Hidden (Nicole Jones #1)(47)

I know I can’t outrun him on this machine; he is soon right behind me. I glance around at the familiar sights: the National Hotel, the art gallery where I see Veronica adjusting a painting in the window. I wave, and she lifts her hand in response, but she is confused. She doesn’t recognize me. I don’t stop to explain.

I pass the farm and smell the llamas. It’s been so long since I’ve noticed their scent; it’s almost as though I’m here for the first time again.

My house is just up the hill, and as I approach, I see a police car sitting in front. That’s right. Frank said he’d be watching the house. But it is most likely much more than that now. I need to get into my house without him seeing me. I glance back at Steve in the SUV, and suddenly he is waving me away, pointing up the street. I am not exactly sure what he is saying, but I keep going past my house without even a second look from the cop in the car. In the little side-view mirror on the moped handle, I see Steve pull in next to the cruiser. He gets out, and the cop gets out and they shake hands. I recognize Reggie McCallum from the station.

I almost run off the road, so I tear my eyes away from the mirror and pay attention to my driving. I don’t know what Steve is up to, and I need to know, so I turn around and start back the way I came, now looking at my house from the top of the hill. I stop by the side of the road and watch Steve as he chats up Reggie, who is leaning against his cruiser, laughing.

And from this vantage point, I see an opportunity.

I park the moped as though I am a tourist and I stand, looking out over the water. For a moment I am mesmerized by the sight: the bright pinks and oranges and purples of the sunset crashing across the sky, illuminating the water below. Something passes through me, a calmness, that sense that I felt when I first landed on the island that this was my home. A feeling I never even had in Paris, even those days when we were our happiest.

We were happy there. We left Miami with our fake passports in those days before 9/11 with little scrutiny. He was Paul and I was Amelie, and we slept and watched movies as we flew across an ocean to our new home. We were so young that we didn’t feel a sense of urgency, merely a sense of adventure. We were rich and we were in love. We were fugitives.

But that happiness didn’t last. There was no way it could.

I turn away from the sunset, away from my sense of safety, and look back at my house. Steve is still sweet-talking Reggie, but I know that Reggie will soon wonder why he is there.

I cross the road and the property line between my house and the house next door. The ground is soft under my sneakers. I speed up and skirt around the side of the house. I cannot see Steve or Reggie from here.

My bedroom is back here, and once before when I locked myself out of the house, I realized that the window closest to my dresser doesn’t lock properly. A few jimmies, and it slides up easily. I am happy that I had taken out the storm window the week before, to let in the cool spring air for better sleeping, because the screen is easy to maneuver, and soon it slides up as well.

I push my backpack through and hear it land. I follow it, shimmying through and land on the floor of my bedroom.

This should only take a few minutes.

I pick up the backpack, go over to the closet and open the door slowly. I never got around to oiling the hinges, and it squeaks. I almost jump with the sound, and freeze for a moment. But when it’s obvious no one has heard it but me, I go into the closet and stoop down. There is the shoe rack, neat as the proverbial pin as I had straightened it after the destruction. I push aside the rack, the shoes shimmying on the little metal rods. I close my eyes and touch the raised edge of the floorboard. I know everything is here, since I already checked, but I am still anxious that someone else has been there and I will find my hiding place empty.

I dig my fingernails into the crack and pull up the board. I reach inside. Relief rushes through me as I open the backpack, shoving aside the laptop before I begin stuffing the piles of money next to it.





TWENTY-FIVE


When I have filled the backpack, I feel around inside the floorboard until I find it. The small plastic bag. I yank it out and let the board drop back down, concealing the cash that won’t fit. Unless I find a way to get back in here and get the rest, it will have to stay. Maybe the next tenant or the police will discover it – or maybe not.

I crawl out of the closet, the backpack heavy. I am holding the plastic bag. Everything is still there. The passport, the driver’s license, the Social Security card. I take out the passport and open it in the little light that’s cast through the open window and see that face. The face of Tina Adler using the name Amelie Renaud to escape. The picture and name on the license match the passport. It was risky using the passport to come back, but I’d had no choice. I’d already said goodbye to Tracker and I had not set up any connections in Paris to get new documents quickly. I didn’t think I’d need to leave.

I thought about what Tracker told me about Ian. That he was found with his head blown off on our houseboat. Who was that dead man?

I shake off the thought. I have to get out of here.

I put the things back in the plastic bag and stuff it into the backpack. I go over to the window and drop the backpack to the ground, following it in one fluid movement. I carefully pull down the screen and then the window, shrug the backpack over my shoulders and make the climb back up to the moped, which is still parked where I left it.

I have no idea how much time has passed; it seems like hours but is probably only ten minutes, give or take.