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Chapter Four
Lena
Isat on the curb, took the battery out of my cell phone, and picked up a rock while I waited for the taxi. I smashed the dinky cheap phone, shattering the plastic casing until it lost all semblance of any form of communication. Bits and pieces of pink plastic, a smashed LCD screen swirling with blue liquid, and thin wires dangling with tiny parts I didn’t have a clue about lay scattered in the gutter. I gathered them all up and stood, chucking the whole mess in the bushes. I’d worry about saving the planet another time. My phone hadn’t been anything fancy, but it did have GPS. Just in case I hadn’t killed Troy, I didn’t want him to find me—or the police, in case he was dead. That would make me a murderer. I wasn’t too sure how I felt about that.
I locked the SUV and threw the keys in my purse; better not to leave them anywhere near the vehicle. Not that it mattered—he had a second set. Then I reconsidered. Why not? And dropped the keys on the ground. Maybe someone would come along and steal the damn thing, giving me an extra edge in my escape.
The taxi pulled into the station and stopped inches in front of me. The driver rolled down the window and smiled. His bushy gray mustache hugged the sides of his lips in a Yosemite Sam fashion. He reminded me of a picture I’d once seen of a little girl reaching her arms up toward an older man I’d presumed to be the girl’s grandfather.
“Morning, ma’am, you call for a taxi?”
“Yes, thanks for coming so quickly.” I slid into the back seat, keeping my head and eyes down. The warmth of the cab felt good, and I rubbed my hands together to combat the chill that seemed to linger in them from the cold bathroom water.
“No worries. I’d hate to be standing out there waiting for a taxi in the middle of the night for very long. So I came as quickly as I could. Where you headed?”
I thought I’d head south into California. However, I didn’t think this taxi driver would want to go that far, so I figured a bus or train would be my best option. “Do you know where the nearest bus stop is?”
“Well, now.” He fingered his mustache, glancing into the rearview mirror, before setting his gaze back on the road. “You’d best go to the bus terminal. It’s about twenty minutes from here.” The driver’s silver-white hair glistened, and his dark brown eyes twinkled as he glanced at me in the rearview mirror. He was friendly and full of chitchat, not requiring much interaction from me. For that, I was extremely grateful—in fact, he practically conducted the entire conversation alone. Finally, we reached the bus station, and I paid him the twenty-seven dollars showing on his meter, plus tipped him an additional five.
“Thanks. Now you go in and ask for the southbound bus. They’ll take care of you.”
“Thanks,” I returned, exiting the warmth of the taxicab. My fingers were still frozen, so I shoved them into my coat pockets and headed inside toward the sign that said, “Tickets.”
The bus came roaring into the terminal as I finished paying. I ran to the curb as the doors hissed open, and I stepped up, dropping the ticket into the slot. Conscious of my appearance, I kept my face toward the floor and walked toward the back.
The bus was almost empty except for a couple of women. A middle-aged woman with dark frizzy hair gave me a thin smile as she clutched a large, grey, over-stuffed canvas bag closer to her. The bag took up the entire seat next to her. I continued down the aisle, passing a young, blonde-haired woman holding the chubby hand of a small boy who sat next to her. His eyes focused on me as he squirmed out of her grasp and turned in his seat to watch me sink into the bench two rows behind him.
“Turn around, Sammy,” the woman next to him scolded. He ignored her request and continued to stare at me. I gave him a small smile and then scooted closer to the window so I could stare out at the road.
I sighed. A smidgeon of relief settling in over the tension in my shoulders. I was on my way. Resting my head against the cold glass, I gazed out at the old brick building of the bus terminal until it was no longer within my sight, saying goodbye to that life. To a life where every day I worried about whether or not I’d be slapped or punched in the face, tossed across the room, or kicked in the side.
I tried not to think about the possibility of the police looking for me as soon as they discovered Troy’s body. I didn’t know how long that would be since we never socialized much. The ever-present bruises on my face prevented such conventional activities as get-togethers and friends were a thing of the past.
I let the ride soothe my nerves as the bus lumbered its way down the highway. Trees blurred as we skated past them. I was exhausted, and eventually, the purr of the engine must have lured me to sleep. The sudden jolt of a stop and the hissing sound of the doors opening startled me awake. I glanced around, not sure how long I’d been riding. A surge of hope formed in my heart, and I got excited when I saw the two signs on the side of the road. Millstop two miles, the other, Jessie’s Used Cars. Perfect, I hoped I’d saved up enough money to buy something decent.
I gathered up my purse and rose, happy to discover the bus was now empty. I headed down the giant steps and strolled across the street to the small but clean-looking used car dealership. The minute I wandered onto the lot, I spotted an old dark blue Subaru four-door hatchback. The bright letters painted across the windshield, $5,000. Just reduced to $2,000.
“Here we go,” I whispered, reminding myself to be calm. I approached a man in a grey suit standing by the open glass door to a building that housed a couple of other nicer-looking cars. His open jacket revealed a blue and white-spotted tie that he had tucked into his pants. “Excuse me. I’m interested in that blue Subaru out there.”
The sales clerk eyed me sympathetically. “I take it you were in an accident recently,” he said with a thin smile. “Totaled your car?”
“Yeah, the guy came out of nowhere,” I agreed, taking advantage of the supplied excuse for the way I must have looked. It sounded like a reasonable explanation for my condition and one I would probably use over the next several days.
After we finished all the necessary paperwork using my fake I.D.—Lana Martin, my mother’s maiden name—for the registration, I handed over the cash, and he plopped the keys into my hand. He never questioned the fact that I paid in full, with cash, but then I suppose two thousand dollars wasn’t really all that much money.
“Do you have a pair of scissors I could borrow?”
“Scissors?” He furrowed his brows and shrugged. Then, reaching inside a drawer, he pulled out a small set of shears and handed them to me.
While the clerk cleaned the writing off the windshield, I went into the bathroom and cut up all my credit cards—they were in Troy’s name anyway—and flushed them down the toilet a few pieces at a time so that I wouldn’t clog the plumbing.
If I was careful, I might make it through the week, giving me time to find employment somewhere in some town. I was out of Oregon now and somewhere in California. I had no idea how far into the state I was, though I didn’t think very far. When I came out of the bathroom, I stopped in front of a large display holding different brochures for things to do in Northern California. I tilted my sunglasses up a little to see what they were and smiled when my eyes fell on the words, “State of California.” I snatched the map up and, making sure my shades were back in position, held up the folded booklet and turned to the girl at the counter in the lobby. “How much?”
“Five dollars.”
“I reached into my bag, pulled out a five, and laid it on the counter.
“Plus forty-one cents tax.” She picked up the bill and held it in her hand and waited while I groped around the bottom of my purse, hoping there were a couple of quarters down there. I found two and handed her both of them.
