Come and Find Me A Novel of Suspense - By Hallie Ephron Page 0,40

wastebasket was half filled with a mass of her own hair that she’d snipped off with a nail scissor. She ran her fingers through the short uneven curls she’d left intact. Her hair would never be straight and spiky like Nadia’s, but at least now it was . . . just to be sure, she yanked out a single strand of hair . . . blond verging on platinum. If only she hadn’t trashed every single mirror in her house.

She put on Nadia’s clothes. This time, before she tried to leave, she made a list:

Get directions

Send Ashley cell-phone number

Shut down computers

Disconnect systems

And so on, through getting out of the house. She envisioned Nadia performing each step with cool, methodical precision. Then she began.

PWNED’s address in the South End was just blocks from downtown. She found directions on MapQuest, printed them out, checked her messages one last time, and shut down her computers. She unplugged her server and disconnected the routers and modems that gave her redundant connections to the outside world. Before she unplugged her landline, she used it to call Ashley’s office and home numbers and leave the number of the prepaid cell phone that she’d be taking with her.

As she finished each task, she ticked it off. There were just three more things she needed to take with her—the car keys, directions, and her laptop. Her backpack and Daniel’s walking stick were still in the car.

Ready to go, she hesitated, touching her throat. There was one more thing she needed—a necklace that Daniel had given her. She found it in her bedroom in the little jewelry box she’d gotten for her eighth birthday—a pair of gold Ds, written in script, hanging from a black leather cord. She fastened it around her neck.

She returned to the kitchen and set the security alarm. Was a bona fide security company really tied to the alarm system, or was that as much of an illusion as the cardinal on the fence? It no longer mattered.

She locked the door to the garage behind her. Climbed back into the Hummer. Set the map and directions she’d printed out on the passenger seat. Check, check, check.

It had grown darker outside, and she could barely see where to insert the key in the ignition. She took off her sunglasses. The eyes staring back at her from the rearview mirror were bright and anxious.

Diana rummaged around in her backpack and found an eye pencil. She turned on the overhead light, angled the rearview mirror so she could see herself, and applied dark lines to her upper and lower lids, then smudged them. That white-blond hair would take some getting used to.

She turned off the light and deliberately pressed the remote to raise the garage door. The door slowly lifted. A car drove past on the street and Diana flinched. She was at the controls, she told herself, just like when she was at her computer, watching the world through a shield.

With a quick turn of the key, she started the Hummer, then adjusted the rearview mirror so she could see the empty passenger seat behind her as well as one of her own eyes. Nadia’s eye. It winked at her. We have ignition.

She shifted into gear and released the brake. When she touched the gas, and touched it again, the car pulsed forward. Another touch and the Hummer shot out of the garage, across the sidewalk, and into twilight.

Behind her, the garage door clanked and whirred as it descended.

Just take it one step at a time. Again Daniel’s calm voice urged her on.

She pulled out onto the street. Shadowy tree branches, silhouetted against a blue-black sky, passed overhead as she drove a block, then another to a red light. She glanced at the map on the passenger seat. Total distance: 8.7 miles. On a day with good traffic karma, it was about a thirty-minute drive.

When the light turned green, she accelerated, watching the needle inch up from ten miles an hour. She could feel the suppressed surge of the powerful engine. The Hummer always made her feel as if she were in a tank, as much of an alternate reality as the world of her computer.

Each time she accelerated, the car seemed to jerk and cough, as if clearing the moisture that had gotten into its systems—after all, it hadn’t been driven in more than a year. As she retraced much of the route Officer Gruder had taken that morning, she focused on the road, trying to