EPILOGUE
Some twelve hours after she’d fled Atlantic City, Lorraine Giordano found herself near Lexington, Kentucky. She needed to get off the interstate and find a place to stay. The April skies drizzled rain, the whir of the windshield wipers grinding her raw nerves. She hadn’t stopped to rest except for bathroom breaks, to feed Tammy, and do what she had to do. Her emotions had drained to empty. She felt nothing. Dead.
Lorraine turned off the interstate onto Highway 68.
Hours ago in the parking lot of an all-night grocery store she’d shined her flashlight into an opened box in the back of the van. She’d never planned to use a dollar of that blood money, but now she had no choice. Lorraine lifted out three hundred in twenty dollar bills.
In the store she bought hair dye and scissors. Her long strawberry blonde tresses were now gone, replaced by dark brown hair cut blunt above her shoulders. Tammy’s red curls were gone too. Lorraine had cut them all off and dyed what was left. Tammy sobbed as she felt the strangeness of her head.
“It’s a new game, honey.” Lorraine’s heart lay sodden with guilt. “You have a new name, too. Kaycee. Isn’t that cute?”
Before dawn, behind a Kmart in another town, Lorraine used her screwdriver to steal a license plate off an old car and put it on the van. She put her own plate in the glove compartment.
Now in the afternoon her fingers felt glued to the wheel, her backside as numb as her brain. Pure adrenaline and fear had kept her alert. Finally she felt her body shutting down.
The money in the back of the van thrummed and vibrated. Surely every driver could see it. Every police officer could smell it. Every time she stopped she’d wanted to get rid of the boxes. But where? That was a lot of weight to move. And how far were they behind her? She’d seen their headlights in the storage parking lot. They’d been close then, so very close.
Lorraine’s eyes flicked to the rearview mirror.
Highway 68 wound by green, rolling hills, white fences, and horses.
“Mommy, look at their tails swish.” Kaycee’s voice sounded throaty from coughing. She’d slept much of the way. Now she squirmed in her seat.
“Pretty.”
The road forked. A sign on the left read Highway 29. The way to Wilmore and Asbury College.
A college town. People coming and going. Lorraine bore left.
They rolled into town and fate intervened. Lorraine spotted a sign: Furnished Two-Bedroom Home For Rent. She followed the directions to a small white wood house. Pulling over to the curb, she stared at another sign in the front yard. For rent — go to 203, next door. She still needed a new name, new driver’s license. She had no idea how to get a new identity. And she’d need more money.
Lorraine drove away to a quiet street and opened the back of the van. From the closest box she drew out two thousand dollars in twenties and stuffed them in her purse.
The landlord at 203 was an elderly lady, Martha Wiscom. She took one look at Lorraine’s worn face and Kaycee’s puffy eyes, and invited them in for a sandwich. Before long Kaycee was sitting on her lap. Lorraine told the woman her name was Monica Stanling. She’d saved every dime to finally flee an abusive husband. Mrs. Wiscom rented her the house on the spot. Monica paid for the first month in cash.
Tired as she was, she could not rest until she’d moved every one of the twelve boxes into the house’s unfinished basement. She withdrew another five thousand in bills and hid them under her mattress.
The next day while Kaycee stayed with Mrs. Wiscom, Monica drove to Cincinnati. She cruised residential streets, looking for a used car for sale. She found a gray Volvo station wagon, parked her van a block away, and walked back to buy the Volvo for two thousand dollars. In cash. She drove back to the van and got in it. She headed for a strip mall she’d seen on the next block. Behind the buildings she parked and pulled a large paring knife from her purse. She took the remaining three thousand out of her purse and put it into a brown grocery bag, leaving her wallet and driver’s license behind. She dropped the purse on the floor.
Using her screwdriver she replaced the stolen license plate with the van’s original one. Back in the van Monica slid the stolen plate into the grocery bag of money.
She picked up the paring knife and held it for a long time, heart scudding.
For you, Kaycee.
She drew the blade across her left forearm.
The blinding sting hissed air through her teeth. Instant tears bit her eyes. Monica pressed her hand over the cut, smearing blood on her palm and fingers. She swiped those fingers over the seat, pressed them into the dashboard.
From the glove box she took a dishtowel and wrapped it around her arm.
The keys remained in the ignition.
Monica got out of the van again, eyes blurred, and walked back to the Volvo. She carried the grocery bag. Halfway between Cincinnati and Wilmore she pulled the license plate out of the bag and threw it away.
For the next few weeks Monica held the cut on her arm closed with tight Band-Aids. She didn’t want to explain to some doctor how she’d gotten it. The cut would eventually heal into a ropey scar.
The boxes of money sat in her basement, ticking time bombs. She had to find a way to get rid of them.
She bought a small television and watched news constantly. The Atlantic City police along with the FBI were searching for her and her daughter, as well as the seven million stolen from Trust Bank. They still weren’t sure what the connection between the two crimes might be. A lock on one of the storage units where Lorraine Giordano served as manager had been cut through, her apartment’s front door kicked in. A man’s footprints were found in the blood on the floor. The mother and daughter apparently had been abducted. Authorities feared for their lives.
Footprints in her apartment. A busted front door. They had come for her.
Monica couldn’t stop trembling.
The next day with Kaycee along she drove four hours to Nashville and stayed until she found a man who furnished her a driver’s license and social security number in the name of Monica Stanling. She didn’t ask how he managed it. She paid him five hundred dollars in cash.
Everywhere she went, Monica cast frightened glances over her shoulder.
She took Kaycee to the physician in Wilmore, with an office down on East Main. The doctor drew three vials of Kaycee’s blood for tests. Poor Kaycee screamed and cried. The physician also gave her two “scratch” tests on her wrists, one for TB and one for some disease Monica had never heard of — histoplasmosis, a fungus on the lungs.
When the ordeal was over, Monica treated Kaycee to an old-fashioned ice cream soda at the nearby drug store. Only then did Kaycee stop crying.
Within four days the histoplasmosis wrist was red and swollen up to her elbow.
“No treatment for it,” the doctor said. “But in a year or two she should be fine. Make sure she gets lots of rest in the meantime. Feed her plenty of protein. Give her all the steaks and milkshakes she wants.”
After all the expensive tests in Atlantic City, it came down to one simple “scratch” by a small-town doctor. And no money needed for treatment. Day after day Martin’s desperate voice echoed in Monica’s ears. “I just want Tammy to get well . . .”
She fed Kaycee steak and took her to the drugstore for an ice cream soda three or four times a week.
One night as Monica washed dishes she heard her old name on the news. The van had been found. Bloody fingerprints inside matched her blood type. Authorities were now looking for the bodies of Lorraine and Tammy Giordano.
But they knew the truth.