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“Keep it elevated and put cold on it—twenty minutes on, twenty minutes off. Ibuprofen might help, too.”
“Are you a doctor, a nurse?”
Panic flashed in her eyes. “No, nothing like that.” She picked up the child. “Well, see you later.”
Right. “Good luck,” he said. “At the grocery store,” he added.
She didn’t answer. The door slammed behind her and she and the child made their way to the Mustang. He watched them get to the end of the lane and turn left.
And was still standing at the window ten minutes later when he saw the Mustang pass by the end of his lane again, this time going the opposite direction. Away from Jennie’s. Had she decided to go down the mountain, to the bigger store?
Maybe. But he didn’t think so.
Laura was running. And unless he was crazy, she was trying to pass a little girl off as a little boy.
Had she stolen the child? He didn’t think she was a stranger to the child who had given no indication that she didn’t want to be with Laura or that she was frightened of her.
Laura didn’t have to be a stranger to have wrongfully taken the child. She could be a noncustodial parent. But would the child call her by her first name and not Mama?
The woman was out of his hair. He should let it go. But he knew there was no way.
He called Lucky back in, grabbed his keys and his crutches and they were out the door in less than a minute.
* * *
She hated that they’d had to leave the cabin. But Rico was going to make his call and it was going to be painfully obvious that she didn’t have a right to be there. She thought about calling Melissa and warning her that her patient might be getting a call from the rental company wondering if she’d happened to give out the code to the door. But she discarded the idea. If the elderly woman got called, she likely wouldn’t even answer the phone since she wasn’t feeling well. If she did, she’d tell them that she didn’t know what they were talking about and that would be that.
The nearest town was Moreville. She had enough cash that she could get a hotel room for a couple days until she figured out a better long-term solution. Hannah was chattering to her doll in the back, oblivious that they were once again on the run.
She wondered what Rico’s story was. No wedding ring. She’d noticed that when he was making his tea. It surprised her because he was very handsome with his dark hair, olive skin and very dark eyes. The image of him, only in swim trunks, holding on to a ski line, was very appealing.
How long would he wait before coming to the conclusion that she wasn’t coming back? To knowing that it hadn’t been an honest mistake but that she’d been a mere squatter who’d had the bad luck to get caught?
How many lies was she going to have to tell? How many people was she going to have to deceive?
What would she stoop to?
She glanced in her rearview mirror. Hannah caught her eye and smiled.
There was her answer. She would bend, stoop, even crawl. Go as low as she needed to. For Hannah.
She drove for an hour before she got to the outskirts of the town. It took another ten minutes to find a hotel. It was two stories with the rooms all having exterior doors.
She parked in front of the office and shut off the car. She opened her purse and pulled cash out. Then tossed her purse onto the floor and covered it up with a Colorado map. “We have to go inside here,” she said to Hannah.
“Can I take Ja-Ja?”
“No, sorry.” While it should not, a little boy with a doll might garner attention they didn’t need. “Pretend that she’s sleeping.”
“Okay.” Hannah kissed Ja-Ja’s forehead and laid her down on the seat.
It made Laura’s eyes fill with tears. Hannah was such a sweet child. She unbuckled her seat belt, got out, did the same for Hannah. Tugged at the little girl’s baseball cap to make sure it would stay on.
A bell jingled when she opened the door. A woman was behind the counter, reading a newspaper. Her face was lined and she was very thin. She stood and set aside the paper. “Morning.”
“Good morning,” Laura said. There was an old couch with two chairs. She gave Hannah’s shoulder a gentle push toward the furniture. “You can sit over there while I do this. Here’s a pen and paper.” Hannah loved to draw and, most of the time, tuned everything else out while she was doing so.
Laura waited until she got up on the couch before turning back to the woman. “I’d like to rent a room.”
“How many nights.”
“Three,” she said. She had to have a plan by then.
“How many people?”
“Just the two of us,” Laura said, waving in Hannah’s direction.
The woman nodded and started tapping keys on what appeared to be an ancient computer. “License and credit card?”
Laura smiled. “I’ve had the worst luck,” she said. “My purse was stolen. I’d be happy to pay in cash in advance.”
The woman studied her. “We need the credit card in case there are damages to the room.”
“How about I give you an extra hundred to cover that? When I leave, you can give it back once you’ve checked the room.”
The woman sighed, glanced over at Hannah. Looked back at Laura. “That’ll do,” she said. She gave Laura a plastic card. “Upstairs. Room 204.”
