Free Borders of the Heart by Chris Fabry Page B

beard. The shower felt inviting, but he didn’t have a change of clothes.
    “He was driving around with a computer, I know that. Wish I’d have thought to take it. But what’s to keep somebody else from doing the same thing?”
    She stood and threw the wet towel on the bathroom floor and got another one.
    “You don’t have some computer chip planted somewhere in you, do you?” he said.
    “Computer chip?”
    “You know, those things they put just under the skin of a dog or a cow so they can track it if it runs off or gets eaten by a coyote?”
    She shook her head.
    “You ever felt any weird bumps? Maybe on your back?”
    “Are you asking me to undress?”
    “No, I’m not asking that at all.”
    She smiled. There was someone she looked like when she smiled, an actress or a singer. Dimples showing in both cheeks. “Are you blushing, J. D.? You are. You’re blushing.”
    “Forget I asked. I’m just trying to figure out how he found us.”
    She turned her back to him and pulled the hem of her T-shirt up, moving her hair to one side. “Take a look. Do you see bumps that may be computer chips?”
    “Put that down; I believe you. I don’t need to see.”
    “Look at my back.” She sounded like she meant it. “Stand up.”
    She had a tone in her voice that came from privilege, like she’d had practice ordering people around. He got up and moved toward her. She was about five-seven, so he didn’t exactly towerover her. In the dim light there were traces of water from her hair on her skin. Her hair smelled like the cheap hotel shampoo, and he bet she had to use all of it just to get up some lather. It had been a long time since he had been this close to a woman, and the sight excited and pained him.
    “It was a dumb idea. How would the guy get a chip in you, anyway?”
    She let the shirt fall and turned, running her hands over her arms. “It’s not a dumb idea. The people in our town were frightened that children might go missing. It was a story I heard as a girl.”
    “So your mom or dad could have implanted something when you were a kid.” He looked at her legs as she ran her hands along the backs of her arms and her elbows.
    A car door slammed outside and J. D. pushed past her to the door. In the distorted view through the peephole, a man in a St. Louis hat got out of an exhausted Ford Taurus wagon. Luggage strapped to the carrier on top and bike wheels sticking out on the back and rust all around. A woman in the passenger seat yelled at the kids behind her as the man stretched and scratched himself.
    “Is it him?” Maria said.
    J. D. opened the curtain slightly to get a better look at the Illinois license plate on the front of the car. “Is he a Cardinals fan with three kids?”
    “What is a Cardinals fan?”
    “It’s not him. Or if it is, he’s got a good disguise. What’s Muerte look like?”
    She was checking her legs now, still looking for the chip. “Dark hair, a mustache, and that thing down on the chin . . .”
    “A goatee?”
    “Yes. Always shaved. He uses lots of cologne. He hates to get dirty. Always washing his hands. Stocky build, like a block of ice. Square shoulders. About your height. Maybe a little shorter. And there’s a scar—” She gasped and touched something on the bottom of her calf. “Feel this.”
    He ran a finger over the smooth skin and noticed a tattoo near her ankle. A stallion’s head, its mane flowing. “Feels like a chigger bite. Maybe he’s tracking chiggers.”
    The mention of the word chigger made her scratch.
    “I don’t think you’re going to find anything.”
    Maria went into the bathroom and closed the door. J. D. took a deep breath. Something was stirring, something old, and he knew he had to keep his head or things could go downhill fast.
    Maria returned and sat on her bed.
    “Didn’t find it?”
    She shook her head.
    “Maybe it was just luck that he found us,” he said. “Or that guy in the Escalade followed us and I didn’t notice