“Well, you can see why I’m concerned now that people are after me.”
“Yeah, it looks like your friend told someone.”
“Well, I hope not, because if she did, she’s probably dead now.”
“Wow, your concern for her well-being is astonishing.”
“You know, you have no idea what it’s like. I did what I had to in order to survive.”
I couldn’t argue with that. I had just bashed in two guys’ faces with a toilet lid. And then I realized that her life must have been really bad if she faked her own death. She must have been terrified every day of her husband.
“Was he abusive?” I asked.
She hesitated and then gave a slight nod. “You could say that.”
“So, instead of faking your own death, why didn’t you just kill him?”
“I told you, he’s powerful. It’s not like it would be easy to get to him.”
“You were married to him.”
“And that made it even more difficult to pull off. I was watched all the time, constantly being tested. If I failed one of those tests, it wasn’t pretty.”
I didn’t know what to say. I guess I had never had to deal with any of that, and she was a woman. She was fragile, even though she appeared strong. I remembered how she trembled when she held the gun on me. That kind of fear couldn’t be faked. And she’d been all alone for the past four years. That was just insane to think about. All the Christmases and Fourth of Julys that I spent with family and friends, she was all alone. The thing was, I wasn’t sure I could ever return to my old life. We would have to plan a way to take this guy down, but it would take a lot of planning and from the sound of it, it wouldn’t be easy. So, as crazy as this woman was, I was going to have to get used to her, because I was going to be spending a lot of time with her.
We drove for days, switching vehicles three times before we finally pulled up to a mid-sized town in the middle of Kansas. I stared out the window at all the cornfields and realized, this was way too much like home.
“All this driving and we end up just a few states over?”
“Well, it’s not like taking a direct route to our final destination would be a good idea.”
“Yeah, but why Kansas?”
She rolled her eyes at me. “We can’t just go hang out in New York. You wouldn’t blend in.”
“How do you know?” I asked, a little offended by her statement.
“Look, it’s nothing against you, but you’re from Small Town, USA. You would stick out like a sore thumb.”
“I’d just like to point out that a sore thumb doesn’t stick out. If I was missing a thumb, then it would stick out.”
She sighed heavily as we drove through town. It was much larger than the small town I grew up in. It was at least four times the size. “It should be easy to blend in here.”
“How long are we staying?”
“Well, we’ll have to play it by ear. If we can find a house to rent, then we could possibly stick around for six months? I think any longer than that is too long. We don’t want to become complacent.”
“How many times have you moved in four years?”
She shrugged slightly. “I never stayed anywhere longer than three months, but I think with two of us, it’ll be easier to save some money. Maybe we can attempt to have some kind of normal life.”
I frowned, thinking about what she was saying. “Wait, are you saying that you don’t think we’ll ever get to go back to our lives?”
She parked in front of a real estate building and turned to look at me. “I wish I could tell you that you could go back one day, but…I just don’t see how that’s possible.”
“We can find evidence against your husband. We can build a case. Maybe it’ll be slow going, but we have to try.”
She gave me a smile, but I felt like she was just trying to placate me. “Maybe. Come on, let’s find out if there’s anything here for us.”
I got out of the car and joined her on the sidewalk. “So, what’s our story?”
“What?”
“People in small towns are nosy. They always want to dig for as much information as possible. It’s best we have some kind of story.”
“Okay,” she blew out a breath. “We’re a couple looking to settle down somewhere new. You’re a mechanic and I’m a waitress.”
“Really? A waitress?”
She rolled her eyes at me. “The right places will pay a waitress under the table. We need to be paid in cash.”
I nodded. “This may be a stupid question, but how exactly do you go about asking someone to pay you under the table?”
“Well, you have to get a feel for the employer. In the past, I’ve always just told the truth, that I’m hiding from my husband.”
“I’m not sure how that’ll work this time, you know, now that you’re here with your boyfriend.”
“We can figure that out later. We’ll just say that we’re high school sweethearts and we wanted a fresh start.”
“Right,” I grumbled. “Because that’s not at all vague.”
“Well, what do you want from me? I didn’t exactly have a chance to plan out a backstory with you while trying to escape being murdered.”
“You had three days while we drove,” I said incredulously.
“Yeah, and I had to deal with your millions of questions the whole drive. Excuse me for not having everything all perfectly planned out. Besides, I usually do this alone.”
“I guess I just figured that since you’re so good at this, you would have a book of excuses or something.”
“Can we just get this over with?” she sighed. “I’m tired, hungry, and I want some sleep.”
“Fine, let’s do this.”
We walked through the door of the real estate office and saw a throwback to the eighties sitting behind the desk. The woman was dressed in a floral dress with pearls around her neck and a short perm and large glasses.
“Hello, my name is Patti. How can I help you today?”
“Uh…I’m Josh and this is Hannah. We’re looking for a house to rent.”
“Oh,” she smiled. “Are you two married?”
“No,” Hannah said at the same time I said yes. The woman looked at us strangely and I laughed, awkwardly wrapping my arm around Hannah’s shoulders and pulling her closer. “I keep asking, but she keeps turning me down.”
I glanced down at Hannah and she looked uncomfortable with my arm around her. Patti just had this frozen smile on her face, like she really didn’t know what to make of us.
I cleared my throat and removed my arm from Hannah. “Anyway, we’re looking for something we can rent.”
“Are you looking for long term or month to month?”
I glanced at Hannah, letting her take this one. “Six months, if we find something we like.”
The lady looked at her computer, her tongue playing with her top lip as she looked over the top of her glasses. “Well, it looks like we have one in town that’s available. It’s probably a little large for just the two of you, but it comes fully furnished.”