“Thank you,” Laura said. She walked over to Hannah. “Time to go. You can finish these upstairs.” She gathered the paper and pen.
Was almost out the door when the woman said, “O’Grady’s on the corner serves up a nice breakfast and lunch for a reasonable price. And Pastor Rome, he’s got the church a block down on the right, has been known to be helpful to folks, too. Plus there’s some swings and a slide on the playground next door to the church.”
Laura swallowed hard. “Again, thank you.” She grabbed Hannah’s hand and pulled her out the door.
“I want to see the playground.”
“Maybe later. Let’s get Ja-Ja and your clothes and see our room.”
“I liked the room we had. Why did we have to leave?”
“We just had to,” Laura said. “Come on.”
“I liked Lucky,” Hannah said, obviously not willing to let it go.
“Yeah. Nice dog. But you’ll meet other nice dogs.”
“I will?”
“Of course.” Wasn’t that what people said when one thing ended and you were waiting for the next thing to begin? It certainly had been when she and Will had split up. You’ll meet another guy. That’s what her friends had said. Her hairdresser. Her landlord who got used to seeing Will around.
Had that happened last night? Had she met a nice guy last night? Had it been an error to run from him this morning? Could she have told him the truth?
No. Because the risk of others judging her actions too harshly was too big. So it didn’t matter how nice he might be. She was on her own. For the foreseeable future.
She got their things out of the car, stuffing her purse into her already-full backpack at the last minute so the woman in the office wouldn’t see it if she happened to be watching them. They got to the concrete exterior stairs and Hannah reached up and put her hand in Laura’s. The little girl’s skin was soft and warm.
No, not alone. She had Hannah. Blood of her blood.
It was more than enough.
She inserted the key card into the door and when the light flicked green, she turned the handle. And her heart sank. It wasn’t horrible, but compared to the beautiful sunny cabin that they’d left behind, the dark room, with its dark green and purple carpet and its brown bedspread and matching curtains, was like a tomb.
Hannah spied the television. “Can I watch?” she asked.
Laura nodded, grateful for the respite. “Sure. For a little while.” She turned it on, found an appropriate show and got Hannah settled on the bed, with her arm around her doll. She made sure the bolt lock on the door was engaged and the chain hooked.
Then she went into the bathroom, shut the door, turned on the faucet in the sink and started to cry.
Chapter 3 (#u2be2ace7-1701-5237-9043-8a6e9b86bc92)
One thing about mountain roads, they made it relatively easy to follow somebody without having to get too close. He was able to stay a nice comfortable mile behind the Mustang without losing it as she covered the steep inclines and declines that the Rockies were known for.
Felt justified when he saw her breeze past the grocery store that was on the edge of town. He’d been right. Shopping wasn’t her priority. But then he quickly got frustrated as he lost her for just a few minutes once she got into the guts of Moreville, a town of maybe fifteen thousand. But he persisted, traveling the five-block business section, the side streets leading off the main street and then finally the perimeter of the town. That’s where he found her. At the Wagon Wheel Delight.
He saw some wagon wheels propped up next to the side of the office, but he didn’t see anything delightful. Other than her cute little Mustang. Which was parked but empty. There was no sign of her or the child. He suspected they were already in a room. He could go knocking on doors. He looked at Lucky. “I think we should just wait.”
The dog blinked but offered up no argument. Put his head in Rico’s lap so that Rico could scratch behind his ears.
He had calls to make anyway. He pressed a button on his phone.
“Rico,” his mom said. “How is the poor ankle?”
Those had been the first words out of his mother’s mouth every time he talked to her since his injury. “It’s good. Almost healed,” he said. “How’s Dad?” His father had been suffering with chest pains, which he claimed were indigestion but Rico was worried. He wanted to send him to one of the premier heart doctors in the United States, but his dad wasn’t having it. So instead, Rico gave Nathan, his sister’s seventeen-year-old son, a weekly allowance to make sure that he checked in on his grandfather daily. Nathan had also been responsible for all the lawn mowing this past summer and would do all the snow shoveling this winter. He gave some cash also to Aleja, his sister’s thirteen-year-old daughter, to make sure that his mother wasn’t lonely.
“He’s ornery,” his mom said. “And worried about the early snow that’s coming. But Nathan stopped by and they’re playing checkers. Aleja is coming later and we’re baking a cake.”
