Chapter 13 Cara
THIRTEEN
CARA
OMG! Cara Campbell is loose in the forest! #NotGoingCampingThisWeekend
No matter how often she slipped and stumbled as she zigzagged down the hillside, Cara didn’t turn on the phone’s flashlight.
The glow would give away her position, and she didn’t want to run down the battery.
Every so often, she peeked down into her bra and checked the screen for cell coverage, but other than one fleeting bar at the peak of the ridge and a heartbreaking text that flashed on the spiderwebbed screen—Bree, Bree, where u be?
—the device was nothing more than a flat, hard security blanket.
Her own phone, certainly dead by now, was probably still zipped into the outer pouch of the sensible Coach bag she’d carried with her to court.
Early in the trial, when Abel believed there were at least two sympathetic jurors, both female, in their twenties, with enough social media savvy to know Cara’s brand as an influencer was about honesty and self-worth, not greed, she had real hope of being acquitted.
She planned the moment perfectly: as soon as the verdict was read and she’d hugged her lawyer (for the photo that would hang on his Wall of Exoneration), but before he escorted her out of the courtroom to make a statement to the press, she would press share on the one-word post she’d written in preparation.
INNOCENT.
Hours earlier, when she’d allowed herself to indulge in pie-in-the-sky manifestation, she’d fallen on her face. But as she trudged into a grassy meadow bordered by dots of light, she couldn’t help feeling hopeful when she peeked at the phone and saw not one, but two bars.
Three bars and the connection would be strong enough to get online.
She’d be able to google herself and see what was and wasn’t being reported about the accident, her escape, and how and where they were looking for her.
She could start to figure out what to do next.
Did she still have any supporters besides Aunt Evelyn now that she’d been convicted?
Now that she’d escaped? She needed to see what her best friend, Stephanie van der Lind, was posting.
Cara wasn’t sure if she wanted to ask for a ride back to civilization or somewhere she could permanently escape it.
The smoky, moonless sky provided concealing darkness as she took cautious steps in the direction of what she hoped was a rural farm—and not, for all she knew, the outskirts of downtown Fresno.
She stopped when she was close enough to make out stables, a barn, outbuildings, and the lighted windows of what was indeed a farmhouse, keeping her distance so she wouldn’t spook the livestock or arouse the attention of any guard dogs.
The first thing she saw as she pulled the phone out of her cleavage was four bright bars.
Then her throat tightened. She had been refreshing the phone at regular intervals to keep it from locking, but she had waited too long, and now the screen—which displayed a picture of kittens in a basket—demanded a passcode.
Shit!
Her fingers were cold and stiff as she pecked out the first combinations that came to mind: 1234, 1122, 2026.
If she were a teenager, she knew she’d have used her own birthday year, but 2007, 2008, and 2009 didn’t work.
She moved on to high school graduation years.
After 2026, the screen locked. Too many attempts.
Shit! Shit! Shit!
Now more than ever, getting online was her lifeline.
A horse whinnied from inside the barn, as though laughing at her stupidity.
The animal wasn’t wrong, considering she’d overlooked the most obvious issue of all: if the phone had service, even spotty service, the authorities could find her.
She had been carrying around something that couldn’t get her online, with a flashlight she shouldn’t use, that was effectively a tracking device.
It seemed stupid to cry, and even more so to hyperventilate, but she began to do both.
Her chest was heaving. She needed air but couldn’t get any, no matter how quickly she gasped for breath. Paper bag, she thought, which panicked her more and left her gasping.
In desperation, she reached down and grabbed the neck of her baggy jumpsuit, pulled up the fabric, and plunged her face inside, recoiling at the nauseating stench of smoke, industrial detergent, and her now overpowering BO.
“Get your shit together!” she growled into her chest.
Forcing herself to keep breathing—in through the nose, out through the mouth—Cara slowly sank to the ground.
She could barely feel her hands and feet, and numbness crept up her arms and legs, but slowly, she brought her breathing under control.
She let go of her lapels and transitioned into four-count box-breathing, then into deep and slow belly breaths.
Finally, her heart stopped palpitating, and the squeezing panic loosened in her chest. She’d stopped crying.
As she lay in the dirt, feeling slowly returning to her limbs, she considered tossing the phone, or better yet, burying it.
But she was going to need the flashlight at some point.
And if she was too hurt or too hungry or dehydrated and had no choice but to give up, she had to be able to contact 911.
Both features worked, even on a locked phone.
What she needed to do was to get rid of the SIM card.
ASAP.
Cara had no idea how to bypass a locked Android, but popping out a SIM card was standard procedure.
All she needed was the conservative gold-post earrings she’d been forced to surrender after the verdict, along with her bag, phone, and all of her courtroom clothing.
Believing she’d never need any of it again, she’d asked Abel to donate her outfit to Dress for Success.
Better it be worn by a woman who needed a Zimmermann suit for job interviews than sold to a true-crime memorabilia collector on eBay.
Now dressed in torn prison garb that would sell for even more, she started feeling around in the dirt for a small stick, twig, or bramble, something with a tiny protuberance that might open the SIM card tray.
Headlights swept the field. A truck was bouncing up the farmhouse driveway.
Feeling a surge of adrenaline, Cara popped up and ran, gripping the phone tightly as she headed back toward the hills. She didn’t stop until she was in a dark tangle of trees where there were absolutely no bars of service at all.