Excitement? Was that because she was getting out in the field to actually tackle a puzzle herself? Or was it the sight of Kip’s smiling eyes?
137
Chapter eleVeN
Kip’s pulse steadied once Tam was in the car. She had expected her not to be there. “Blue suit was waiting near the elevator—just one guy and I’m not sure he was looking for me instead of you.
But it wasn’t on his radar that my car should stay where it was.”
She glanced in her rearview mirror, noting the range of vehicles. There was at least one dark blue sedan, of course, and one black SUV, and several nondescript tan and white cars. Any of them could be official. She went four blocks in a straight line, then made a quick right turn. Several cars followed. She adroitly navigated the one-way avenue, made all right turns for three blocks, then pointed her nose toward the freeway.
Tam was looking over her shoulder out the back window most of the time. “I think we’re clear.”
“Me too.” She accelerated up the onramp, north as it turned out, toward Edmonds. Two exits later she whisked down a ramp 138
and turned into a gas station, circled the pumps and pulled out to follow the frontage. No familiar cars at all. “Now I’m sure.”
“We can’t use our credit cards,” Tam said. “Not until we want to be found.”
“I know. At least, not after we leave the expected radius they’d attribute to Seattle.”
“If we stop now, they will see it as a trajectory toward my house, and we’re not going there.”
Kip nodded. “There’s a branch of my bank right over there.
I can withdraw cash.”
“Not you. There’s no reason for you to empty an account and it’ll just look guilty. This is about me so let’s keep it that way as much as we can. Exit west on Denny. My banks are there, and I can make a cash withdrawal that will likely see us into another car and a hotel for a few days.”
“We don’t need a hotel. I have something better in mind. But we’ll need supplies.” She followed Tam’s directions and pulled into a parking space outside a local bank. “I’ll have some clothes, but you’ll need something more than a suit.”
“Where?”
Kip decided she could be mysterious too. “You need flannel.
Lots and lots of flannel.”
“I like flannel.”
She nearly said that she liked women who liked flannel, but thought better of it.
Tam tossed Kip a reassuring smile over her shoulder as she went into her bank. She knew where Seattle Central Savings and Loan ranked in the Federal Reserve Bank’s posting order in District 12—almost last, since they were small. If she used a withdrawal slip, not her ATM card, she could get more cash and it would take hours longer to show up to those monitoring her financial activity. ATM and credit card activity were reported almost instantly.
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“Off to Vegas,” she told the teller when she presented her slip.
Without any special reaction, the teller asked if she wanted it in hundreds.
She did. A few minutes later she walked out the door with just under the federal reporting limit of ten thousand dollars in cash.She paused at Kip’s driver door, and after Kip lowered the window explained, “My regular bank is just across the street. I’ll walk over. Why don’t I meet you in the department store lot?”
Kip was clearly anxious, but agreed. “We have to get you some clothes anyway.”
If Tam had wanted to, she could have pretended it was just any other day. She was out enjoying the crisp fall air, running errands, doing a little banking. On foot because it was a beautiful day and she would shortly be off on an adventure with an attractive, passionate woman.
That’s the way it should have been, anyway, for some other woman. For more reasons than one, Tam had never been much like other women.
She repeated the Vegas line, accepted another stack of bills and tucked it in her other inner jacket pocket. Cash was annoyingly bulky, but it had certainly been easier to catch bad guys when it was the preferred way to move funds.
Kip was waiting at the department store doors. “I have extras of everything where we’re going, so you don’t need much.
It’s forested and gets quite cold at night so you’ll need warm layers.”
“And there’s a satellite signal?”
“No,” Kip said seriously. “No, there’s no signal at all out there. We can crack this case without the World Wide Web.”
“I need—oh. You make joke.”
“You ask silly question so yes, I make joke.”
“You sounded like Mercedes.”
“Why thank you,” Kip said. She was smiling.
In less than thirty minutes Tam acquired sweats, jeans and a flannel shirt, plus some long-sleeved tees and undergarment 140
necessities. It was only another thirty minutes before they’d stocked up on basic groceries and cans of soup. A few blocks away they ducked into a large electronics store and Tam, aching over the loss of access to her beautiful laptop sitting in her abandoned car, purchased a microcomputer with high-end processors and embedded wireless. A small wireless printer and several reams of paper finished the purchase.
“That was efficient.” Kip shoved the last bag into the trunk.
“So what are we going to do about my car? If they get serious, they’ll be looking for it. I made it easy—it’s LoJacked.”
“A sensible precaution, but problematic for us.” She pushed the trunk closed.
“I didn’t expect to be on the run from the law.”
Tam settled into the passenger seat. “We’re not on the run from the law. We’re just avoiding finding out for sure that they’re looking for either of us.”
“That’s comforting.” Kip’s grip was tight on the wheel as she backed out.
“It’s not too late,” Tam said.
“I’m anxious. I’m just venting.”
She studied Kip’s expression. The line of her lips was steady, but her fine eyebrows were drawn together by a deep crease of worry.
“I do that a lot,” Kip added. “Probably from living alone. I talk to myself way too much. Do you do that?”
“No,” Tam said. “Silence was rewarded when I was a kid.” A major understatement, she thought.
Kip turned them southward, toward Tacoma. Finding a used car lot wouldn’t be hard once they left Seattle behind. “Cell phones,” she said abruptly. She fished in her pocket, one hand on the wheel and handed the device to Tam. “Pop the battery.”
“I should have thought of it,” Tam admitted. The GPS locator was its own form of LoJack for people.
“That reminds me.” Kip turned into a strip mall. “I have to make a couple of calls. There might be a land line at that Laundromat.”
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Tam had no reason to think Kip was going to turn her in, but the worry crossed her mind. She wanted to know that Kip trusted her, but she was still not very good at reading Kip’s expressions.
“I may as well call my people, too.”
There was a pay phone next to the Laundromat’s change machine, and Kip went first. Tam moved off a bit so as not to eavesdrop, but there were no customers using machines so Kip’s voice carried.
“Hi, Jen, I am really sorry to do this to you, and I hope you haven’t gone to a lot of trouble, but I have to cancel dinner tomorrow night. If you already made the cake maybe you can freeze me a slice? I’m so sorry, it’s... I have to go out of town unexpectedly. Please don’t worry.” Kip’s voice trailed away for a moment. “I know you’re at work. And...if... It’s just that... You’re the one who always says don’t trust what you read in the papers, okay? Remember that, okay?”