Jessica kept going, never pausing to look back. Daniel would wait for her phone call before heading for his car. By that time, Jessica would be on the road to Palos Hills, most likely stuck in afternoon traffic. She remembered how brutal the congestion could be in the areas around the city, especially near the airport. The thirty-mile drive could take an hour and a half at this time of day. All the better. She was in no hurry to get to the hospital.
She walked through an automatic door near the center of the baggage carousel pickup area, immediately choking on diesel fumes. She’d forgotten how nasty the air was on the arrivals level. A dozen or more buses and airport shuttles sat idling at any given time in front of the exits. More passed through every minute to discharge exhaust into the concrete and pavement hell beneath the arrival lanes constructed above. Dark. Dirty. Smelly. Airport planners had managed to make a traveler’s first taste of Chicago a shitty one.
Taking shallow breaths, Jessica hustled to the pedestrian crosswalk and crossed two wide rows of uneven traffic to emerge into the sunlight. She stopped to fiddle with her suitcase, taking the moment to scan the people she could observe in the shadows underneath the overpass. Nearly everybody hauled luggage. Nobody stood out.
Once inside the garage, she quickly analyzed the signage and headed in the direction of row G. A silver Nissan Sentra with Wisconsin license plates finally responded to her repeated press of the key fob. With her suitcase situated on the front seat and the zippered pocket containing her pistol opened, Jessica backed out of the space and followed the signs to the exit. She stopped the car several feet in front of the automated pay gate, mumbling curses. No. It was too late to turn back, and it would be the cowardly thing to do. Her mother deserved her forgiveness, and Jessica wanted to give it.
“You will fucking do this,” she whispered, easing her foot off the brake.
Ten minutes later, after paying for three hours of parking with a preloaded credit card, she sat in bumper-to-bumper traffic, pointing south on Interstate 294. She called Daniel to report a seemingly uneventful departure from the airport.
“Coast is clear?” he asked.
“Couldn’t say,” she said. “I’m at the American Airlines counter, booking a flight back to Anguilla.”
A long pause ensued. “You sound like you’re in a car.”
“Parked on the expressway,” she said. “I didn’t detect anyone paying attention to me on the way out.”
“I think we arrived undetected,” said Daniel.
He didn’t bring up the obvious, which she appreciated. It was one of his best qualities. Never making her feel worse about a situation, particularly one she’d created for herself.
“Arriving clean was never the real challenge,” she said.
“We’ll be just as cautious at the hospital,” he said. “By this time tomorrow, we’ll be over the Gulf of Mexico.”
“I hope so,” she said, not sure why she threw that at him.
He didn’t take the unintentional bait. “I found a tapas restaurant in Oak Brook. We could both use a bite to eat. A drink wouldn’t hurt either.”
“I’m not really hungry. Or thirsty.”
Her statement didn’t reflect the truth. It was more like the warped perception of how she thought she should be feeling. She could eat her way through an Old Country Buffet right now, heat-lamp-preserved food and all.
“Well, I’m kind of starving, so if you don’t mind, I’d like to eat something before we roll into Palos Hills,” said Daniel. “Plus we need to kill some time outside of town. It doesn’t start getting dark until around seven.”
“That’s fine,” she said.
“Get off at Cermak, headed west. Take a right on Spring Road. El Tapareya is in Le Meridien.”
“The restaurant is in a hotel?”
“I didn’t think you’d care. Not being hungry and all.”
“Just saying.”
“I was eyeballing a nearby Long John Silver’s, if you want to know the truth,” Daniel cracked.
“Hush puppies and French fries. You know the way to this girl’s heart,” she said.
“Trust me on the tapas.”
“I could go either way, honestly,” she said, half meaning it.
“Your choice,” he said.
“Cermak then Spring Road. I’ll grab a table.”
“Facing the door, please.”
“That goes without saying.”
She needed to get him off the phone. Their conversation would dance around the edge of nothingness, a never-ending banter tinged with anxiety and framed by the gravity of her approaching reunion. Fuck that. She was better off tapping her fingers on the steering wheel and creeping along in traffic with her thoughts for the next hour. On top of that, they each needed to pay attention to their surroundings. Close attention. One slipup could cost them everything.
Part of her hoped the whole thing was a setup, and it was sprung before they got to the hospital. That would be the easy way out for her. Fight and win, no holds barred, just like she’d been trained. But this wasn’t a trap in the traditional sense. She was most certainly trapped, but not by any of the enemies they’d made in the past. No. The worst enemy possible had cornered Jessica. The one guaranteed to fuck up everything. Her guilt. And there was absolutely no way she was getting out of this one.
She’d let this enemy convince her to make a potentially dangerous trip, right on the cusp of sailing away from her shattered past. Her battle with this adversary ended tonight. She heard Daniel’s voice, but didn’t catch what he said.
“Sorry. What was that?”
“I said I’ll let you go,” said Daniel. “Stay alert, and let me know when you get there.”
“I will,” she said. “And… thank you.”
“Just doing my job.”
“Sometimes you do it frighteningly well.”
“That’s because we’re a good match. Catch you in an hour or so.”
Jessica eased her car forward with the mass of traffic, the hope of a breakthrough short-lived. After stopping, she craned her head back and scanned the windshields behind her in a mostly useless gesture. It would be nearly impossible to spot a tail in this mess and not likely worth the effort. Unless someone wanted her dead, badly, she was as safe here as anywhere.
Safe. A relative term for people with their kind of background and history. Even at their home in Anguilla she never felt completely safe. That was the underlying problem with their life. One she hoped to permanently leave behind when they sailed away on La Ombra. She just needed to keep her shit together for a few more hours. By this time tomorrow night, she could be on their boat, making final preparations to put an entire ocean between the past and a new future.
Chapter 18
Daniel examined the reflective sign on the left corner of the intersection, which read “main entrance.” Unfortunately, that would be their only option for tonight’s visit. There would be no forged keycards and identification cards allowing them to enter more discreetly. They would walk through the visitor entrance to the hospital as Daniel and Jessica Petrovich, until they reached her mother’s room, where she would have to identify herself as Nicole Erak, daughter of a dying woman.
He slowed for the turn across the empty intersection, his car’s headlights drowning out the subtle lights highlighting a wide Welcome To Palos Community Hospital sign. Once past the bright sign, he caught a glimpse of a tall illuminated building between the thick stand of evenly spaced trees lining the right side of the road.