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Maybe this time she’d try for something that didn’t have a patchwork paint job and spots where there was nothing more than primer. Maybe.
The door creaked when she opened it and again as she shut it but the engine started right away and she made the half hour drive to Dillon. The library there didn’t require a card to use the computers and if any detectives came to Breckenridge looking for her, they’d never check the surrounding town’s libraries to see if someone fitting her description had come in to log-on.
She was careful not to set any pattern to when she checked the email account, but it still made her nervous that the librarian gave her a smile and wave, clearly recognizing her as Joy signed in at the front desk. Still, she gave a small wave back and went to the row of computers set between the stacks of books.
Whenever she got around a computer, she always itched to see what was happening with her friends at her old job. The computer had once been such a part of her world before all this had happened.
Her life had changed so dramatically, it was almost head spinning at times. Things had seemed so simple when she went to a nine-to-five job and had concrete tasks and assignments as part of a team of software developers.
She logged onto the email account she and her mom used to communicate. With each of them using fake names she was pretty sure they were safe keeping tabs on each other this way, but it still made her nervous every time she logged on. She had to fight not to rub at the phantom tingling at the back of her neck or turn and check behind her for anything out of the ordinary.
It had been ten days since she’d checked the account, but her mom was faithful in emailing every day. They’d spent all the money they had to get her mom set up with a new identity so she could get the medical care she needed, so her mom kept an iPad and used it to communicate with Joy. Her mom was hiding but not running the way Joy was. Joy was the decoy. She kept very little and moved at least every six months.
She scanned through the subject lines of all of her mother’s emails first, making sure there was nothing out of the ordinary in them. When nothing popped out, she opened the bottom email and began to read, smiling as her mom described her days in detail.
Her mom was living in a care facility halfway across the country but she didn’t believe in sparing any of the details of her days. She spent most of her day in the garden where residents in the home were encouraged to tend to the plants and flowers as much as they could. The best part of these emails was the small glimpse of her mother she could see coming back. She was no longer the shadow of a woman she’d been when Joy got her away from Turner. Joy could see the mother she knew coming out bit by bit. The woman who’d taught Joy to bake. Who’d held Joy on her lap, guiding her to sew a dress for Joy’s doll to match the dress she was making for Joy. The woman who had always seen light and happiness everywhere she looked. Who didn’t let the world defeat her.
Joy had been afraid that woman was gone for good, that Turner had managed to chip away at her until nothing was left of the mother Joy loved.
She bit down on a laugh as she read her mom’s accounting of a pottery throwing class that resulted in her mom’s pottery piece flying off her wheel and smacking into the wall. Her mom had decided not to try that class again.
She had better luck with the painting class and Joy had to admit, her mother’s painting wasn’t half bad. She’d taken a picture of it and attached it to the email and Joy grinned at the picture. The sunset and ocean were pretty nice. Of course, the boat at the center of it was so lopsided only someone with a death wish would actually take it out on the water, but the bright blue and yellow colors of the boat were pretty.
The rest of her mom’s emails were chatter about people at the home with her and pictures of the flowers in the garden. There was one about a trip to the farmer’s market, which made Joy’s breath catch in her chest, freezing to a block of ice while she read the email. It made her nervous to know her mom was leaving the property of the facility and going out where someone might recognize her. Not that the chances of someone recognizing her in a place neither of them had ever lived before was high, but still. She’d prefer her mom stay as hidden away from people as possible.
When the librarian announced that the library would be closing in fifteen minutes, Joy turned her attention to figuring out where she’d go next. She planned to drive south. There was a used car lot an hour south of here, the kind with a lot of cheap cars she could buy for cash. She would leave her car here and take the bus down toward the car lot, then hitchhike the last three miles to the lot so she could get another car.
She clicked through the map looking for a place that was large enough she might be able to find work and a place to live. She needed to be someplace that wasn’t as much of a tourist attraction as Breckenridge had been. It had been too risky being in a place where people came from all over the country to visit.
She clicked through city after city. The bigger places like New York or DC would be too hard to find a safe place to live. She moved the map to the center of the country, looking at options. Des Moines, Iowa, would be warm enough for another month or so and there were campgrounds she could stay in and sleep in her car.
Still, she didn’t want to go straight there. She’d go south into New Mexico and then cut to the west and come up and over Colorado before heading to Iowa.
She thought about emailing her friend and asking her to use one of Joy’s credit cards again. Bella Johansen had been Joy’s friend in middle school until she moved to California with her family. The two had lost touch but reconnected when Joy did an internship out West during college. It wasn’t a connection Turner would know about and it was one that had proved to be invaluable over the last year.
If Joy emailed, Bella would know what to do. She would choose one of Joy’s credit cards and run it for something like a disposable cell phone or gas in a car, or sometimes a meal for two people. With Bella’s job as a flight attendant, it was easy for her to make it look like Joy was someplace she wasn’t. To make it look like she and her mom were on the run in some other part of the country together.
But Joy had a feeling it was time for her to make another real appearance again soon. Every few months, she would let herself pop up on the radar for real before fleeing. She knew better than to let Turner catch her so anything she did had to be carefully planned.
Maybe she would sign onto social media before she left town this time. Just something small to drop a clue about where she’d been. And she’d make damn sure she’d left town and was long away by the time anyone found the breadcrumb. She had to. If she didn’t and Turner got hold of her, she had no doubt he’d hurt her to get to her mom. No doubt he’d do whatever it took to get back the woman who had run from him.
Chapter 9
Turner Carson scanned the room, easily taking in those who could help him and those who didn’t matter. It was one of the many annual events he attended, the stated goal of which was fundraising for God knows which charity this year, but he only attended for networking purposes. Sure, he wrote the obligatory check—they wouldn’t let him walk out without that—but he made sure he got something out of the event that would benefit one of his businesses in some way.
Marilyn Seaver was waving him down. He would have liked to pretend he didn’t see her but she was the mayor’s wife, so ignoring her wasn’t prudent.
“Marilyn, you’re looking lovely as ever.”
She waved off his compliment. “Is Debra doing better? Is she coming home soon?”
Turner blinked. He didn’t know why she would assume his wife would be coming home anytime soon. As far as the town was concerned, they all thought Debra was undergoing a series of groundbreaking surgeries in Switzerland but he’d made it clear her recovery would be a long time coming.
He hedged his answer. “She’s doing as well as can be expected, but she’s got a long way to go.”
Marilyn’s brows knit. “Oh, when I saw her daughter was back in the states, I assumed she was doing better. I was hopeful she might even be back.”
Turner forced his smile to remain in place as he glanced around the room. “You saw Jane?”
