Izzy felt like she was running on emotional overload as she pulled into the gas station in McCloud, a tiny Northern California town nestled among tall pines. The sunrise promised to be gorgeous. Lately she’d been spending her mornings enjoying every one as if it might be her last; sunsets too, because at the rate the cancer had been moving through her body, they could’ve been.
She got out of the car, reached into her oversized purse, pushed the forty-five aside, got out her wallet, withdrew a credit card, but stopped herself as she was putting the card in the pump. She jerked her hand back as if she’d been scalded. What had she been thinking? Hadn’t she told Amy to destroy her cell phone, because she didn’t want her tracked? Hadn’t she seen enough detective shows on television? Use the card, tell them where you are.
Oh shit! She’d used the card to rent that motel in Susanville. How bloody stupid. She was going to have to be more careful, because she was sure they’d track her there and now they’d know she was heading to California, where they’d figure she was either going north, to Canada maybe, or south to L.A. and perhaps Mexico beyond.
She put the card back in her wallet, started for the convenience store and the cash register inside.
“ I’d like to fill it on three,” she told a smiling teenager. He had hair yellow as the sun she’d been watching so much these past few weeks. It was long and framed a freckled face with twinkling blue eyes and a golden smile. He was watching CNN on a small ceiling mounted television.
“ Sure thing.” He tapped on a computer screen as she laid three twenties on the counter. “That little girl’s gonna live. They say it’s a miracle.”
“ The one they got out of the well?”
“ Yeah, she rallied during the night. It looks like she’s gonna make a full recovery.”
“ That’s great.”
“ Yeah, it’s good when you can start the day with a positive news story.”
“ It is.” She returned his smile. “I’ll be back for the change.”
“ Okay.”
When she got back he was still engrossed in CNN, but his smile had been wiped away, replaced by a furrowed brow.
“ Something happened to the girl?”
“ No, breaking news,” he said. “Someone went on a killing rampage in Reno.”
“ What?”
“ Six people dead. Three doctors, a lawyer and two security guards, plus another doctor is missing and presumed dead. They all worked at St. Catherine’s Hospital.” He looked worried. “My mother’s there. She’s having cataract surgery.”
“ Did they catch the killer?”
“ No, she’s still at large.”
“ She? A woman?”
“ They’re calling her the Slaughter Queen.”
And for the next five minutes or so Izzy watched newscaster Nick Nesbit on the overhead television with the freckle faced kid and learned that the Slaughter Queen had killed two hospital security guards and hospital CEO Aaron Shaffer at Dr. Isadora Eisenhower’s house. Seventy-seven-year-old Dr. Eisenhower was missing and presumed dead. From there the Slaughter Queen went on to kill Dr. Carmin Romero in his home and then onto young Dr. Elizabeth Jordan. Three doctors dead and one missing, but that wasn’t enough for the Slaughter Queen as she’d also killed the hospital’s lawyer, Simon Drake. Six dead, one missing and who knew who else was on her list.
Nesbit, who looked as serious as Izzy had ever seen him on television, went on to say the killer was somehow related to Dr. Eisenhower, perhaps a niece, they weren’t clear on that, but the police had pictures and they hoped to have them distributed to the media within the hour. Meanwhile they had this description: she was Caucasian, had shoulder length brown hair, brown eyes, was very attractive, weight about one fifteen and was about five-six.
“ Maybe her medical insurance didn’t cover her doctor bills,” the kid said.
“ What makes you say that?”
“ She killed the lawyer, too.”
“ I can’t believe a woman could do that.” But she could half believe it, even though she didn’t say it, because she’d killed the two security guards and though she hadn’t killed Shaffer, she’d watched him die. But the others, Romero, Jordan and Drake. She knew them. Who could’ve done it? Someone who knew about her, because the odds were way too far out of the ballpark to assume the crimes weren’t related.
Back in the car, she continued north for about fifteen minutes. When the road met Interstate 5, she went north, got off at Mount Shasta and found a Rite Aide drugstore, where she started for the hair dye. She’d always wondered if blondes had more fun. She didn’t think she’d be having very much of that, but she needed a change.
Then she saw a display of scissors and all of a sudden she knew how she’d disguise herself, because that’s what she had to do, alter her appearance as radically as possible. She picked up an electric shaver, like the one she’d used to shave her head after she’d started chemo, then she went looking for the mascara. Though dying her hair blonde had been her first idea, she’d’ve had to rent a motel room. Plus it would take a lot longer to dye her hair than it would to cut it off.
