But she’d dug her own grave. She couldn’t go back out there. For all she knew, the Blakelys were calling the police right now to report the psycho girl they’d hauled cross-country in their backseat.
She inspected her reflection in the dingy, pitted mirror. Her hair had worked itself out of the braid and hung in limp strings around her face. Desperation sharpened her bloodshot eyes and turned the blue of her irises to a dim gray. She glanced back at the door, her heart thudding in dull rhythm, her thoughts scrambled like so many eggs.
If she didn’t hurry, they’d come looking for her. They’d be knocking on the door, wondering if she had fainted or something. And how would she get out of her predicament then?
She had to leave now. There had to be a back entrance to the store—the one the delivery trucks used. It wouldn’t be locked from the inside. She went through the motions of flushing the toilet and washing her hands, in case anyone was listening outside the door. Then she turned the handle, opened the door a crack, and looked outside.
Two teenage girls waited in line, but she didn’t see either of the Blakelys. She couldn’t see through the plate-glass windows in front to tell if their car was there, but she couldn’t risk going out to check.
She made a dash, sidestepping the two girls and turning the opposite way she’d come in. She walked through a break room where a petite, older woman was mopping the floor. Behind the woman was the back door, an emergency bar crossing the front to discourage use. It appeared to be the kind that set off an alarm if it was pushed. She’d have to risk it.
She strode toward it as if she knew what she was doing.
“Hey! You can’t use that d—” The woman lofted her mop, but in vain.
Maggie pushed through the heavy door and broke into a run. She raced across the side parking lot and made a beeline for the auto body shop next door. There were no alarms going off behind her, but the janitor probably thought she’d stolen something, so the police would no doubt be summoned.
She wondered if the Blakelys had figured out yet that she wasn’t coming back. Behind the shop, clumps of scrap metal and concrete seemed to sprout up wherever she set her feet. She ran blindly, instinctively in the direction that would take her farthest from Kevin, and the Blakelys, and everything about the life she’d known before yesterday.
She whipped around, searching for the source of the voice.
Chapter Eleven
In spite of the heat that still rose from the concrete early the next morning, Maggie shivered on her haunches in the corner of a derelict playground. Last night she’d zigzagged through a dozen city blocks, trying to get as far away from the convenience store as possible. She’d slept for a few hours curled up under a grove of spent lilac bushes. It seemed she’d spent forty of the last forty-eight hours sleeping . . . or pretending to.
The sun rimmed the school buildings beyond the playground in pink. That had to be east—the direction she’d come from. But she was thoroughly lost. She only hoped that meant she was lost to the Blakelys too. And to the police.
How had it come to this? Two days ago she had been the victim of a crime—carjacked on the streets of New York. Now she was the criminal. A virtual fugitive from the law, for all she knew.
She reached up to touch her hair. Ugh. It was a tangled mess, laced with leaves and sticks after her night under the lilacs. She felt in her pocket for the comb she’d bought that first night at the bus stop. Careful not to lose the roll of cash, she slid the comb out and did her best to make herself presentable.
But for what? Why hadn’t she thought things through before she’d climbed in the car with those people? Now she was hundreds of miles from home with no way to get back. Sure, Kevin had treated her like a dog. But did she really think life would be any better on her own? At least at the apartment with Kevin she’d had a soft bed to sleep in and food on the table.
Her stomach yowled at the thought. She hadn’t had anything to eat since the cheeseburger at McDonald’s. She’d have to part with a couple of dollars this morning. If she keeled over from hunger, it wouldn’t matter that she had money in her pocket.
She glanced around, making sure no one was watching, then pulled the roll of cash out of her pocket and counted it. She had enough to get a room. She could get cleaned up, get something to eat.
But then what? The answer was disheartening. If she did that, it might not leave her enough cash for the bus. Had she been crazy to think she could survive on her own? Was starving to death, being on the streets homeless, really an improvement over what she’d had with Kevin in New York? If she called him, he’d surely help her get back to the apartment.
Her mind raced, formulating a plan. She’d call from a pay phone, feel him out first. Find out what he knew about the car. If it had turned up in the possession of that jerk who’d carjacked her, maybe Kevin would take pity on her. Maybe he’d believe her story. She could tell him the guy had forced her to drive all the way to Kansas City.
She blew out a puff of air. Yeah, right. Like he’d believe that. Besides, he always knew exactly how many miles were on the Honda. Unless the carjacker had taken it on one whale of a joyride, Kevin would know she was lying the minute he checked the odometer.
She fingered a twenty-dollar bill. If she hung out here in this empty playground, found a grocery store and bought a few snacks, she probably had enough money to last a few days.
But what then? She had no ID with her, she didn’t own a credit card. She had no way to get into Kevin’s bank account. Even if she had, using an ATM card would clue him in to her whereabouts in a flash. Besides, if he figured out what she’d done, he would close the bank accounts she knew about as soon as the bank opened this morning—if he hadn’t done it already.
She scrambled to her feet and shook the kinks from her legs. The oxygen she breathed in cleared her head and brought her to her senses.
