She had gotten a new cell phone, too, and the one real chance he’d taken, as soon as she was settled, was to break into her duplex apartment and install a GPS locator in the phone. He also had one on the Explorer, but she would probably hang on to the phone even if she traded in the Explorer.
After that, he pretty much left her alone. He checked on her about once a month, just to make sure she was okay, and he kept his ear to the ground to make sure Salinas hadn’t somehow gotten word she was still alive, but that was it.
He started the car and pulled away from the curb, not hurrying. If she heard the engine start, enough time had passed that she wouldn’t think anyone had been sitting in a car at the curb when she pulled into her driveway.
She looked good, he reflected, much better than she had even a couple of months ago. When she’d first been released from the hospital she’d been so frail he had been tempted to snatch her off the street, just to keep her from driving. She’d been cadaverously thin and ghostly pale. At first she’d been able to drive maybe half an hour before tiring out and being forced to stop at the nearest motel. Sometimes more than a day passed before she ventured out again, which made him afraid she was doing without food all that time.
Several times he’d considered having a pizza delivered to her room, but that would seriously spook her. He’d hung back and watched, hoping she got to where she was going and got settled before her strength gave out completely.
She’d made it to Kansas City; he didn’t know if that was her intended destination all along, or if she got that far and decided to rest for a while, then made the decision to stay. When she rented that ratty little duplex, he’d heaved an inner sigh of relief.
The weight she’d put on looked good; she was heavier now than she had been even in New York, but she’d been too thin anyway and all the weight she’d lost after the accident had been a loss she couldn’t afford. He’d watched her work, knew the pace was nonstop, but she was getting enough to eat and her arms showed the muscle she’d gained from lifting heavy trays all day long.
She had two million bucks sitting in the bank in Grissom, and she lived in a neighborhood that was just an inch from qualifying as a slum, while she worked as a waitress in a truck stop. The irony was, he didn’t wonder why; he knew why she wasn’t using the money.
Salinas had contacted him again, so he figured it was time for the next hit in whatever scheme Salinas had going. He hadn’t answered the summons. He hadn’t taken a job in the past seven months, though sometimes he wondered idly if there wasn’t one more hit on the books for him, because it pissed him off that Salinas was still breathing.
He’d have to think about that. In the meantime, everything was okay in Kansas City.
24
“IS DOG FOOD BAD FOR KIDS?”
Andie stopped in her tracks and stared at the two women in the booth. They were both youngish women, clad in jeans and sweaters, hair pulled back in ponytails, and with almost identical harried expressions. They looked nothing alike, but they were the same in their situations: young mothers, multiple children, impossible schedules. That they were here in Glenn’s at three p.m. on a Tuesday afternoon suggested they were grabbing some time for themselves while the kids were either at day care or grandma’s.
“Don’t mind me,” she said, shamelessly eavesdropping. Waitresses overheard a lot of interesting conversational tidbits, but this one made her want to laugh.
The woman picked up a fry and swabbed it in ketchup before heaving a sigh. “My youngest is a year old. Since he started walking, every time I feed the dog he comes running and tries to eat the dog’s food. I keep him away when I can, but if I turn my back he’s right back in the dog’s food bowl. He really likes Iams,” she finished helplessly.
“At least it’s not a cheap brand,” the other woman said, shrugging. “My kids eat dirt. Count your blessings.”
Laughing, Andie continued to the counter with her loaded tray of dirty plates and cutlery. The television mounted on the wall was muted, but as she passed by one of the truckers seated at the long counter said, “Hey, turn up the TV. That’s a weather bulletin.”
Shifting the weight of the heavy tray to her hip, Andie picked up the remote and hit the volume button. Immediately the voice of one of the local meteorologists filled the room, and the din of conversation died down as everyone turned to look at the screen.
“-Weather Service has issued a tornado watch until nine p.m. for the following counties in east Kansas. This watch does include the Kansas City area. The dynamics of this storm have been impressive-”
She took the tray on to the pass-through where the waitresses left the dirty dishes to be collected by the kitchen staff. She hadn’t dealt with any tornado watches when she’d been living in New York, but now that she was back in the Midwest the whole drill had quickly become as familiar as if she’d never left. Spring was welcome, with its longer days and warm relief from the bitter cold and blowing snow, but spring weather was volatile: warm one day, cold the next, with warring air masses chasing each other back and forth. Just last week they’d had another three inches of snow. Now the weather was warm and humid, and giant thunderheads were building high into the sky.
Keeping an eye on the weather was second nature to everyone in the Midwest and the South. “Tornado watch until nine tonight,” she sang out to the kitchen crew.
“Lord,” another of the waitresses, Denise, said as she wiped her hands before reaching into her pocket for her cell phone. “Joshua was going to spend the night with one of his buddies. I’d better make sure he lets the cats in the house before he leaves.”
“The cats will be fine,” Andie said absently. “Just tell him to make sure he turns off the stove.”
“Stove? Joshua doesn’t cook-Oh!” Her eyes went round as she realized Andie had kind of drifted off, mentally, which they’d learned was a signal. Cassie had shot off her mouth, telling some of her trucker pals about Andie’s near-death experience, and some of those pals had asked the other waitresses about it, and even though some of them had considered her slightly psychic before, now they were
Furiously Denise punched the buttons on her cell phone. “Voice mail!” she muttered with annoyed frustration. Instead of leaving a voice message, she texted her son; teenagers found it almost impossible to resist reading a text message, whereas they could ignore voice mail with ease.
Her phone rang within two minutes. “No, I don’t have a spy camera set up at home,” she said after listening to an outraged teenager squawking so loud Andie could hear the tone of it from ten feet away. “But it’s a good idea, thank you for giving it to me. Now go home immediately and make sure the stove is off, do you hear me? Immediately! Joshua, if you say one more word, you’ll not only go home, you’ll
With an air of satisfaction, Denise disconnected the call and winked at Andie. “Thanks. Now he thinks I either have spy cameras all over the place, or I’m psychic. Either way, he’ll think twice before he does something he shouldn’t be doing.”
“Glad to be of service.”
With a little start of inner surprise, Andie realized that she felt good. She liked being able to help people even in small ways, though preventing a kitchen fire that could have burned down Denise’s house probably didn’t qualify as “small,” certainly not to Denise. She liked working and paying her bills. Physically, she felt damn good, not just for someone who had been impaled and died, but better than she’d felt in years. She was active, she had plenty to eat, she slept well. If she could see her way clear to using that two million dollars for her own benefit, well, life would be better, but her conscience wouldn’t let her do it.
Whoever said money corrupted had had it the wrong way around. Money was okay; money was good. Having it was way better than not having it. The corruption came from the person, not the money itself. She would love to use at least part of the two million to buy herself a nice house and a new car, but every time she had herself halfway talked into doing it some bitchy little inner voice would say “Nope, can’t do it.”
But the money was sitting in her bank account, tempting her every day, and she knew she had to get rid of it
