Each time the bus shuddered to a stop, Alice was stung by impatience. Convinced her daughter had fled to the one place that felt safe to her, she was on her way to the hospital’s daycare. If she’d seen any taxis on the street, any other means to reach the hospital more quickly, she would have bolted the bus in a heartbeat, but cabs weren’t a common sight in St. Louis, a city dominated by its suburbs.
She chastised herself for panicking over the alert on CNN, for her lack of an explanation to Penny, who was old enough now to understand some of this. She could have handled this so much better. If she’d turned this into a surprise trip to Disney World, they’d already be on their way, riding some Greyhound toward Atlanta. So why had she reacted like that, a fit of worry?
But then again, she’d been trained to worry; trained to be paranoid. Her daughter wanted nothing of it, and who could blame her?
“The Romeros can and will find you. If you make so much as a single mistake, they’ll be on your doorstep.” Had Lars told her that, or one of the others? There had been so many debriefings, orientations, meetings with psychologists. She couldn’t remember them all. But the warning had been convincing then, and she heeded it still. Caution was a way of life, not a switch she threw when convenient. She’d overreacted to the alert. She understood that now, but knew this was part of her programming, and her programming had kept them alive this far.
Penny was the only one who had the number to the cell phone Alice carried. It was their leash, their fallback. She never phoned out on it, never created a call history. She might have used it now to call ahead but feared that if Penny got even a hint of that call, she might run off again in protest. Anything to delay their next move. Penny was far too smart a child, far too intent on making her mother pay for their nomadic ways. Surprise remained Alice ’s best chance.