37

Carla trotted happily around the splintered wooden picnic table. She’d pooped and peed and was now sniffing the signatures of a thousand other dogs who had ventured through this rest area.

Sophie took a drink of her vitaminwater. She’d go herself before they got back on the road. Carla was fine moving about in the big van, but the stiff upright driver’s seat made Sophie’s human back ache. She could take something, but she wanted her nerves calm and her head clear.

A phone in her pack rang. She opened the zipper. Three cheap prepaids lined the bottom of the pocket. Untraceable. Disposable. Then noise came from the project phone. The other two were her work phone and what she referred to at the time as the bat phone. Only a select few had the project line number. People who didn’t care what her real name was. People rendering services. Something was happening.

“Yes.”

“It’s um … Cat.” The little homeless girl Sophie left watching the house where the police held Danny sounded unsure she’d reached the right number. Killing the neighbor had been a momentary lapse. She should not have given into the ardor so easily. Cat had been her fallout plan. Using her own brilliant strategy, she’d acquired another dog and set Cat up with some new clothes, food, and a hotel a few blocks away. The poor girl hadn’t had a good meal in days. So it was charity as well. To earn her gifts, all she had to do was walk by the house several times a day, blend in, look like she belonged, hang out on the corner like a teenager without enough supervision.

“I think something’s going on. They like put an old lady in an ambulance thing and moved her. I followed as best I could.”

“You lost them?” Sophie’s grip on the phone was almost painful. Having to track them again would burn up time. Sophie was out of patience and the dead sister and dead neighbor really sped up the sand dripping through the hourglass.

“Kinda. Made it to another corner, several blocks away. Was weird cuz they was heading like, into the neighborhood, not out of it.” She sniffed.

“You’re not using with that cash are you, Catty?” If the little shit lost Dan …

“Naw. I never really use. Makes you vulnerable on the streets. It’s allergies. My nose runs all the fucking time.” She sucked in again. Sneezed. “Anyway, then a truck went by. Three guys were in it, all in the front. I thought it was the one from the house. I managed to follow that for a block or so. Then I just wandered around until I saw the ambulance again.”

So they’d moved him, but not far. The old woman must be frail. “Nice work, Cat.” Too bad she’d still have to die. Poor kid had saved her some legwork, but she was now a witness. “You think the cops noticed you were hanging around both places?”

“I don’t think the same cop saw me at any two places. Stayed back, I tried being sneaky.” Sniff. “Put a cap on and shit.”

Didn’t matter. Sophie was on her way. The anticipation, the excruciating waiting, had been eating away at her. She’d started biting her nails again. She needed to take extra vitamins next week. The stress was murder. That’s why she’d only stayed two nights at the house. She was itching to go, get her Danny and get back home. In a matter of hours she’d roll back into Vegas.

“The address?”

“375 Harper.”

“Thanks, Cat. You stay at the hotel a few more days. It’s all covered. And I hid a bonus under the nightstand.”

“Wow. Thanks, lady. Been nice eating regular like. I’m gonna hate hitting the streets again.”

Sophie hung up.

The hotel would be a great place to stage the van until she could scope out the new house. Carla jumped up on the bench and curled up next to Sophie’s leg. Her fur felt like satin under Sophie’s fingers.

“You look tired. Ready to go nap in the car?”

Carla raised her head and gave Sophie that ridiculously cute head tilt, eyebrow lift thing.

“Okay. Let’s go.”

At the word go, Carla was up and pointed at the van. She stayed right by Sophie’s side until Sophie herself got up and started moving.

“Good girl.”

The phone rang again. Irritated, Sophie punched the green button. Nothing. Another ring. It was another phone. She pulled one of the other two out.

“The bat phone.” Her heart fluttered. This phone was connected to her real self—or as close to a real self as Sophie could get. She’d set it up under the name she’d decided would be her hidden identity years ago. She wasn’t sure what to expect. It had caller ID, but she didn’t recognize the number. Texas.

“Hello.”

“Hello your dammed self.”

Sophie looked down at the electronic device with a dizzying mix of hate and curiosity.

“Well, you gonna say anything, stupid?”

“What do you want me to say?”

“’Hello, Mother’ would be nice.” Her voice dripped with the same malice that barraged Sophie with insults and disdain in her head. The voice was Sophie’s own, but the content was all the venom that this woman could spit. Sad, seeing as they’d only spoken a few times in her life.

“Hello, Mother.”

“I’m not your mother, you cunt.”

Sophie spun around, as if she would find her birth mother sitting on the bench. If she had been, the bitch wouldn’t have an ounce of blood left. Teeth clenched so tight her jaw popped at the hinges. Her temples throbbed as a blood-red haze clouded her vision.

Carla nosed Sophie’s free hand. Her mother was bitching about something related to damaging her reputation. As if she had one worthy of protection.

“I really wish I had just gone to the clinic and been done with the three of you. Only the first of you has had the decency to die.”

What the fuck was she so worried about this woman for? Nothing but a birth canal. She held no power over Sophie. No power.

“Maybe you should have. What do you want?”

“No trouble on account of you’re in trouble.”

“That makes no sense, birth canal.”

“What?” She coughed again. “Whatever. Cops came looking for you.”

Holy crap. They’d traced her that far. Good thing the plan was getting close to culmination. Outsmarting the cops was not a problem. She’d done it a hundred times before.

“And you told them what?”

“None of your damned business, you ungrateful shit.” The birth canal started coughing again, but this was not from allergies like little Cat. That disgusting hack rang of heinous lung damage, sprawling cancer from years of chain smoking. The red eased away some more. Sophie may not have had the nerve to kill her, but fate would intervene on her part.

“Fuck off,” she said.

“Oh, so you do have some backbone. Imagine that. Fancy education and little baby balls.”

“What did you tell them? When were they there?”

Get the facts and get off the phone. Should have never left her a number in the first place. Ignorant, youthful hope. Had she really wanted to make a connection when the birth canal had been a bitch to her?

“A while ago. Took me forever to find that thing you wrote your number on.”

Sophie remembered. She had to turn and pace back toward the table. “You mean the copy of my birth certificate?”

“Oh. Whatever. Can’t read the small print no more. Been in the junk drawer. So how come the cops are looking for you?”

“But you kept it? How sweet.”

“Don’t go looking for a Hallmark from me, honey. Knew trouble would come from you someday. Only kept it so’s I can tell you I don’t want your shit to bring no trouble on me.”

“Lose this number then.”

“Lost.” The line went numbly empty.