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Thursday, September 23
Beverly looked at herself in the mirror, adjusting the wig, fluffing out the short, dark hair. After dropping off the SUV at the rental agency, she’d taken a taxi to the bus station and changed her clothes and hair in the bathroom there. No train this time.
She smiled as she remembered Adam’s tenderness in making sure she was okay as she endured several interviews at the PD before signing her statement. Both of them were there for hours. Enough to see the mayor storming into the office, then leaving with his tail tucked between his legs. Also sufficient time to see Adam’s boss, Chief Quinn, go through five cups of coffee.
Adam had popped in and out, apologizing at having to deal with the aftermath, and Detective Jinks sat with her for a while. Beverly liked Jinks enormously. She was glad Adam had such a wonderful colleague as Jinks to watch his back.
Poor Mr. X. Adam had let her drive him to a cafe where she dropped him off, so she and Adam could endure their police department debriefing. Three hours later, she’d picked up Mr. X after his third helping of pumpkin pie and felt guilty for leaving him there so long. Though he may have found a new friend in Dennis, the cute waiter who’d hovered over him the entire time cooing over Mr. X’s broken foot.
Then there was Reggie Forsythe. He’d survived his suicide attempt, something about the bullet entering at a 40-degree angle above his eye, then ricocheting and exiting the other side of his head near the back of his ear. The doctors weren’t sure if he’d be able to walk or talk again. Beverly wasn’t sure she should be glad about that or wish his attempt had succeeded.
Beverly would never forget that one horrifying moment when it looked like Forsythe was going to shoot Adam. Oh, Adam. She knew he’d take her leaving hard. He’d looked so happy the case worked out the way it did and so eager when he asked her out to dinner.
She’d declined again, using the excuse she had to take Mr. X back home, but it was more than that. He knew it, too, she’d seen it in the look in his eyes.
Beverly was running away. She had what she came for—Grammie was avenged, and there was a somewhat heavy object in her luggage needing attention. When the bus station clerk asked her what her destination was, she’d hesitated. Where would she go now? A note on a schedule board about a special price to Chicago caught her eye, so that’s what she told him. Any city was as good as any other.
The psychologists would have a field day trying to ferret out why she was running. Running from what? Happiness? Adam? Love? Maybe she’d find what she was looking for in Chicago or not, but it was another brand new start. Like all the other brand new starts she’d had through the years. The psychologists would say she was constantly reinventing herself whenever she put on a new disguise. They’d be wrong.
When she heard the call for boarding, she lugged her suitcases to the bus, waiting until she witnessed them being loaded to make sure they didn’t disappear, and then hopped on board. She regarded the faces of her fellow passengers. Perhaps that woman in the print dress was going to see her grandchildren. The man with the deep worry lines etched in his craggy face, off to take a new job. The young girl with the dreamy smile on her lips was probably meeting a lover.
They were all escapees in a way. Exchanging one setting for another, one reality for another, if only temporarily. Souls fading in and out of time and place.
Beverly pulled out a book and started to read, but she kept reading the same paragraphs over and over and stuck the book in the seat pocket. Looking out the window, she watched the gently rolling hills of Ironwood Junction and Vermont disappear out of her life.
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