of the Lincoln Tunnel told him a lot.
He was on the hunt. Drea might be good…but he was better.
11
IT REALLY PISSED DREA OFF THAT GETTING HER OWN MONEY from a bank had been so much trouble.
She’d taken her time on the drive to Kansas, because she didn’t want to get tired and make stupid mistakes, or maybe even have a car wreck. She had to fly under the radar, which meant paying cash for everything and otherwise not getting herself noticed. Once she had the two million she’d have more options, but until then she was limited.
Taking her time meant the drive had taken her three days instead of just two, but that was okay, because she’d enjoyed herself. She was alone, blessedly alone, answering to no one but herself. She didn’t have to act like a brainless twit, didn’t have to constantly smile and hide any hint of temper or impatience, or even a too-sharp sense of amusement.
How pitiful was it that for two years she hadn’t been able to laugh spontaneously at a joke? If she’d laughed at all, she’d had to ask questions first, as if she didn’t get the punch line. Rafael and his goons had spent a lot of time laughing at her in addition to the joke. Bastards.
She’d never have to make herself look stupid again, because she’d never again depend on a man for what she wanted. On the trip she ate whenever the mood took her, stopped to see anything that looked interesting, bought clothes based on what she wanted rather than some image she had to project. Instead of trying to look sexy, she went for the comfort of cotton pants, T-shirts, and sandals. After all, she was spending hours every day in the car, in the middle of summer.
Remembering the lessons learned from the bank in New Jersey, she knew she wouldn’t be able to waltz in and get the two million. All she’d get was another few thousand in cash, and the rest in a cashier’s check. She was already holding a cashier’s check for eighty-five thousand, for all the good it did her. Unless she was buying a big- ticket item, she couldn’t spend it. Yeah, like she could drop a couple of hundred bucks and ask for eighty-four thousand eight hundred dollars in change.
There was also the difficulty in carting that much money around with her. She couldn’t do it. She’d had to convince herself of the impossibility, so, with time on her hands, the first night on the road, she’d actually measured her remaining hundred-dollar bills. The way she calculated it, a thousand dollars, banded, was one tenth of an inch thick, so a ten-thousand-dollar stack would be an inch thick. That meant, roughly, ten inches for every hundred thousand, in which case a million would be a hundred inches, and two million would be two hundred inches, or a stack over sixteen feet high-kind of tough to carry around, and even tougher to stash out of sight. She’d be practically advertising for someone to knock her in the head and take her dough.
So, the money had to be kept in a bank, but she’d like to break the paper trail of cashier’s checks, even though by law the banks weren’t allowed to give out any information to Rafael. That didn’t mean he couldn’t get it, just that he’d have to go to a good deal of trouble, and how much trouble he went to depended on how angry he was. Two million dollars worth of angry, plus the insult to his machismo, meant he’d be willing to spend twice that much money to find her. That kind of revenge might not be cost-effective, but it would definitely be satisfying.
In order to break the paper trail, at some point she’d have to get the two million converted into cash, even if for just long enough to drive to another state and stash it in another bank. The problem was, banks didn’t like to hand out two million in cash, even to the person it belonged to.
Remembering that the bank in Elizabeth needed time to get in a large amount of cash, on the second day Drea stopped in Illinois, bought a cheap prepaid cell phone, and activated it, then she went out to the car to call the bank in Grissom, Kansas. With the doors safely locked and the air-conditioning running, she placed the call and said she wanted to speak to someone about closing out her account.
“Just a moment, I’ll switch you to Mrs. Pearson.”
After several moments, there was a click and a pleasant voice said, “This is Janet Pearson. How may I help you?”
“My name is Andrea Butts,” Drea said, wincing as she used the hated name. One way or another, she was ditching that name, forever. “I have an account with you, and I’d like to close it out.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, Ms. Butts. Is there a problem, or-”
“No, nothing like that, but I’m moving out of the area.”
“I see. We hate to lose you as a customer, but life happens, doesn’t it? If you’ll come in, in person, I’ll take care of the paperwork for you.”
“I’ll be there sometime tomorrow afternoon,” Drea said, estimating her travel time and hoping she was at least in the ballpark. “The thing is, it’s a large amount, and I want the bulk of it in cash.”
There was a small silence, then Mrs. Pearson said, “Do you have your account number?”
Drea recited it, and she could hear computer keys clicking as Mrs. Pearson pulled up her account information. After another, longer pause, Mrs. Pearson said, “Ms. Butts, for your own safety, I really, really don’t recommend taking this amount in cash.”
“I understand the difficulty,” Drea said. “That doesn’t change the fact that I need this in cash, and I’m calling ahead of time so you can have that much available.”
Mrs. Pearson sighed. “I’m very sorry, but we can’t even order this much cash until we’ve verified your identity.”
Drea struggled for patience, but she’d been on the receiving end of rudeness too many times for her to start snapping at someone who was just doing her job and had to follow bank policy. She couldn’t, however, hold back her own sigh. “I understand. As I said, I’ll be there tomorrow afternoon. That’s too late to get the money, isn’t it?”
“Actually, it’s too early. We’re a small bank, and we order our cash supply from the Federal Reserve just once a week. The head cashier places the order on Wednesday, so our order just went in yesterday. She won’t order again until next Wednesday.”
Drea wanted to beat her head against the steering wheel. “She can’t make a special order, as this is such a large sum?”
“She’d have to have special authorization, I’m sure.”
Rapidly she assessed the situation. “How long after she places the order does it take for you to receive the cash? The next day?”
Mrs. Pearson hesitated again. “I’d be glad to discuss this with you in person, but I really don’t like to give out that information over the phone.”
Again, she couldn’t fault the woman, who didn’t know her from Adam’s house cat; for all she knew, Drea was planning to rob the place and was trying to find out when they’d have the most cash available.
Things were not working out the way she’d planned. Instead of getting the cash and disappearing, it looked as if she’d have to hang around Grissom for at least a week. Grissom was a small town, and from what she remembered had only one tiny motel, which would make finding her incredibly easy.
She could limit her vulnerability, though, by staying, say, within a hundred miles but moving around and never staying more than one night in each place. This was turning out to be a pain in the ass, but if she wanted to break the paper trail she had to do it somewhere, and she’d prefer sooner rather than later.
“I understand,” she said. “I know this is a problem. I’ll be there sometime tomorrow afternoon.”
“I hope we can work something out,” said Mrs. Pearson, which Drea thought was probably bank-talk for I hope you come to your senses.
She made it to the bank the next day about twenty minutes before closing; she had miscalculated how long the drive would take her so she’d had to get up at four that morning and drive hard all day long. She was tired, a little punch-drunk from three days of driving, and definitely frazzled. Her hair was a curly mess because she hadn’t had time that morning to use the blow-dryer to straighten out the permed-in curls, but at least with curls she more resembled the photo on her driver’s license. She couldn’t imagine what a mess it would be if the bank didn’t believe she was who she said she was. How could she prove her identity? Get a letter or something from Rafael? Yeah, right.
