Sweat slid down Abigail Lewis’s brow, following her hairline as precise as someone sliding a finger down the side of her face. She pushed her sunglasses up her nose and took in everything in her line of sight from the small bistro.
She sat by the window, her back against the wall. It made her feel cornered, but at least maybe a little safer. Her heart hadn’t stopped pounding for hours. She’d gone to the country club, picked up some cash she’d stashed there over the last year. She’d run into her father’s security, or almost had, barely got out without being caught, and she’d realized just how well her father had kept track of her.
Now she was sitting in this place trying to figure out her next move. Gunning it out of town had been her original plan, but without a vehicle, she couldn’t do that because her meager secret savings wasn’t nearly enough.
She sighed and leaned back in her chair, watching the crowds as they passed by, completely unaware of the crazy that was her life. She only had a short time before her pursuers would find her here. She had to get out of town. But she needed transportation, cash, and a whole lot of anonymity. It had been a full day since she’d escaped her father, and there was no sign of her disappearance in the papers. She didn’t expect that to continue, but so far, it was to her advantage that her father wanted to keep it quiet.
She could contact her birth father, now that she knew who it was. But did she really want to thrust herself into his world? There would be no coming back from that.
“Ma’am?” Abigail glanced up sharply as the waiter set down a steaming cup of coffee and an envelope. “The young man at the bar sends his compliments.”
She glanced toward the bar. The young man he talked about was probably a few years older than her, standing with ease at the bar, one foot on the bar running along the side of the wood panel, the other balancing his weight. He wore a loud blue shirt with birds over his broad shoulders, with a black t-shirt underneath. Black pants seemed an odd choice for summer weather, especially paired with the black work boots that were probably steel toe. His face was almost baby-faced, the scruffy beard aging him a few years. He winked and raised his coffee cup to her, taking a long pull from it.
She pushed the cup toward the waiter. “Tell him thank you, but I’m not in need of his company.”
“He said he is leaving, but wanted to return your car to you before he did,” the waiter replied. “Enjoy the coffee.”
Her car? Abigail frowned at the envelope. It was slightly bulky like someone had shoved a set of car keys inside it. She glanced at the coffee cup. She wasn’t going to drink that, no matter how bad she wanted coffee at that moment. It could be her father, trying this new thing to get her back. Or it could be one of his many enemies. She remembered first hand what her father’s enemies did to prisoners.
She opened the envelope carefully and lifted the key out. Okay. She had a key. It was a Nissan from the looks of the key fob. This was such a bad idea. She tapped her fingers against the wooden table.
Three choices. None of them good choices. Staying in Galveston meant eventually, her father would catch up to her. Contacting her birth father would open up a whole mess of problems. And taking this car could open up a whole lot of problems she didn’t know about yet. She didn’t even know who handed the keys to her.
She glanced back at the coffee bar, but the man was gone. If he was with her father, he’d have been more forthright, she decided. She sighed. She wasn’t prepared for this. These decisions. The hardest decision in her life before all of this happened was what color dress to wear. Now what she decided was the difference between life and death. Or maybe it was just death that awaited her. She wasn’t sure.
For the first time in her life, she was truly alone.
~*~*~
Abigail stared at the line of cars parked alongside the road. Everything told her this was a bad idea. Someone randomly sends her a coffee and a set of keys with no explanation, and she was out there looking for the car like an idiot.
She glanced around. It wouldn’t be long before her father tracked her down. He knew her well enough to know where she might run to. She had to do something he couldn’t expect. Like get into a stranger’s car and use it to drive out of town.
She raised the fob and pressed the top button. Something beeped, but she couldn’t see where it was. She walked down the sidewalk, looking for a Nissan until she found a silver one, its metallic paint sparkling in the sun. Swallowing, she pressed the unlock button, almost grateful when it clicked unlocked with a soft beep.
Abigail pressed her face against the window, tenting her fingers around her cheeks to peer inside the car. It was clean, only a single envelope sitting in the passenger seat.
“Well, let’s see if I die today,” she told herself as she walked around to the driver’s side and gingerly opened the door. The smell of new car scent wafted out of the car to her nostrils. She glanced around. No one seemed interested in what she was doing. She didn’t feel like she was being watched. But would she really know if she were?
Slowly, she slid her body into the driver’s seat and shut the door behind her. She waited. Nothing happened. Life still moved on outside the car. No one paid her any attention. She blew out the breath she hadn’t even realized she held.
The envelope to her right caught her eye. Slowly, she picked it up. It wasn’t stuck closed, just tucked neatly. It was roughly the size of a small catalog, and it wasn’t thick. She slid the tongue of the envelope out and pulled the single piece of paper out. Glancing in the envelope, her eyes widened at the small stack of hundreds inside. It wasn’t a lot, maybe a couple grand. Just enough to keep the envelope from looking too bulky.
The paper looked ordinary enough. It was the size of a regular sheet of printer paper, folded in half to fit into the envelope. Her breath shuddered as she unfolded it. On top, there was a map with brief directions typed neatly beneath it. A Post-It was stuck to the paper, a bright green square, the letters on it written with a fine tip Sharpie marker in an elegant scrawl.
Safety is in small numbers.
There was no way to tell where it came from. No name, no phone number or return address. This was idiotic of her. It could be some ploy of her father’s to get her back. She could be driving herself right into a trap. But why would he let her drive six hours away just to have to drag her back?
And what was her alternative?
She depressed the ignition button, the car whirling to life quietly. She glanced at the map. Jubilee, Texas. Six hours away, at least, from the look of the route.
Fuck it.
She glanced out the driver’s side window, looking for oncoming traffic, and slowly pulled out of the spot when she had an opening. Inside, her heart pounded, her blood grew cold with nerves, and her hands shook with fear. But nothing assaulted the car. Nothing popped up from the back seat to stop her. But most of all, the move soothed her prickled skin, soothed the rough beat of her heart. Everything told her she’d just made the right decision.