Finding Sarah

Chapter Eight

I pulled up to Penelope's apartment in the SUV that I checked out of the motor pool. It was nice, it was one of the newer models. I watched as Penelope struggled to get her luggage out of her apartment. I hopped out of the car and grabbed a few bags.

"Good gracious! Why do you have this many bags?" I asked incredulously.

"Derek,"she put her hand on my shoulder, "You need to understand that a woman's rule of thumb especially for packing, is 'If you don't need it, pack it anyway. Because you might need it.' Besides, I only have five bags." She smiled, "Three of them are computer bags."She giggled and lugged two of her bags to the car.

That woman was crazy. I smiled and picked up her other bags. "South Carolina, here we come!" This would be an interesting car ride.

I hopped in the drivers seat. "I think we need to find a hotel or something near Charlotte, NOrth CArolina. That's six hours, and it will be about three a.m. I can sleep for about five hours and we can be on the road again by eight, and be in Greenville by ten."

"Alrighty, Reid." She said smiling.

"Okay, ouch." I said poking her side.

She giggled as I pulled the car into drive. We were on the road all of three minutes when she bursted, "When are you going to tell me what happened?"

My stomach leaped. It was okay, this was Penelope. I sighed, "I went to the hospital. She was in her office, she didn't even realize that was where it would end. Right there, in her office. She asked why I was there and I just said his name. I said his name Penelope. A name, two words, and I knew. She had this look on her face, it wasn't a sorry look, it didn't take a profiler to realized she was just mad that she got caught. She tried to explain, I told her to get her stuff out of my house and that we were done. I've been ignoring her calls and texts, and I don't know what to do." I looked at her.

She rubbed my free arm, she always knew exactly what to do. "Derek,you should tell her. Tell her that it's really over, and that it's not something that you're going to just brush off. If you're serious about breaking up with her, she needs to hear it clearly, without anger."

I gave her hand a squeeze, "Thank you."

"Anything for my Chocolate Thunder." She smiled, "Hey, is our hotel going to be payed for by the Bureau?"

"Yeah, I just tell them that the FBI has a tab. They just put it on to that and the Bureau pays for it at the end of the year." 

She pulled her laptop up from the floorboard. I heard a few clicks and some typing, about four seconds later, she said, "There are three hotels in Charlotte that have vacancy for drop in's, the rest are booked. There is a Presidential Suite in one and a regular bedroom in the other two. Your choice."

"That took all of ten seconds."

"What can I say, my skills come in handy sometimes."

"I mean, if the Bureau is paying for it, I guess we can take the Presidential Suite." I grabbed her hand. "Thank you."

She squeezed, "No problem."

She didn't let go, so I didn't either. It felt good to hold her hand. She was like a lamp, shining in every nook and cranny of my little world. I looked over and she was fast asleep. We had been driving for at least three hours now.

All of the sudden, a crazy driver in front of me hit his brakes. I slammed on mine and looked in the rear view mirror, fortunately , no one was behind me, unfortunately, Garcia sat up screaming.

"Penelope! Penelope, everything is fine. The guys in front of us just hit his brakes really hard. Everything is fine."

She rubbed her eyes and looked at me. "That scared the living hell out of me."