Whitewash

  It hadn’t occurred to Sabrina until that moment that Miss Sadie was right. The police were searching for her, but someone else wanted her dead.

  She tried to remember what the man looked like. From below she hadn’t been able to see his face. He had on plain navy-blue trousers and a white short-sleeved shirt almost blending in with the white pipes and steel-blue gears and valves and metal grates.

  “What about your brother?” Miss Sadie asked, jerking Sabrina’s head and attention back to the kitchen.

  She tried to remember what she had told Miss Sadie about Eric. Had she told her anything at all?

  “My dad said Eric was living on Pensacola Beach. But I’m not sure where he is. The last I knew he was living somewhere in the Northeast, New York or Connecticut.”

  Miss Sadie cocked her head, a look of confusion, but she waited for an answer rather than ask any questions.

  Sabrina leaned her head back against the chair and closed her eyes. Launching into the whole story seemed too exhausting, so instead she said, “Eric hasn’t been in touch with me or my dad since my mom’s funeral. I think my dad wanted so badly to see Eric he hallucinated him visiting.”

  When she opened her eyes, Miss Sadie was still watching her, studying her. Maybe, Sabrina thought, she was trying to figure out what the hell to do with her.

  “It’s been my experience,” the old woman finally said, “that there’s an awful lot of truth in every lie. Maybe that’s also true of hallucinations.”

  She wrapped the sandwiches using wax paper and slipped them into an empty plastic bread bag, then put them inside the cooler. She added cans of cat food to a brown paper sack that Sabrina only now noticed sat next to the cooler on the counter. The woman was back at the refrigerator, pulling out a plastic container from the freezer. Sabrina couldn’t imagine what more she thought was needed.

  Miss Sadie plucked out of the container something wrapped in foil and began peeling it open. Sabrina’s eyes widened at the contents, a three-to four-inch stack of bills. Miss Sadie handled it like a deck of cards, counting off a layer of twenty-and fifty-dollar bills, then rewrapping the rest in the foil, snapping it into the plastic container—with a label on the lid that Sabrina could now read—PORK CHOPS—and returning it to the freezer.

  When she noticed Sabrina’s look of surprise she said, “My previous employer was very generous to me. When she passed…” She lowered her head with respect and continued, “God bless Miss Emilie’s soul.” She looked back at Sabrina. “She left a third of her estate to me. I’m a logical woman and I’ve invested well, but I just don’t trust banks with all of it. This here’s my little personal stash for a rainy day. My own savings vault.” She patted the freezer door.

  Then just as matter-of-fact as ever, she turned to Sabrina and said, “I think we should take a drive over to Pensacola Beach.”

  54

  Tallahassee Regional Airport

  Abda Hassar arrived at the airport first. Though the other two weren’t with him he had dressed according to Qasim’s detailed instructions. Now, as he walked through the crowds of tourists and business travelers, he was grateful for his young friend’s attention to popular culture. No one appeared to notice Abda. Though he felt ridiculous carrying a leather briefcase while wearing cargo shorts, sandals and what Qasim had called a Tommy Bahama shirt, amazingly he blended right in.

  As much as Abda hated to admit it, Qasim had been correct about the gold rings, too. He had insisted all three of them buy and wear simple gold wedding bands.

  “Married men, family men,” Qasim told them, “are looked at with less suspicion. They will treat us differently if they believe we have families. They will think we are less likely to do something reckless like blow ourselves up for the promise of virgins in the afterlife.”

  Abda despised any comparisons to what he considered religious zealots who knew nothing of national pride, who cared little about a greater good beyond their selfish desires. He despised the comparisons, but he also wasn’t surprised that Qasim was right again. Back at Reagan National, Abda had caught an airport security officer glancing at his fake wedding ring right before he waved Abda through the security checkpoint without pulling him aside for a more thorough search. Small details, but Abda knew each one could be the difference between success and failure.

