have to hold it until she was desperate. She put Drummer's bassinet on the passenger-side floorboard, and then she made a quick check of what Laura had taken. A sack of groceries and the blanket. No big deal, Mary decided as she put the new supplies and her shoulder bag in the back of the van. She took the Colt out of the bag and put it under the driver's seat. Then she popped the No-Doz open, swallowed two tablets with a drink of the bottled water, and slid behind the wheel. She put the key into the ignition, the engine starting with a throaty roar.
Then she looked over at the BMW, and Laura Clayborne standing beside it, staring at her.
She didn't like the woman's face. You're nothing but a lie, she remembered it saying.
Mary reached under her seat, gripped the Colt, and withdrew it. She cocked the pistol as she brought it up, and she aimed the barrel with a steady hand at Laura's heart.
Laura saw the gun's dull gleam. She inhaled a sharp breath that made the cold sting her nostrils. There was no time to move, and her body tensed for the shot.
The baby began to cry, wanting to be fed.
Mary caught sight of a car in the sideview mirror, pulling up to the pumps behind her. It wasn't just any car, it belonged to the Michigan highway patrol. She lowered the Colt, easing the hammer back into place. Then, without another glance at Laura, she drove away from the pumps and turned back onto the road that led to I-94's westbound lanes.
Laura was looking frantically for Didi. The woman wasn't anywhere in sight. She's left me, Laura thought. Gone back to the gray world of false faces and names. She couldn't wait any longer, Mary Terror was getting away. She got into the car, started the engine, and was about to pull away when a woman shouted, 'Hey! Hey, you! Stop!'
The cashier had come outside and was hollering at her. The state trooper, a burly block of a man with a Smokey the Bear hat, devoted his full attention to the BMW. 'You ain't paid for your gas!' the cashier shouted.
Oh shit, Laura thought. She put on the parking brake again and reached for her purse from the backseat, where she'd left it. Only her purse wasn't there. From the corner of her eye she saw the trooper walking toward her, and the cashier was coming, too, indignant that she'd had to venture out into the cold. The trooper was almost to the car, and Laura realized with a start that the Charter Arms automatic was lying within sight on the floorboard. Where was the damned purse? All her money, her credit cards, her driver's license: gone.
Didi's work, she thought.
Laura just had time to slide the automatic up under the seat when the trooper looked in, hard-eyed under the Smokey the Bear rim. 'Believe you owe some money,' he said in a voice like a shovel digging gravel. 'How much, Annie?'
'Fourteen dollars, sixty-two cents!' the cashier said. 'Tryin' to skip on me, Frank!'
'That so, lady?'
'No! I've -' Claw your way out, she thought. Mary Terror was getting farther away! 'I've got a friend around here somewhere. She took my purse.'
'Not much of a friend, then, huh? I guess that means you don't have a license, either.'
'It's in my purse.'
'I suspected so.' The trooper looked at the windshield, and Laura knew he was taking in the Go home carved there. Then he looked at her bruised cheek again, and after a few seconds of deliberation he said, 'I believe you'd better step out of the car.'
There was no point in pleading. The trooper retreated a couple of paces, and his hand touched his hip near the big pearl-handled pistol in his black holster. My God! Laura thought. He thinks I might be dangerous! Laura cut the BMW's engine, opened the door, and got out.
'Walk to my car, please,' the trooper said, a clipped command.
He would ask for her name next, Laura figured as she walked. He paused to take a look at her tag, memorizing the numbers, and then he followed behind her. 'Georgia,' he said. 'You're a long way from home, aren't you?'
Laura didn't answer. 'What's your name?' he asked.
If she made up a name, he'd know soon enough. One call on his radio to check the tag would tell him. Damn it to hell! Mary was getting away!
'Your name, please?'
There was no use in resisting. She said, 'Laur -'
'What's going on, sis?'
The voice made Laura stop in her tracks. She looked to her left, at Didi Morse standing there with the purse over her shoulder and a bag with grease stains on it in her hand. 'Any trouble?' Didi asked innocently.
The trooper gave her his hard glare. 'Do you know this woman?'
'Sure. She's my sister. What's the problem?'
'Tryin' to steal fourteen dollars and sixty-two cents worth of gas, that's what!' the cashier replied, her swollen ankles aching in the bitter cold and the breath pluming from her mouth.
'Oh, here's the money. I went over there and bought us some breakfast.' Didi nodded toward the burger- joint section of Happy Herman's, which had a sign announcing their trucker's breakfast special of sausage and biscuits. She took the wallet out, counted a ten, four ones, two quarters, and two dimes. 'You can keep the change,' she said as she offered the cashier her money.
'Listen, I'm sorry.' The woman brought up a nervous smile. 'I saw her startin' to drive away, and I thought… well, it happens sometimes.' She took the cash.
'Oh, she was probably just moving the car. I had to go to the bathroom, and I guess she was coming to pick me up.'
'Sorry,' the cashier said. 'Frank, I feel like a real dumb-ass. You folks take it easy, now, and watch the weather.' She began walking back to the grocery store, shivering in the frigid wind.
'You ready to hit the road?' Didi asked Laura brightly. 'I got us some coffee and chow.'
Laura saw the shine of fear deep down in Didi's eyes. You wanted to run, didn't you? Laura thought. 'I'm ready,' she said tersely.
'Hold on a minute.' The trooper planted himself between them and the car. 'Lady, it might not be any of my business, but you look like somebody gave you a hell of a knock.'
A silence stretched. Then Didi filled it. 'Somebody did. Her husband, if you want to know.'
'Her husband? He did that?'
'My sister and her husband were visiting me from Georgia. He went crazy and punched her last night, and we're on the way to our mother's house in Illinois. Bastard took a hammer to her new car, broke the window out and cut up the windshield, too.'
'Jesus.' The hardness had vanished from the trooper's eyes. 'Some men can really be shits, if you'll pardon my French. Maybe you ought to get to a doctor.'
'Our father's a doctor. In Joliet.'
If she weren't about to jump out of her skin, Laura might have smiled. Didi was good at this; she'd had a lot of practice.
'Mind if we go now?' Didi asked.
The trooper scratched his jaw, and stared at the darkness in the west. Then he said, 'All men ain't sonsabitches. Lemme give you a hand.' He walked to his car, opened the trunk, and brought out a tarpaulin of clear blue plastic. 'Go in there and get some duct tape,' he told Didi, and he motioned toward the grocery store. 'It'll be back on the hardwares shelf. Tell Annie to put it on Frank's tab.'
Didi gave Laura the breakfast bag and strode quickly away. Laura was fighting a scream; with every second, Mary Terror was getting farther away. Frank produced a penknife and began to cut out a fair-sized square of blue plastic. When Didi returned with the silver duct tape, Frank said, 'Long way to Joliet from here. You ladies need to keep warm,' and he opened the BMWs door, slid across the driver's seat under which the automatic pistol rested, and taped the plastic up over the window frame. He did a thorough job of it, adding strip after strip of the silver tape in a webbing pattern that fixed the plastic securely in place. Laura drank her coffee black and paced nervously as Frank finished the job, Didi looking on with interest. Then Frank came back out of the car, the duct tape reduced to about half its previous size. 'There you go,' he said. 'Hope everything works out all right for you.'
'We hope so, too,' Didi answered. She got into the car, and Laura was never so thankful in her life to get behind a steering wheel.
