jet lag he’d see my text and write me while I was sipping my Johnnie Walker.
I leaned against the banquette, but when I shut my eyes, women’s faces spun through my mind—Lydia’s in all its terror; Kelly Kay Morton’s anger over her son’s and her own fate buried under a thick skin of apathy; Lydia’s mother, defiantly announcing that she’d shot at Coop; even Filomena, the Chilean disciple of Ayn Rand. They all belonged together, my brain was trying to tell me, but I couldn’t figure out why.
“Do you want those vegetables cooked more, hon?” The waitress jolted me back to the room.
I assured her that I liked them crunchy. “Sorry. Long day.”
“We’re closing soon, hon. You want another Scotch?”
I wanted another Scotch, but a second whisky would make it hard for me to stay awake long enough to reach Tales of a Traveler. I settled the bill and walked back along empty streets to the motel. I thought of all the times I’d cursed the traffic and noise in Chicago, but being alone in a small town, knowing someone had tried to murder me this morning, made me long for a three-block traffic jam.
Franklin Alsop wanted to know why people were shooting at me, and I couldn’t come up with a good reason. Maybe my downstairs neighbor had hired a hit man to save her the trouble of getting me evicted.
Alsop had said something else that made me cautious: he hoped Eddie hadn’t been as chatty with everyone as he was with me. When I reached the motel, I didn’t go inside but crept around to the back, trying to walk silently in my mud-crusted boots.
About a dozen other cars were parked in the lot. I hadn’t paid as close attention as I should have, but I thought five had been there when I arrived back from Cassie’s prairie. I wondered what brought people to Ellsworth late at night. They couldn’t all be on a mission to attack Chicago detectives.
Homey lights shone through some of the curtains. My own room was black. I should have left a light on to welcome me home. And to see if someone turned it off in my absence.
I went around to the main entrance. No one was at the front desk. It was only 9:50; even if the motel didn’t run to twenty-four-hour service it was still early to shut down for the day.
Two people were in the alcove with the vending machines, but they weren’t buying anything. They looked at me furtively and one of them started texting.
I left, not running, but moving at a good clip. No one was behind me when I got into the Impala, but a light came on in my room. I kept the car lights off and took off as fast as possible without laying down rubber. Still keeping dark, I circled the downtown and followed signs leading to Great Bend. When I was in the open country, I turned on my headlights, looking for a place to pull off the road that wouldn’t land me in a ditch.
I came on a big gate outside a field with a clearing in front just big enough for a tractor to pull off the road. I didn’t want to take the time to open a gate, but a tangle of bushes and tall grasses covered the area on either side of the clearing. I got out to inspect the land, check where the drainage ditch ended, then backed the Impala carefully behind the sheltering plants. When I got out, I ran my hands through the grasses to make the ones I’d driven over stand upright. A car was coming; I ducked into the ditch, but it didn’t slow.
I crossed the road and sat in the high plants along the shoulder opposite. In the next hour, nine cars drove by, six coming from Ellsworth, three heading to it. One slowed as it passed my hideout. It shone a police-style searchlight at the gate, but my work on the grasses had apparently been good enough—they didn’t stop, and the Impala’s metal trim didn’t catch the light.
I waited another hour, but the car didn’t return and no one else was searching. I crossed the road again and climbed into the backseat. I unlaced my boots but kept them on, just in case. I lay across the seat, knees drawn up, grateful Eddie’s beater was such a big old boat, and fell heavily asleep.
48
Trouble Follows Me
It was six on another gray morning