Untouched The Girl in the Box - By Robert J. Crane Page 0,90

The office was warm enough, and I was already wearing my coat. But the way he said it, the timbre of his voice, the delivery—gave me a very real shudder that was absolutely unrelated to the cold.

Chapter 30

It was a Monday, I think. I let the nice agent (he didn’t sneer or get pissy at all with me, a rarity for people from the Directorate in my experience) drive me to the bank. They were very pleasant and understanding, having had a long relationship with the Directorate, and so I opened an account and the money was in it within just a few minutes. Which was fortunate, because I didn’t have a driver’s license. Somehow, Ariadne had gotten copies of my Social Security Card and Birth Certificate, which made things easier.

I left the bank with a temporary checkbook and a debit card, walking across the parking lot back to the car where the agent was waiting for me, the heat from the exhaust causing the tale pipe to steam in the cold. And it was cold, cold but beautiful, the sunlight streaming down from above, shining off all the ice and snow. I looked up, just to make sure the sun was still there. It was, seated in the middle of the blue sky. I smiled and got in the car.

The drive to Eden Prairie Center only took a few minutes. I entered through the same entrance by the food court that I had fairly destroyed last time I was there. There was still a hole in the wall where I’d thrown Henderschott through, though they had workmen patching the damage. I passed by without paying too much attention, trying to appear innocent.

I stopped at a lot of different stores, and I bought a few things. I had decided before I walked in that I was going to try and spend less than five hundred dollars, because even though I had ten thousand, I didn’t ever want to be stuck in a situation where I needed money and didn’t have it. I tried to find the bargain tables, checked the prices on everything before I bought it, and did the math in my head. It all worked out well and I found some very nice things (all of which were long sleeved and didn’t show much in the way of flesh, because every inch of it I exposed was an inch that could kill someone) but that took my wardrobe beyond the dullness of Ariadne’s. Not that it would take much.

I walked out of the store I was in, having stocked up on some professional-looking outfits and started to make my way back to the car. By my estimate, I was a couple hundred under my limit and quite content with that until I passed the store I’d gone by with Zack only a week earlier. The dress was still in the window, the red one that I had seen on the woman I had thought was my mom. I hesitated outside, staring. It was impractical. It wasn’t for me. But I went inside, and they had it in my size.

I tried it on and stood in front of a mirror, staring at myself again. I looked...so different, now. I bought it and I couldn’t define exactly why. Call it recklessness (even though I questioned whether I’d ever wear it in public), call it desperation (because to be able to wear it meant consequences that could be quite dire) or you could call it...hope. That things would change somehow, get better.

I was walking out of the store, lost in thought when a flash of red drew my attention to someone standing in my path. I looked up and found her staring at me, the woman from before. She still wore red, but it was a different dress this time. This one was cut to the knee, a little more conservative but not much. I could still see every curve she clearly wanted displayed, and it made me want to shrink away in envy. I tried to smile and go around her, but she stepped into my path. “Hi there,” she said.

“Hello.” I didn’t know quite what to say. I could feel the hint of flush on my cheeks. “I’m sorry about last time, I didn’t mean to scare you. I just...saw you from a distance and thought you were my mom.” She stared back at me, impassive. “She’s missing, so...anyway, sorry.” I half-expected some soft, cooing sound of sympathy like