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“They’re watching her house,” Maggie said. Despite the hour, she sounded as alert as if it were high noon. “Slow drive-bys, the occasional car parked on the street for an hour or so before moving on. This afternoon a package was delivered. Well, almost. The so-called deliveryman rang the bell, looked in the window, then started nosing around. I went outside and offered to sign for the package for Lizette, but that spooked him and he left—with the package, which judging by the way he held it was nothing more than an empty box, just an excuse to get close, in case anyone was watching. No one has gone inside yet, but that’ll happen soon.”
“She’s not going back there,” Xavier said.
“Of course not. She isn’t a fool.” Maggie sounded insulted on Lizzy’s behalf. “Further instructions?” she asked.
“If they make a move on the house, call the police. As a concerned neighbor,” he added.
“I can handle them myself, if you’d just let me …”
“No.” He didn’t need dead bodies piling up on Lizzy’s doorstep. “I’m just trying to keep them busy.” And annoyed. They had to be wondering how an office worker could so efficiently elude them and have them running around like monkeys.
Maggie sighed, obviously disappointed. “My next assignment had better be a little more exciting than this one. The excitement factor has gone up the past few days, but watching an empty house is pretty damn boring.”
Xavier watched Rick finish up the repair job. “But you like the dog,” he said.
“Yeah, Roosevelt is a plus.” Then she went back to all-business. “I’ll let you know if matters escalate here, but my guess is when they see no results from their stakeout they’ll move on.” She paused. “Is she all right?”
“As far as I can tell.” Xavier ended the call and leaned against the garage wall again, watching the blinking dots that grew farther and farther apart. If he was lucky, in no more than an hour or two he’d be able to identify which tracker had stayed with Lizzy. If she’d gotten rid of them both … he was royally screwed.
Chapter Twenty-one
The morning sun was streaking the sky with pink when Lizzy reached Front Royal. She found a McDonald’s and parked Sean’s sister’s car in the rear, where several employees had parked, backing the compact car into a small space so the tag wasn’t visible from the parking lot. Someone would be looking for it, sooner or later. She took a moment to wipe down everything she’d touched, then got out and locked the car. She even wiped down the keys with her shirt, then, still using her shirttail to hold them, laid the keys across the back of her hand and tossed them into the Dumpster, hitched her bag over her shoulder, and started walking.
She was tired. The five hours of sleep she’d managed at the beginning of the long night had helped, of course, but stress and adrenaline had sapped almost all of her energy. She couldn’t keep up this pace for much longer. She needed to eat, and somehow she needed to grab a nap, even if only a short one. Fatigue would make her clumsy, both physically and mentally.
She thought about going into McDonald’s—good coffee—but she was leaving the car there, so it seemed a good idea to find somewhere else to eat. Where she ate might not matter, but at this point no one knew who’d stolen the car and she didn’t want to definitely connect herself to it. Would McDonald’s have a security cam? She knew for certain some of them did. She didn’t want to take the chance.
She started walking, and once again cursed the cheap shoes she was wearing. On the other hand, at least she had shoes.
She didn’t have any idea where she was going, but she headed toward what seemed like a busy section of town. Her choice worked out. A few blocks down the road she saw a plain, boxy building with a neon “Open” sign, and when she got closer she could read the lettering on the window: “Sam’s Cafe.” Below that was the welcome information that the cafe served breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Good for Sam, she thought as she went inside.
She stood for a few seconds, getting her bearings. No hostess, so it was seat-yourself. Bathrooms straight ahead as she’d come in the door. She made a beeline for the ladies’ room. She was starving for real food, but some needs were more urgent than others.
While in the bathroom she washed her face and hands, finger-combed her hair, then washed her hands again. She made a face at herself in the mirror. Thank goodness she’d been able to shower at the motel, but she was beginning to feel icky again, even though she hadn’t done anything more strenuous than drag Sean out of the backseat. She needed to buy some new underwear, too. She didn’t have any spare clothes with her, so she couldn’t even stop and do laundry unless she wanted to stand around buck naked while her clothes washed and dried. Having even one complete change of clothes would make a world of difference.
First things first, though. Next up: food.
The restaurant was evidently popular with the locals, because it was busy, with most of the booths and tables filled. Unease prickled along the back of her neck as she studied the scant selection of empty tables. She wanted something closer to the kitchen and the rear exit. As she hovered there looking for a place, a man slid out of a booth toward the back, and she hurried forward to take his place while the waitress was still busing the table.
She was not only starving now, she was going to need a lot of energy in the coming hours, so she ordered a huge breakfast: ham and eggs, biscuits, coffee. Grits were offere
d, but she turned them down because even though she’d heard about them she wasn’t really certain what a “grit” was, and the waitress asked if she wanted to substitute home fries. Potatoes? Oh, hell yeah.
While she ate, she thought. She didn’t know this area, but she was in a good-sized town that should be able to provide everything she needed for the next step.
She wasn’t sure how she knew, but she was fairly certain there was a bus station in Charlottesville, which would be somewhere around … seventy, eighty miles from here, by back roads. She needed to pick up a map and study it, make certain her memory, such as it was, wasn’t deceiving her.
Split the difference and say, seventy-five miles. She could walk it, but while that wasn’t impossible, neither was it practical. She didn’t have that kind of time to just mosey down the road. She could try to hitch a ride, but could she trust anyone who would pick her up? Hell, no. She couldn’t trust anyone, period. Look what trusting her had cost poor drunk Sean: his sister’s car, which he would get back, but for which he would have hell to pay when his sister found out what had happened; his wallet, which he might get back, depending on who found it in the Walmart freezer; his phone, which was toast; and his sixty bucks.
She had money, she had a lot more than Sean’s sixty bucks, but she had no idea how long what she had would have to last her, and every dollar would count before this was done. That was assuming this was ever really finished, that she would eventually be able to find a place to settle, establish a new identity, and have some semblance of a real life. Unless and until she fully regained her memory and knew exactly what was going on, she couldn’t afford to stop for longer than a brief rest. She was going to spend some of that money, though, because she had an idea about how she was going to get to Charlottesville.
The stores she needed probably wouldn’t open until nine or ten, and she didn’t want to go to another Walmart even though she could get everything she needed there in one stop. There were too many cameras, and she didn’t want to establish a pattern. Smaller stores would be better.
The waitress was friendly, but thank goodness was too busy to strike up a conversation. Lizzy ate, she planned, then she paid and left.
Today was going to be tough, but she’d have to push through it. She wouldn’t have an opportunity to sleep for a while. When she got to Charlottesville and was on a bus heading south, then she’d sleep. How well she’d be able to sleep on a bus was up in the air, but any sleep was better than none.
In the meantime, she had to keep moving, keep going forward.
