Deadly Consequences (21 page)

A McDonalds loomed ahead. The pull on the steering wheel when she made sharp turn into the drive though reminded her the back tire was low — a small problem in a sea of big ones. She ordered two sausage McMuffins with egg, a hash brown, two large coffees, and parked under a tree to enjoy her meal.

The first bite was pure greasy bliss, reminding her how much she loved junk food. She dumped a packet of salt over the hash browns, and closed her eyes, chewing slow enough to savor each decadent bit. Good food, hot coffee, a beautiful summer day, for a minute she was able to fool herself into believing life was normal. Amazing what sleep and fast food could do for the soul.

The sullen clerk had only included one tiny napkin in her bag. The kid was probably on the fast track to management, looking out for bottom line. She tossed the useless napkin onto the floor and wiped her hands on her jeans.

Sierra knew she couldn’t stall any longer. She drained the last of the first large coffee, picked up the stack of pictures, and felt a fresh stab of betrayal slice her heart. The picture was recent. Neil wore the shirt she’d bought him last month for his birthday, and Grace’s hair was styled in the new bob cut she’d debated over getting. For a moment, Sierra couldn’t breathe. Betrayal cut through her heart. The picture was proof they’d been doing
something
behind her back. Something they wanted to keep from her. She gnawed on the side of her cheek, searching for a reason they might be together, and came up empty.
How dare they do this to her? Was this the reason for Neil’s recent short temper and odd behavior? Was he hiding an affair?

No. That didn’t quite jell. It had to be something else. She flipped through the other pictures; there were more of Neil and Grace, wearing different clothes, taken at different times. Some of the photos were group shots, which only confused her more. She scrutinized each one, looking for any small clue, which might provide an answer.

The group shots were too blurry. Sierra couldn’t make out the faces of the other people. She skipped back to the pictures of Neil and Grace, focusing on them. They had their arms around each other in a couple of the shots, but in each one, they were staring into the camera, robbing her of the chance to see how they looked at each other. Their eyes might have revealed if they were friends or lovers.

Who was she kidding?
She was grasping at straws. Neil and Grace were friends, but she’d never known them to get together without her. If their meetings were innocent, why keep it a secret? A caldron of emotions boiled inside her; she was pissed off, heartbroken, terrified, and alone. She didn’t suffer well in silence. There had to be a way to confront Grace; otherwise, suspicion would fester inside her, clouding her judgment. Her mind needed to be sharp, not muddled with thoughts of how they’d made a fool of her. Grace had some serious explaining to do.

Sierra slammed down the pictures beside her and started the car. She couldn’t bear to look at them again, not now. Turning her head, she backed out of the parking space. When she glanced to the right, something caught her eye. Something was written on the backs of the pictures. She swung into traffic and grabbed the stack again.

A single word.

Foxtrot.

What the hell did that mean?
Dance lessons? She quickly discarded the idea. Neil was an excellent dancer; he wouldn’t have wasted time or money on lessons. The word had to refer to something else.
But what?
She picked up the stack again, and skimmed through the others. One of the group photos had something written on it as well.
The First Wave.
Great. Now she had two clues, and, neither of which made any sense. The perfect chaser for her morning coffee.

She rammed the pictures into her purse and threw them on the backseat. Out of sight, out of mind. She didn’t have time for distractions — not if she wanted to stay alive.

When she hit Indianapolis, she glared at the GPS. Great technology at her fingertips and she couldn’t use it because it could pinpoint her location. For the first time in her life, she felt Big Brother peering over her shoulder.
It might be a free country
, she thought
, but we’re turning into a society so eager to protect ourselves that we’re
handing over our privacy and our freedom
.

Frustration ticked inside her. She wanted to get in and out of the city in a hurry
,
a difficult task with the odds stacked against her. She knew what she needed. Where to find it was another matter altogether. She drove around until she spotted several satellite branches of her bank within reasonable proximity from each other. Back home in Chicago, there were banks on every other corner.

For the first time she was glad she’d never gotten around to investing the bulk of the insurance payout she’d received after her parent’s death. The settlement may have left her a wealthy woman, but dealing with the money was a painful reminder of the accident. Everyone she knew kept telling her she was crazy to let so much cash sit in a savings account, turns out she wasn’t so crazy after all.

Her hand froze when she reached for her purse. Her plan was simple enough. Empty her accounts by visiting several banks, withdrawing enough at each to not raise eyebrows, or be stuck waiting while they requested more money from the safe. She hoped to do it fast enough for the withdrawals not to have posted to her accounts by the time she hit the next bank. All it would take was one overly curious self-important, bank manager to question why someone from out of town was taking out large wads of cash and she’d be toast.

She remembered how freaked out she had been by the gas station attendant and the cop. Bank tellers back home had a way of making her feel like a criminal every time she withdrew more than a few hundred dollars. Up until now, she’d been lucky. Luck had a way of holding so long before it turned. She needed a cover story.

Sierra leaned back against the seat. She unconsciously twisted her engagement ring around her finger. “Think,” she whispered, trying to come up with a plausible reason for needing large amounts of cash. Her lips curved in a slow smile. She scrounged around on the floor for the discarded napkin. When her hands closed around it, she felt like she’d won the lottery. It took her a minute to locate the ashtray. Using the lighter, she set the napkin on fire and let it burn in the tray.

