Chapter 12: Disappearing

Present Day

Day 0

West Willow, Montana

Travis and Janice walked about a half mile back to West Willow Cars. “Just what were you planning to buy, Mister Bond?” she asked.

“Janice, don’t even think about joking about that, at least not until we get on the road again.”

“Well, what do I call you? You’re not Travis Scott and if I call you Jake Kilbourne bad people will learn about it.”

Jake reached into his pocket and pulled out a driver’s license. “Sean Roger Williams, but I go by Sean.” He pulled out his wallet and removed any trace of Travis Scott and replaced it with the documents for Sean Williams.

“Where did you get that?” asked an astonished Janice.

“Your tax dollars at work. They’re courtesy of a very fine document department at the ... well, let’s just say from Washington,” Sean answered. “Totally clean and untraceable. You just have to remember my name is Sean. Travis doesn’t exist anymore. I’m Sean Williams.”

When Sean and Janice got to West Willow Cars, they walked around looking at what was available. “Just what are we looking for ... Sean?” she asked.

“Something forgettable. Midsize, average, normal. No sports cars, no limousines, no convertibles, none of the silly stuff you see in movies. We want a car that just seems normal, the kind a cop won’t be looking for.”

“So, no bright red Corvette, no tuxedo for you and no little black dress for me?”

Sean smiled. “No, that’s not the image we’re going for.”

“Okay.”

Janice stopped when she saw Sean turning towards the office. A smiling young man was hustling towards them. As soon as he was close, he stuck out his hand and said, “Welcome to West Willow Cars. I’m Austin Hancock. How can we help you?”

Sean immediately stuck his hand out and shook Austin’s. “I’m Sean Williams and this is my wife Janice. We’re in need of a car.”

“Well, that’s what we do here. We help people who need a car. Anything in particular? We’ve got some great pickups and SUVs in stock!”

Sean smiled and shook his head. “Janice is the one who’ll be doing most of the driving, and she told me she wanted a sedan or a minivan.” He looked at Janice. “Right, babe?”

“That’s right,” she responded.

Austin led the couple over towards some late-model sedans. “Now, we just took this Camry in. It’s only three years old and has only thirty-six thousand miles on it. And as you can see, at $18,900 it’s priced right. It won’t last long!”

Sean glanced at Janice and shrugged and followed Austin as he moved towards another car. They ended up at a four-year-old Sentra with 45,000 miles on it for $12,900. “I think this is more in our budget, Austin. Can we do this now?” asked Sean.

“Absolutely. Come on inside with me. We can wrap this up right away. Do you plan to finance? We have some great programs available.”

“Do you take cash?” asked Sean.

“We always take cash, Sean.” He led them inside and over to a small office to the side of the showroom. He started tapping away on a computer keyboard. “Could I see your license?”

Sean pulled out his wallet and passed over his license. “And I’m going to need insurance, too. Can you handle that?” Sean had seen the sign outside saying they handled auto insurance.

“Not a problem. We have great rates. If you have a clean license, you won’t do any better!” Austin was loving this! Not only would he make a commission on the car, but he also got a cut of the insurance. “We can also handle the title and tags, too.” He looked at the license. “Virginia? We can do titles and tags for Montana, but you’ll have to get new ones for Virginia. What happened to your car if you don’t mind my asking? I saw you walk in.”

“We’re here visiting family and it died on us out at my dad’s place. We can use his address if we have to. He gave us a lift into town but had to take off. I’d like to wrap this up this morning,” replied Sean.

“Not a problem, not a problem at all.” For the next twenty minutes Austin filled out forms. When it came time to pay, Sean simply reached into the gym bag he was carrying and pulled out hundred-dollar bills and counted them in front of the salesman. Austin was surprised by the cash but tried to keep it off his face; he failed at that.

Sean smiled. “I like to pay cash for everything. Neither a borrower nor a lender be, you know.”

