Allison took a deep breath, then stood. “Come on. I’ll show you.”
13
As Allison climbed down the ladder and into the women’s room, Lance was hit with a question of something that didn’t quite make sense to him yet. He let Leah head down after Allison, and then he followed, closing the hatch after him.
He and Leah followed Allison outside and then around the the side of the building, their shoes crunching through the crushed gravel of the path that led to the maintenance shed. Allison stopped in front of it, pulled a small key ring from the pocket of her jeans, and Lance thought he now had his question answered. “That’s why you came here,” he said.
Allison looked up at him. “What?”
“I couldn’t figure out why you’d stop here of all places, in the middle of the night. You work here, right?”
Allison shook her head. “Not me, not really. My dad. He works for the state, takes care of this place and others like it.” She shrugged. “I help sometimes, when he’s not feeling well or is just beat from a busy day. He made me a set of keys a long time ago.”
Because you’re a good person, Lance thought again.
“A few miles down the road, after I’d stolen the the car … I guess I had a bit of a panic attack. All the emotions just sort of hit me, you know? The … the party, and then me committing grand theft auto.” She gave a soft, sad laugh. “It was like I was dreaming. But then it suddenly got hard to breath and my heart started racing and … I know this place. I’m comfortable here. It was like … a piece of my normal life.”
Lance and Leah said nothing.
“I have no idea how he found me so fast,” Allison said. “How would he possibly know to come here? He met me at my real job, bagging groceries at the Whole Foods. I never told him about my dad. He never asked many questions about me, not really.”
Leah had the answer. “The Tesla,” she said. “He tracked it from his phone. It’s part of the car’s app. He was always going to know where you were as long as you were with it.”
Allison sighed and shook her head. “I hate technology.”
Lance smiled. “Me too.”
Allison slid a small key into the lock of the maintenance shed’s door and turned it. There was a satisfying click as the lock disengaged and she swung the door open enough to reach inside with both hands. “I stashed this in here as soon as I realized what it was,” she said. “I figured it was the safest place.” She struggled to pull out a duffel bag that looked as though it were weighted down with bricks. She let the bag fall to the ground and then reached down and unzipped it.
It was full of cash. Bricks mad of bills, not rock. Smaller denominations, tens and twenties. Allison stood back and looked at Lance and Leah, as if waiting for some sort of answer.
“That’s a lot of money,” Lance said.
“Thousands,” Leah added.
“What am I supposed to do with it now?” Allison asked.
Then all eyes fell to Lance. He thought for a moment, then looked at Allison and smiled. “Whatever you want. I don’t think Paul is going to come looking for it anymore. Maybe take your dad on a vacation? He’d probably like that, right?”
When nobody said anything, Lance turned around and started walking down the path, back toward the front of the building. “Sorry,” he said. “I really have to pee.”
14
Leah drove the Beetle down the highway, Lance next to her and Allison in the back. The duffle bag of cash was sitting next to Allison in the seat. They followed Allison’s directions, took an exit ramp twenty miles from the rest area and then navigated the suburban streets through a neighborhood of modest housing until Allison finally said, “That one, with the blue mailbox.” Leah nodded and pulled into the driveway, parking behind a dirty white Toyota Camry.
Allison thanked them profusely and offered them cash from the bag. They declined repeatedly until she was finally convinced. She slung the bag over her shoulder and stepped out of the car. It was just shy of four in the morning.
Lance watched as she walked up to the front door of the house and then slipped inside.
“How’s she going to explain all that money to her dad,” Leah asked.
Lance shrugged. “No idea. Maybe she’ll just tell the truth. Sometimes things just have a way of working out. Besides,” he said, reaching over and squeezing her hand, “we’ve done our part.” Then, “Well, almost.”
They drove back through the neighborhood and into the business district, where they found the bus station sitting adjacent to the railroad tracks. Lance stepped out of the Beetle and went inside, found the bank of pay-phones near the back and placed the call to 911. He gave the person on the other end of the line all the information they needed to have cause for investigation into Paul Anderle and his home. He kept Allison’s name out of it, as well as his own. When the 911 operator started asking for more specifics, Lance hung up the phone.
15
The sun was coming up on the horizon and Leah flipped down the sun visor as she drove. Lance was once again leaned back in his seat, his legs stretched out. They’d stopped at a drive-thru before leaving town, and the inside of the Beetle now smelled of breakfast sandwiches and coffee.
It was wonderful.
Leah sipped her coffee and said, “Well, I guess that was easier than wrestling with the devil, huh?”
He knew she’d meant it as a joke, perhaps trying to deal with her own emotions about everything that had just happened, but he answered honestly.
“There’s lots of types of devils,” he said, sipping from his own large coffee cup. “That’s the problem.”
Author’s note
Thanks so much for reading DARK REST. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did enjoy it and have a few minutes to spare, I would greatly appreciate it if you could leave a review saying so. Reviews help authors more than you can imagine, and help readers like you find more great books to read. Win-win!
-Michael Robertson Jr
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LANCE BRODY SERIES
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Dark Rest: A Lance Brody Story (Book 5.5) Page 4