Alex paid nine dollars cash for a single stroller, then put her backpack in it and headed into the park. She craned her neck around, searching. It made sense that she would be looking for someone—maybe her sister and nephews, or her husband and their child. There were lots of other patrons looking for their parties. She didn’t stand out.
Erin and Livvy would be past the pandas by now, probably thinking about lunch. She analyzed the map she’d gotten with the stroller. She’d try across from the apes first, then near the reptiles.
She walked fast, ignoring the turnoffs and viewing areas.
Erin had the fair skin of a redhead, like her father. She’d posted pictures of herself sunburned and moaned about freckles. Erin would be in a hat and probably light long sleeves. Her hair was bright and hung halfway down her back. It would catch the eye.
Alex scanned the crowds as she moved quickly through them, looking for a woman with a child, ruling out those with friends and spouses and multiple children. For a while, she followed a woman with her hair rolled up under a wide-brimmed straw hat pushing a single stroller, but then the child climbed out to walk with her—it was a boy.
A quick loop around the big cats, and then down toward the petting zoo. All the while, she was conscious of how she looked—map in hand, vigilantly searching for her companions. She wore a straw hat of her own over the dark blond wig and wide-framed sunglasses. She had on a plain T-shirt, boyfriend jeans, and the sport-shoe/ballet-flat hybrids that would let her run if she had to. Nothing about her would be particularly memorable.
Several shades of red hair had grabbed her attention throughout the course of her search, but many of them had been clearly unnatural. Others had been on women too old to be Erin, or too young, or holding extra children. Now she spotted one headed along the trail toward the Amazon exhibit—a long braid of golden-red hair swinging from beneath a white bucket hat. The woman was pushing a single stroller; it looked exactly like Alex’s, tan molded plastic with a dark green shade. She wore a sleeveless tank, and her arms were thick with freckles. Alex walked quickly after her.
The woman wasn’t moving fast; it didn’t take long for Alex to pass her. Alex kept her head down and glanced into the stroller as she walked alongside it.
The little girl looked right. Her face was turned away, but the fluffy blond hair seemed the same. Her size fit the profile.
Alex kept walking and beat the mother and daughter to the exhibit. She parked her stroller in the designated space beside the bathrooms, inconspicuously wiping the handle with the hem of her shirt before she removed her backpack and shrugged into it. Now that she was fairly certain the woman was Erin and that Erin had her own stroller, she didn’t need this one.
She located the woman and child dawdling along the trail. A larger group had caught up to them and flowed around them from both sides. Alex could see the woman’s face clearly now—it was definitely Carston’s daughter. Erin had paused to offer Olivia a sippy cup.
The path was getting more crowded. It was hot, and the wig was making her head itch and sweat. The straw hat wasn’t helping.
Alex focused on an empty bench about ten feet ahead of the duo. There was another large crowd behind the first. If she timed it right, she could intercept Erin at the bench while the second crowd was passing.
Alex moved purposefully back the way she’d just come, watching through her dark glasses to see if anyone was paying attention to her. The first group—a loud extended family, it looked like, with several toddlers, multiple parents, and one older woman in a wheelchair—enveloped her for a moment. She dodged through them and then slowed a bit.
The second crowd was all adults—foreign tourists on a day trip, she guessed, many of them wearing fanny packs—and they reached Erin as she was almost to the bench. Alex moved against the flow until she was just ahead of her quarry. As Erin passed a foot away from the bench, Alex turned, twisting around an older man, and pretended to stumble. She reached out and grabbed Erin’s hand on the stroller handle. Her palm mashed the pouch of clear fluid and forced it empty with one strong squeeze.
“Hey!” Erin said, turning.
Alex ducked back, twisting partially behind the closest guest. Erin came face to face with the bald septuagenarian.
“Excuse me,” he said hesitantly to both of them, not sure how he’d become entangled. He pulled free of Alex and stepped around Erin and the stroller.