“There’s a man following me. Can you lose him?”

The driver frowned into his rearview mirror. “How much?”

“A hundred dollars above fare.”

“You got it.”

He hit ninety on I-45 North. The cab rattled and shook, and Sarah chewed her lip as she watched the Cadillac coast onto the infamous interstate, well behind them. Traffic was brutal. There was no way the cab could maintain such a high speed, and he slowed, weaving in and out of the perpetual bottleneck of cars. Sarah knew her destination was obvious; her only hope was timing. According to her calculations, she would just make the last call for the eleven o’clock flight to Atlanta. In Atlanta, she’d switch planes—and airlines—and hop a three-thirty flight to Boston.

In Boston...she’d think about what she’d do there when she’d made it.

The trip to the airport took just under forty-five minutes, and the Cadillac remained well behind them. The cab driver knew his way around the monstrous circular airport, the larger of Houston’s two, and dropped her off at the Continental terminal. It was another ruse: she was flying Eastern.

She shoved the cab fare and a hundred-dollar bill at the driver and raced into the terminal, then down to the monorail, which she took to the terminal where Eastern flew. She was perspiring heavily when she picked up her ticket, and near tears when she ran to the gate and just barely made the last call for the flight.

When the seat belt light went off and the flight attendants began serving drinks, Sarah made her way to the tiny bathroom and vomited into the stainless steel toilet.

17

Ashley arrived in Nashville, Tennessee, just before noon Central Time. She’d taken a flight out of Bradlee Field, near Hartford, where she’d called her brother, presenting him with a fait accompli. She warned him to be wary of Jeremy Carruthers. Then she banished Jeremy from her thoughts. Or at least she tried. Images of waking up with him that morning kept popping up. She remembered his solid body. His warmth. His reassuring presence. She had thought he was a dream, and he wasn’t.

No, she thought, he’s a pernicious liar.

She rarely gave liars second chances. She never gave them third chances.

At the Nashville airport, she found a pay phone and called Evan Parrington. She was still in her hog-slopping clothes, which, she thought, weren’t as bad as they could have been: a deep red cotton jumpsuit and sneakers. On the plane she’d put up her hair and did her face with the cosmetics in her handbag. A little red lipstick made her look less haunted. She’d turned up the collar on her jumpsuit to hide the swelling at the back of her neck, and took some small comfort in knowing Barky had hit Mac Stevens harder than he’d hit her.

Evan sounded relieved to hear from her. “I’ve been trying to call you, but it’s virtually impossible to get through.”

People passed her in the busy airport; it was difficult to believe there were those who lived normal lives. “I’ve had the crazies after me,” she told Evan.