Chapter Twenty-Five
Twenty-Five
Mary had come up with the idea while still at the hotel in Franklin.
Her train of thought had been simple: if gangster-suit man had managed to track her down in Nashville, it meant that he was good at what he did.
It would be just a matter of time before he figured out that she had jumped into a cab and that she wasn’t going back to her apartment.
From there, it wouldn’t take him long to find out about the hotel in Franklin and the early bus heading towards Birmingham.
Unlike airlines, bus companies did not have a passenger manifest, so the only way for gangster-suit man to confirm if Mary had boarded the bus in Franklin, then debarked it in Birmingham, would be by watching the CCTV camera footage at the bus stations.
Sure, she had kept her head low so that the camera wouldn’t capture her face, but that wouldn’t really keep gangster-suit man from recognizing her.
So, Mary’s plan had been to simply fake it – make him believe that she had used Birmingham as a springboard destination, boarding another bus shortly after arriving in town, but this time the bus would be heading somewhere far, somewhere where he couldn’t drive to so easily – a clear indication that she was trying to put as much distance between her and him as she possibly could.
Another trick that she had picked up from spy films.
With that in mind, after arriving in Birmingham, Mary checked the departures’ board at the station. In less than half an hour there was a bus departing to Milwaukee, in Wisconsin. That was certainly far enough, and the timing was absolutely perfect.
Mary walked up to the teller window and used her credit card to purchase a ticket. She knew that that would leave a trail, but that had been exactly why she did it – in case, somehow, gangster-suit man had a way of tracking her credit card activity.
Minutes later, Mary boarded the bus, heading towards Milwaukee, with all the other passengers. Once again, for the sake of the CCTV camera, she kept her head low and her hands firmly tucked into her jacket pockets – fugitive style.
The bus departed exactly on time, but just a minute after that, as it veered right and came to a stop at a red traffic light, Mary asked the driver to open the door and let her out.
The driver frowned at her, not really understanding what was going on.
She simply told him that she had changed her mind about going to Wisconsin.
With no luggage for her to retrieve from the luggage compartment, it would cause the driver no delay at all to let her out.
‘There are no refunds,’ the driver had said, in a heavy Alabama accent. ‘You know that, right?’
‘Yep. No problem.’
‘Fine, it’s your money lady,’ the driver had commented, before pressing the button to release the door.
As she stepped out of the bus, Mary didn’t know if gangster-suit man would end up in Milwaukee or not. Either way, with her little ‘hop-on hop-off’ trick, she was pretty sure that she would never see him again.