  He bought a drink and a sandwich and found a table by the window of the airport restaurant. He glanced at his watch as he pulled out his laptop. Qasim’s flight from Dallas would be in shortly. Khaled’s flight from Baltimore would be another hour. He would wait for them as planned. Three Middle Eastern men flying together raised eyebrows. Three Middle Eastern men eating together at an airport restaurant was much less interesting.

  Abda turned on his computer and plugged in the small jump drive he had kept separate in one of the many pockets of his cargo shorts. If airport security had confiscated his computer, at least they would not have gotten his files. Now he accessed the file folder named CatServ.

  The week before, the young, blond-haired man had left an envelope on the backseat of his cab. That envelope had contained what looked like three ID badges but was in fact worth more than gold. They were for three employees of JVC’s Emerald Coast Catering. There were no photos on the badges. There was no need because there was something better. Each badge had a computer bar code printed across the bottom in special ink that according to Khaled was similar to other government documents that made them almost impossible to duplicate. Which also meant, again according to Khaled, that each employee had already passed a security background check.

  Abda clicked through the file folder until he found the one he wanted, a page he had downloaded from the Web site for JVC’s Emerald Coast Catering. All he needed was to see their employees’ uniforms. He already had three free passes to the energy summit’s reception banquet. Now he just needed to see what to wear.

  55

  Tallahassee

  The car reminded Sabrina of a tank, huge and army green, though Miss Sadie called it Shenandoah green. Sabrina had never seen the old woman drive. Come to think of it, Sabrina hadn’t seen her do much of anything but putter around her patio garden. She had no idea the car existed, stashed inside Miss Sadie’s garage under a cover.

  She packed the trunk with the few things she’d managed to gather in the small amount of time they decided they had. Sabrina estimated they had an hour at best before either the police or the man trying to kill her found her condo.

  The car’s trunk was enormous and deep. So was the backseat where Miss Sadie spread out her colorful afghans and threw in three plastic garbage bags she had filled with sweaters and blankets. She explained to Sabrina that she could hide under the afghan and if they were stopped, the police would simply think she had old bundles of clothes. It was as though Miss Sadie eluded the police on a regular basis. The whole time she was saying it her voice remained calm and soothing. She made it seem as though they were packing for a summer vacation instead of a last-minute escape.

  Lizzie shared the front seat with Miss Sadie and the cooler. The old woman could barely see over the steering wheel though Sabrina had noticed pillows already in place, one for Miss Sadie and one for the cat. From the way Lizzie settled into her spot—the huge white cat curled up into the passenger seat—Sabrina knew the two of them had taken many trips together.

  The air inside the car was suffocating even with the windows rolled down. There was no air-conditioning, no radio, but the pristine seats smelled like new and the engine turned over immediately.

  “Miss Emilie’s husband bought her this car, brand new in 1947 even though she didn’t like to drive,” Miss Sadie told Sabrina, without looking back at her. Both hands were on the wheel, and she raised her voice so she could be heard over the engine’s hum and the wind through the windows.

  “I went to work for Miss Emilie when I was twenty-two years old. Several years later her husband’s fighter plane went missing shortly after the beginning of the Korean War. She didn??
?t drive this car much after that but she’d never part with it. Made me promise I’d never sell it, either.”

  Miss Sadie’s eyes met Sabrina’s in the rearview mirror. “I took good care of Miss Emilie and her girls. Three beautiful girls, all accomplished, successful women now. They still visit with me from time to time, less and less now that their momma’s been gone. Yes, I took good care of Miss Emilie for forty years and in turn, she made sure I was taken care of.”

  Sabrina had never heard the old woman talk much about her past. And Sabrina had never asked how she had been able to provide so well for herself. She knew Miss Sadie hadn’t married and had no children. Now Sabrina realized why. She had spent a lifetime taking care of another family and in that brief explanation Sabrina thought she could see absolutely no regret in Miss Sadie’s eyes. It had been more than a job. That was easy to see. Miss Emilie had not only been Miss Sadie’s employer, she had been her family.