Excellent. His nephew and niece were good kids who would probably do the right thing for their grandparents anyway, but he didn’t like leaving things to chance. And his dad was right to be worried about the snow. Rico had checked the weather before leaving Vegas. Only a fool drove into the mountains in October without doing that. Snow was definitely coming to Colorado and he’d packed accordingly. As long as he was here in Moreville, he would stock up with extra food just in case.
“What are you up to?” his mother asked.
“Not much. Giving the ankle a rest,” he said. He felt badly about lying to his mother. He was less than an hour away from their small house where they’d lived since retiring three years earlier. But if they knew that he was at the cabin, they would be hurt if he didn’t visit. And right now, he wasn’t up to a fight with his sister, who lived next door to his parents. She was angry with him because he wouldn’t help her lazy husband.
“You help everyone,” she’d yelled the last time. “But you won’t help him.”
He helped people who couldn’t help themselves. People who were sick, like Georgina Fodder who was fighting a hell of a battle with cancer.
Charro’s husband, Peter, was just the opposite. He was healthy, had some skills, could work and simply chose not to. Charro had been supporting her family for years, and it was time for her to dump the freeloader.
Demonstrating tough love, however, was tough. And he did not want Charro’s children to suffer, which was why the extra money to Nathan and Aleja worked out nicely for everyone.
“Stay inside when the weather gets bad,” he said.
“We will. I’ve already been to the store. We’ll have no reason to go anywhere.”
He ended the call and stared at the hotel, trying to imagine what Laura and the child were doing in their room. He’d seen the inside of hotels like this and, quite frankly, they generally weren’t that nice. His cabin was better.
He picked up his phone again and dialed. Thought it was going to flip over to voice mail but was answered on the fourth ring.
“Rico Metez. I heard you mixed it up with a boat and the boat won.” Bobby Bayleaf was a twenty-year veteran of the Las Vegas Police Department who didn’t take crap from anyone. He’d been his partner Seth Pike’s best friend since they’d been kids. Seth had introduced Bobby and Rico a couple years ago. Now all three of them played volleyball in the same league.
“But I got a couple good punches in,” Rico said.
“That’s my boy. All better now?”
“Getting there. I’m working on something and could use a little assistance off the record.”
“I’m listening.”
Bobby generally played by the rules. He wouldn’t agree to anything until he knew what the request was.
“Just need a plate run. State of Tennessee.” Rico had taken the time to enter the plate in his phone but didn’t need that now. He was close enough to read it. He rattled it off to Bobby.
There was a pause. Then Bobby spoke. “Registered to a Clovis Trane. Lives in Nashville, Tennessee. Same address for years.”
Clovis Trane. “Is there a Laura Trane?” he asked, hating the sound of that.
“Not seeing any Laura. Looks like there was a Melissa Trane on the registration at some point but dropped off a few years ago.”
Melissa Trane. Where had he heard that name recently? Then it came to him. The home health worker taking care of Georgina Fodder. Suddenly things made more sense. Laura would not have needed to break in if she’d gotten the code from Melissa, who’d somehow gotten it from Georgina. But Melissa was no longer on the registration. “Maybe a divorce?” he asked.
“Death or divorce. That’s usually the reason somebody drops off.”
Melissa Trane wasn’t dead but he didn’t say anything. He now had more information but he really didn’t know much more. “Thanks, Bobby. Do me a favor and win some money from Seth the next time you play cards. His ego is getting too big for our doors at Wingman Security.”
“Don’t I know it. I’ll do my best.”
Rico hung up and stared at the white Mustang. He was still staring at it when a door opened on the second floor and out stepped Laura. She’d changed into a green T-shirt that likely did good things for her eyes. Her hair was now in a ponytail and she was wearing a ball cap, with the tail hanging out the back.
She seemed to glance around before letting the child come out behind her. He expected them to head for the car but instead, they walked past the car, past the office of the hotel, and turned right at the end of the driveway. They were on the sidewalk and he quickly lost sight of them.
He let them get a fair distance ahead of him before he started his vehicle. When he pulled out of the driveway of the hotel, he quickly slid into an open spot on the street when he could see them. They were about a block ahead.
Were they going to church? On a weekday?
Nope. They walked past the church, to the park next to it. He waited a minute before pulling out of the space. He drove slowly down the street, past the park. Made a turn. Parked where he could see them, but they remained oblivious to him.
She was pushing the kid in the swing.
And they were both laughing. And the image pulled at him. Laura, who’d been attractive in a kind of look-but-don’t-touch way, seemed way more approachable, way more likeable, way more loving.
