Into the Dying Sun by Frank Zafiro

Author:Frank Zafiro [Zafiro, Frank]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Down & Out Books
Published: 2023-10-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 15

Sam

The drone of the road filled the silence while both of them thought it through. Every once in a while, one of them brought up an idea and they hashed it out.

So far, none of them were winners.

Sam glanced over at Rachel. She had pulled her knees up to her chest and leaned toward the door, seated slightly sideways in the seat. Her expression was contemplative as she stared out the windshield.

Goddamn, she was beautiful.

The entire world could burn if he could still have her.

He opened his mouth to tell her he loved her when her head tilted and she met his gaze. A knowing smile creased her lips.

Sam closed his mouth and smiled back.

They drove a little further. At a trucker island, they stopped for lunch at an old-style diner. Most of the patrons were clearly the ones driving the many big rigs parked out in the lot. But there were a few families, too. He caught Rachel watching a couple with a pair of girls, aged probably five and three.

“Think you can do normal?” he asked her.

Rachel nodded slowly. “I do.”

Sam didn’t answer. The fantasy of retiring to a tropical island had always given them a goal, a reason to grift that sounded more practical than what he knew was the real reason—the simple joy of taking someone else’s money by guile. He realized he might even have begun to believe the tropical island truly was their ultimate goal. Or at least wish it was.

What was it the life coaches said? He ought to know—he’d studied several so he could pose as one himself. Something about life being about the journey, not the destination?

They had lived that maxim, hadn’t they?

But now they had a destination. Or would soon enough, once they decided upon one. Wherever that was, they’d live a quiet life. Somewhere with a beach.

Just the two of them.

Would he miss the game?

Yes, he decided. Every moment he was away from it.

Oddly enough, staying out of the game would take more discipline than anything he ever had to do while in it. Could he do that? Stay out?

He glanced over at Rachel as she sipped from her water glass. Her eyes had a faraway look to them. Was she dreaming of that tropical island, too, he wondered?

Then a realization struck him, one so profoundly simple he felt foolish for not having consciously thought of it before.

It’s not the tropical island.

It’s her.

She was the journey and the destination.

That was when he was certain he could leave the game behind. Not painlessly, not without some yearning, but he could do it. Like a heroin junkie, he could kick.

For her.

For them.

Another thought occurred to him, but he waited until they’d paid their check and hit the highway again. After a few miles, he threw it out there.

“Once we decide where we’re going,” he ventured, “maybe we should split up.”

Rachel didn’t answer.

His gaze flicked toward her. “Two people are harder to track separately than together,” he said.

She remained silent. He knew she was processing it, so he waited.

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