Thin Luck

Chapter 6

Chapter 6 Ohio - Section 2921.331

Fleeing Police

I SWALLOWED HARD. I slapped a happy drunk smile across my face. When I turned around a fat security guard looked at me puzzled.

"Are you all right?" the man said.

"Yeah. Ha. I just totally forgot where I parked my car." I rolled my eyes and tried to sound like a woman who might be driving this huge Escalade, sickening sweet around strangers.

"Well, turn off the alarm, okay?"

"Oh, yeah, sorry." I clicked on the button. We shared a deep breath of silent air. "I'll just be on my way now. Sorry about that."

He took a few steps closer. "You been drinking?"

"Definitely not," I said, all smiles and bright eyes.

"All right, have a good afternoon. Drive home safe." He adjusted his heavy belt, laden with radios, flashlights and whatever else you might need for fending off the riff-raff. He turned toward the elevator and pressed the button. The guard went back to whatever mindless thing he'd been doing before the klaxon call, maybe watching unrated television shows on Netflix or diddling himself in the confines of the guard box.

I would be driving safe all right, but not home. I didn't have a home. Nick made sure of that.

The fastest, most direct way west was through New York and Pennsylvania down I-84, but I wanted to get out of Connecticut fast, so I plotted a mental map up through Massachusetts. Hartford was only twenty-five minutes away from the border going the speed limit. The toll roads through Massachusetts and New York would be easier to navigate as well. I knew it would be ages before Connecticut state police coordinated with the other states nearby for my return. Hopefully by then I'd be on the West Coast holding my baby in my arms.

When I pulled the car out of the garage I spotted the women walking on the sidewalk. I ducked down, but they didn't seem to notice me at all.

E-Z Pass provided an excellent line-free way of avoiding the tedious tollbooths I remembered from my youth, but it would provide an all too easy way for the police to track me across the country. The plastic piece hung on tight with its Velcro attachment. I wrestled it off and tossed it out the window. Bits of plastic exploded in every direction like a grenade.

Over the next two hours the silence picked away at me. After two years in prison, I wasn't used to driving. I don't think I'd ever driven at the speed limit in my entire life, but I didn't need the cops to have any reason to pull me over.

I tried the radio, but the static cut in and out through the Berkshires. The CD player only had pretentious classical music. I didn't want to fall asleep. I concentrated on thoughts of my baby. Every fifty miles or so, I rubbed my hand against the pacifier in my pocket. I thought about how confused he must be by moving to a whole new place. I didn't know much about San Francisco, other than the often-repeated line attributed to Mark Twain, "The coldest winter I'd ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." Turns out he never said that, but why ruin a great story with the truth?

The miles drew on through Massachusetts and then westward through New York.

These were the roads of my youth. Once Dad had left, my mother rarely stayed in one place too long. Either she was afraid he might find her, or shatter her worldview by actually paying child support. We skipped out on rent in the middle of the night more than once. Sometimes I was able to pack a few of my things in a suitcase before we left, but often I didn't. The first time I remembered sleeping in a car the street lights and freeway noises kept me awake, but I devised techniques for covering my eyes and ears. I never did figure out a way to keep Justice from kicking me awake though, other than to punch him.