The next day she got a change of clothes, five thousand dollars cash, and a ride in a windowless van to her apartment. She also got her car keys. When they’d slid the door open beside her old maroon Honda, she’d cried for the first time in weeks. The van had pulled away while she stood weeping in the street.
Whoever had searched her apartment had been more than thorough. Wall panels had been pulled down, floorboards pulled up, bedding and cushions shredded. They’d even dumped out her mustard, horseradish, and all of her cereal boxes. There were flies everywhere.
“Slovenly fuckers,” she muttered, and then said it louder in case the place was bugged.
She didn’t pack much. After all that time in a hospital gown, Dani could hardly remember what she used to wear. She’d grabbed a duffel and thrown in some jeans and shirts, underwear, bras and socks, and a couple pairs of shoes. She almost left the hideous shawl/poncho thing her Aunt Penny had made her, but relented, shoving it into the bag. They were going to wind up burying her in that monstrosity. She didn’t bother with toiletries. Everything felt tainted.
She had only one photo of her with her father and it still sat on her nightstand. She opened the frame and slipped the picture out. If they were going to bug anything, that frame would be it.
Finally she headed back to the kitchen. Every drawer had been upended; every pamphlet and note she’d had on her refrigerator taken down. All that remained was her collection of magnets.
Every summer when she’d ridden in the truck with her father, they’d picked up a magnet at each city they stopped in. There was a flat rubber magnet of an alligator from the Everglades, a slice of wood with a river cut into it from white-water country in West Virginia. The Las Vegas magnet had a big pair of dice and a poker chip, and a glittery pink cowboy boot danced on a banner for Houston. She’d collected dozens of magnets over the years and they were the only things she valued as much as her car. Holding the bag against the refrigerator, she swept the collection into the bag on top of her clothes. She tossed the apartment key onto the counter and didn’t bother to lock the door behind her.
They’d seized her bank account and canceled her credit cards. Even though she’d been in no position to complain, she’d had to work hard to keep her mouth shut. Typical government move. They didn’t know who exactly was guilty or what role she had played in it. They didn’t care that their own people had put the plan in motion and that she’d been shot and injured by one of their own agents, however rogue. They told her that the money, her paycheck, had been obtained illegally and was therefore now the property of the United States government. They had made it clear that the five thousand dollars was purely a courtesy, and a generous one, and she wouldn’t be receiving another dime in compensation. It seemed the powers that be considered five thousand dollars the golden ticket to rebuild a life. Maybe they thought the cost of living was cheaper in Oklahoma. She certainly couldn’t stay in D.C. Maybe they figured she would be too busy fighting to make ends meet to think about whether justice had been served.
She didn’t know where she was going. She sure as hell wasn’t going back to Oklahoma. She’d said that for the agents bugging the rooms. Maybe she’d head to Florida. Dani liked warm weather and Florida was about as un-Oklahoma as she could think of. There was one stop she knew she had to make and she’d driven all night through West Virginia to get there, despite her injured leg and stiff shoulder begging for a break.
The rain let up enough to read the sign she’d parked in front of—the Lexington, Kentucky, Central Post Office. This was her third time in Lexington, her second at this location. Dani grabbed the duffel on the floor of the passenger side and hauled it up onto the seat. She fished around until she found the wide clay magnet painted green with a black horse running behind a white fence. In raised letters, chipped from banging around inside the bag, were the words LEXINGTON, KENTUCKY—THE BLUEGRASS STATE.
The last thing Dani had done before she’d left Oklahoma five years ago was to implement another little trick her father had taught her. She stopped by the bar where she’d worked. She’d high-fived and made her good-byes and then ducked behind the bar to the big cardboard box that served as the lost-and-found collection point. It had always amazed her, the things people left behind—cell phones, wallets, IDs, even an upper dental plate. It seemed a lot of folks came through Flat Road, Oklahoma, but few came through twice. She flipped through the items until she found something she thought she could use—a driver’s license belonging to one Tenna Rene Hardy of Lawrence, Kansas. The woman in the picture was taller than Dani but had the same black hair. As her father would have said, “A man on horseback would never know the difference.” She’d pocketed the ID and pulled away, headed for D.C.
Her last stop on the way to her new life had been in Lexington, Kentucky, where she now parked. She’d gone into the post office with the fake ID, a handful of cash, and a breathless story about needing a large post office box to send her mail to while she went on a Christian mission trip spreading the Good Word to the poor souls in Africa. The clerk had listened to her politely, taken her money, and explained to her the rules for renewing the box as needed.
Every year since, Dani sent a money order to the Lexington post office to renew her post office box. That wasn’t all she sent to Lexington. Twice a year, at Christmas and her father’s birthday, Dani would go through her stashes of cash and count out five thousand dollars. She’d stuff this into a padded envelope and mail it to Tenna Rene Hardy in Lexington, Kentucky. She never sent the packages from the same mailbox twice; she never put a return address, although she often scribbled silly little notes like “Ho Ho Ho!” and “Mama says howdy!!!” Her plan had been to take a trip this spring, collect her five years’ worth of mail, and find a new hiding place for it. Needless to say, she’d missed Christmas this year.
Dani groaned at the stiffness in her leg as she rose from the car. She fished a plastic bag from beneath her seat and grabbed the little clay magnet. She’d been eleven when her father had given this to her. He’d taken her to Keeneland and let her see the horses run. Dani ran her fingers over the running horse.
Using her car key, she pried the black magnet strip off the back. It broke away easily along the same lines she had glued it on five years before. Beneath the magnet, in a little crater in the clay, sat the post office box key. Dani limped inside and opened box 551. Nine padded envelopes sat scattered in the bottom of the drawer. Forty-five thousand dollars in cash wasn’t enough to live on forever, but it was a damned sight more than the U.S. government had seen fit to provide. It was enough to get a good running start to somewhere.
Before the madness had taken her, Emmaline Britton had told her daughter that it was better to be careful than clever. Pulling back onto the highway with nothing but a bag of clothes, her car, and a bundle of untraceable cash, Dani Britton thought it might be better still to be both.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
If this book makes any sense at all, the credit goes to my development editor, David Downing. You are much nicer than East Coast deer. Thanks as always to Terry Goodman for being patient with me and to Christine Witthohn for always having my back. Jacque and the team at Thomas & Mercer never fail to impress with their enthusiasm, friendliness, and professionalism. I’m in good hands.
Big sloppy kisses to my entire family—blood and otherwise. A special kiss to my niece Lucia Redling, who kept me motivated during the first escape scene.
I’d be more of a wild-eyed mess than I already am without the fierce friendship of the Book Thugs. I am beholden to you.
And finally a special thank you to the raccoon that kept breaking into my house and wound up giving me the idea for the file’s hiding place. For that, I won’t kick you out of my chimney.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JESSICA ST. JAMES
A fifteen-year veteran of morning radio and an avid traveler, S.G. Redling lives in West Virginia.
ing, The Widow File
The Widow File Page 22