Chapter 33
On the second day, they saw a self-service car wash with power hoses, stopped, and thoroughly cleaned the truck, with particular attention to the cargo bay.
They put the clothes they’d worn with traces of blood on them into a trash bag and stuffed them into a dumpster behind a store near Lubbock, Texas.
On the third day, they left the truck outside a U-Haul lot in Dallas with the keys in it and walked a mile to a hotel-rich area, where they took a cab to the bus station and bought tickets to Chicago.
The travel became easier after that. During a stop in Indianapolis, Jane and Karen walked to a big drugstore and bought another burner phone, and then abandoned the idea of continuing to Chicago and bought tickets to Cleveland. While they were on that bus, Jane used the phone to call Carey.
“It’s me,” she said. “Karen and I are on our way to you. Tell me how everybody is.”
“May and Katie and Carolyn are fine. Me too. I’m more than fine, as of now. I’m relieved. When do you expect to be here?”
“I’m guessing about three more days. I’ve got to go, but I love you.
” Once again, she’d said it, but she hated the inadequacy of it.
She really did love him, but throughout her marriage to him, she seemed to say it most often when she was far away and not telling him what she was doing there, so saying she loved him felt like a lie, a way of diverting his attention from things she didn’t want him to ask her about.
They kept going, and reached Syracuse a day earlier than she had predicted, and took a taxi to the airport to pick up Jane’s Volvo from the airport parking lot.
When she started the car, Jane said, “What happened to us in California and what we did afterward is a secret. If one of us ever told anyone anything about it, the consequences would be the kind we could never recover from. It’s not easy to be a person who can’t ever talk to anyone about big things that have happened, but this is one secret you have to keep forever. ”
Karen said, “I’m a criminal lawyer. I know what the legal consequences would be.
I’ve thought about the rest of it since the minute it happened.
The fact that the two of us know what we did and why we had to do it is enough.
I don’t need to have anyone else know. As far as I’m concerned, you came to my house for a visit. ”
That night they took the county road into Cantrell Falls, the small central New York town where Stewart and Molly lived.
They parked for five minutes before Jane saw the front door open for a second and then close again.
Then they got out of the car and walked across the park to the big old house and up onto the dark porch.
Molly opened the door, let them in, and then looked out at the circular street around the park, the quiet streets radiating from it, and then closed the door.
Molly hugged Jane and then looked at the woman she had brought with her.
Jane said, “Molly, this is my friend Karen.”
Karen said to Molly, “Thank you so much for lending my client your phone to call Jane about me. I’m very grateful.”
Molly smiled. “I’m glad you’re here. Your client will be very glad to see you.”
They climbed the stairs to the shop where Stewart was at work. He looked up. “Hello, Jane.”
“Hi, Stewart. This is Karen,” Jane said. “You happened to be on our way, so I thought we’d stop and see if Karen’s client was ready to go to his next stop.”
“I’m pleased to meet you,” Stewart said to Karen. He looked at Jane. “I finished his order the day before yesterday. He’s ready to go.”
Jane said, “I think that if you have time, Karen needs one identity that’s good enough to get her on an airplane. It’s a precaution, not for a specific emergency in the present. A birth certificate and a Real ID driver’s license. It doesn’t matter what state, as long as it’s not California.”
“Have you told her what it will cost?”
“It’s a present,” Jane said. “I don’t have the cash with me right now, but I’ll get it to you when the work is ready to pick up. Can you do it?”
“Sure,” he said. “I can mail it to your PO box.”
Molly said, “Karen, come with me. We need some pictures and we need to talk about a name you’d like to use.” She and Karen went down the hall to the photographic studio.
Stewart looked at Jane. “I may have to do some photo magic on the pictures. The bruises and cuts and the split lip may show if I don’t.
” He said, “You too, now that I see you in the light. Your face is healed up better than hers, but the scrapes on your hands and that bruise on your neck are still pretty clear.”
“What can I say? Rough trip. It’s too hot out for a turtleneck or a scarf, but I’ll use more makeup.”
“Molly probably has your shade in the studio. It’s on the house.”
“Thanks, Stewart.”
A moment later Brian Finlay leaned in the door. Jane said, “Hi, Brian. Are you ready to move on?”
“Yes,” he said. “Stewart and Molly have been great, but I’m sure they’ll be ready to start missing me as soon as possible.”
“Okay,” Jane said. “We’ll go as soon as Molly is done with Karen.”
Ten minutes later the three were walking across the city park to the space where Jane had left her car. Jane clicked the fob to unlock the doors, and Brian said, “I’m feeling fresh and ready to drive. I’ve gotten used to being awake when Stewart and Molly are awake.”
“Great,” Jane said. “We’ve been navigating with this burner phone I picked up.
We want to go south into Pennsylvania and head to a farm outside Pittsburgh.
It belongs to a friend of mine. She doesn’t know what I’ve been doing all these years, so don’t talk about being on the run or anything.
I’ll enter the address for you.” She typed in the information and put the phone into the cup holder, where he could see and hear it.
As soon as she had watched Brian drive a few minutes and had assured herself he was a good enough driver to trust—he had driven himself across the country to reach her just weeks ago—she allowed herself to lean her seat back and fall asleep.
The others talked in low voices for a while, and then Karen fell asleep in the back seat, and the only voice in the car was the female phone app voice telling Brian when a turn was coming up.
When Jane woke up, it was because the morning sun was in the east. They were in Pennsylvania, only a few miles from their destination.
Jane brought her seat back up and used the visor mirror and the brush she had bought during a visit she had Karen had made to a big Target store in Syracuse to brush her hair.
Then she handed the brush to Karen. She put on a little makeup and perfume, and waited.
“In one mile,” said the female phone app, “your destination will be on your right.”
Jane put everything except the phone away in the overnight bag she had bought during the trip. She picked up the phone and said to Brian, “Do you need this anymore? I’ll warn you when I see the place.”
“Then I don’t.”
She called Carey’s cell phone. “Hi,” she said.
“Where are you now?” he said.
“If you were to pick up May and walk out the front door onto the porch, you would probably see us in a minute.”
She turned to Brian. “See the big white farmhouse up there? That’s it. Stop at the gate so I can open it. Carey? See you in a minute.”