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“And if someone’s watching the house? What if they see me like this and tell Manuel you left with Dominick—and never came back? With Manuel coming home, it’s all so much more immediate.”
“Calm down, my friend. We’ve talked about this before. I’m just the housekeeper. No one pays attention to when I come and go. If someone says I left with Dominick and never came back, I’ll say they are loco. My son dropped me off in the morning. Carlos took me home when I felt ill. In between, I never went anywhere or saw anything out of the ordinary. How can Manuel argue with that? It is simple, eh? Besides, he doesn’t even think we speak the same language, remember?”
“Sí.” Vanessa struggled to regulate her rapid breathing. He’d never suspect Juanita. He trusted her. Everyone trusted Juanita.
Nodding decisively, she ducked back into the kitchen, covered her head with the scarf and put on the coat. It was now or never. She was leaving; she couldn’t look back. Somehow she’d provide a life for herself and Dominick, a life that had nothing to do with the man who tried to own her.
Their return distracted Dominick from his magnets. “Why are you dressing up like Juanita?” he asked with a scowl.
“This is the special game we’ve been practicing for,” she told him, adding Juanita’s sunglasses and dark lipstick to her disguise. She’d been terrified that Dominick might mention the “game” to Manuel. But it was a risk she’d had to take. Fortunately, they played games of pretense quite a lot, and it had never become an issue. “We’re going to see if anyone can tell who I really am.”
“Am I going to dress up, too?”
“No, you’re going to act like I’m Juanita, remember? When we step outside, you’ll hold my hand and walk to the car the same as you do whenever Juanita takes you shopping or to the library.”
“That’s not how it goes. I’m Max, from Where the Wild Things Are, and you’re a lady named Emma.”
Vanessa had chosen the name Max because it came from Dominick’s favorite book. He responded well to it. And, equally important, it was a name Manuel would never connect with him. “We’ll do that, too. Just as soon as we drive away.”
“Oh, I get it! You’re going to be Juanita first, then Emma.” He seemed excited—until he followed them into her bedroom and noticed, for the first time, the two suitcases she’d packed. He watched Juanita cover one with a big black garbage bag and take it out to the back porch.
“Why are we throwing away our suitcases?”
“We’re not,” Vanessa said, doing the same with the other one. “Carlos is going to get them for us.”
“Is he playing, too?” Dominick asked as they walked into the kitchen.
Vanessa slipped the backpack into a garbage bag and carried it to the back. “Sort of. We’ll meet him down the street.”
“But why do we need suitcases? Are we going somewhere far away?”
“Yes,” Vanessa said, feeling such relief in the word that she reached out to squeeze Juanita’s hand.
“Where?” Dominick asked.
Across the country, as far as I can take us. “You’ll see. It’s a surprise.” She stood in the living room to make sure Carlos saw their luggage. Had he noticed Juanita pull up outside?
The gardener came almost immediately. Good. Glancing inside the house from the patio, he nodded as he picked up the first bag and carried it around to the front, as if he was loading more clippings into the bed of his truck.
Fear turned Vanessa’s legs rubbery as she hurried to the front door and gave her nanny a tight hug. “You’ll be okay?” she asked in Spanish.
“Of course. We have it all planned out.”
“I could never thank you enough.”
Juanita took a piece of paper from her pocket and slipped it into Vanessa’s hand.
“What’s this?”
“My sister Rosa’s number. We can communicate through her. Call me if you need anything.”
Vanessa stared down at the crumpled paper in her hand. “You never even told me you had a sister—”
“Exactly. Manuel doesn’t know about her, either. I keep my business to myself, eh?”
“Where does she live?” Vanessa asked.
“About an hour from here.”
In a moment of pure panic, Vanessa squeezed her friend’s arm. “Go to her, Juanita. Go to her and never come back here.” She leaned close so she could whisper the rest into Juanita’s ear. “Manuel, he…he isn’t right.”
“You’re the only one he hurts,” Juanita whispered back. “Just be safe, my beautiful friend. And be happy.”
Vanessa waited while Juanita said goodbye to Dominick. Then she took her son’s hand. Keeping her face down and stooping a bit like the older woman, she led him out the front door into the mellow sunshine of a clear August day.
The nondescript white sedan she’d asked Carlos to purchase sat in the circular driveway, representing the freedom she’d craved for so long. She wanted to race toward it, buckle Dominick safely inside and put the metal to the floor as she tore away. But she forced herself to walk very slowly, like Juanita. She’d be gone soon. Then she wouldn’t be Vanessa Beacon anymore. She’d start over as Emma Wright, and Dominick would be Max.
CHAPTER TWO
“EMMA, EMMA, EMMA,” Emma chanted, trying to get used to her new name. She gripped the steering wheel of the white Ford Taurus so tightly her shoulders ached. She’d been heading north on Interstate 5 for nearly six hours, but the miles didn’t seem to be passing quickly enough. Probably because she kept imagining that Manuel had figured out she was gone and was already coming after her.
She checked her rearview mirror, something she did every few seconds, and increased her speed to eighty. A red Toyota 4Runner was following her and had been since she’d come out of the Tehachapie Mountains, the section of interstate called The Grapevine that separated the Los Angeles Basin from the San Joaquin Valley.
Interstate 5 wasn’t like Highway 99, which ran parallel to Highway 5 through the central part of California. Interstate 5 bypassed most of the small farming communities between Los Angeles and Sacramento. The people on this newer road were typically traveling across the state, so the fact that someone had followed her for so long wasn’t that unusual. Except she didn’t recognize any of the other cars around her. People passed her all the time, or she passed them, but they soon drew apart.