The hair had been nice, but it had to go, because she had no illusions about whose picture they were going to be showing on the news. Shaffer’d told someone and that someone had told someone else and eventually, pretty quickly actually, someone had probably gotten the bright idea to use a photo of Amy. And Izzy, except for the eyes, looked just like her. In fact, she wouldn’t be surprised if they’d doctored a photo of Amy, giving her brown eyes.
Leaving the Rite Aide, she got back on the freeway, taking the off ramp at the Weed rest area. It was early and except for a couple truckers sleeping in their cabs, the rest stop was deserted. In the restroom, she plugged in the shaver and gave herself a quick bootcamp type haircut.
Taking the mascara out of her bag, she lightly applied some under her eyes, then on her eyelids, trying for a gaunt, goth kind of look. Maybe a girl on drugs, maybe a girl with cancer, the kind of girl one looked away from, the kind people didn’t want to notice.
Satisfied for now, she surveyed her mess. Hair in the sink, hair on the floor. Fortunately it was thick and long and easy to pick up. She put it in the trash with a sigh. It had been so long since she’d had hair and this hair had been beautiful. Such a shame.
Back at the car, she wanted to be on her way, but the dog hadn’t been out for quite a while, so she opened the door and Hunter took off, shooting across the rest area to the open field beyond. For a second Izzy wondered if he was coming back. He’d saved her life with Shaffer and she owed him, but a life on the run would be easier alone.
But after a couple minutes, Hunter came bounding back. He jumped into the backseat and Izzy was on the road again. She needed ammunition for her guns, because they, whoever they were, were going to be coming after her and she needed to be ready.
Years ago she’d had an affair with a married man in Medford. Not her proudest moment, but it had been so long since she’d had a man in her bed. She’d met him on a consult. He was a few years younger and better looking than any man had a right to be. He was a young heart surgeon with a future and he had the sweetest grin.
That he’d been using her to get out of podunk Medford never crossed her mind. That he’d been married should have been a clue, but he’d seemed so genuine and genuinely in love with both her and his wife. The poor man had seemed torn and she’d been so stupid. After she’d recommended him for an opening at prestigious Massachusetts General, he and his wife left town and she’d never heard from him again.
She’d put him, Mass General and the shitty town she’d met him in out of her mind. But now, as she was heading north on Interstate 5, she was glad she knew her way around Medford. She knew where to get the ammo she needed, the clothes she needed and where the seedy motels were, the kind that wouldn’t ask for a credit card if you had some extra cash.
She took the first of the two Medford off ramps, turned west on Barnett, then right into the WinCo parking lot, where she pointed her car to a line of stores to the right of the supermarket, parking in front of Ace’s Guns.
Inside, she found just about the seediest man she’d ever imagined could hold a job. He looked like he belonged sleeping under an overpass somewhere and he smelled like he’d bathed in gin.
“ Can I help you?” At least he had all his teeth.
“ I don’t know.” Something about him wasn’t right. “Maybe I should be asking you that question.”
“ Don’t let the getup fool you.” He smiled and she saw a twinkle there. “I got a meeting with the IRS coming up at 10:00.”
“ And that’s how you dress? You’re really going to impress them.”
“ I haven’t paid any taxes since ’73. My plan is to tell them I’ve been homeless. Think they’ll buy it?”
“ I would’ve.” She returned his smile. “But how do you know I’m not a revenuer?”
“ Now that’s a term I haven’t heard in a long time.”
“ Well, how do you know?”
“ I can smell ’em and, lady, you smell way too sweet to be a tax man and you look too pretty to be a cop. But you got a look of desperation about you. You’re a girl on the run.”
“ I’m a girl with a couple guns who wants as many clips, bullets in ’em, that you can get for me. And I need ’em before you go off to meet the tax people.”
“ Who you running from?”
“ You name it.”
“ What did you do?”
“ Nothing, but they’re going to say everything?”
“ You’re not going to get far. Your picture is all over the TV. The internet, too.”
“ Shit.” She clenched her fists. “But I cut off my hair, darkened my eyes. I don’t look the same. Double shit. They have no pictures. They faked it.” How could she ever hope to elude them. “How the hell did you spot me?”