  Maybe that was what had brought them together. They were two women looking to replace the families they missed. It also helped explain why Miss Sadie was used to taking charge and taking care.

  Sabrina had seen signs for Pensacola on Interstate 10, but Miss Sadie evidently wasn’t planning on taking the interstate. Sabrina didn’t recognize any of the surroundings, not that she expected to, but as soon as they started putting miles between themselves and the city, the darkness of the countryside renewed her sense of panic. Panic and also guilt for involving Miss Sadie. She still wasn’t sure what or who she was running from. Or whether running was even the safest decision.

  Suddenly, Sabrina felt the car slow down. She saw flashing blue and red lights up ahead just as Miss Sadie started rolling up her window. Even Lizzie left her perch and jumped on top of the cooler that sat between her and her owner, tail swishing from side to side.

  “Is it a roadblock?” Sabrina asked, already convinced that the police were stopping traffic, searching for her.

  “I don’t believe so,” Miss Sadie said in such a whisper Sabrina thought she might simply be humoring her.

  Even though they could see an officer in the road, there was a long enough line of cars that Sabrina found herself wondering if they could just turn around and go back. How serious were the police? Would they send a cruiser after them? There was no way she could ask Miss Sadie to go on a high-speed chase. Miss Sadie with her ten o’clock–two o’clock grip on the steering wheel was having a hard enough time keeping to the speed limit.

  As they crept closer and closer, Sabrina could see she was wrong. One car had crashed into another and a third lay on its side in the ditch. There was no search, no roadblock. But as they inched their way around, Miss Sadie following the gestures of the officer patrolling the road, Sabrina felt no sense of relief. Instead, her panic washed over her again. She thought about her car accident last night. For the first time she realized it was no accident.

  56

  Leon figured it’d be a waste of time, but he drove to the Galloway woman’s condo anyway. He had trolled the airport, half expecting to see her there. As soon as the cops started moving in, Leon moved out.

  Now a couple of blocks away from her condo he got distracted by a ’47 Studebaker rolling through the intersection. He thought about following it just to check it out. It was a beaut.

  Two State Patrol cars were parked in front of Galloway’s condo. Leon drove by and pulled in to the driveway of the only house that wasn’t lit up like some block party. Flashlights lit up Galloway’s front yard. At least they wouldn’t be tripping over any fucking cats like he had the other night. Looked to Leon like there were three of them, but none of them were breaking down the door. They probably didn’t have enough for an arrest warrant.

  So where the hell was Sabrina Galloway? And what the hell went wrong? Why wasn’t she there on the fucking catwalk?

  The State Patrol hadn’t paid any attention to him, so he backed out of the neighbor’s driveway and headed back toward Tallahassee. A few blocks away he pulled in to a convenience-store parking lot. He’d been so pissed off at the airport that he wound up stealing a cheap-ass Taurus left in long-term parking with less than a quarter of a tank of gas.

  Leon filled up and paid with a credit card the asshole owner left in the glove compartment. That’s when it occurred to him that he knew something the State Patrol probably didn’t…yet. If anyone had an idea where the hell Galloway had taken off to, it’d be her father. Sane or loony, Leon figured he knew a thing or two about getting someone to tell him what he wanted to know.

  He’d make the trip first thing in the morning. For now he’d find an expensive hotel and order some room service, maybe a Pay-Per-View movie, too. No sense wasting a perfectly good credit card.

  57

  Exhaustion and the steady rumble of the Studebaker’s engine made it difficult for Sabrina to keep her eyes open. Miss Sadie insisted she lie back and get some sleep, that she was wide awake and perfectly fine driving at night, so Sabrina tried to doze while her subconscious skittered over the events of the past few days. It was like miniature film clips, from memory to reality to imagination. Soon all three would be indistinguishable from one another.

