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These two went at it forever. Like the word on the picture frame. They kept the background noise going and approached sex like it was a competitive sport. Gadgets whirred and, at one point, something that sounded like an industrial strength blender took off. It lessened Abby’s closet lurker guilt and gave her a little freedom to move around without being heard. Eventually the women stopped having sex and went into the shower together.
Abby edged out of her hiding space, straightened and unsmooshed the shoes she’d been crouching on, and got everything looking nice and orderly again. She could hear them talking about, of all things, gardening, their voices shouting over the sound of the shower and the bathroom fan.
“How are your carrots doing?”
“Good. You should come over and see.”
“I didn’t even bother planting them anymore. We get ours from the farmers’ market. It’s easier. But they’re not as nice as yours.”
“I’ll give you some of our extras.”
Clicking the closet door into place, Abby held her breath and ran down the stairs as quietly as she could manage. Once she was out the back door, she grabbed her bag of money, shoved it into the tote, and ran to the woods. As soon as she was out of view, she pulled her hair back into a low ponytail, a very tightly bound one, took out the scissors, and cut it off above the ponytail holder. She folded it over upon itself and wrapped the other ponytail holder around it, careful not to let one strand of hair escape. She wrapped her dirty t-shirt around it and buried it in the bottom of the tote bag. She would find a way to dispose of it later. She gave her now less-than-shoulder-length hair a shake and put the cap on her head. Her hair had been all the way down her back. Without it she felt about ten pounds lighter and very free, and also a little sick over what she’d done. It will grow back, she told herself. She put on the sunglasses.
She started walking what she guessed to be north. As she went she ate the processed cheese slice -- now essentially a gooey slick of delicious, greasy salt -- and the apple, and drank a bottle of water. She saved the rest, in case she was out here longer than she expected.
She planned to walk in the woods until it was dark, and then find some kind of transportation. Maybe she would stumble upon a town with a bus station, or find a bicycle with a big basket to hold her things. Anything would do. Strangers walking around were peculiar, but strangers with transportation blended in. Perhaps because they would be away from you sooner. And she needed a populated area. At first remoteness had been exactly what she needed, but now that she was a little bit disguised, it was a liability to be out here in no man’s land. In a town, she could be just another lady out for a stroll or a bike ride. Once she found a town, she’d find a bus ticket. And when she was a couple of states away, no one would have ever heard about Abby Greer.
Chapter 48
Abby spent the night in the forest again, waking off and on to the pulsing racket of helicopters flying overhead. Shortly before dawn she began walking again. At 5:49 on Wednesday morning Abby arrived in a town called Benningville. A Chevy dealership on the outskirts of town, right next to the Population 3,897 sign, told her the time and temperature (75 degrees) and invited her to TAKE YOUR NEW CAR FOR A SPIN TODAY.
She found a bicycle path to walk on, and decided to go for it. She was a lady on a walk. No mischief here, just an average woman taking a normal morning stroll. She sipped her second bottle of water, and when she came to a park bench at a spot on the path that overlooked the downtown, she sat down, pulled out her book, and casually read a few pages. A jogger went by, nodded hello, and didn’t even blink at her. For the most part, though, Benningville felt very deserted.
Emboldened, she decided to walk downtown and get herself a cup of coffee and a donut. It was now almost 7:00.
She entered the coffee shop with her sunglasses on and made a beeline to the restroom. It was a single restroom, all to herself; she had some space to breathe and sort through her things. She pulled out five twenties and shoved them in her hip pocket. The rest she buried at the bottom of the bag next to her dirty laundry and snipped off ponytail.
She removed her sunglasses and looked at herself in the mirror. She’d half expected to see an entirely different person, but it was still her. Her hair wasn’t as crooked as she’d feared. She washed her face and brushed her teeth. Then she put her sunglasses back on and went up to the counter to order her coffee.
A boy in his teens was working. It was so early that only one other person was in the shop, an older man reading the newspaper, and he hadn’t looked up once.
“What can I get you?” asked the guy.
“A large coffee with room for cream, a blueberry scone, and,” she tried to sound like it was an afterthought, “the newspaper.”
“Benningville Gazette or Tampa Bay News?”
“Oh. I’ll take both.”
“For here or to go?”
“I’ll take it with me.”
He set her coffee and a white bag holding the scone on the counter. “Now that you paid for them, the papers are help yourself,” he said, pointing at the stack of them by the door.
“Thanks.” She grabbed both newspapers on her way out, tucking them beneath her arm. She crossed the street, deciding she’d like to go to the park she’d passed on her way downtown. This town was too small for a bus station, and she needed to think about how she was going to get north. She readjusted her tote bag; both shoulders were killing her. Too impatient to find a place to sit, she shoved the book, local paper, and scone in her tote, and began skimming the Tampa Bay Times as she lifted the cup of coffee to her lips.
She was at least an hour and a half or two hours from home, so she wasn’t sure if she should expect to find anything about her disappearance. Maybe there would be something noteworthy a few pages in.
She perused the top half of the front page, found nothing to interest her, flipped it over to the bottom half, and discovered that she was front page news. This entire half of the paper was devoted to her disappearance. She stopped right where she was, looked around for the nearest bench, and went straight to it.
There was a picture of her that had been taken a couple of years earlier when she and Randall were skiing in Vermont. She sniffed in jealousy over her old gorgeous self. Photos of Rake and Charlie, mugshots, actually, were right beside her. Charlie’s hair was shorter, his face thinner. His expression caught halfway between a sneer and total emptiness. Rake looked like Rake; he was wearing his trademark faux doe-eyed innocent look. There was also a sketch that was supposed to be Meggie, but looked like a cartoon character.
Abby Greer Still Missing, Husband Suspects the Worst read the headline. The subhead beneath it read: Recent vandalism incident in Grove, Florida and Fall 2012 assault on college student linked to missing woman.
Abby looked around at the nearly empty street and pushed her sunglasses a little closer to her face before she began reading.
The wife of wealthy businessman Randall Greer is still missing. Twenty-eight year old Abby Greer went jogging near her Palm Meadows home Sunday morning and did not return. Randall Greer noticed and reported her missing later that day after returning from golfing with friends.