I am not going back. Ever. She didn’t care if she died homeless and alone. She’d been handed the gift of freedom on a silver—well, a tarnished—platter, but valuable all the same. She was going to grab on to it and never let go.
But for now, she needed a place to hide out.
No.
She whipped around, searching for the source of the voice, then realized it hadn’t been an audible whisper. Her mind must be playing tricks on her.
But she had heard that word. She was certain. And the thought that followed was as clear as if someone had breathed it in her ear: Keep moving. Get out of this city. Keep heading west.
An eerie urgency overtook her, and she started walking. She followed the sidewalk, keeping the sun at her back. Half an hour later she came to a small convenience store. She hesitated at the door, leery after what had happened yesterday, but this place had a mom-and-pop feel to it. It drew her inside the same way the inaudible voice had drawn her westward.
She wandered down the aisles, searching for something to eat that would fill her up and stick with her for a minimum of cash. She chose an oversized PayDay bar and a bottle of chocolate milk. Waiting in line at the checkout, she snagged a large bag of popcorn. The sign said the expiration date had passed, but it was on sale for ninety-nine cents and would provide a couple of days’ worth of filler. The price on a bag of beef jerky was almost three dollars, but it made her mouth water and she added it to her stash.
She’d probably gain three pounds eating all this junk. Kevin will have a fit. She nodded to herself and corrected her tense. He would have. If he’d known. But he would never find out. Not now. Just one more reason she needed to get away.
Her turn came in the queue, and she placed her items on the counter. But before she counted out the money, a note tacked to the bulletin board behind the clerk’s head caught her eye.
Greyhound—Fare to Salina $45.
She tipped her head. “Where is Salina?”
The clerk followed Maggie’s line of vision. “Oh . . . that? It’s three, maybe four hours up the interstate. You just missed the early route. Next bu
s doesn’t leave until twelve-thirty.”
“It’s in Missouri?”
“Salina? No, Salina’s in Kansas.” He pronounced it with a long i. Suh-line-uh.
She liked the sound of it. And it was in Kansas. Kevin would be more likely to search for her in Siberia than in Salina, Kansas.
“I’d like a ticket for that bus, please.”
“Oh, we don’t sell tickets here. You’ll have to go to the bus station.”
“Where is that?”
He looked past her and pointed through the windows at the front of the store. “That’s Eleventh Street. Runs east and west. You want to go west . . . maybe five or six blocks. It’s on Troost Street. You can’t miss it.”
“You want to go west,” he’d said.
It had to be a sign. She thanked him, paid for her items, and walked to the street. Excitement welled up inside her. Something was going to happen. She felt it in her bones.
Alarm rose in her throat when the vehicle slowed, lurched, then started backing toward her.
Chapter Twelve
The Greyhound ground to a stop at the west edge of Salina, Kansas. Judging by the short trip around the outskirts of the city, it was a small town. Weary and feeling as if she were painted in dust, Maggie waited until the other passengers got off before she gathered what was left of her popcorn and made her way down the narrow aisle.
At the door, she peered over the bus driver’s shoulder, thankful that his watch had a giant face. Almost four o’clock. She hadn’t bothered to put her watch on before she’d left the apartment. Over the miles since then, she’d learned to be unobtrusive in reading other people’s watches.
The asphalt practically sizzled through the soles of her tennis shoes when she stepped onto it. Shading her eyes, she entered the terminal—which wasn’t much more than a convenience store—and bought a can of Diet Coke from a vending machine.
A man wearing cowboy boots and a leathery complexion tipped his Stetson to her as she exited the building, but no one paid much attention when she headed for the highway. Traffic zipped past as she walked along the graveled shoulder.
She walked half a mile or so to an overpass. From there she looked west, her eyes taking in the sun-scorched landscape. The corner of her mouth quirked in a sardonic smile. She’d landed smack-dab in the middle of a Little House on the Prairie movie set. The terrain wasn’t pancake flat the way she’d always heard Kansas described, but the sparseness of trees on the gently rolling hills extended the vista for what seemed like a hundred miles.
She moved to the left side of the road and crossed the overpass, hugging the dented guardrail and praying no one tried to add another dent while she was there.
Every driver who passed waved or honked until she checked to see if she had toilet paper trailing her shoe or something. Was it that unusual to see a girl walking along the road in Kansas?
The last of the Coke was warm and syrupy by the time she drained the can. Sweat trickled down the bridge of her nose, stinging her eyes, and her blouse was plastered to her back.
But soon the sun dipped to the horizon, and a breeze fanned her face. Behind her the town had disappeared save for a row of grain elevators peeking over the sphere of the earth. On one side of her was a field of golden plumes she guessed to be wheat. Wasn’t that what Kansas was famous for? And on the other stretched miles of rocky pastureland. The grassland was fenced in with barbed wire strung through tilted posts of gnarled wood, or in some places, thick posts carved from porous yellow stone.
A pickup barreled over the hill behind her, spraying sandy dust as it passed. Alarm rose in her throat when the vehicle slowed, lurched, then started backing toward her. She kept walking, and the truck shifted gears again and crawled along beside her.
