The woman turned and lifted her arms like wings in an absurd flying posture. Sylvie pulled out her gun and fired once into the back of the woman’s head, and she toppled to the floor.
Paul opened the bathroom door. “Sylvie?”
She said clearly, “Yes, Paul,” then picked up the woman’s license and keys from the bed. “It’s a green Toyota, parked right outside the door.”
Paul looked down at the woman’s body, nodded to himself, then walked to the door, opened it to let Sylvie out first, hung the DO NOT DISTURB sign on the knob, and closed it, then wiped the fingerprints off the knob with his sleeve.
Paul and Sylvie stepped outside into the parking lot. They could see four police cars in the lot now, and several cops were gathering around the blue car they had rented in San Francisco. The cops looked at Paul and Sylvie as they walked toward the green Toyota. Then Sylvie saw another green Toyota one row farther off. She clicked the plastic switch attached to the key ring, and watched the dome light in the second Toyota come on and the lock buttons pop up. When they reached the car Paul opened Sylvie’s door for her, and as she stepped beside him to get in she saw the cops turn away and look at the blue rental car again.
Paul got in and she handed him the keys. He started the engine and drove slowly toward the nearest exit from the lot. As he pulled out onto the road, he laughed.
Sylvie laughed, too, then she realized that she was trembling. The release of the tension was making her giddy.
Paul turned the car into the lot of the restaurant they had just left. “What are you doing?”
“They’re still inside,” he said. “See? There’s Till’s car.”
“Don’t we have to get out of here?”
“Not until they do. Until checkout tomorrow, this car is clean and we’ve got nothing to be afraid of.”
25
JACK TILL TOOK one more sip of his coffee and scanned the customers in the restaurant. They all had the weary look of people who had spent the day driving. Some were probably staying at the hotel across the parking lot, but many would probably be back on the road as soon as they paid their checks. He selected the four or five who looked to his practiced eye like potential shooters. He studied their faces for signs that they were interested in Ann Donnelly, and their clothing for places where they might be hiding weapons.
“Have I changed a lot?”
The question startled him. He considered Ann Donnelly. “No. You haven’t aged at all that I can see. You haven’t done a whole lot to change your looks, either.”
“I did at first. I put away my contacts and got clear glasses for night, tinted for day. My hair was short and dark. I wore different clothes. In Las Vegas I used to lie out beside the pool to get a tan.”
“When did you stop worrying?”
“I always worried. I just handled it differently. I think I had been living at the Royal Palms Palace for months before I got careless with the hair dye and Louanda noticed the roots. By then I was pretty well established as Ann Delatorre. Not once had anyone shown up looking for Wendy Harper. There had been no scares. So after we moved to Henderson, I slowly started to let myself look like me again.”
He shrugged. “How would you know if there were close calls?”
“What do you mean?”
“You told me you couldn’t identify the waitress’s boyfriend, and the one with the bat was a hired hand. How would you know if they were getting close to you?”
She seemed irritated. “I suppose I didn’t. Maybe it was just hard for me to stay scared of everyone forever.”
Till looked at his watch. It was after eight. “I’m ready to get on the road again if you are.”
“Okay,” she said. “I guess I am, too.”
They rose and he said, “Don’t go outside alone. Wait for me while I pay.”
Ann Donnelly stood a couple of paces behind Till while he paid for their dinner at the cash register. Till used the time to look around the restaurant once more. He had scanned all of the faces when she and Till had entered, and now he was doing it again. None of them seemed ominous.
Till put away his wallet and walked with Ann to the doorway. He pushed the glass door open and went outside with it, so he could scan the area while he held it for her.
“Wait,” he said. “There are cop cars. I wonder what’s up.”
“It can’t be about us.”
As they walked toward their car, Till handed her the car keys. “Drive across the lot toward the hotel.”
“What for?”
“Just do it. Stop near the farthest car and let me out. Keep the motor running.”
She did as Till asked, then watched him unfold his long body and then stroll up to the cop who seemed to be in charge, a bald, forty-five-year-old man wearing a black nylon jacket and a pair of black lace-up boots. Ann pushed the button to lower her window so she could hear what Jack was saying, but the conversation was too low and ended too quickly. She heard him say, “Good luck,” and then his long strides brought him back to the car and he got in. “Let’s head for the highway.”
She aimed the car toward the exit from the parking lot and slowly accelerated. “Well?”
“This is a good time to get out. In a few minutes, it will get a lot more crowded around here. That blue car they were all looking at was the one used by some guy who killed a cop near the San Francisco airport a few hours ago.”
“So it has nothing to do with us?”
“It could. We were near the airport at about that time, and we’re here now. The sergeant said nobody seems to have seen the car arrive, but the hood is warm.”
“What are we going to do?”
“Keep driving.” As Ann Donnelly pulled onto the street and drove toward the freeway entrance Till leaned back in the passenger seat, crossed his arms on his chest, and appeared to relax.
She accelerated onto the freeway and took a spot in the second lane. “When this is over, I suppose I’ll have to go back to all that, won’t I?”
“Go back to what?”
“Cut and dye my hair, wear sunglasses and hats everywhere.”
“You’re looking at this whole situation backward,” he said. “If you can just give me something more to go on, then maybe these men will be the ones who have to worry about being caught, not you.”
“I told you. I didn’t see enough, I didn’t hear enough, I don’t know enough.”
“Keep trying to remember.”
“It isn’t a question of remembering. There’s nothing to remember.”
“Then until these guys get caught for something else, you and your husband will just have to be careful to stay invisible.”
“That’s over.” She said it quickly, but in a calm, unemotional way.
Till wasn’t sure at first that he had heard right. He was accustomed to hearing that kind of announcement delivered with emotion, or even false bravado, so he waited for them. Then he said, “Your marriage? You’re ending your marriage?”
“Yes, because I have to. I didn’t think this was going to happen, or I would never have married Dennis.” At last she had begun to sound unhappy. “I wasn’t planning on doing this to his kids.”
“So why are you?”
She ignored Till’s question, and went on as though she were talking to herself. “When I was a little girl and my mother left, I said ‘I’ll never do that to my daughter.’ This is the comeback, the big voice saying, ‘Oh, yeah?’ It isn’t going to be easy for them. I know. Even my inadequate mothering is better than none.”
“I don’t think you have to make any decision right now.”