Stay With Me
Ripping up the loose floorboard in the back of the tiny closet, her fingers fumbled the old coffee cannister as she pulled it out of hiding.
It was despairingly light, but she didn’t care; it would have to make do.
She could live below her means; she’d done it most of her life, this would be nothing new.
Scrambling up from her knees, she tossed the cannister into the black trash bag sitting on her bed, then shoved armfuls of clothes into it.
A handful of her favorite books went next, and the ache of leaving her small but prized collection of books behind cut her deeply.
They were her escape from reality… but this escape was far more important. And she was running out of time.
She grabbed the pillow and a blanket off the bed and then took one last look around the room that had been hers for most of her life. She wouldn’t be back, she couldn’t. Not if she wanted to escape the life her father had dragged her into, even if his motives had been for the right reasons.
She didn’t bother closing the door, just raced through the small house and into the kitchen, where she snatched up as much non-perishable food as she could hold; none of it was all that nutritious, but it was food and wouldn’t go bad while traveling.
Backtracking through the living room, she grabbed the small, decorative urn from the TV stand.
It was all she had left of her mother, and she’d be damned if she left her behind now.
She would never get the chance to say good-bye to her father.
He may have made bad choices in desperation, but he’d loved her.
He’d loved them both, so much. So much that he’d risked his own life to keep her out of the hell he’d fallen into…
But it hadn’t worked. They’d come for her. She’d escaped, barely. And now, she needed to run.
Even if she had no idea where she was going to run to.
Away. Away was all that she could think. As far away as possible.
In the distance, sirens sounded, and she forced the panic to the back of her mind. She needed to go, before they found her. She couldn’t go to the police... not when the police were in the pockets of the LA mafia. No, she needed to go. Before they came for her.
Nearly tripping as she raced out of the house, she skipped down the concrete steps and threw everything into the backseat of her car, an older Ford Focus that she’d scraped every penny to buy the year before.
She would have to ditch it, or try to sell it and get a little cash out of it, before she made it too far.
They would be looking for it.
She had immediately turned off her cellphone and would not be turning it back on, but leaving it behind was not an option. Not after what she’d managed to record… She wasn’t sure if it could be used to track her, but it was the only thing that could possibly save her now.
Climbing behind the wheel, she turned the car on and glanced into the back seat of her car.
She forced tears back as she stared at the pile of files and the zip-drive that lay on top.
Documents and files and records that had gotten her father killed in front of her eyes.
Documents that she was now in possession of.
Documents that they would be looking for, desperate to get back, and they would know exactly who had taken them.
They would come for her, she had no doubts.
She wouldn’t be here when they showed up.
Turning back around, she reached over and pulled a small manilla envelope from inside the glovebox. Opening it, her hands shook as she looked down at the fake ID she’d had made when her father had started working for Victor Alverez and the LA mafia. Something she had hoped to never have to use.
Fear squeezed her throat and tears stung her nose. She tucked the new ID into her wallet, tucking the old one into a small tear in the seat cushion.
Teresa Gonzalez was gone. She would disappear.
She only hoped it would work, and she could make a new life somewhere else—anywhere else—as Thea Morgan.