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“We don’t know she was caught.”
“She was,” Scott said. “We just don’t know if she accomplished anything.”
“What if she’s alive, and she gives us up?”
“Then…” Scott grinned and shrugged. “Then, we’re fucked.”
—
At nine o’clock,they caught a news update from Albuquerque saying that authorities had closed the Santa Fe airport, apparently after a shooting in the parking lot. Police were not releasing details, and it was uncertain when the airport would reopen.
“You were right. They got her,” Catton said.
“Yes.”
“I wonder if she managed to do a release?”
“No way to tell, but…she apparently was caught before she got inside.”
Catton sighed, pushed herself out of the chair she’d been sitting in, and said, “I’ll see if Marilyn had some pink ribbon or even a pink blouse. I’ll make a breast cancer ribbon…”
“Bald head, ribbon on your lapel, nobody would even look at your face,” Scott said.
On the top shelf of the bedroom closet, Catton found a plastic box full of wrapping paper, and spools of ribbon, including one that was pink. She made herself a breast-cancer ribbon that was good enough—Lord knows she had enough friends who’d been through breast cancer. She left the bedroom, went out to the Cadillac and got her suitcase, found what she thought of as a suitable outfit—shin-length wraparound skirt, blue blouse, low heels.
Respectable,she thought.Not a mass murderer.
She was carrying them to the bedroom, to change, when Scott called, “Hey! Hey!”
She swerved to the TV room, and Scott pointed at the screen, where a woman in a red dress was saying, “…said they weren’t looking for serial killers at all, but a group of people who are attempting to release a deadly virus, perhaps an enhanced version of Covid. The motive for doing this is unknown, and none of the Taos authorities will comment on the claim. Perhaps related to the claim is the fact that a huge Army convoy passed through Albuquerque an hour ago heading north on I-25, and police sources here said the convoy was made up of a military police battalion from Fort Bliss, in El Paso. Our sources say they are always warned of convoys like this in advance, because they affect traffic flow, but they got no warning this time…”
The report went on, based on rumors and speculation, almost all of which was incorrect, but certain to stir up fear.
“Perhaps we got a break…there’ll be a rush of people trying to get out of town,” Scott said. “It’ll be chaos out there. You should go now, to Popcycle…”
—
Catton put onone of the Hermès scarves that she’d found earlier. It was light and colorful and, carefully tied, revealed a swatch of pink scalp. She added the Covid mask that Callister had picked up at the supermarket. Wearing the respectable outfit, she checked herselfin the mirror, and walked to the kitchen, where Scott handed her the keys to the Realtor’s Jeep.
“Watch for checkpoints…don’t back away from one, though,” Scott said. “Take backstreets if you can…”
“I’ve thought all that out,” she said. “I don’t need luck, I just need to focus. I’m a harmless little old lady with breast cancer.”
Scott stood in a dark corner of the garage as Catton backed the Jeep out. When she was gone, he dropped the door behind her and went back in the house to monitor the television.
Catton followed a zigzag route to the bike store. She stuck to backstreets, and saw only one checkpoint, a full two blocks away. She came into the back of the store, gathered her wits and her money—she had twenty-five hundred dollars in a bank envelope, which Scott said would buy a capable bike, if nothing special.
They’d talked out what she should say to the store clerk, and when she went inside, she found two of them—one talking to a man wearing a garish “I’m a serious cyclist” Lycra suit, the other peering out the front window past an overhead rack of bicycles.
That clerk came over to her, smiling, said, “Quite a hassle out there today.”
“I suppose,” she said, smiling back. She didn’t like being the slightly confused old woman, but she could do it well enough. “I need to buy a mountain bicycle for my nephew. He’sveryathletic and my sister says he’s a good rider, but he wrecked his bike last week. My sister says they scraped together a thousand dollars to buy his last bike, which I gather wasn’t exactly top-end.”
She took the bank envelope out of her purse. “I brought two thousand dollars with me, straight from the bank. That’s all I’m going to spend, and I hope you have a bike for that amount.”
“We have some excellent bikes for fifteen hundred to two thousand,” the clerk said enthusiastically. “Depending on what kind of specs you want…”
“I’ll have to rely on you to tell me that,” Catton said. “Not more than two thousand, though. Oh, I was told something about getting flat pedals, I don’t know what those are…”