  She heard music and for a moment thought she had been mistaken about the car not having a radio until she realized it was Miss Sadie humming. The melody was familiar and soothing, as comforting as a mother’s fingers caressing her forehead, petting her hair. She gave in and lay down across the backseat. The afghan smelled good, clothesline fresh, reminding Sabrina of her mother’s attempt to dry clothes on their balcony, ten stories above Chicago traffic, waving against the skyline. At thirteen, Sabrina was horrified to come home from school and find that her mother had hung out their underwear for the world to see. “But they’ll smell so good,” she told Sabrina. The next month her father had found them a cute little house in the suburbs with a backyard big enough for a garden and a clothesline—hidden from view. Sabrina wondered if her father had been equally embarrassed about his Jockeys flapping over the city streets.

  She startled at the reminder of her father and fought her way back to consciousness. She sat up so suddenly she even startled Miss Sadie.

  “Are you okay, dear?”

  “I was just thinking about my dad,” she said and Miss Sadie nodded.

  Sabrina wiped the sleep out of her eyes. Her hair stuck to her forehead and the back of her neck. She rolled down the back window and she could smell the saltwater. Somewhere beyond the black night was the Gulf Coast.

  “We’ll need to stop for gasoline,” Miss Sadie said softly. “It’ll be all right. No one’s followed us.”

  Sabrina spun to look behind them. Most of the cars had passed them since Miss Sadie seemed determined not to exceed the speed limit. Sabrina saw only small beads of headlights in the distance. She hadn’t even thought of being followed. But if her car accident had not been an accident, then she had certainly been followed from Chattahoochee. Which made her think of her father again. If they were capable of driving her off the road and shoving her into a water tank, were they capable of hurting her father?

  “You haven’t eaten, dear. Would you like a sandwich?”

  “No, thank you.” Sabrina scooted up so she could put her arms on the seat back, behind Miss Sadie, close enough to smell the lemon rinse she knew the old woman used on her hair.

  “I should call my dad…or the hospital.”

  Miss Sadie looked up at her in the rearview mirror, eyes meeting eyes. “You’re worried they might hurt him?”

  “In order to find me, yes.” Sabrina hesitated, not wanting to say it out loud, like somehow that would make it real. “My car accident yesterday…”

  “Wasn’t an accident,” Miss Sadie finished for her.

  They rode in silence, staring out the windshield. With her arms leaning on the front seat, Sabrina rested her chin there, too. With every oncoming flash of headlights she tried to catch a glimpse of Miss Sadie’s face, hoping to read her thoughts. The old woman’s face remained
expressionless, eyes straight ahead, focused only on the road. Sabrina knew the shock and emotion had exhausted her ability to rationalize. But maybe she was depending too much on the solid and wise counsel of her friend. She was, after all, an eighty-one-year-old woman.

  What seemed like minutes later, Miss Sadie finally said, “Your daddy would want you to be safe. You’re no good to him walking into a trap. And going to him or contacting him right now might be just that.”

  58

  Tuesday, June 13

  Pensacola Beach, Florida

  The sun was just coming up when Eric Galloway made his way back to his apartment. He took the long way around the marina though he was tired. Most everyone was still in bed, which made it one of his favorite times of the day. No traffic. No car horns. No giggling teenage girls or their show-off counterparts. The beach remained quiet except for the crashing waves and the screech of the feeding seagulls, just the way Eric figured it should be.

  Eric had grown up in Chicago alongside Lake Michigan, so he was used to having seagulls, beaches and boats around him. But in Chicago you tucked it all away for the winter. Here, it was a way of life. He could get used to this life. Funny, he didn’t think he’d ever say that about any one place, blaming his restless soul and his sense of adventure.

  He had his deck shoes in his hand, preferring to enjoy the white sand between his toes. At this time of the morning it was still cool. He avoided looking in the distance where too many steel cranes and wrecking balls hovered over storm-damaged businesses and homes. Several years had passed, and yet roofs were still covered in blue tarps and sand stood ceiling high in many of the homes. Too many owners weren’t quite ready to repair and remodel in time for yet another season that might be disastrous.