? Eat you alive? You can come out.”

Shit. She froze. She wished Sufyan were here. Or his dad. That would show she wasn’t prejudiced. But maybe she was to react like this. Or was it just showing good sense? She didn’t know, wondering if some bigot banging around her brain really was making this seem so much worse.

There were now five guys crowding around. No women.

Emma called Triple A, giving the dispatcher the cross streets. “How long?” she asked.

“I’m guessing they’ll be there pretty quick. Half hour at the most.”

“A half hour?” Emma knew she sounded panicky.

“That’s right,” the dispatcher said. “Hang tight.”

“Turn it over,” the big guy outside her window said.

Emma looked at him, unsure what he meant.

“The car key, or the button. Whatever you got in there to make it go.”

Emma pushed the ignition switch. Dead.

“Let me try it,” the guy said. “Open the door.”

Push was coming to shove. Sometimes you just have to put your faith in people. Which felt like the thinnest of reeds. She unlocked the door.

“Now get your skinny ass out of there and let me check it out.”

My butt or the car?

The car, apparently. He exchanged positions with Emma with nary a glance.

“The key?” he asked.

“They’re in my bag.” Which was on the passenger seat next to him, home to her wallet, credit cards, ID, money. “It’ll start with it over there.” She didn’t want him to touch her bag.

He grabbed it anyway and put it on his lap, trying the ignition button again. Still nothing.

“You seeing anything up there?” he asked his friend, who was still under the hood.

“Nothing. Everything looks cool.”

“I’m seeing something,” one of the hangers-on said. He had his eyes all over Emma. “You wanna party with us? Come on.” He grabbed her arm.

“Hey, Beast, leave her be,” the guy in the car said.

“Why? You think you got reservations? You don’t have shit, man.” His grip tightened on Emma.

“I’d suggest you let her go right now.”

A woman had walked up behind them. Tall as Em’s mom.

“Go fuck yourself, bitch. You don’t come into my hood and tell me shit.”

The woman nodded. Maybe agreeably. Emma hoped not. She wanted this guy to let her go. His fingers felt like steel cables.

“Fuck it, you’re coming, too,” the guy holding Emma said to the woman. “We’ll make it a big fucking party.”

“Beast, cut that shit out.” The big guy climbed out of the car.

“Stay right where you are,” the woman said. She had straight dark hair and blue eyes like Emma’s. Wearing jeans, sweater, heavy boots.

Combat boots. Em’s mom had a pair. Dust colored. Didn’t fit the woman’s outfit at all.

“Now that was your mistake,” the big guy said. “’Cause I’m on her side, but you’re pissing me off.”

He stepped toward her. The woman drew a semi-automatic from the back of her jeans, racking and raising it in a blink. Aimed it at his face.

“Freeze. And you,” she eyed the guy holding Emma, “let her go or I will blow your balls off.”

The shorter guy slammed the hood down. “You people are shit. I was trying to help her.”

“He,” the woman nodded at Beast, “put his hands on her. Game over.”

“Beast, you’re a motherfucker,” said the big guy. “Let her go.”

Emma stepped away, rubbing her arm.

Then the big guy tossed Em her bag. “Don’t be leaving that here.”

“Lock it,” the woman told Em, who complied without question, using the key fob. “Now we’re leaving,” she said to the seven men. “Nobody gets hurt if nobody moves.”

The woman kept her gun on the young men as she and Emma retreated to a utility van about fifty feet away. The front passenger door was unlocked. Emma climbed in, finding an open laptop resting on a metal stand next to the driver’s seat, like the ones she’d seen in some delivery trucks.

The woman backed up, executed a crisp three-point turn, then sped off within seconds.

“Thank you so much,” Emma said. “I didn’t know what was going to happen.”

“You’re more than welcome.”

“I’m Emma.”

“Emma Elkins. I know who you are.”

Emma figured she was one of her mother’s friends in some super-secret intelligence service who’d been ordered to track her down. “Who are you?”

The woman smiled, then hit the childproof locks. She still hadn’t put aside her gun. “I’m your guardian angel. But some people call me Golden Voice.”