Dead Girl Running (Cape Charade #1)(36)

*

Two miles out of Greenleaf, the rain started. Cecilia watched the first drops hit the windshield and exalted in the knowledge that the summer storm coming in off the ocean would erase evidence, muddy the explosion site…

She didn’t know how to turn on the windshield wipers.

The rain fell harder.

She poked at the controls on the steering column, turned, pushed, twisted. Stuff happened. The headlights came on. The windshield wiper on the back window started a fast, steady swish. If she’d been driving backward, that would be great. Instead, she was driving blind on a twisty two-lane highway. She was scared, dehydrated—and she couldn’t see where she was going. She peered through the sheeting rain, spied a turnout, pulled over and eased to a stop.

She sat, heart racing, eyes full of tears. In her head, she heard Gregory’s voice. You’re not capable of caring for yourself, darling. You’re clumsy. You’re incompetent. He was right. She couldn’t even flee with efficiency.

No! No. She’d find the car book. It would explain how to turn on the wipers. She opened the minuscule glove compartment, pulled out the paperwork, shuffled through it—this was a rental, she hadn’t realized that—looked back into the glove compartment. There in the recesses, she found the thin, floppy book waiting for her, and the Table of Contents/Wipers.

So! Gregory was wrong.

Someone knocked on her window.

She half screamed, realized a police officer stood beside the car and knew she’d been busted. She stared, wordlessly pleading for him to understand, to believe that she hadn’t known what Gregory intended, to let her go.

Rain sluiced off the cop’s coat and dripped off the brim of his hat. Impatiently, he indicated she should roll down the window.

She did. About an inch. Her voice shook. “Yes?”

Middle-aged guy. Stern face. “Miss, please present your license and proof of insurance.”

“Sure. Um. License.” Kellen’s license in Kellen’s wallet. “It’s in my suitcase.”

“You’re a tourist?”

Was he trying to trick her? Or did he really not know who she was? He was state police, so maybe… “I am. This is a rental. It started raining. I couldn’t figure out the wipers. I pulled over to look it up.” She flapped the book at him.

He looked at her, mouth cocked sideways. Then he heaved a sigh. “All right. I’m in a hurry, so we’ll skip the formalities. Wipers are the right middle lever, push it up and twist the knob up or down according to how fast you want the wipers to go.”

She found the lever. She pushed it up. She twisted the knob back and forth. The wipers swished. “That’s it.” She smiled at him.

“You bet. Your headlights are on bright. That’s illegal when driving into oncoming traffic.”

“I’m sorry. I must have done it when I was trying to find the wipers.”

“Yeah. Lever on the left. Bring it toward you. The headlights will not be bright anymore.”

“Okay. Thank you. You want my license and proof of insurance?”

“No. Next time read the book on your rental car before you run into a rainstorm.” He walked toward his patrol car.

She adjusted the wipers, put the car in gear and pulled back onto the road.

She smiled. She had bullshitted the cop. She had won the first battle.





15

The rest of the trip was normal, pretty much. Cecilia ran out of gas—she’d forgotten about trifles like refills—scared a girl at a drive-in who asked, “Are you a zombie?” paid for hotels with Kellen’s credit card and got so lost she saw signs that welcomed her to Virginia. Virginia! From Maine! On the way to New York!

That was when she rediscovered the wonders of GPS. As she drove into New York City, the soothing GPS voice guided her over the NJ Turnpike, through the labyrinth of SoHo roads and to street parking two blocks from Kellen’s apartment. By now she had read through every scrap of paper in the car, and she knew what to do. She parked, gathered Kellen’s belongings, locked the car, took the key to a drop box and inserted it into the slot. Then she pretended she knew where she was going, pretended until she found the right street, then the right address, then used the fob to get into the narrow, empty lobby.

She took a deep, relieved breath of musty air. This building had been an industrial site in the nineteenth century, remodeled with a cast-iron facade at the turn of that century, remodeled again in the 1970s to be lofts and apartments. The manager’s office was to the right; the name under the number was del Sarto. Cecilia did not want to meet Mr. del Sarto. Or Mrs. del Sarto. Or anybody who might know Kellen.

So Cecilia eased past and climbed the stairs to the sixth floor. She met no one. She began to experience the euphoria of release, of safety in a cruel world. Unit 62—she unlocked the door, opened it, dragged in her luggage and dropped everything. She slid chains, bars, locks. She secured herself in against the world.

Leaning against the door, she looked at the one room that contained a living area, a tiny kitchen, a bed and dresser—and tall, high windows that let in the light. A door led to a dark hole of a bathroom. Perfect. This place was perfect. Lucky, lucky Kellen.

Cecilia crumpled, dropped to her knees, stuffed her fists over her mouth…and unwillingly revisited the explosion.

Kellen waiting for Gregory in the living room.