And then she would be as good as dead.
Finally, she pulled her hat low over her newly dyed auburn hair and quickly transferred her duffel bag and suitcases from the SUV into the trunk of the Focus.
After plugging in her GPS, she began her new route on quiet backcountry two-lane roads.
She had no doubt that her Blazer would be discovered in the morning. The shattered front and back windows would ensure a great deal of interest by the local police. The license plates would be easily traced to her latest identity.
But the Focus would buy her time.
Bought with cash from a sleazy little car lot in a bad part of town, she’d given the seller a false name she fabricated on the spot, stashed the car at the commuter train station. Then she’d taken the Metra downtown and used the city bus system for the final leg of the trip home.
Maybe her pursuers would expect she’d decided to lose herself among the eight million people of the Chicago area. With luck, that’s exactly where they’d search, and eventually they would give up.
Now she just had to make it to the Greyhound bus station in Moline, on the Iowa-Illinois border, pay cash for a ticket to Deer Lodge, Montana, and catch the midnight departure.
And then finally she’d be free.
The Greyhound pulled off the freeway near Ogallala, Nebraska, and stopped at a truck stop with a well-lit mom-and-pop café. Next to it lay a parking lot overflowing with cars and trucks, and beyond that, a Travelodge hotel with Welcome to the Western States Regional Bowling Championship Contestants and No Vacancy lit on its sign.
Through the café’s large front windows Emma could see a long lunch counter and a half-dozen booths, already populated by a crowd of trucker types hunched over large coffee mugs and massive servings of heart-attack-on-a-plate trucker specials.
The bus driver and the dozen other passengers piled out and made a beeline for the café and restrooms. Emma wavered. The darkness in the bus throughout the night had been reassuring, the passengers dozing and otherwise keeping to themselves. But bright lights and the intimacy of the limited seating in the café could provoke conversation and curiosity, something she’d worked hard to avoid.
The granola bars and cans of Coke in her duffel would just have to do, along with the tiny restroom at the back of the bus.
She watched people come and go. A mom heading for the door to the café, gripping the hands of two toddlers bundled into heavy blue snowsuits. A gray-haired couple hanging on to each other for support as they came out and bent into the bitter wind, heading for the hotel with scarves wrapped around their faces.
A tall cowboy sauntered toward the gas station from his truck and horse trailer at the last gas pump, the brim of his Western hat pulled down low over his forehead.
One of the toddlers broke free as his mother opened the door, and made a beeline for the gas pumps just as a rattletrap of a pickup pulled off the highway into the lot, swung wide and started skidding sideways. The mother screamed and threw herself toward her child. Pedestrians swung around. The scene played out in slow motion.
The crushing weight of the truck sluiced sideways, the side of its front wheel aimed straight for the child and coming too, too fast.
And suddenly the cowboy was there—diving for the child. Rolling in the snow, protecting him with his body. Even through the thick, well-insulated walls of the bus Emma heard an uproar of excited shouts as the young mother fell to her knees at the cowboy’s side and opened her arms when he handed over her unharmed child.
The crowd grew around them, slapping the cowboy on the back, then some broke away and loudly confronted the driver of the pickup who staggered out of his truck and leaned against the front fender, pale and shaken and quite possibly drunk.
Emma leaned back, her own fear subsiding as she watched the mother wrap her arms around the cowboy in heartfelt thanks, then hold his hand for a moment. He touched the brim of his hat, then headed into the gas station, while she shepherded her children into the café.
A true hero, Emma thought, the one person among the many who had thought fast and acted in time. Why had she never run into someone like that when she’d needed him most?
She settled back in her seat and read a page of the book in her lap, then idly drew a circle in the frost that had already formed on her window. Rubbing out a bigger porthole, she drew in a sharp breath.
Impossible. She’d been so incredibly careful.
The chill from touching the icy glass rushed through her. Outside the door of the gas station, she could see the bus driver and the cowboy both holding foam to-go cups, listening to a tall man in a dark overcoat and gray dress slacks who was facing away from the bus. All three were hunched against the wind, their collars turned up.
From his rigid stance and forceful gestures it was apparent that the newcomer was agitated and demanding some sort of action. He pivoted and stood in front of the big plate glass window to stare at the people inside. Then he turned back to the bus driver and the cowboy and pointed toward the bus.
She stared at him, too horrified to move.
It was too far away to see his face, but he was tall, with the same kind of coat and gray slacks as the man she’d seen in her kitchen. It had to be a coincidence. How was it even possible that he could find her this far from Chicago? Unless…
The truth hit her like a punch to her stomach.
Had Todd planted a tracking device on her? Who would have ordered it—the good guys or bad? Either way, she was in trouble.
The man in the overcoat was already striding toward the bus, clearly planning to search inside.
There was no time to hunt for her luggage stowed in the belly of the bus, and even grabbing her duffel could spell danger if it held the tracking device. Grabbing only her purse, she crouched low and hurried to the exit, shoved the door open and bolted for the nearby row of semis along the edge of the parking lot, thankful that the bus had been parked with its exit door facing away from the café.
The semi tractors were idling to keep their diesel fuel warm and all were dark, so the drivers were either asleep inside with their doors locked or were over at the café. There was no time to search out someone in a sleeper cab and beg for shelter.
The wind sent sleet and cold down the collar of her coat as she hurried behind the trucks for cover, then hesitated. The hotel parking lot ahead was packed with cars and pickups, but few people left their vehicles open these days and only a fool left keys in an ignition. There’d be a slim chance of finding refuge there. The hotel itself was too far away—with a swath of open lawn between its front doors and the parking area. She would be spotted in an instant. Please, God, help me find someone, someplace…
Her frantic gaze landed on the rig at the farthest gas pump.
The pickup lights were off, but inside the back of the trailer, a horse whinnied. That cowboy would surely be back soon. Would he help her? Would he give her a ride? Or would he first demand answers that would take far too long?
Already, she could hear a male voice over by the bus. If the bus driver had told that guy about her being a passenger, she was in deep trouble.
Bending low, she crept to the horse trailer and nearly cried out in relief when she read its Montana plates. “Please, please be heading back home,” she whispered to herself.
But the cab of the truck was still empty, save for a big dog that surged toward the window from the shadows of the interior, its teeth bared.
The voice approached the other side of the horse trailer, apparently talking into a cell phone. So close that she could hear him breathing.