Casey sleeps hard all night. I doze off and on, sitting in the dark at the hotel window, watching every car that comes into the parking lot. I wonder if Keegan has caught up to the eighteen-wheeler with my phone yet, or if the trail ended when the battery died.
It’s six a.m., and I turn on the TV. I flip around until I find a Dallas station. They cover a city council meeting and the governor’s speech at an NAACP meeting. Then I hear Casey’s name.
I spring to my feet and see the artist’s sketch of Casey’s face with her current black hairstyle. I go to her bedroom doorway. “Casey, wake up!”
She jumps too fast out of her sleep and sits bolt upright. “What?”
“In here!”
She gets out of bed and stumbles into the living room, and sucks in a breath as she sees the rendering. “It’s me.”
“You have to change your hair.”
She looks around. “The wigs.”
“Not the red one. They have that too. It’s going to get harder and harder to disguise yourself. They have you with long blonde hair, shorter blonde hair, black hair, short red hair, heavy makeup, no makeup . . .”
“I’ll wear the long brown one. Sunglasses. What if someone saw me here last night? What if security cameras got me?”
“You didn’t go into the office. I scoped out the cameras. I don’t think they got you.”
“But what about you? What if they’re looking for you?”
“They didn’t put me on the news. The hotel managers won’t be looking for me.”
“Where is this broadcast from?”
“Dallas.”
She sinks onto the couch, rubs her eyes. She’s still wearing the clothes she was in last night. I wonder why she didn’t put on her pajamas. Maybe she doesn’t have any with her.
“They’ll call. My landlady, her daughter. The people I worked with. They’ll see this and know it was me. What number is that?”
I look at the number they’re showing on the screen. “Unbelievable. It’s Keegan’s cell phone.”
“Can he do that?”
“He’s not supposed to. He’d probably rather get forgiveness than permission. It shows how desperate he’s gotten.”
“He’ll hear from them anytime now.”
“It’s okay. Put the wig on now. Just keep it on. Don’t ever take your sunglasses off.”
She goes in her room to grab her duffel bag. When I step into the doorway, she’s putting on the brown wig. Casey looks good no matter how she wears her hair.
“Yeah, that one,” I say. “It’s a little different.” I don’t tell her, but she still looks too much like herself.
“I’ll work on it,” she says.