A Crooked Waitress

Chapter 63

Christina had spent the last night, and most of today, in the back seat of the SUV in an alley. Her stiff body smelled but the shower was a luxury she couldn't have.

She left the vehicle and walked around to stretch her legs. Lying on a balcony, a cat napped in the late autumn sun and with its half-open eyes, watched her every move.

She looked at the feline for a while, then got back in the car and hit the streets. It was a matter of time before a traffic camera spotted the SUV. It had to go. Christina was going to the train station to collect the jewels, and she could abandon the vehicle in one of the nearby streets.

With her face all over the news, going to the station was risky; someone could recognize her. Leaving the stones in the locker until things calmed down was a better option. But she didn't know how often they opened the lockers to clean them or repair them. It was a risk she couldn't take.

The fuel gauge had shifted to the right in the red. She pulled up in an empty gas station and put the nozzle into the tank. The numbers on the pump spun and went up. When she was done, hung up the nozzle and paid a boy in a baseball cap.

He added the cash to a stack of money he had in hand and gave her, her change. "There you go."

Christina was starving.

"You got food?" She asked.

"We sure do." He pointed at the station building.

She went inside, filled a paper bag with as much junk food as she could, and put it on the counter.

The cashier girl took the goods out of the bag and passed them in front of her laser.

"$55.55."She said.

Christina paid her, put her shopping back in the sack, and left, but froze in front of the door. A police car was standing beside the SUV, and a couple of cops were checking it out. One of them said something in his walkie-talkie. The boy in the baseball hat was approaching them, and in a second he'd point at the building.

She had the money and the gun on her; that was enough. She turned around the building's corner toward the bathrooms. A fence, made of steel mesh bolted on rusty poles, separated the gas station from a junkyard.

She threw the bag over it and climbed up the barrier. The mesh shook under her weight and cut through her fingers. She got on the top. But before she could climb down, lost her balance, and fell to the ground.

The impact forced the air out of her lungs and numbed her body. Dazed from her fall, she lay on the cold soil for a minute before staggered up to her feet. No one had come to the fence yet.

Next to her, a pointed piece of metal stuck out of the dirt. If she had fallen a few inches on the wrong side, it had impaled her.

She sighed in relief and shuffled away. Rusting old cars filled the place; stripped from their engines, tires, and anything that could be removed and sold.

She felt warm blood leaking out of her wounds and stopped. The impact had ruptured some of her stitches. Glancing back, she saw the officers and the boy in the baseball cap were behind the fence. They were in the light, and she was in the dark, so they couldn't see her.

One of the cops turned on his torch, and the circle of light searched the yard. She hid behind a truck. The other cop grabbed the fence and climbed up; the mesh rattled under his weight.

"God damn it!" She drew her gun and fired a shot to scare him off.

The bullet hit a car somewhere, and the gunshot resonated in the night. It instantly convinced the man to jump down back on the ground. Then the cops drew their guns, and with the boy in the middle, slowly backed away from the iron barrier.