“ You’re too clean. You don’t look road weary and you don’t look like you been rode hard.”
“ Are the cops on the way? Did you push some kind of alarm button when I walked in?”
“ Nah.” He smiled with his eyes, but not his mouth. “You’d a done what they said, you’d a walked in here, shot me, took what you wanted and been gone. Besides, revenuers ain’t the only bastards I can smell out. You’re on the run, but you didn’t do anything wrong.”
“ I killed two people, caused a third to have a heart attack.”
“ You have a good reason?”
“ Jeez, I can’t believe I’m telling you any of this.” It made no sense talking to him, but then everything that had been happening to her made no sense. “I gotta go.” She started for the door.
“ Without your ammo?”
She stopped, turned back and faced him.
“ I am in trouble and most likely I’m going to be dead very soon. I’ve got two guns, one empty, one almost empty. I can’t use my credit cards, can’t get at my bank account. When my money’s gone, I’m going to be a sitting duck, but when they catch up to me, I’d like to give the hunters a run for their money.”
“ Wait.”
She stopped, watched him come from behind the counter, go to the door, lock it. For a second she thought he was locking her in, but the look on his face told her he was locking others out.
“ Name’s Nate,” he said. Then “Come on to the back.”
“ I don’t have a lot of time.” But she followed him into a back room anyway, where she saw a small desk with a couple coffee cups on it.
“ Everyone’s got time for a good cup of coffee.” He opened the top desk drawer, took out a thermos, then a flask. “Take a seat.” He motioned toward a chair, then poured a couple cups. “Irish whiskey.” He poured a generous shot from the flask into each cup. “I’m not gonna ask what kind of trouble you’re in. I saw it on the news. And I’m not gonna ask did you do it. Some of it you told me, but I know a frame when I see it, ’cuz I been spending my life under the radar ’cuz a one.” He pushed a cup toward her, lifted the other as if to toast.
“ Really, I’m in a hurry.”
“ Have a drink, relax for a minute. You’re safe here.”
“ Alright.” She took a chair, then picked up the cup.
“ Safe passage.” He clinked her cup.
“ That about says it all.” She took a sip.
“ Don’t it though.” He took a bigger sip. “Now show me your guns.”
An hour later she parked in front of the local Goodwill store. Nate had given, not sold her, five clips for the Rugar, loaded and ready to go and a dozen for the forty-five. A lot of money to give away, she’d told him and he told her to forget it. “Besides,” he’d said, “if I can’t fool the tax man, I’m most likely going to jail, anyway.” She hoped he’d be okay. He was a nice man, who’d helped her when he didn’t have to.
In the Goodwill store, she remembered what Nate had said about her not looking road weary enough, so she bought a couple pair of black jeans and several black tee shirts. She found a pair of black, low top Converse tennis shoes that fit and she found a ratty looking black sweatshirt that had a vee cut out of the neckline. Dressed in her new clothes, she’d look the part.
Now all she needed was a plan.
Lila Booth saw the McDonald’s on the right as she came into Susanville. She pulled into the parking lot, went in to use the restroom and splash water on her face. According to her laptop, Izzy Eisenhower was in Medford, had been for the last forty-five minutes or so. It was about three hours to the Oregon border, another twenty minutes to Medford. If the woman stayed put, Lila could catch up to her around noon, provided she got right back on the road.
But she had something to do first.
She hadn’t seen her mother in a dozen years. Not since her stepfather had raped her. She’d left town that night, hitchhiked to Reno, where she found living on the streets was hard. After two weeks of sleeping in San Rafael Park at night and begging spare change during the day, she met Mansfield Wayne, a truly evil man, but he’d been good to her.
He’d found her begging outside of the Sands Casino. He wouldn’t give her any money, but he’d offered to take her to the truck stop next door and buy her lunch. And during that lunch she’d sensed something about Mansfield Wayne, sensed his true nature. But despite that, she sensed that he’d never hurt her. He was evil yes, but he had class.
And he was patient. He had a way about him, something that made you want to confide. Usually to your detriment, but it wasn’t so with Lila. She’d been young and easy for him to probe. She’d told him everything.
The next day he drove to Susanville and put a bullet into her stepfather’s brain, earning Lila’s undying loyalty. Fortunately for her mother, she’d been shopping at the Grocery Outlet or he’d’ve killed her, too.
