“Daisy Gray?” Death snickered, peering over her shoulder at the order form.
“It’s a lesson I learned from John D. MacDonald.”
“The author?”
“He said when you pretend to have a different name you should make it sound as much like your real name as possible, so when people call you by the new name you react naturally to it.”
“I get it. Casey. Daisy. I guess they’re a lot the same, although the ‘s’ sound is different, isn’t it? Casey has the hissing sound, while Daisy sounds more like a z, which could be confusing—”
“L’Ankou?”
“Yes?”
“Shut up.”
“Okay, so they’re pretty close. I see that. But Gray?”
“It doesn’t matter how that sounds. People won’t call me by that. Besides, I hardly know what my real last name is anymore.”
“At least this is better than Smith or Jones.”
“At least.”
She finished up the order form and got her wallet.
“Now what?”
“Now I go get a money order and mail it. We should just be able to get to the post office before it closes.”
“And then we wait.”
“Yes.”
“Here? At the Drive-In?”
“That’s right. You don’t like it, you can go away.”
Death frowned. “Are you doing this to get rid of me?”
“Think what you like.”
Death disappeared in a blue fog, leaving Casey alone to run her errands, which was a nice change. She got the order sent off, ate a large, delicious dinner at a local diner, and went back to her room, where she took a nap. When she woke up she worked out, performing one of her hapkido kata, and took a long shower, which wasn’t necessarily as hot as she would have liked, but at least got her clean.
Interspersed between these various activities, she looked at the cell phone Bailey had given her. She longed to call someone—anyone—to hear a friendly voice. Her brother, her lawyer, Bailey herself. Eric. Finally, she took the phone and shoved it deep in her bag, where it wasn’t a constant temptation. She couldn’t afford to get found. Not now. Not before she had her new papers.
Casey’s stomach soon began protesting her big dinner, unused to having such rich food. That night was a long one, with cramps and other symptoms of system overload. The only bright spot was that Death wasn’t there to gloat.
By morning, Casey had sworn off rich food forever, and roused herself with a double workout. She barely made it through, but felt much better afterward. That was the beginning of a long several days, during which Casey just tried to keep herself occupied.
The first day, she bought her own cleaning supplies and scrubbed the room from top to bottom. She pulled the mattress and box springs apart and doused them with Lysol, leaving them to dry for several hours. Once the bed was ready, she put on a new mattress pad, new sheets, and a new blanket, leaving the others in a heap outside her door. The pillows, such as they were, went out with the sheets, and she replaced them with two new ones. She covered the carpet with shake-on sanitizer and swiped one of the vacuums and a brand new sweeper bag from the “Maintenance Closet”—not that she ever saw anybody maintaining anything. She moved the furniture to sweep every square inch. She purchased her own set of towels, and sent the old ones out with the rest of the linens, hopefully to be burned. For the rest of her stay she left the “Do Not Disturb” sign on the doorknob, and on the inside, she installed a brand new slide lock, which kept her feeling marginally safer.
After that, she had to find other things to do.
She did her laundry twice in the crappy Laundromat down the street. It was a novelty to have to guard her clothes while they were in the dryer.
She bought food at the closest Whole Foods store—many blocks away—and found delis for lunch where she could get soup, or sandwiches on whole wheat bread.
She worked out twice a day, once performing differing kata, once doing the more routine sit-ups and push-ups.
She studied her face in the mirror, amazed at how fast faces heal when one has a regular diet and enough sleep.
And she watched lots and lots of bad TV. Since the motel had no cable—their usual tenants not requiring the additional entertainment—she was stuck with whatever the networks were offering. Death always joined her for the evenings, getting a kick out of the various reality shows and offering advice to both the Big Losers and