Upside Down

68

Faith Ann had slipped out of the hotel, made her way around the power station, and crossed the intersection near the aquarium. Police cars were everywhere, but the cops were focused on Canal Place. Crossing the intersection along with a noisy group of tourists, she passed by the concrete benches. She went up the staircase to the pedestrian walkway to the ferry.

She couldn't have timed her escape better, because as she hurried onto the moored vessel the ferry's horn blasted and the deckhand closed the steel-wire door. Within seconds she was down the stairs to the car deck, standing at the bow of the USS Thomas Jefferson, gazing across the river at Algiers Point.

As the cool wind evaporated the sweat from her face, Faith Ann went back over the escape. She had hastily switched sweatshirts in the parking deck. She had run up to the fourth level and left her cell phone there. They had the number and were somehow able to track her down when she used it. Instinctively, she knew she needed to slow her pursuers, to keep them busy trailing her without getting too close, while she figured out how to get to Mr. Massey. She had seen enough television shows to know the cops could listen in on calls if they had a number, and they could track the phone's location.

She had escaped for the moment, but there could still be cops waiting for her. She had the strangest feeling that an angel had guided her steps. She would call Rush again as soon as she was near a phone.

The envelope was tucked inside her pants, hidden by the thick, hooded gray Tulane sweatshirt. Carrying the negatives and photocopies around was too risky. She needed to hide them somewhere safe. She only had eight hours until Horace Pond was going to die.

Without any plan in mind, she closed her eyes and prayed silently. She was aware that several teenagers had joined the crowd at the bow. She looked around and saw that the boys and girls were obviously not related, and they had all come from a stretched GMC passenger van parked thirty feet away. The side door of the vehicle said UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST, HATTIESBURG, MISSISSIPPI. There were luggage cases in an aluminum cage on the van's roof and a ladder leading up from the rear bumper.

Faith Ann picked out a boy close to her own age and sidled over to him. “Hi there. You guys on a field trip?”

“Nah. A stupid Bible bee contest in Barataria, Louisiana.”

“Bible bee?”

“Like a spelling bee, but only with words from the Bible.” He shrugged. “Some trip to New Orleans. Like we go right to the French Quarter, and instead of going to see Bourbon Street or something cool, they march us through some church, get us some lame powdered doughnuts, then drag us to see a bunch of stupid fish. Now we're crossing the Big Muddy to enjoy some dumb scenery before the contest.”

“That's messed up,” Faith Ann said sympathetically.

“Tell me about it.”

“Can you do me a favor, you think?”

The boy eyed Faith Ann suspiciously. “Is it anything I could catch grief over?”

Faith Ann shrugged. “I don't know. Maybe.”

“Cool,” the boy said, smiling.