He’d raised her as if she were his daughter. Tucker was older and already out of the house, going to school back east. Yale. So it was just the two of them in that big rambling house up on that mountain.
Theirs had been a stormy relationship, but they’d been close. He’d turned her into a killer, but she’d never regretted it, never looked back, never spoke to her mother again, had never been back to Susanville again. But now she was driving through and she couldn’t pass by without seeing her.
A dozen years, a long time. But even though she hadn’t had any contact with her, she’d kept track. She knew her mother had gotten married again, to a man named Martin Stover. Lila hoped number three was better than number two. She hoped her mother was happy. Everybody deserved to be happy.
Back in the Jag, she mentally chided herself for not putting the top up and locking the car. A stupid oversight. She was really off her game, she thought as she checked behind the passenger seat. The bag and laptop were still there.
“ Come on, Lila, keep it together,” she mumbled.
She started the car. In a couple minutes she’d be face to face with Mr. and Mrs. Martin Stover. She hoped her mother would be glad to see her.
Edith Stover held the rolled dollar with a shaking hand as she snorted the white powder. When she’d met Martin they’d used hundreds and were snorting coke. Now they were using singles and snorting meth. She preferred chasing the white dragon, but Martin got into one of his crazy fits last night and broke the pipe and Edith hated slamming. She was afraid of needles, afraid of AIDs, so snorting was the way to go.
Martin slammed first, then snorted right after his initial rush.
She sighed as the high flowed through her. There was nothing like it. Better than coke. She bent down to the coffee table, did the other line as the girl started screaming from the other room. Martin and his hookers. She’d been a bit put out at first, but he kept her in meth, so as far as Edith was concerned, he could fuck every teeny bopping whore from here to Reno if he wanted. What did she care? She got hers plenty.
Besides, she liked watching. She got up to check on the action, but was interrupted by the doorbell.
Who the fuck?
She went to the door, opened it.
“ Hey, Mom.” It was Lila, dressed like a refugee from a cowboy movie. All she needed was the hat.
“ What’s with the coat?”
“ After all this time and you still trash talk about the way I dress.”
“ What do you want?”
“ Nothing.”
“ You took Gary’s love away, then got him killed.”
“ He raped me.” Always the same with Lila.
“ Nothing’s changed,” Edith said. “It’s always been about you. I guess it still is.” She was about to tell her to get on back to wherever she’d come from, when the girl screamed again.
The scream ripped through Lila. All of a sudden she was thirteen again and Gary Rose was raping her. Horror seized her. It was happening all over. She pulled the Glock from the shoulder holster, pushed her mother aside, stepped inside the house, started for the bedroom.
“ No!” her mother grabbed her gun arm with a crab like grip, spun her around. “He’s mine!”
“ Get away.” Revulsion poured over Lila like black paint. She latched onto her mother’s fingers, pulled them back, heard one break, but the older woman’s grip was strong as death. She held on. “You go away!”
“ Stop it.” Lila bent her fingers back farther, heard another break. Her mother was crazy strong, crazy period. Without letting go of her mother’s hand, Lila spun to the right, elbowed her face, stepped away as her mother fell to the dirty carpet, but still the woman held on, dragging Lila to the floor with her.
“ He’s mine,” she hissed, deadly as any snake.
Lila grabbed back onto her mother’s gripping hand and this time she let out a scream when Lila squeezed and bent the fingers back. Finally her mother let go and Lila rolled away, jumped to her feet, charged toward the bedroom, where she found a monster of a man raping a wisp of girl.
“ Get off!” Lila sounded like a banshee to herself as her scream tore through the room. The man stopped fucking the child, pushed himself off, turned to face Lila and she shot him through the heart and like a lightning flash, her memory came flooding back. Her mother had been watching when Gary Rose had raped her.
She had been a part of it.
“ Noooo!” her mother came shrieking into the bedroom.
Lila shot her three times in the chest, watched her body dance backward, smash into the doorjamb, collapse dead on the floor.
“ Fuckin’ hell,” the girl on the bed shouted.
“ You’re alright now,” Lila said. “He can’t hurt you anymore.”
“ He wasn’t hurting me.”
“ What?” Lila’s ears were still ringing with the sound of gunfire and she wasn’t sure she was understanding what the girl was saying.
“ He was paying me.”