Midnight Sun (The Twilight Saga #5) - Stephenie Meyer Page 0,275

fragments in the window frame, leaving blood on the edges. She flings the contents of one bag so it sprays out in a fan like the glass. The next two she pours onto the edge of the sidewalk, letting it pool up and soak into the concrete and run onto the pavement.

The horn goes silent.

Alice dials again. “Pick me up.”

The Cayenne appears almost immediately. Alice dashes through the sunlight to duck into the back, the last bag of blood clutched in her hand.

And then I was back in the present with her. Alice was satisfied with how that section would play out. She turned her attention to the next parts. None of it as much fun, but all still vital.

“Fun,” I scoffed. She ignored me.

Back to the airport. She chooses a white Suburban from the rental counter. It doesn’t look that much like the Cayenne, but it’s large and white and any witness with a story that doesn’t match will be written off. She doesn’t see any such witness, but she’s being meticulous.

Alice drives the Cayenne. She’s having an easier time with the scent than Jasper and Emmett; even though Bella is no longer in danger from them, the smell burns them when they breathe. They follow at a distance in the Suburban. She finds a car wash called Deluxe Detail. She pays with cash, and warns the boy at the counter—who is staring, mesmerized, at her face—that her niece threw up a bunch of tomato juice in the backseat. She points to her shoes. The besotted boy promises that the car will be spotless when they’re finished. (No one will question this story. The technician, fearing the scent of vomit will make him ill, will breathe only through his mouth.) She gives the name Mary. She thinks about washing her shoes off in the bathroom but sees that it won’t help very much.

She will wait an hour for the car to be finished. She calls the hotel after the first fifteen minutes have passed, ducking out the back door and standing in the shade where the sounds of vacuums and sprayers keep anyone from overhearing her words.

She apologizes to the same woman at the front desk, her voice frantic. A visiting friend, a horrible accident in the back stairwell. The window… the blood… (Alice is barely coherent). Yes, she’s at the hospital with the friend now. But the window! The glass! Someone else could get hurt. Please, it should be cordoned off until maintenance can clean it up. She has to go—they’re going to let her in to see her friend. Thank you. So sorry.

Alice sees that the woman at the desk will not call the police. She will call management. They will direct the woman to get everything cleaned up before someone else is hurt. That will be the story when the legal papers are served: They cleaned up the evidence for safety’s sake. They will wait in miserable suspense for the lawsuit that never comes. It will be more than a year before they start to believe their amazing luck.

The detailing done, Alice examines the backseat. There’s no visible evidence. She tips the technician. Alice gets into the Cayenne and takes a deep breath in through her nose. Well, the car won’t pass a luminol test, but she sees that it won’t get one.

Jasper and Emmett follow her to a mall in downtown Scottsdale. She parks the Cayenne on the third floor of a huge parking garage. It will be four days before the security guard reports the abandoned vehicle.

Alice and Jasper go shopping while Emmett waits in the rental car. She buys a pair of tennis shoes in a busy Gap. No one looks down at her feet. She pays cash.

She buys Emmett a T-shirt-thin hoodie that actually fits him. She buys six large bags of clothes in her size, Carlisle’s size, Emmett’s size, and my own. She uses a different ID and credit card than she used at the hotel. Jasper acts as a Sherpa for her.

Finally, she buys four suitcases that don’t match. She and Jasper wheel them to the rental car, where she pulls tags and fills them all with brand-new clothes.

She throws her bloody shoes in a dumpster on their way out.

There are no rewinds or replays. Everything goes perfectly smoothly.

Jasper and Alice drop Emmett off at the airport. He takes one of the carry-on suitcases; he looks less conspicuous than he did for the morning flight.

They find Carlisle’s Mercedes where they