Claire Gulliver #06 - Carnage Goes Coastal (4 page)

He must have given a start because his wife looked up at him with a question, and then seeing his expression her eyes swept around the room, trying to locate the source of his anger. She turned to him again with an urgent question, but he shook his head and Karen saw him pull himself together and smile lovingly down at her. That’s when she saw what an actor he was. No wonder she hadn’t had a clue about the lies he told her. He had missed his calling; he would have been marvelous on the big screen.

They continued walking toward her and swept by without even looking in her direction. She watched them exit imperially through the door, and pause while the doorman raised his arm to summon a taxi for them. He helped them in and Karen watched numbly as the taxi pulled out into traffic.

Then she turned and approached the front desk. She asked to be connected to the room belonging to Scott Hutchins. The clerk checked and then shook his head sorrowfully, reporting that no one was registered under that name.

Suddenly she was furious. She should have confronted him when she had a chance. But then she calmed herself, admitting she had no reason to confront him, she really had nothing to say to him, other than to vent her rage. And she admitted his angry glare had frightened her. She thought it was best to stay well away from him.

But that incident rattled her. She didn’t stop at the Chinese restaurant. Instead she took a taxi home and had a Lean Cuisine dinner. She told herself it was over. She no longer had to concern herself with Scott Hutchins, or whoever he was. He was a part of her life that was over. Gone! Finished!

And except for a pink phone message waiting for her when she returned to the office the next day saying, “You broke your promise,” and signed S, she heard nothing more. But when she felt those hands on her back on the subway platform, she was immediately certain it was another message from Scott.

Of course it was an accident. Karen shook her head at her own stupidity. How could she have been so sure someone was trying to kill her? That was absurd. She sat on the porch a while longer examining her reasoning from every which way. She was now prepared to accept that she was being a little paranoid by blaming Scott for what happened in the subway. The whole incident was obviously just an accident. Someone hurrying toward the train behind her had tripped and put out their hands to stop their fall and inadvertently pushed her. And really, after the man next to her caught her and settled her back to the platform, the train doors opened and everyone rushed forward to get on the train. The mini drama was over and there had been no time for anyone to apologize for the incident. The truth was, no matter how frightened she had been, nothing had happened. She wasn’t hurt.

That line of thought was comforting. Relieved, she got up off the porch, took her empty mug back into the house and then gathered a sweater and her wallet and headed off for a walk.

During the rest of the day she made up her mind to talk to her boss as soon as she got back to work. It was time. She needed to understand exactly what kind of maternity benefits the company offered. And she intended to ask Mark if he would commit to hold her job for her if she took minimal time off. She knew the company was legally required to hold her job, but she didn’t think it had to be the same job. But she knew Mark would hate having to train someone else to assist him as competently as she was able to do, so he might be willing to do without her for a few weeks rather than replace her. And she could continue to live in her apartment until the child was bigger. So if she could find affordable child care in her neighborhood, this situation was doable.

By the late afternoon, while she had dinner at another restaurant in town, she had progressed to thinking about names for the child. She was thinking about Kylee for a girl and for a boy she was undecided wavering between Jack David, for her father or Matthew Karl for her grandfather. She found it exciting to be able to make that decision herself. She was realizing the power of motherhood. The baby would be her responsibility, someone to love and take care of. It was an awesome thought even though the responsibility was frightening.

She slept very well that night probably due to finally taking steps to plan for the baby, or maybe just because she slept so poorly the previous night. But now she had a plan. She had some action steps defined which would get her through this situation.

No one was at the breakfast table in the morning, although she saw another couple checking out just as she came downstairs. She hurried through breakfast, now anxious to go home so she could start rearranging her life to prepare for the baby.

It was another beautiful day. New York sparkled in the clean air and the sunshine, and she felt good. She realized taking some time away to get her head sorted out had been just the right thing to do. She was energized and ready to tackle the tasks she had identified to help her manage the changes coming in her life. When she reached the city she decided to splurge on a taxi. At her corner she handed the driver the fare, wrestled her wheelie bag to the curb, leaned over to pull up the handle and then turned to cross the street to her building.

She froze in her tracks. Where she expected to see her building, she saw a temporary chain link fence, rooted in blocks of cement, enclosing the blackened remains of a destroyed building. The third floor, her floor, wasn’t even there. She sagged against the handle of the wheelie bag, gasping, trying to breathe as her brain struggled to take in what her eyes saw. Her apartment was gone! The building was destroyed.

She didn’t know how long she stood staring at the ruins before turning away to trudge down the street. As she passed a newsstand, she suddenly came awake. She realized a newspaper was just what she needed. She paid for a paper and tucked it under her arm. In the next block she found a coffee shop and secured a table. She ordered a glass of milk and an order of wheat toast and started looking through the paper. She found the article, a small one, tucked into a space on next to the last page in the second section.

Six Die in Apartment Explosion

Friday night at approximately 11:30 p.m. a mysterious explosion occurred in an apartment on the third floor of a building in Midtown. The resulting fire was so intense several tenants on the upper floor were unable to escape, resulting in six known fatalities. Four other occupants were injured, one seriously, and were taken to the hospital. Twelve tenants, including the building superintendant were taken to shelters. Police are seeking information on four residents still missing.

One of the rescued tenants reported there seemed to be a party going on in one third floor apartment when the explosion occurred. Fire Marshals are investigating the cause as well as searching the ruins for additional remains. Names of victims are being withheld pending notification of next of kin. Anyone with information can call....

She tried to eat a bite of toast, but was afraid she wouldn’t be able to keep it down so she spit it out. She drank a couple of sips of milk and then noticing the lunch crowd starting to drift in, folded the paper, stowed it in her purse, put a few bills on the table and left. Once more on the street she paused, confused. She didn’t know what to do. She had no idea where to go.

