Chapter Fourteen
Izzy figured she had fifteen or twenty minutes before the pizza arrived. Time enough for a quick shower. She raised an arm, sniffed under it. “Holy crap!” She picked up the green pool towels, started for the bathroom, but stopped before entering.
“ What the-” the words caught in her throat when she saw her reflection in the mirror above the washbasin. Her hair, the lovely, long trestles she’d cut off, it was back in all his auburn glory. “How?” It made no sense. She’d hacked it off, made herself look like a meth queen and now, as if by magic, she looked like a prom queen. What was up with that? Was she going crazy? It wasn’t possible.
But then again, a lot of not possible stuff had been happening to her.
“ Shake it off, Izzy,” she told herself.
In the bathroom, she pulled off her clothes, turned on the water, set it for as hot as she could stand it and stepped under the spray. She pulled the shower curtain and sighed, thinking of the line Mary Magdalene sings to Jesus in the rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar:
Try not to get worried, try not to turn on to
Problems that upset you oh don’t you know
Everything’s alright yes everythin’s fine
And we want you to sleep well tonight
Let the world turn without you tonight
If we try we’ll get by so forget all about us tonight
She so wanted to forget about everything that had happened to her. Earlier she’d hoped she could drink a bottle of wine, rest for the evening, really forget about everything. But now she knew she wouldn’t be getting her peaceful night. However, she wanted a few minutes at least. She wasn’t Christ, but she thought even he would be struggling under the weight of her problems.
She felt the hot water needles against her back. She closed her eyes, hummed the lyrics to Mary’s song. How she’d loved that record when it came out, oh so long ago. She’d been in med school, with her whole life ahead of her.
And it looked as if she had her whole life ahead of her all over again. How crazy was that?
“ Stop it!” she told herself, but she couldn’t help it, her mind wasn’t going to let her have even a few minutes of peace. Something crazy was going on and she was at the very heart of it.
She leaned back into the spray, let the hot water cascade over her hair. She ran her fingers through it. Having hair again was wonderful. Being better was wonderful. Being young again was wonderful. But having her hair back, Lord that was great.
“ Oh, my God!” She gasped. No wonder Emily had that look on her face. It had been meth queen Izzy who’d checked into the Marriott, but it had been the prom queen version of herself Emily had seen just now. She’d been transformed during her nap, back into the lady killer on all the news channels.
Had Emily recognized her as the woman wanted for murder? And if she had, did she know that the meth and prom queen were the same person? Maybe not, but maybe so.
She shut off the water, grabbed a towel, dried off as she left the bathroom.
“ We gotta go, Hunter. We gotta go now!”
Lila took the first Medford off-ramp, followed it around toward the City Center, but made a right into the Marriott Suites parking lot.
“ There’s my car.” She pointed to her Crown Vic, was about to park next to it, when she saw three black Suburbans. Government SUVs. One man was standing guard by the government cars, but her Crown Vic, parked four spaces away from the Suburbans, was unguarded.
“ Doesn’t look like they know about the car,” Black said.
“ Yeah.” Lila wondered what she was still doing with this Black character. She should’ve dumped him the second she found out he was okay, but she didn’t. He’d proven his worth with that helicopter, maybe he would again. She hoped so, because it looked like she was going to need all the help she could get.
“ You wanna save the woman or you wanna walk away?” Black said.
“ What do you think?”
“ Then get out of the car and start running.”
“ What?”
“ Head for the roller rink on the other side of that field there.” He pointed. “Once you pass the rink, cut right to the Fred Meyer store on the far side of the parking lot. In the store, lose the coat, then go to the deli and order something to eat. Don’t be in a hurry. Act like you don’t have a care in the world.”
“ You’re going to set them after me, aren’t you?”
“ Don’t get caught.”
“ Shit.” She got of the car, took off at a dead run.
“ It’s her!” Black shouted. “The killer woman. The Eisenhower woman!”
“ What?” the man watching the black SUVs said as Lila streaked past. She looked over her shoulder. Black had his arm outstretched, his finger pointed at her as she ran. The government man was shouting into a radio no bigger than a cell phone. She had to give it to Black, that old man thought fast on his feet.
She turned away from the scene behind, faced forward, pumped her arms locomotive quick, using them to force her legs to move faster, because any second there was going to be a passel of FBI agents in her wake. Fortunately, she was a runner. And double fortunately, they wanted Izzy Eisenhower alive, so they wouldn’t be shooting at her. At least she hoped not.
A shot rang out, loud as a Navy jet breaking the sound barrier, as she rounded the skating rink. What the fuck? Now she was out of the sun and in the shade of the building, with it between her and the gaggle of FBI agents she was sure were on her trail.
Ahead of her, she saw a group of stores, a garden store, a hardware store, more on the right. A Subway and a Mexican restaurant on the left. Further on a Taco Bell and a gas station. To the right, across an endless parking lot, the Fred Meyer store.
She ran past the roller rink, was exposed as she dashed toward the parking lot. Any second she expected black SUVs to come flying into the lot, blocking her path. She tried to pour on more speed, but the long duster was holding her back. Not only that, the coat made her stand out like blood on a white carpet. She would never make it to the Fred Meyer store in time and if they came after her with guns, her goose was going to be cooked.
She saw a red trash can in front of the hardware store, only seconds away. She headed for it, reached under her coat as she ran, pulled her shoulder holster’s quick release. She was going to have to lose the Glock as well, along with her custom designed holster. She pulled them off, coat and holster as one, as she ran. At the trash can, she pushed open the slot on the top, dropped them in, then slowed to a walk just as two black SUVs came careening into the parking lot, shooting past the Taco Bell like hungry wolves.
Lila was unarmed and felt naked. She was out of breath, exposed and scared, a new feeling for her. She desperately didn’t want to get caught, because after the incident with the helicopter, she knew these guys would either shoot her or bury her so far in their prison system, she’d never get out.
One of the SUVs went right, toward the gas station and the Fred Meyer store. The other one came straight for her. She took a deep breath, exhaled, forced herself into a leisurely pace as the SUV pulled alongside.
She stopped.
The guy riding shotgun lowered his window.
“ You seen a woman in a long coat, maybe running?”
“ Who wants to know?”
“ Government business.”
“ How do I know that?”
“ Because I told you.”
“ Sorry, not good enough for me.” She was trying for haughty, hoping they’d see her as a stuck up bitch, who thought she was better than them.
“ FBI.” He flashed an open wallet, showed his creds, which looked pretty official from where she stood.
“ Well then, I saw a woman in a brown coat, one of those kinds you see in old cowboy movies. She the one
