Shadow Woman A Novel Page 0,36
Skinny, stringy blond hair under a faded blue baseball cap, blue eyes, good bones. She’d be very pretty, one day, if no one messed with her face. She kept a cautious distance between them.
“I didn’t know.” She lifted the bag slightly. “Do you like blueberry pomegranate frozen yogurt? Slightly melted, of course.”
The girl narrowed her eyes. She was so young, but her gaze was already suspicious. “I don’t know. Never tried it.”
“Neither have I, but it looked good. Wanna trade? Frozen yogurt and chicken for that hat.”
A hat would hide her hair, disguise her profile when she finally did leave here. Such caution was probably an exercise in uselessness, but she couldn’t stop herself from making the effort.
“I’m not an idiot,” the girl snapped. She scowled. “Is it poisoned? Drugged?”
“Of course not,” Lizette said indignantly. “I’m just not going home as soon as I thought I would, and I’d hate for it to go to waste.”
“You were headed for the Dumpster with it. Why should I give up my hat for your garbage?”
Good point. At least she was no longer being accused of trying to poison random children. “Fine. Twenty bucks for the hat.”
The girl’s eyes widened. “Deal,” she said promptly.
Lizette set the bag down, reached into her purse for a twenty, and approached the girl. “I’m Lizzy. What’s your name?”
“I’m not supposed to tell strangers my name.”
“I’m not a stranger, I’m the woman who’s about to seriously overpay for a used hat.”
That got a smile out of the girl. “I’m Madison.”
“Anyone ever call you Maddy?”
Madison shook her head briefly and scowled, letting Lizette know she didn’t care for the nickname. “No.” Then she removed the cap and they made the exchange.
Picking up the bag, Lizette turned and heaved it into the Dumpster.
“Hey!” Madison said, shocked. “You threw the ice cream away!”
“You didn’t trade for the ice cream. You want it, you’ll have to do something else for me.”
“I’m not Dumpster-diving for ice cream.”
“Fine. You want to earn another twenty?”
“Doing what? You’re not a perv, are you? I ain’t taking off my clothes.”
“Thank God. I just need some help with my car.”
“I don’t know how to fix a car.”
“It doesn’t need to be fixed. It needs to be disguised.”
A couple of hours later, after full dark had fallen, Lizette tucked her hair under the ball cap and got behind her steering wheel. There was no doubt she’d gone way beyond caution and rode hard on the edge of downright nuts, but in a way she’d had fun. Once Madison had gotten into the swing of things, she’d even laughed. The hubcaps had been removed, and a good dose of mud covered not only the license plate but the bumper and tires, as well. Her neat-as-a-pin Camry now looked anything but. Her car now sported a bumper sticker proclaiming her daughter an honor roll student at the local middle school, and an honest-to-goodness hula girl swayed on her dash. Madison had even gotten some duct tape and put a patch of it on the left passenger window, as if covering a hole. If by chance the man who had followed her out of the market parking lot that afternoon, or anyone else who knew her car by sight, was still out there, watching and waiting, he’d never recognize her or her car.
It was kind of sad that no one came to check on Madison in all that time—she said her mom wouldn’t be off work until after nine—and that she could deface a car that might not be her own with no adult coming to inquire about her activities.
“Hey!” Madison called as Lizette started the engine. Lizette rolled down her window, and the girl leaned in. “I know it’s none of my business, and you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, but … who are you running from?”
Lizette eyed her from beneath the rim of her ball cap and gave a wry smile. “Honey, I have no idea.”
Chapter Ten
“Al.”
Al Forge turned as his name was said in a clipped, calm tone that told him the identity of the speaker even before he saw her. It was a fucking fact of life: everyone had someone to answer to, even if, at the end, it was Death, or God, or whatever they thought they were facing. As high up on the food chain as he was, he still had a superior, and her name was Felice McGowan.
“Yes?” he said, making it a polite query as if she were a