A loud voice in her head screamed, “THEY TRIED TO KILL YOU!”

Of course she realized it hadn’t come out of nowhere; it was her own brain warning her. She needed to think clearly. She needed to do something because, sure as she was standing there, they would likely be more successful with their next attempt.

She stood in front of the coffee shop, ignoring the people veering around her.

Someone tried to kill her and perhaps thought they had.

She needed to hide. She had to put some distance between her and whoever was responsible for the explosion. She methodically thought about what she had with her. She had some money, but it wouldn’t be enough. She had her bankbook, which she had grabbed before she left in case she wanted to write a check at the bed and breakfast instead of using her credit card. And she had her address book, and her wallet. She even had her passport which she always carried in her purse hoping she might have a sudden chance to use it. Now, she realized her wheelie bag held all her worldly goods. Every other thing she owned had been in her apartment. Everything there was gone. Her purse, the wheelie bag and what she wore was everything she owned. It wasn’t much.

The money she had left from her weekend wouldn’t take her far, so first on her agenda had to be to go to the bank. She remembered the money Scott sent her, which was still in her checking account. She hadn’t touched any of it. In fact, while she had never had any intentions of spending it, she now considered it might be appropriate to use it to elude him and his cohorts who, she once more believed, were trying to kill her.

She flagged a cab and instructed the driver to take her to her bank. It was a big branch on the Avenue of the Americas, not far from where she worked.

She signed a check in front of the teller and handed it to her.

“Cash?” The woman looked shocked.

She nodded. “Yes please, hundreds except for two hundred in smaller bills.”

The teller took her check and her passport to consult with a supervisor and the supervisor came to the window. “This is a very large amount to carry in cash, Miss Rallins. I would be happy to authorize a cashier’s check be issued at no fee to insure your safety while transporting it.” She smiled, certain she was delivering happy news.

Karen shook her head. “No thanks. I would like cash, please.”

Both women looked displeased.

“Is there a problem with cash?” Karen asked, politely, but firmly.

“No, of course not. It’s just that it’s very risky walking around with that much cash. You never know what will happen. This is New York, after all.”

“I appreciate your concern. But don’t you think it will be much safer for me if you don’t make a big deal out of this transaction? That way the other customers are less apt to notice how much money I’m taking with me.”

The women stared at her a moment, then even though the supervisor shook her head in a disapproving way at Karen’s insistence, “Yes, of course,” she murmured. “Please step over to the end there and I’ll count the money out to you in a more private space.” The woman turned to the teller with instructions and then headed down to the end of the teller line.

Karen walked down to a door where a buzzer sounded allowing her entry into a small room isolated from the other teller windows. The supervisor unlocked the teller drawers, made some entries into the computer terminal on the counter and then started pulling money out of a cupboard under the counter.

“This withdrawal leaves a balance in your account of two thousand, one hundred and sixty-three dollars and forty-six cents.”

Karen nodded. She had decided to keep the account open, so had elected to leave some of the money. She thought it looked more like a normal transaction and it would prevent questions she didn’t want to take the time to answer.

“You know, frequently when people ask for large cash withdrawals like this, we find they are victims of scams to steal their money,” the woman said brightly. “Sometimes they’re approached by someone with a deal that sounds too good to be true and usually it is too good to be true. But always the perpetrators want cash. We try to warn people....”

“I understand. I appreciate your concern. But I want the cash for a specific purpose. It’s my money and I can withdraw it anyway I wish, can’t I?” Karen said firmly.

“Of course you can.” The woman nodded. “But you know for this amount of cash I have to make a report on the transaction, which goes to the Treasury Department.”

“Do whatever you need to do....” Karen would not be swayed.

Unable to talk Karen out of taking cash, the woman carefully counted out two strapped packets of hundred dollar bills and one strapped packet of fifties. She then added twenty-five more hundreds and ten twenties. “There you go, twenty-seven thousand and seven hundred dollars, even.”

Karen nodded, putting the three packets of bills in her bag, sweeping the loose hundreds and twenties up in a pile and putting them into her billfold. She had a difficult time closing the billfold stuffed as it was, but she managed. She tried to smile at the woman, but she suspected her face still frozen with shock only further alarmed the supervisor. She escaped out the door, hailed another taxi and headed for Penn Station.

As soon as she entered the station she found the ladies’ room and secured herself in a stall to sort out her money. She put one packet of bills in the cosmetic case in her bag along with her lipstick, some Tums, a package of gum and her hairbrush. She then put a packet of strapped bills in each of the deep pockets in her maternity top, which positioned them below her protruding stomach, where she hoped they wouldn’t be obvious. She took the loose hundreds from her wallet, folded them in half and put them in the zippered compartment inside her purse along with her passport. She left the twenties, along with the money left from the weekend in her wallet. When she emerged from the toilet stall she felt more secure and she thought she would be able to get through the security screening at the airport without anyone noticing the money.

Now she turned her attention to her need to get help. She knew she was in over her head; she needed help and she immediately thought of her father. He would know what she should do.

She found a row of phones along one wall. She wished for the old-fashioned booths she remembered from her childhood, as she didn’t relish the idea of being overheard, but this seemed her only choice. She didn’t have a cell phone, her barely adequate salary didn’t stretch far enough; a cell phone was a luxury she couldn’t afford. And, she thought, she wouldn’t have dared to use it now if she did own one. She knew from books she read, and films she saw, how easy it was to be traced through a cell phone, and she didn’t dare leave a trail. She found the machine which sold phone cards, slipped in a twenty, and out popped a calling card.