The flames, small as they were, jarred her. A chill ran up her spine at the memory of the heinous way Neil had died and why she was on the run. She folded her arms against the steering wheel, and buried her face in them as a gut wrenching sob tore through her. A part of her agonized over whether he had cheated on her; another part of her hated herself for being angry with a dead man.
The emotion was wrong on so many levels.
In the end, it didn’t matter what Neil had done, no one should suffer such a horrendous death.

She wiped away her tears and glanced down at the ashtray. The napkin burned itself out. She dipped her fingers inside and smudged the ashes across her face beneath the sunglasses. For good measure, she added a second slash of soot across her chest. Steeling herself, she went inside.

Keeping her head down to avoid surveillance cameras, she filled out a withdrawal slip and made her way to the window. She wordlessly slipped her ID and piece of paper through the window.

The teller studied the withdrawal slip for a good long time. “You want to take all this money out?”

Sierra fought her anger. What gave tellers the right to question people? It was her God Damn money. She repressed her anger and let the tears flow. “My poor sister. Her house burned to the ground last night. Her husband lost his job a while back. He worked for GM. They don’t have no insurance. I wish she would have told me they’d fallen on hard times. They’ve got three kids. I would have paid the insurance for them. Now I just got to help. Do you have a sister?”

The teller’s face turned cherry red. “I do. My baby sister makes a habit of doin’ all the wrong things, for the right reasons, God help her.”

Sierra leaned over the counter, nodding. “So you know what I’m going through.”

The teller reached out and patted her hand, “I sure do.”

“I could have given them a couple thousand or so each year for insurance. She was too proud and headstrong to ask.”

It worked like a charm. The teller scurried over to the pregnant manager. They couldn’t have been nicer. Sierra brushed her hand over her tears. “You know what? Maybe I should take out a little bit more. Just in case.”

She walked out of the first bank twenty two thousand dollars richer, breaking into a wide smile when she reached the car.
What an adrenaline rush.
She hadn’t done anything wrong, yet it felt like she had gotten away with something. Confidence bolstered, she drove to the next bank. When all was said and done, the nice people in Indianapolis were a hell of a lot more compassionate than Chicago folk. Six banks later, she drained everything except her 401k and CD’s. She thanked the Lord for her inheritance money. Next stop, discount stores.

There was a Wal-Mart right around the corner. She picked up a couple pillows, blanket, backpack, small suitcase, disposal cell, undies, clothes, and snacks. Then she hit the ATM’s and maxed out her available cash advances.

The next town up was Terra Haute. She found an internet café, and checked the Chicago papers on-line, biting her fingernails while she read. Every muscle in her body tightened. She had one ear cocked, expecting to hear sirens racing in her direction any moment. Wiping out her bank accounts left a major trail. It was like painting a big red X on her back, screaming come get me. She scrolled through each article, terrified of finding her name or her photo splashed across the page. She sagged with relief when she finished. There was nothing about Neil. No one had found him, no one reported him missing. Thank God. She felt a pang of remorse at her relief. This wasn’t how things were supposed to be. Under any other circumstances, she would be beside herself with grief. Instead, she was running from a killer. The whole situation reeked of insanity.

Her gaze scanned the café. Satisfied that no one was paying attention to her, she did a Google search for The First Wave.
A dead end,
she thought, quickly typing in Foxtrot. No double meaning for the scribbled word jumped out at her. She knew the pictures were going to gnaw at her until she had answers. Her neck was in knots. She rolled her head, and heard her muscles crick. This line of thought wasn’t doing her any good. Self-preservation first, everything else had to wait.

Sierra logged off the computer and bought a coffee, sitting back down at another table, there was no need to leave a trail in a single computer’s history. If anyone was following her, she planned to make it as difficult as possible to find her. She went on Craig’s list, and scribbled a list of phone numbers. There were quite a few used cars for sale; buying one was going to be tricky.

She headed back to the car and started dialing, hitting pay dirt on the fifth call. A seventeen-year-old kid who rebuilt cars was trying to earn cash for college. She begged him to meet her outside a local diner. When he hesitated, she realized she’d made a mistake by sounding too desperate. Afraid that he was about to hang up, she turned on the waterworks to help convince him. It took some doing but he finally agreed to meet her in forty minutes.

Sierra shoved a few things in the backpack and ripped the plaid shirt she was wearing. Gritting her teeth, she opened her car door, and slammed it into her chin.
Damn, that hurt.
If she was going to play a role, she was going to own it. Method acting. Who could have predicted her high school drama classes were going to pay off after all? She banged the door into her forehead too, and with a grunt of satisfaction felt a bump start to rise.

She stuffed six thousand dollars into her jeans pocket and buried the car keys in another. Then she went to sit on a curb, rubbing her already reddened eyes to make them look worse. A quick look around told her no one appeared to be paying attention to her and her cell phone burned a hole in her hand. Before she could talk herself out of it, she hit star sixty-seven and dialed Grace’s number. It went to voice mail.

Odd. Grace should have been home. Sierra screened her calls. Grace always picked up, no matter what she was in the middle of doing. The unanswered call fed her paranoia. She imagined Grace pacing in a motel room waiting for Neil to arrive and warned herself she was jumping to conclusions. The truth was it was far easier to feel betrayed and angry, than to give into grief.

Two cars pulled up alongside her. The 2002 black Honda Accord gleamed from a recent polishing. She could care less about the dings and dents riddling the back door. The kid burned rubber squealing into the parking lot. The motor hummed, that was only the sales pitch she needed.

A pimply faced teen tumbled out of the Honda. His buddy, a bit cooler in a souped-up Camero, followed. Sierra felt old looking at them.

The kid thrust his chin at her, “You the lady lookin’ to buy?”