Reminiscent of his daughter or not, she was a beautiful woman, strong and capable, with a personality to match. A twenty-five-year age difference used to be rare between a man and a woman, but no longer. If only the circumstances were different.

He leaned his head against the pillow and tried to shift into a comfortable position. After ten minutes he gave up. He’d be stiff in the morning. He looked at Abby again, watching her body rise and fall as she breathed. He closed his eyes and slept.

41

In the morning Abby could barely stand. Ben found a first-aid kit under the sink in the bathroom and wrapped her ankle with an elastic bandage. Abby contorted her face when he tightened it.

“Is that too tight?”

She shook her head.

Ben pulled out of his pocket a small clothlike object wrapped in plastic. He unwrapped it. “I need to put this on your back, behind your shoulder.”

“What is it?” She looked suspicious.

“An electronic tracking patch that we used to use. It was in the shed.” He held up a small electronic device. “This will tell me where you are at all times.”

Abby undid the top two buttons of her shirt and slid it backward, exposing her shoulders. Ben applied the patch to the skin behind her left shoulder. “At least I won’t lose you again. Not unless someone removes it.”

“But won’t the FBI be able to track me too?”

He shook his head. “I’m the only one with the transponder code. Besides, no one uses these anymore.”

Abby buttoned up. Ben helped her onto the porch. Next to the door were two jet packs.

“What are these?”

“These are how we’re going to get you to the train.”

Abby hobbled over to one. “What do I do with it?”

“I strap it on you. You take off and fly.”

She looked up at him. “You’re serious.”

“Forty years ago these were the future of individual transport. People loved the idea of them, but they never quite panned out. Not cost efficient and not safe having millions of people flying around at once. Law enforcement still used them until Congress banned their manufacture for safety reasons.”

She shot him a look. “That isn’t encouraging.”

He picked up one for her. “Chances are these will work fine.”

She examined it, rapping her knuckles on its side. “Show me how.”

Ben strapped one on Abby, then the other on himself. He demonstrated, taking a brief flight to the top of the trees and back. “All right. Let’s give you a quick course.”

It wasn’t all that quick. Abby lacked the advantage of knowing how to operate even basic small machinery. Each step had to be explained and demonstrated. What Ben expected to be a thirty-minute lesson stretched into two hours before Abby was going more than twenty feet up or maneuvering through the air.