A man who looked remarkably like the man with the Stetson back at the bus terminal rolled down his window and leaned out, resting a tanned elbow on the window frame. “You need a ride?”
“No,” she said. “I’m fine.”
“You have car trouble?”
“I’m just . . . walking. Thanks.” She quickened her pace.
He shook his head as if he thought she were crazy but put the truck in gear and drove on.
A few vehicles whizzed past, not seeming to notice her. But she hadn’t gone half a mile when another truck stopped, and another tanned farmer in a cowboy hat offered her a ride. Maggie was starting to feel as though she was a player in some sort of bizarre Stepford Wives–type movie.
Again she declined. Did these people really think she was such a fool that she’d accept a ride with a man—a complete stranger—on a deserted country road?
But as twilight pulled a cloak over the landscape she started to wonder if she was a fool. Whirling in the road, she looked back toward Salina. A haze of light rode the horizon where the town was sprawled. She’d probably walked thirty or forty city blocks, and there wasn’t a building or a light in sight, save for a couple of white grain elevators that occasionally peeked over the rolling terrain. Maybe she would be better off going back into town for the night.
Go west.
That voice again—or whatever it was. She couldn’t go back.
She traversed a narrow bridge, and when she came to the next crossroad, she decided to turn off the main highway and walk south. Maybe there wouldn’t be so much traffic on a side road. She stopped short, seeing two small wooden crosses jutting up from the prairie grasses in the ditch. She scrambled down the gully and stooped to inspect them closer. The crosses, one slightly larger than the other, were carefully constructed, and Maggie could tell they’d once been varnished to a sheen, though now they showed signs of being left to the elements. There was evidence on the ground around the monuments—dried flower petals and a bit of tattered sun-faded ribbon—that someone had tended them at some point. Like a grave. Someone’s pets, perhaps? Or did they denote the scene of a fatal accident? She shivered and climbed back up to the road.
At the next intersection, she turned west again. The road was asphalt-paved for half a mile or so, then turned to gravel and sand. As she stopped to shake a pebble out of her shoe, it struck her that, for the first time all summer, she had put her tennis shoes on before she left the apartment in New York that fated morning. Tennis shoes and socks. A little chill snaked up her spine at the fluke. What if she had been wearing her flip-flops the way she usually did when she went out on a quick errand? As it was, she could almost feel the blisters raising on her heels. If she’d been in sandals, her feet would have been torn to shreds. She’d never have made it this far on foot.
She trudged on, her muscles aching with the effort of the miles. The utter silence was broken by a murmuring whoosh whoosh as she came upon wheat fields on either side of the road. The bushy stalks danced with the breeze, an ocean of golden waves rolling around her as far as she could see. She had never experienced such space! It made her feel small. Yet an odd sense of freedom had started to well up in her chest.
The sunlight ebbed further and shadows of memory clouded her thoughts . . .
Kevin, telling her she couldn’t have coffee with the sweet woman who lived in the apartment next door.
Kevin, ordering her what to make for supper, how he wanted it cooked, and what time he wanted it served.
Kevin, forbidding her from taking a job.
Kevin, making her step on the bathroom scales every morning, and putting her on a diet if she gained half a pound. She’d always tried to count her blessings that she had a personal trainer of sorts.
Now, out here in this wide-open territory that seemed like a foreign country, her brain seemed to clear, and the truth of her situation unfolded like a clearly marked map. How had she ever allowed herself to come under his control? What was it about him . . . ?
She stopped dead in the road, stirring up little whirls of dust around her feet. No. That was the wrong question. What was it about her? That’s what she should be asking.
She plodded on another mile, weariness almost overpowering
her. She came to a little turnoff in the road that led to a fenced pasture. Slumping against a pale stone post, she rested for a while before hauling herself up again. The road ahead of her was covered by a canopy of trees, leafy branches entwined overhead. They rustled as the wind picked up. The tunnel they formed was almost pitch-black inside, reminding her that night would fall in a few minutes. She quickened her pace. It wouldn’t be good to be caught out here after dark.
As if to confirm that thought, an eerie howl split the quiet evening. It was probably some farmer’s dog, but a sign a few miles back, before she’d turned off the main road, had said it was twenty miles to Coyote. She didn’t want to think about how that town got its name.
The last crescent sliver of sun slipped below the prairie and, as if the sunset had triggered some switch, a chorus of insects started in. Cicadas? Crickets? She didn’t know, but within seconds, their chirrup chirrup rose to an earsplitting crescendo.
Maggie walked on. She didn’t know what else to do.
After exiting the canopied mile, she looked up. The sky overhead was inky black, but that only showed off the pinpoints of light to better advantage. She traced the Big Dipper, amazed at how clearly it was outlined in the Milky Way. She had seen starry displays like this in the movies, but she’d always assumed they were achieved through some genius of special effects. The spectacle of lights took her breath away.
She’d lost her sense of direction, but at a rise in the road, she spotted another cluster of lights twinkling in the distance. These were close to the horizon and obviously man-made. Out here it was hard to tell how far away they were, but as the night grew ever blacker, she took courage in their presence. They gave her something to go toward, a goal.
If she could just make it to those lights, everything might turn out okay.
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