Helen DePrima - Luke's Ride

Mike’s plea stirred Luke’s interest. He could probably figure this out—he could be of use to someone.

“I’ll give it my best shot,” he said.

CHAPTER SIX

KATHRYN MOVED THROUGH the last day of her old life like a perfectly programmed robot. She had gone to sleep with a list of must-dos firm in her mind and wrote down the sequence over her morning coffee. First she visited the bank and raided a money market account, withdrawing no more than she figured she deserved for fifteen years of faithful service. Next she stopped at her mother’s bank where she deposited it in a new checking account with a debit card.

At the mall she bought a new cell phone with a prepaid plan and new number before going to the AAA office to pick up maps. She would have GPS, of course, but she had no address to enter other than Hesperus, Colorado. Paper maps would help her choose what route she might decide to follow.

At times the memory of Brad’s laughter and Britt’s answering giggle pushed into her consciousness, but she silenced it with ruthless determination. Time enough for tears when she had accomplished all she needed to do.

In the office of Robert Foster, her mother’s lawyer, she signed numerous documents.

“You’re sure you want to do this, Kathryn?” His kind old face furrowed with distress. “After one incident?”

“Once that I caught him,” she said. “This was too slick to be the first time. All those evenings working late, and the last-minute overnight business trips... I was too dumb to catch on before, but I’m a quick study.” She shoved the papers across his desk. “Hold on to these—I’ll be in touch.”

Brad handed her an unexpected gift midway through the day, a text saying he needed to stay overnight in Springfield. She texted back with appropriate concern, grateful he hadn’t called—she couldn’t have borne the sound of his voice.

On impulse, she called his office. Disguising her voice—she hoped—with a handkerchief over the phone, she asked for Britt.

“Sorry,” the receptionist said with no hint of recognition, “she’s out of the office today.”

Kathryn’s mouth twisted—imagine that.

She steeled herself for her last stop and drove to her own home, reasonably sure she wouldn’t be disturbed. Just in case, she backed up the driveway and opened the trunk before entering the house.

First she went to the small wall safe in Brad’s study, removing the title to her car and a jewelry box. She didn’t care for the showy dinner rings, the diamond earrings and tennis bracelet Brad had given her, but she’d be damned if she would leave them for another woman to enjoy. They were hers, she’d earned them and they were good pieces she’d have no trouble turning into cash.

She started up the stairs and then turned back to the kitchen, looking in the fridge without finding what she sought. The recycling bin held an empty Chablis bottle with a few drops left in the bottom. She grasped it like a trophy and collected a pair of shears from a drawer before continuing upstairs.

Not looking at the bed, she stripped her closet and drawers of all the clothes she cared to take, filling her own luggage and plus a storage bin. The tennis clothes and cocktail dresses she wore for country club functions she left behind—she’d never have to wear them again.

She carried the first load down to her car, peering down the street for any sign of Brad’s Mercedes, and then ran back to the bedroom. Finally, she turned to the bed she had shared with Brad, where she had known such delight in his arms.

She took the silky green robe from the closet, the robe she had worn in innocence to welcome him home when he’d gone to his mistress after her mother’s funeral. With great deliberation, she slashed it to shreds and dropped her cell phone on the mutilated garment along with the wine bottle. Last she poured a nearly full flask of her special cologne on the heap like a sacrificial libation.

Gathering the rest of her possessions, including her laptop, she descended the stairs with her head high, dumped the last load into the trunk and drove away without a backward glance.

After a fast-food supper, she checked into a small motel a few miles from her mother’s house, not sure when Brad might return and find her parting display. Propped against the faux-Colonial headboard in her room, she called her favorite aunt who had taken her mother’s dog.

“Aunt Joan,” she said without preamble, “I’m leaving Brad. I wanted to let you know because he might call looking for me.”

“Good riddance,” her aunt said. “I’ve always thought he’s too pretty to be wholesome. Would you like to come here? You’re welcome to stay as long as you want.”

“Thanks, but I’ll be traveling. I won’t tell you where so you don’t have to lie for me, but I’ll check in with you. Give Blondie a hug for me.”

The next morning, Kathryn drove her year-old Volvo sedan to a high school classmate’s used car dealership and transferred her possessions to a low-mileage Ford SUV with tinted windows. Cloaked with her new anonymity, she left house keys for her cousin with her mother’s neighbor. She gave her childhood home, sitting quiet and a little aloof in the spring sunshine, one last glance, then steered her new car toward I-84, heading west.

* * *

TEN DAYS LATER she took the exit from I-25 onto Route 160 in southern Colorado. She had zigzagged southwest through New York and Pennsylvania in easy stages, dropping into West Virginia to turn west through the Kentucky Bluegrass, as idyllic as she’d always pictured it. She’d paused in Louisville for a couple days, relishing her first taste of the South and selling her jewelry at an elegant, old-fashioned store with mahogany-framed display cases. Then she drove west to St. Louis and beyond, leaving the shelter of shade trees for the daunting vistas of the Great Plains, where the vault of the sky made her feel insignificant as a bug crawling across a windowpane.

She’d never been on an extended road trip; vacations with her parents had been one-day drives to a family resort in the Adirondacks or visits to relatives in New Jersey. Twice she had gone to the West Coast with Brad and once to Florida for conferences, but his idea of travel was airport to airport. She’d seen no more of strange cities than the taxi rides to and from their hotel.

She reveled in her flight from her past, even with the threat of snow crossing the Alleghenies and a horrendous thunderstorm in southern Illinois that left her driving blind. She didn’t think about her destination except for the box of Annie Cameron’s letters riding beside her like a benevolent familiar and managed to stay one jump ahead of her emotions by focusing on regional accents and changing landscapes, stopping at local inns and dining at small-town cafés.

Brad didn’t have her new cell phone number, but he did email her. At first he expressed remorse and concern, then impatience—“How long before you get over your snit?”—and finally anger. She read the first few messages with detachment, almost with amusement, as if her pain nerves had been severed. When the repetition grew boring, she blocked his emails.

One day short of her goal, Kathryn began to feel a little silly. What a fool’s errand, to drive more than two thousand miles to deliver a box of old letters. Maybe the Camerons wouldn’t even be interested, but remembering Annie’s tales of family closeness, Kathryn was sure the letters and their bearer would be welcome.

At first driving the state highway west from the interstate was a relief. All the way from Connecticut, big trucks had been her nemesis. Giant tractor-trailers just plain scared her, muscling their way along the highways as if lesser vehicles were invisible. She would have left the interstates to escape their bullying but didn’t trust her navigation skills enough to abandon the well-marked routes.