Prologue #2
She had never seen enough people in the place to justify that amount of food coming in, but she kept her mouth shut.
Jamie would talk to her on breaks. And his stories would terrify her to no end about what was going to happen to the place should the police or someone who had more firepower come along and decide that they’d had enough.
Enough what, she would never know unless it was in the paper, but she was glad to have been able to get away from the place before anyone wanted answers from her. She didn’t have any.
The little town where she lived was perfect for where she wanted to go.
They’d notice a stranger in town, which was why, for the past six months, she’d made sure that she’d been seen by just about everyone around.
She’d even taken jobs that were there just so she’d have a presence in town.
Not knowing what was going on, she made sure that she’d be able to hide in plain sight when the time came to disappear.
She’d even known that McGee was the new chief of police in town, and he didn’t even realize that she’d babysat his kids one night recently. She was good at hiding out and had done it for so long that she was sure that she could do it for the rest of her life and not be caught.
Hailey decided that she could go into the greenhouse to spend a couple of days.
There had been work started on it earlier in the year, but it had stopped.
There was heat in the place now, for which she was grateful, and figured that she could stay in it for the rest of the fall and into winter.
She’d already gotten herself a post office box with her name on it.
All she had to do was collect it once a week, and that would be another place that people would see her at.
Situating herself in the greenhouse office, she was able to use the big bags of soil for a bed.
They weren’t as soft as a bed, but they were warm with the heat of the office that she’d carried them into.
In addition to a bed, using the desk, she also had herself a table and a little heater that someone had left behind.
There was even a hot plate that she could use, but she was slightly afraid of it.
The plug was frayed, and she didn’t trust the wiring around it.
She would only use it if she were there all the time.
She didn’t want to burn down the place just because she wanted her soup hot.
Fixing herself some ramen noodles for dinner, she was set up about as well as she could be and still have food and water.
After taking an inventory of the place and then figuring out different ways to get in and out, she felt that she was safe here until spring.
She didn’t know if they were going to start the greenhouse up again or if they’d abandon it, as it looked to her like they had.
The next morning, she didn’t even bother trying to look for a newspaper.
It only came out once a week, and she’d be lucky if the news in it wasn’t about a month old.
Mostly, it kept up with the local sports teams and what they were doing, but it rarely, if ever, had a front page that would tell you something that you’d need to know, like a restaurant that had been shot up and people killed.
She’d be better off trying to get information from the town librarian rather than the newspaper. She’d be able to answer questions, too.
Going to the pizza place in town around ten, she asked if they had any work for her.
They usually did, and she was glad that she could work today.
They never asked her for her phone number.
Whenever she had free time, she would go in and ask.
It was also a good way to hear things. She was hoping that the town would be abuzz about what had gone on at one of the biggest restaurants in town.
By the time her shift was over and she’d signed up for tomorrow too, she heard three different versions of what had happened at the Golden Sheep.
She was going to have to get more information, but the police had made sure that no one could get into the parking lot, and there were no cameras around either.
The first version was that the place had blown up from a gas leak.
She knew that one wasn’t right. They never mentioned the dead bodies, nor did they talk about how the Feds were there either.
It had been a big deal to have the Feds around because the owner had blown it up for tax purposes and insurance. She didn’t believe that one to be true.
Nor did she think the second one she’d heard was true.
It said that the gas leaked again, but since it didn’t blow the place up, they only had to evacuate.
Again, no mention of bodies or dead people, so she didn’t hold out much hope of that one being true either.
She’d seen at least four of the dead and thought about number three. It had the most truth to it.
There was no gas leak, but it did mention that the place had been gone over by the Feds.
It was said that Mr. Shadows had been arrested, but that was easy enough to get wrong.
No one had seen his body as yet, and they were speculating on how he might have been taken out of the picture.
It talked about how there were other agencies around and that they weren’t allowing anyone within a mile of the place. The road had even been blocked off.
The thing was that she had it in her head that the place was selling some kind of illegal drugs.
Whether it was fentanyl or not, she wasn’t sure, but something was going on.
Just as she was clocking out of the pizza shop, they got a big order for ten large pizzas and five large salads.
It could only be one family that ordered like that, and the Penningtons were not ones to mess with.
They had a way about them that scared even her.
Plus, they were big men who were soft-spoken.
The kind of combination that would get a person into trouble with them.
She stayed long enough to get the pizzas in the oven and the salads made.
It was good money working for the town’s only pizza place, and they were always busy.