I throw my arms into my parka—it’ll be cold up north—and bundle Elizabella in more blankets before carrying her down the stairs. She’s getting too big to be carried like this. Too heavy.
Once she’s strapped into her car seat, I again check my shoulder bag to ensure the stacks of $100 bills remain hidden at the bottom of it. I don’t know where I assume they’d go, but I feel better once I count five bundles. I catch sight, also, of the ring box and paperwork I found in the deposit box. I wonder what else Micah was hiding from me.
And soon, we’re whisking out of the Shadowlands.
The road stretches before me, still muddled with the last remnants of rush-hour traffic, which spans from three in the afternoon to seven at night, even on the outskirts of Chicago. I’m neck and neck with many of the same motorists, as if we’re fish in a school, all narrowing toward the same current—in this case, the Tri-State Tollway—to carry us to faster passage. Black crossover to my left. Blue two-door to my right. Brown sedan behind me. Inch. Inch. Inch. Stoplight after stoplight.
Finally, I exit north on the toll road, which is more populated than I’d anticipated at this hour, but it thins out as we near the state line. I glance in my rearview mirror to catch a glimpse of my sleeping daughter. In the periphery, I see it: the same sedan—I see it’s brown when it passes under a streetlight—that’s been with me since Half Day Road.
I adjust the mirror so it’s aimed more at the car than Bella.
It’s a nondescript car. Probably not the same sedan. It isn’t following me. Chalk that theory up to my wild imagination and paranoia.
I switch lanes.
So does the sedan.
I slow down to five under the speed limit, which is practically unheard of on a road where everyone goes at least ten over.
Cars whip around me but not the sedan.
I’m in the center lane now. I drift back to the right.
The sedan does the same.
I brave a glance at my shoulder bag and remember that federal agent—Lincoln—at the bank. And even though it sounded as if my daughter was referencing his recent visit, her words haunt me. Daddy doesn’t know the man in the kitchen.
And then there’s the fact that Micah stole money from his father.
Who did I marry? What had he gotten himself into?
If I’d left this money stacked on the back porch, would I still feel as if this sedan were pursuing me?
My hands are damp with perspiration. I lower the heat.
My heart gallops in my chest.
I gun it and whip around a minivan into the left lane.
The sedan stays nearly on my bumper.
Even when I slow down, it’s still there.
My breaths come more quickly.
What am I going to do?
There’s an off-ramp up ahead. Should I exit and flag down a cop?
Call one now?
Yes. I’ll call one now.
I press the OnStar button on my mirror. Beep, beep.
Another glance in the mirror tells me I can’t switch lanes in time to get to the exit. There are too many cars. Maybe I can make it to the ramp if I stomp on the pedal and pray. Or maybe someone will crash into me when I do it. Either way, the police will come. Either way, I suspect I’ll be better off than I’d be if this sedan follows me all the way to Plum Lake, which will be practically deserted this time of year.
Noise surrounds me. I can’t think.
“Just do it,” I say aloud. I guess I’m talking to my own version of Nini now. “One. Two. Three.”
I step hard on the gas and yank the wheel toward the exit, nearly clipping the car that had been gaining in the lane to my right.
Horns blow.
High beams flash.
Tires squeal.
I nick the edge of a guardrail—it scrapes against us—and for a second, two tires lift from the pavement.
I take my foot off the gas and ease the vehicle around the cloverleaf. I’m all right. We’re all right. I exhale when I realize I’m merging onto the road. Burleigh Avenue, it’s called. I did it.
“Mommy?” Bella sounds scared half to death.
I glance back at her. “Everything’s all right, baby.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
“Good evening, Mrs. Cavanaugh.”
I startle when I hear the voice.
“This is OnStar. How may I assist you?”
A peek at the rearview mirror proves no brown sedan managed to follow me.
For the first time since Micah left, I start to laugh. I’m fine.
Chapter 18
November 21
It’s official. I’ve lost touch with reality.
We’ve stopped only for snacks and bathroom breaks.
Now, with more than half the country between us and the place we’ve been calling home, I finally pick up the phone to make a call I should’ve made before we left. It’s a good time to do so. Elizabella is asleep.
“Mrs. Cavanaugh,” Detective Guidry says. He clears his throat. “You’re on my list of calls today. I spoke with your daughter’s preschool teachers.” His tone is cold, accusatory. “Your daughter shared something rather suspect. She told them your husband died days before you called to report him missing.”
“I told you that.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“I could’ve sworn I did.” My heart bottoms out. This can’t look good. Guidry already thinks I’m hiding something. “I’m sorry. But yes. I can’t explain what Bella said.”
“And now, it’s been two days since anyone’s heard from you. I left you two messages yesterday—”
“I didn’t get any messages. I’ve been without service a few times.”
“And I damn near reported you and your daughter missing, too.”
“I’m sorry. I should have called. I had to get out of there. I just couldn’t—”
“Where are you, Mrs. Cavanaugh?”
“I’m . . . I’m sorry. I’m on my way to . . . I was on my way up north.”
“I asked you not to go.”
“Micah’s mother invited us for Thanksgiving, and—”
“Yet you haven’t arrived. You left a message for your mother-in-law that led her to believe you’d be on Plum Lake by now.”
“I’ve called her to explain. She hasn’t returned the call.”
A moment of silence precedes his repeated and more staccato: “I asked you not to go.”
“Well, as it turned out, I didn’t. I was on my way—I was—but someone was following us. A brown sedan.”
“Following you?”
“I thought they were, but . . .”
“Did you catch the license plate?”
“It was an Illinois plate, and it started with S-T-X.”
“Where are you, Mrs. Cavanaugh? Are you going to Plum Lake?”
“No. I’m a little farther south than that.” I’d stopped looking in the rearview mirror by the time we crossed the border into Georgia, stopped jumping every time someone else happened to pull up to the gas pump next to mine.
“You’re heading to the place in Key West.”
A chill races up my spine when he says it, as if it hasn’t been real until now. “I guess I am.” I hadn’t wanted anyone to know about the house in Key West. I didn’t want anyone to know where we were going. It was as if I thought we might disappear forever, if we made it safely to the Florida Keys.
But I should’ve known Guidry would find the property deeded to me. It’s his job to dig and find information.
“Why didn’t you tell me you owned a house in South Florida? You didn’t think it worth mentioning, considering the remains of the plane—”
“I didn’t know about the house,” I say. “And I need you to believe me. I guess there’s a lot I didn’t know about, so . . . yeah. I would’ve told you, but Micah never told me.”
I hear the drumming of his fingers against some surface, but he doesn’t reply.
“Listen,” I say. “If I had anything to do with my husband’s disappearance or death, would I have called you?”
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
“I’m calling because I’m scared. You can’t expect me to believe that everything is okay, when Micah was obviously keeping secrets. Bella said something about a man in the kitchen.”
“I remember.”
“Well, she said this agent had been in the kitchen, when we saw him at the bank.”