Chapter 47 Cara
FORTY-SEVEN
CARA
—Kim L., Atlanta, GA, TripAdvisor
As the train made its way east toward Santa Barbara, hugging the coast, Cara studied the public transit options between Union Station in Downtown LA and the safe house in the San Fernando Valley.
Metrolink was the quickest option and would get her directly to Reseda in forty-five minutes.
The bus would take at least twice as long and would require her to make transfers, but the White Oak stop was very close to the address she’d been given.
She wouldn’t take a cab unless she absolutely had to.
Cara checked her DMs for the millionth time.
Still nothing from Dylan Danvers.
She dodged the conductor all night, until he finally stopped walking from car to car. Her eyelids were so heavy that she finally allowed them to close, sleeping in a window seat for the last thirty minutes of the train ride.
The squeal of metal on metal woke her abruptly. She opened her eyes to see downtown high-rises, old warehouses, and graffitied stucco. The train slowed steadily as it approached the raised platforms above the sprawling, Spanish-style Union Station.
Cara had attended a Children’s Hospital gala in the gold-and-brown-tiled art deco ticketing concourse and a wine festival on the tree-lined north patio but had never actually arrived at the station on board a train.
At those events, she’d been a VIP. She was today, too, although anyone waiting to greet her would be in uniform and offering not to take her jacket but handcuff her.
And instead of looking distinctive in Carolina Herrera, or edgy in Rachel Comey or another hot local designer, she was dressed to fit in.
If only she had luggage. Its absence was a dead giveaway.
Spotting a frail-looking elderly woman trying to wrestle her luggage out of the overhead storage bins, she hurried to help.
“Can I help you with that?”
“Thank you, dear,” the old gal said gratefully.
Cara was relieved to note the woman’s hair color also came out of a bottle and was strikingly similar to hers. As she lugged the bag off the train and onto the platform, the two of them probably looked enough like mother and daughter that no one gave them a second glance.
They emerged into a cavernous passageway that smelled of urine and hot pretzels. Cara lingered, chatting with the woman, until she met up with a potbellied, middle-aged man who appeared to be her actual offspring.
Cara headed for the Metro Rail tunnel toward the front of the station but stopped when she got there. An LAPD cop was standing at the entrance, watching faces with what looked like professional interest. Plan B, then.
The bus left in ten minutes, but to reach it, Cara had to pass a gauntlet of tunnels, some of them also guarded by policemen. Her throat went dry. Were they here for her? The station was busy, but not so crowded they couldn’t see everyone passing by.
Whenever she was passed over for a part, her mom always quoted Marilyn Monroe: “Dreaming about being an actress is more exciting than being one.” And before she went to her next audition, she always looked in the mirror and gave herself another inspirational boost: “If you’re going to do something, do it with style. ”
Cara took a deep breath and decided to follow the latter advice, with a codicil: You’re dressed different. You look different. You are different.
She forced herself to approach a man wearing a Beer Me T-shirt and a telltale red baseball cap.
“Do you know your way around this place?” she asked, for the first time in her life hoping for directional mansplaining.
He stepped closer just as a strolling cop glanced over. They must have looked like a couple, because his gaze didn’t linger.
Red ball cap flashed a yellow-toothed smile. “What are you looking for?”
“A bathroom, actually.”
“I think there’s one right by the fish tank outside of the bus depot. I’m headed that way, too.”
“Awesome!” she said, with as much sincerity as she could muster.
None of the cops seemed to notice her as they passed, probably because they were on the lookout for an unaccompanied blond female. But as they neared the women’s restroom, she saw a female officer questioning everyone who entered.
“I thought I smelled Wetzel’s,” Cara said, rerouting toward a pretzel kiosk at the far end of the main terminal.
“Mind if I come with?” asked her companion.
“I’ve got it from here,” she told him. “But thanks for showing me where the bathrooms are.”
Escaped convict Cara Campbell certainly wouldn’t stand in line buying cinnamon pretzel bites, right?
“What is going on around here?” the woman in front of her asked. “There are cops everywhere.”
Cara shrugged. “No idea.”
And then she saw a man wearing a cowboy hat. In his khaki shirt, and army-green Madera County Sheriff’s jacket and pants, Sheriff Burke stood out from the all-black LAPD. Stationed in the center of the concourse, he looked methodically from face to face.
Cara didn’t dare to move as he trained his gaze on the Wetzel’s Pretzels line, scanning from front to back. When he reached her, his eyes widened.
She pretended to check the time on her phone. “Oh, shoot, my bus is about to leave.”
As she fast-walked outside and up the stairs, she heard her Instagram ping.