Inside, the market was busy. It was a diverse group of patrons, and Alex was sure she wouldn’t stick out. She was suddenly reminded of Daniel’s catastrophic shopping spree in Childress, and she was surprised to find herself smiling. She blamed her reaction on nerves.
Despite the traffic, it wasn’t hard to find the woman she was looking for. The housekeeper was wearing a bright yellow cotton wrap dress, and the color stood out. Rather than follow her through the store, Alex worked the opposite pattern and crossed paths with her every other aisle. It put Alex in the woman’s sight line more often but seemed more natural, less creepy. The woman—who appeared to be about fifty from close up, in good shape and fairly attractive—paid Alex no attention. Meanwhile Alex filled her cart with random items that seemed innocuous—milk, bread, toothpaste—and then added the few items that mattered.
Carston liked these small bottles of organic orange juice. They must expire quickly, because the housekeeper bought a few every trip but never stocked up. Alex grabbed three—the same number as in the housekeeper’s cart—and put them in the front child seat of her own.
She wheeled over to an empty aisle—no one was looking for birthday cards or office supplies this morning—and then uncapped the small syringe in her pocket. It was a very slender needle, and it left almost no mark behind when she pushed it through the plastic of the orange juice bottle, just under the screw-off cap. She kept her body turned toward the cards, as if she were looking for the perfect sentimental phrase. When she was done, she grabbed a glittery congratulations card in hot pink and put it in the cart. Maybe she’d give it to Kevin when he finished his mission. It was the kind of glitter that would stick to someone for days.
She and Barnaby had called this drug simply Heart Attack, because that’s what it caused. Sometimes after the interrogation was over, the department needed to dispose of a subject in a way that looked natural. After about three hours, Heart Attack broke down into a metabolite that was nearly impossible to trace. A man of Carston’s age, in his physical condition, and factoring in the high-stress job—well, Alex greatly doubted that anyone would look too carefully at the cause of death, at least in the very beginning. Sure, if he were twenty-five and ran marathons, it might look more suspicious.
Alex moved to the bakery next, because it was near the cashiers and had an unobstructed view of the shoppers waiting to pay. It took about ten minutes as she pretended to dither between a baguette or ciabatta rolls, but then the housekeeper appeared from aisle 19 and got into the checkout line. Alex threw the baguette in her cart and joined the next line over.
This was the tricky part. She’d have to stay pretty close to the woman as they left the store. Alex’s inconspicuous black sedan was parked right next to the minivan. As the woman was loading her groceries, Alex was going to trip with her arms full of bags and fall into the minivan’s bumper. It shouldn’t be too hard to leave her juice in the back of the car. Hopefully snagging the woman’s juice bottles would be possible, but if not, she assumed the housekeeper would load them all into the fridge, even if she didn’t have the right number.
Alex eyed the conveyor belt next to hers, double-checking that the juice was there. She spotted what she was looking for and glanced quickly away.
As her own purchases slid across the scanner, her brows furrowed. Something was off. Something wasn’t matching the mental picture. She glanced back at the other conveyor belt, trying to pin it down.
The bagger was packing a box of Lucky Charms. The housekeeper had never bought that kind of cereal for Carston, as far as Alex had been able to see. Carston was a creature of habit, and he ate the same fiber-heavy cereal every morning. Sugary marshmallows with plastic prizes were not his MO.
Another quick peek, head down. The usual coffee beans, the low-fat creamer, the quart of skim milk, but there was also a half a gallon of whole milk and a box of Nilla Wafers.
“Paper or plastic, miss? Miss?”
Alex quickly refocused, pulled her wallet open, and grabbed three twenties. “Paper, please,” she said. The housekeeper always got paper.
Her mind was turning over and over as she waited for her change.
Maybe the housekeeper got groceries for herself while she was shopping for Carston. But if she got her own milk, she’d have to carry it inside and put it in Carston’s fridge until she was done for the day, so it wouldn’t spoil in the heat. And she’d never done that in the past.
Was Carston expecting guests?
Alex’s heart pounded uncomfortably as she followed the woman through the automatic front doors, her two bags both gripped in her left hand.
She needed Carston to be the one who enjoyed that bottle of OJ. But what if a friend grabbed it instead? A friend who was twenty-five and a marathoner? It would be obvious what she had attempted. Carston would change his habits, beef up his security. And he would know it was Alex, without a doubt. That she was alive, and nearby.