Ultimate Weapon (McClouds & Friends #6)(43)

Tam raced feverishly through the house. No time for blubbering or second thoughts. She’d practiced this routine in her mind hundreds of times until it was as automatic as a martial arts kata.

First, the big suitcase that was always packed, and updated every single week on Sunday evening after Rachel was in bed, inventoried to make sure it was up to date on Rachel’s constantly changing survival gear. The nose aspirator, the aerosol machine, the cortisone drops, the emergency antibiotics, the Tylenol syrup, the allergy ointments, the wipes, soaps, and anti-allergenic toiletries. Changes of clothes, diapers, underthings. A few bare essentials for herself tucked in around the corners. She pulled it out into the hall.

Then it was off to the kitchen, to grab some kiddie snacks. Crackers, carrot sticks, yogurts, cheese sticks, boxed fruit juices. The pantry safe, to yank out all the money and the envelope of bearer bonds. Her stash of passports. She thumbed through them, picked out her favorites, sealed the rest in the bag, and took them too. A tiptoeing pass through her bedroom to gather up emotional survival items; pink fuzzy blanket, curly-haired Sveti bear, battered blue binkie.

That son of a bitch. Her Rachel would never see her beloved Sveti again because of that meddling scum. She was alarmed to notice that tears were streaming down her face. She hadn’t known how much she valued what she had built here. Her comfortable house that felt almost safe. Her drop-dead beautiful view of the Pacific. Her beach access to a secluded cove that no one else could reach except by boat. The outrageous sunsets she could see from her kitchen, living room, studio and bedroom windows. Her fabulously equipped studio, the best she’d ever had. Her work, which she loved.

And her friends, too. No matter how much they irritated her, it hurt to let go of that sense of almost belonging. A group of people who knew her more or less for what she was and still accepted her—she wasn’t going to find that again, not in this lifetime. She mourned it even more for Rachel’s sake. All those aunts and uncles and cousins, lost.

Goddamn him. But she had no time for this. She knew when she’d been outmaneuvered. Poor little Rachel, who counted so heavily on habit for her emotional equilibrium. She had to give up her home, her name, her nanny, maybe even her language, depending on where they ended up. And dragging a three-year-old on a high-stress, illegal cross-continental adventure was not going to be fun.

But she had no one to blame but herself for complicating her life beyond all reason. Enough bitching.

She packed as many of her Deadly Beauty designs as would fit into the carrying case she’d taken to Shibumi. Not that she would be able to sell them again, not without announcing her location to her enemies with a trumpet fanfare. She had the time it would take to drive to the airport to think of a brilliant plan to dispose of them. She couldn’t risk trying to carry them onto an airplane, at least the ones with hidden blades. If she put them in a checked bag, they would go through X-rays too, and a possible inspection by some airline employee would be too dangerous.

She threw her own personal favorites into her travel carrying case, sorting out and discarding the ones with explosives. Bad mix, airports and explosives. Just soporifics, and a couple of poison needle and spray pieces, for her physical person. The amount of dangerous substances in their reservoirs were small enough to risk going through airport security with them. She’d designed them that way on purpose.

Traveling could be dangerous. A woman always needed options.

Then, the computer. Dried tear tracks tickled her cheeks as she pinned down the first e-tickets she could find. Seattle to Hawaii, Hawaii to Auckland. Fine for now. Nice and far. She and Rachel could play on a warm beach and try being Kiwis. She closed her laptop, packed it.

She packed everything into the fogeymobile, an antiquated, butt-ugly beige Ford Taurus that the McClouds’ computer geek buddy Miles had sold to her some time ago. Invisible cars came in handy sometimes.

And then the hard part. Waking Rachel, dragging her out of a warm bed, dressing her, wrestling her into the car at this ungodly hour of the night. It would be an insult to anyone, let alone a toddler.

Rachel was as unhappy about it as Tam had anticipated, but once she got the kid strapped into the car seat, the worst of it was over. There was nothing like earsplitting wails of rage to keep a woman awake and alert on the road—and incidentally, to distract her from any impulse to look nostalgically back over her shoulder, as the closest thing to home she’d had since she was fifteen receded into the distance.

Back to zero again. What a bore. And she couldn’t even vow revenge on that goat-f*cking bastard.

Her stomach burned, her chest was tight, her throat ached. She’d considered herself detached, but she needed a pair of bolt cutters to detach from all this. Snip, snip. Watch her bleed.

After a half hour, Rachel had shrieked herself into an exhausted doze, leaving Tam in blessed silence. She had less than two hours to come up with a clever plan for stashing her jewelry, other than the trunk of the car, abandoned in the long-term parking lot. There were worse places. No time to do anything else with them and still make the flight.

Either she’d get back to them, or she wouldn’t. Let it go. It was only hundreds of thousands of dollars invested in pure gold, platinum, precious gems, and creative designs that she’d spent years of her life developing. No biggie. Snip, snip with the bolt cutters. Let it go.

Rachel was sleeping when they got to the airport. Tam tucked her into the stroller and watched her breath fog around her pale, tiny face as they waited for the shuttle. Long in coming at this desolate hour.