“That’s a wise saying, Sean, a wise saying.” They counted out the cash and then Austin went into a back room for the change. He returned with a smile and some more paperwork. “I have your temporary tags and your temporary insurance card here. Your regular tags and insurance card will be mailed to you.”

“That will be fine. Thank you,” said Sean. He looked over at Janice.

Janice nodded and said, “Yes, thank you.”

Austin handed over the keys to the Sentra and shook their hands, and then led them out to the car. After a few goodbyes, Sean and Janice climbed into the Sentra and headed out. He immediately headed in the direction of the nearest interstate.

Janice asked, “Where is Washoe Falls?” That was the town that Sean had told the salesman they were living in.

Sean smiled. “No idea. It doesn’t exist as far as I know. I just made it up.”

“Well, what will happen when the title and tags and insurance stuff gets sent there?”

Sean smiled and shrugged. “It’s no big deal. By the time the insurance company gets around to mailing out the regular insurance cards and the DMV gets around to mailing out the title and tags we’ll be far, far away. It will be weeks before things get returned to sender, and nobody is going to do anything about it anyway. Meanwhile, we are good to go. Next stop, Wyoming.”

“What’s in Wyoming?”

“A place to lay over for the night. After that, we keep moving for a day or two.”

“You have a plan to finish this, whatever it is? Just what the hell is going on, Sean? Or Travis? Or Jake? Or whoever!” she said.

Sean reached over and took her hand. “Stay calm, Janice. I know this is hard on you. I want to make this as quick and as easy as I can. It’s like I said earlier. Trust me.”

She took a deep breath and squeezed his hand. “So, what is the plan?”

“First, we are getting away from Montana as quickly as possible. We can make it to Casper in five or six hours. We get there, we gas up, we have some dinner, we stop at a Walmart, we spend the night. Tomorrow, we keep going. I want to get at least a thousand miles away from here. Then we find a place for you to hide, while I take care of the problem.”

“So, I hide out while you go play James Bond?”

“Not precisely, but I have to sort this out, and you don’t have the skills or training to do that,” he replied.

She was quiet a minute or two, and then asked, “Just what is this training and what are these skills? Watching you with that used car salesman, it was like watching a chameleon changing colors! What are you? Who are you?”

Sean sighed and nodded. “Well, I told you a little earlier. I’m from Everest. I was born Jacob NMI Kilbourne thirty-eight years ago. My parents died when I was young, and I ended up being raised by an aunt and uncle. Neither my family nor theirs had a pot to piss in, so when I graduated from Everest High I enlisted in the Army. I knew Marty Haskell back then; we were in school together.”

“You knew Undersheriff Haskell then?”

“No, I knew Marty my nitwit buddy back then. We played on the Red Hawks basketball team together,” laughed Sean.

“Okay, that’s fair, I suppose. I guess we were all teenagers at some point. So, you left Everest to join the Army.”

Sean nodded. “I ended up in the infantry and got sent to Afghanistan. I did a combat tour over there, and it went okay, at least in that I didn’t get shot too often or get blown up by an IED. Then I came home and got an offer to go to Jump School and then Ranger School. Anything was better than going broke in Everest, so I said, ‘Yes sir!’, and off I went. I learned how to jump out of an airplane and then went to snake-eating school and came out a sergeant in the Rangers. Then I was sent back to Afghanistan.”

“And you liked this?”

Sean shrugged again. “Like I said, I liked it better than going broke in Everest. Anyway, yeah, I liked the Army. I did a couple of short tours in Afghanistan doing special ops and was scheduled to come back at some point to become an instructor. It just didn’t work out that way.”

“What happened?”

“The smartass answer is a woman.”

Janice gave him a shove in the shoulder. “Don’t be a smartass.”

“Well, it was still a woman. Back when I was at Camp Rogers - that’s part of Fort Benning, near Columbus in Georgia - I met a woman. I fell for her, hard, and married her right before I went back to Afghanistan for my third tour. Then I made it home for leave about a week early and found out what she was up to while I was in Afghanistan. I told you some of this before.” Sean stopped talking at that.