Death Angel (Page 32)
He hit pay dirt on Monday, and a hundred bucks later had the make and model of the car, plus the tag number. New Jersey issued two tags, one for the front bumper and one for the back, and some unscrupulous individuals made money by stealing just the front tag and selling them to people who wanted a tag on the rear, just to avoid being pulled over for having no tag at all, and who weren’t intending to stay in New Jersey. It was amazing how many people passed through New Jersey, and how many needed just one tag. Once out of state, a smart person could play license plate roulette and keep ahead of the computer system.
A cell phone, though, was more problematic. She could buy a prepaid cell phone and keep her name out of the system. Damn it, that was probably a dead end.
That left the IRS.
He was like everyone else; he didn’t like to fuck with the IRS, but the taxman was the only way he could find where Drea had sent the money. Any currency transaction involving ten thousand dollars or more triggered a report to the IRS, which was why he moved his own money in increments, and all of it to an offshore destination. Handling money was a hell of a lot of work.
The IRS, however, had a really pissy computer system, which was good luck for him and really bad news for Drea.
On Tuesday, he learned that she had transferred her two million dollars to a bank in Grissom, Kansas.
Chapter Twelve
IF BOREDOM WAS LETHAL, DREA THOUGHT, THEN SHE wouldn’t live long enough to get her money. She’d left her hometown and eventually worked her way to New York City precisely because she didn’t want to live in a town like Grissom, Kansas. She’d grown up in a small town; the life wasn’t for her.
It wasn’t the people. The people were generally nice, if not nosy. And even though her life in New York hadn’t been all glamour and excitement and an endless round of parties-Rafael wasn’t one of the Beautiful People, unless there was a subgenre of Beautiful Thugs-and she’d spent a lot of time in her room, at least it had been an extremely comfortable room. She hadn’t gone to the theater or movies, but there was always pay-per-view on the television. She didn’t have even that in the tiny, dingy room she got that Friday night at the tiny, dingy Grissom Motel, which lived down to its unimaginative name. And she couldn’t go to a movie, because Grissom didn’t have a movie theater-or much of anything else.
There was a small cafe, and one fast-food restaurant staffed by bored teenagers. For shopping, there was the hardware store, the feed store, the farm-supply store, and a dollar store. For a wider selection, the citizens drove to a neighboring town thirty miles away, which had a Wal-Mart. Big whoop.
She could remember when going to Wal-Mart had been a big deal to her, because that was where she’d bought most of her clothes. If she’d managed to scrape together enough money to buy something at Sears, she was as proud of it as if she’d gotten it at Saks Fifth Avenue.
And here she was again, wearing Wal-Mart clothes. The difference was that she had two million bucks in the bank, and she knew that soon she could wear anything she wanted. In the meantime, living in the boondocks again was driving her nuts. Maybe she hadn’t done much when she’d been in New York, but at least she could have.
Nerves ate at her; she felt as if the waiting was scraping her skin raw. After one night in Grissom she checked out of the motel and drove thirty miles to the town that boasted a strip mall, but on second thought kept going, to the next town down the road. The extra distance from Grissom would make it just that much more difficult for anyone to find her.
The next day, she checked out of that motel, and drove some more.
She did that for the next three nights. Living out of a cheap suitcase, not bothering to unpack because she was spending just one night in each place, bothered her on some bone-deep level. Every decision she’d made since the day she’d left home, such as it was, had been made with her eye on one goal, which was to have money, security, and a home. She had money now, even if she couldn’t get it yet. A home? She was afraid to stay in one place long enough to unpack her suitcase. She’d had somewhere to stay, but it wasn’t hers, a place where she belonged and could let her guard down. Maybe "home" and "security" actually meant the same thing-in any case, she knew she hadn’t found it yet.
She was holding her breath, waiting to start living.
On Wednesday she found herself driving in a wide, meandering circle around Grissom, as if she were circling a drain. There was nothing to see except miles and miles of flat land, green with the summer crops, and the wide blue bowl of sky overhead. Traffic was sparse, because I-70 was a long way to the north, and down here in farm country the only people driving around were the people who lived here-and not many did.
Maybe it was the long days of solitude, or the mostly empty road that meant she likely wasn’t in grave danger if she let her mind wander, but with nothing to occupy her time except her thoughts she began to feel…uneasy. That was the only way to explain it. She’d made a mistake somewhere, somehow.
All the steps she’d taken ran through her head, and she examined each one. She tried to think what she could have done differently, and other than transferring all the money to the Elizabeth bank and taking her chances with an extended stay in the area, she came up blank. On the other hand, was she taking a bigger chance by hanging around Grissom for so long?
Was she relying too much on the assumption that Rafael wouldn’t go to the police? She didn’t think so. Rafael would want to take care of her his way, the permanent way, which precluded any cops. Her other assumption was that Rafael, who had lived his entire life first in Los Angeles and then New York, would have no idea how to track her through middle America. This was her territory, not his. But what if she was wrong?