All the Missing Pieces - Julianna Keyes Page 0,107
pieces of flesh sway. My stomach lurches, bile burning the back of my throat. To add insult to injury, my half hour of digging has resulted in little more than a trench barely big enough to bury the shovel. I’m spiteful, so I do just that, kicking dirt over the top and spitting for good measure, then I get back in the car and slowly reverse down the logging road until I can see the moon again.
I don’t know where to go. I’ve got a half-tank of gas, and I’m not going to waste it by driving in circles. I have to decide. To the east of the flat plains of farmland there’s a smattering of lights from an industrial park, so I make my way over, craning my neck for some place to store twenty million dollars in stolen money.
And then I see it. Newtonville Storage, reads the glowing orange sign. 24 hours. I pull into the deserted lot and ease past the front door. Inside I see a bearded guy reading a comic book, his feet propped on the small desk. If he notices me he doesn’t react, and I circle through the narrow lanes that divide the storage sheds, each corrugated door locked and identical.
It’s so perfectly obvious. I can’t keep the money in the trunk. I can’t dig a hole. I can’t go home with it. I should store it.
I park out of sight and flip on the overhead light, then dig out tissues from my purse and wipe smears of dirt from my face. I tie back my sweaty hair and hide it under the wig and add a baseball cap for good measure, then a pair of sunglasses. With the light and a clearer head, I see that the costume I stole was, for some reason, a pink shirt with black piping and a pleated apron you might find in a fifties diner. Beggars can’t be choosers, so I strip out of my dirty T-shirt and put on the costume. I’ve always wondered what it would be like to be a waitress.
I keep the jeans and sneakers, then get out of the car and go around to the trunk. I find the suitcase I’d cut open and wedge in my fingers until I’ve pulled out four thousand dollars. The sign says it costs fifty dollars a month to rent a locker, so this should buy me more than enough time to figure out what to do.
I steel myself and go inside. I think of Alex describing his techniques for inhabiting a character and wish I’d done more than roll my eyes and pretend to listen. My heart has resumed its steady pounding, and I’m newly sweaty. I’m conscious of keeping my tattered palms hidden when the attendant stands to greet me. His nametag says Roy.
“Hi there,” he says.
I nod and wipe sweat out of my eyes. “I’d like to rent a locker.”
He hesitates and I keep my head down, doing my best impression of a criminal waitress. “All right,” he says eventually, sliding over a clipboard with a rental form and pen waiting on top. “Just fill in the boxes. What size unit are you looking for?”
“The smallest one you have.”
“That’d be five by five.”
“That’s fine.”
The sunglasses slip down my nose, and I push them up with one hand, the other trembling as I reach for the pen. My palm touches the paper and leaves a pink tinge.
Roy notices all of this.
“I’m sorry,” I mumble, dropping the pen, then quickly picking it back up. I’ll have to steal it. The police can use it to find my fingerprints. My DNA. It’s on the paper, too, so I try to peel off the top page, but my skin hurts and my fingers are greasy and oh my god I’m going to prison.
“Hey,” Roy says, his voice surprisingly gentle. “Don’t worry about it. You just want to get out of town, make sure he can’t find you. I understand.”
I freeze as the words sink in. The sunglasses. The diner clothes. The injured hands. He thinks I’m a battered woman.
I’m going to hell.
Or prison.
“I can’t let him find me,” I hear myself whisper.
“He won’t,” Roy says. “I’ll fill in this paperwork for you. You got any money?”
I nod weakly. “Yes. A little. I don’t know when I’ll be back.”
“Never,” Roy says adamantly. “Right?”
I lift the hem of my shirt and retrieve the four thousand dollars from the waistband of my jeans. “How much will this get me?”