Dear Wife(76)

The lot is packed, but I find a vacant spot between two rusted-out heaps that make the Regal look like a late-model Cadillac. Two men lean against the railing on an upper floor catwalk, watching me make the trek to the office. I acknowledge them, but I don’t wave or smile.

The office is tiny, a windowless room with a couple of ratty chairs and a desk behind bulletproof Plexiglas. The woman sitting behind it is nondescript—drab hair dragged into a low ponytail, an unlined and makeup-free face, a lumpy body under shapeless clothes. A boring slice of white bread compared to the smorgasbord of color that is Miss Sally.

She waves off my ID. “You don’t need that here. You alone?”

I nod.

“Then you’ll want a room upstairs. Fewer stray bullets up there.”

An upstairs room would mean a more difficult escape route should the need arise—and it will. Without my cell to guide them to me, Erwin Four and the police might not find me here, but you will. I can maybe fight you off—if I’m prepared, if I take you by surprise—but I can’t fight off a bullet. I take the upstairs room.

“Do you happen to know if there’s a Best Buy nearby?”

She rattles off directions to one a couple of miles away, then slides the keycard under the screen along with the Wi-Fi code. I thank her and head back to the car.

After a few wrong turns, the Regal and I make it to the Best Buy, where I select a midpriced laptop, another piece-of-crap smartphone with a stockpile of prepaid minutes and a pretty pink phone case with butterflies swimming in golden glitter on the back, just because. The grand total comes to $846.23.

“Whoa,” the salesclerk says when I start peeling bills off a wad of cash. “This is Atlanta, girl. Put that away.”

I speed up the counting, even though I know it makes me look suspicious or at the very least, memorable. I also know there are two little cameras mounted to the ceiling on either side of my head, capturing my face in full-color high definition—and that those are only the two that I’ve seen. How many others did I miss on my jaunt around the store? Dozens, I’m betting. I push the thick mound of cash across the counter.

The clerk counts it, then counts it again. It takes him longer than it should. I’m paying in mostly fives and ones, crumpled and wrinkly from the church collection basket.

To be clear, I wouldn’t have taken the money if I didn’t need it, and I won’t be keeping it, not even a penny. Every single cent will make its way back into the Reverend’s collection basket at some point, even if it takes me years to repay it. I close my eyes, press a palm to what’s left in my money belt and remind myself that this is who I am now. Beth Louise Murphy, a runner. A thief.

The clerk passes me my change and a plastic bag bulging with electronics I could have never otherwise afforded. I’m back in the Buick a few seconds later, steering the car down the street to my next stop—a CVS I passed on the way. I pluck a basket from the stack by the door and stroll the aisles, dropping in items from my mental list: black liquid eyeliner, burgundy lipstick, enough groceries to tide me over for a day or two, toothpaste, a box of Miss Clairol. I pay cash and console myself with the only bright spot I can find in this shitty, shameful day: I’ve always wanted to be a redhead.

I’m pulling into traffic when the skies open up, the rain forming a shimmering silver curtain on the other side of my windshield. I flip the wipers as high as they’ll go, but they can’t clear the glass fast enough. I squint into traffic and think maybe the flash flood is a sign, an omen of things to come.

You. You are coming for me.

And I will be ready.



MARCUS

By the time I pick up my rental car at the Atlanta airport and point it north to the city, it’s almost ten, and the highway is dark and slick with rain. It floods the streets and beats on the roof and windows, jamming the lanes with the remnants of one hell of a rush hour. The road in front of me is basically a parking lot of taillights, flashing bright red. I hit the hazard lights, nudge my way onto the shoulder and punch through the gridlock.

The GPS spits me out at 1071 English Street, one of the addresses Jade said had a cluster of IP check-ins to the department website and Facebook page. I ease to the curb and squint through the rain, clocking the fresh coat of paint, the picket fencing, the light spilling from windows lined with frilly curtains. This place is too nice to be a boardinghouse. Way too nice. How the hell does she afford it?

I jog through the rain to the door.

On the covered porch, I lean my face into one of the windows and peer into a living room. Three men are lined up on a navy couch, beer bottles resting on their bellies, faces tipped to a Braves game on a flat-screen. I study their profiles, their clothing, the size of their feet propped up on the coffee table. The middle one. Long and lean and still in possession of most of his hair. He looks like the type to hit on another man’s wife. Is he staring at the TV and thinking about her? Is she in one of the rooms upstairs, thinking about him? Thunder rumbles overhead, and I rub a fist over my breastbone instead of what I really want to do: punch it through the glass.

I take deep breaths until I get myself under control, then ring the doorbell with a thumb.

It’s not one of the men but a woman, tall and curvy in a hot pink robe and hair curlers, who opens the door. She flips on the porch light, and whoa. I stumble backward on the porch planks and look again. That ain’t no woman. Nope. No way in hell.