Baggage

Chapter 1

It's been three days since Jessica last saw her friend Stacy and since the incident that changed their lives forever. As she pulls her suitcase across the tarmac, she glances over her shoulder and clutches her handbag under her arm, trying not to grab anyone's attention. "Taxi!" Jessica extends one  arm and signal a taxi. "God damn it! I need to get out of here!" She jumped into the taxi and yelled, "Take me to 1610 Springfield Garden!"
The taxi pulled up to an old abandoned building. Jessica paid the driver and exited the taxi with her luggage. She stood on the pavement, looked at the building then sighed. "This can't be it. Stacy said the place was in good shape. This is what she wants me to hide out in!" The old wooden floors inside the apartment creaked under Jessica's feet as she slowly perused the place. Jessica paced back and forth contemplating her next move. Suddenly there was a knock on the door. "Hello! Jessica? Are you there?" The whispering voice was that of Stacy. Jessica opened the door and Stacy greeted her with a hug. They hugged each other and cried hysterically until Stacy asked what was their next move. "Did you bring what I asked you to bring?" Jessica kept pacing on the creaking wooden floor while Stacy, still crying, opened her suitcase and took out a small black bag and handed it to Jessica. "Here. I did just as you said. I got fake passports, ID cards and all the cash I could get from David's safety box." Jessica took the bag from Stacy and searched it. "Good, good. This will be more than enough for us to disappear." "Disappear? I thought you said we would just hang low and take a girls trip until everything blows over! I can't just disappear Jessica! I have the girls! David would be worried if I'm not back home in a few days! We agreed on telling him that we were going on a business trip for a week!" Stacy pulled the bag from Jessica and tried to leave the apartment. Immediately Jessica blocked the exit. "I can't let you walk out that door Stacy. We are in this together. David and the girls will be fine. We just need to disappear for a few more weeks to let this blow over." "I can't believe you are doing this to me right now Jess! You created this mess! Not me! I have helped you out enough and unlike you, I have a family back home who will be worried sick if I'm not back home by this weekend!" Stacy shoved Jessica to the side and attempted to open the door. Jessica was now frantic. All that she had been through in the past few days played back in her mind and she thought about how she would go to prison if anyone found out what she had done while on their supposedly business trip in the city. She couldn't allow Stacy to leave. At least not now. Not until she had come up with a plan on how to get rid of the pieces of a man's body that she had been carrying around in her suitcase all day.