“Don’t you need change?”
“All set. Thanks.” She never looked back, just hit the gas and drove. The car traveled through Atlanta going straight and turning right on red to avoid stopping until she found the expressway. The champagne in her system would have a minimal effect on her driving, as she’d only had about ten sips the entire evening, but her body required food. The pangs from her empty stomach and her revved-up nerves interfered with her focus. Clear focus equaled escape. Clouded focus would result in total chaos for her and everyone she loved.
Outside the city limits, her heartbeat slowed down, and the queasiness in her stomach faded to just short of an ulcer. Cold air whipped over the top of the windshield and heat blew onto her feet and traveled up to warm her torso. She found a classical music station on the radio. The fugue by Bach soothed her nerves, but reminded her of Henry’s love of classical music. A sharp pain in her chest replaced the hunger in her stomach. She allowed her tears to fall as she drove away from the one person who tolerated her obsession with art and her unique personality and seemed to enjoy them.
Henry would someday fade into a bittersweet memory, but Luc inhabited her current nightmare. He must have heard Holly screech out her real name. She needed to contact her family and warn them immediately. If only she wasn’t such a coward, Luc would be dead, and her family would be safe. Protecting them took priority over everything, including her aversion to murder.
She pulled off the highway in a nowhere town and found a convenience store. A sign on the door indicated that no bills larger than twenty dollars would be accepted. Using her Belinda clueless personality, she convinced the clerk to accept a hundred-dollar bill in exchange for some gas, Slim Jims, a Coke, and a map of the area. The skinny kid with blond hair covering his eyes not only gave her change, but he offered to take her out for a drink when he got off work in an hour.
He seemed like a genuinely nice person who would make a girl ten years younger than Alex blush with his sincere compliments. Her hand brushed over his when she reached for the change. “I can’t tonight, but why don’t you give me your phone number, and I’ll call you if I free up tomorrow?”
“Seriously? Cool.” He grabbed an advertisement for a local strawberry festival and scribbled his name and number on it.
Alex graced him with her most genuine smile, the kind of smile that entranced young men and made teachers overlook missing homework assignments. “Thanks. Can I borrow your phone for a second?”
“Sure.” He slid his cell phone to her. She walked a few feet away and called her parents’ house.
The number was no longer in service. Of course not. They often changed the unlisted number to prevent every Tom, Dick, and hustler from trying to contact her father about their newest innovation or her mother about a worthy cause that required the family foundation’s support. Her parents protected their privacy for safety and sanity reasons. Only their longtime friends knew the number. Alex, however, had been AWOL for so long no one could have informed her of the change without an international manhunt. Her last email to her sister Julia had been too long ago. Calling her father’s office wouldn’t help. It was closed at this hour and their personal cell phone numbers were more difficult to obtain than the Permissive Action Link codes on the nation’s nuclear arsenal.
Alex walked around the shop trying to devise a method for contacting her family. Cardboard Easter bunnies and eggs decorated the walls and the windows. The family always spent Easter weekend at their cottage in Martha’s Vineyard. She recalled those periods as nirvana, marked by cool weather, deserted beaches, and time alone with her sisters, her mother, and occasionally, her father. Everyone should be there now. She dialed the cottage number. Disconnected.
Keeping a cheery disposition and trying to avoid plunging into a fit of despair, she acknowledged the store clerk with a wink and perky scrunch of her nose. She had one more chance at warning them: her sister Anna’s cell phone. Anna often refused to follow the security demands made by their father. She’d jumped off the career path and out of the media’s glare to raise two children with her loser husband, Jason; at least that was the intel from Julia when they’d last spoken.
A little girl answered. “Hi. You’ve reached Anna Northrop Dillard’s phone. Please leave a message.” What could Alex say? That she was being chased by a murderer and was warning the family before they became Luc’s next victims? Yep. That’s exactly what she needed to say.
“Anna, it’s Alex. We may be in Code Delta. I’m on the way to the cottage.” Her heart raced with the realization that she’d just warned her family of a death threat. If they received the message, security would be increased for all family members. She hated frightening them, but the warning was necessary.
She erased her call history, returned to the counter, and then handed the kid back his phone. “Thank you.”
She reached for his phone number, folded it, and slid it into the back pocket of her jeans.
“So I’ll wait for your call.” He leaned against the counter like the stud he’d be in a few years. Perhaps he’d find a local beauty and have two point five kids. If she had options, she’d choose that life with Henry.