Her Good Name

by Josi S. Kilpack

  “Thanks,” Micah said, still uncomfortable, still watching her.

  She stood back up, and turned to make sure the lines of the skirt hung smooth. Thank goodness the room had come with an iron. Transporting cotton blends was always tricky business. She walked to where five pairs of shoes were lined up against the wall.

  “You brought five pair?” Micah asked, as she kicked her silver ankle-strap, kitten-heeled sandals away from their sisters.

  She sat on the bed, only a few inches from him, trying to pretend she wasn’t completely aware of the distance, or lack of it, between them. She leaned forward and slid her right foot into the shoe, then bent down to fasten the buckle. “Well, I never know what I’ll want to wear.”

  “They all look the same,” Micah said. “Except for the color.”

  She flipped her hair over one shoulder and looked at him incredulously. “They all look the same?” she repeated as if he’d announced he had a bomb under his hat. She looked back at the four other pairs of shoes, each of them completely different—overall style, height of the heel, color, clasp. But he is a man, she reminded herself. Even most women couldn’t put into words the difference between a stiletto and a spool heel.

  “Well,” Chrissy said, keeping her ire in check and fastening her other sandal. “These I’m wearing today are a Manolo Blahnik. They retail for about five hundred dollars, but I found them at a consignment shop for thirty. They were missing the clasp.” She pointed to the clasp on the right shoe. “I took it to a cobbler and they repaired it for eight bucks.” She stood up to make sure the ankle strap was tight, but not constricting. Her foot practically melted into the lines of the shoe, and she looked at him in time to see his eyes travel slowly from shoe to shoulder. It was as if he were scanning her with a laser, for the heat that slowly filled her body.

  “How can you even walk in those?” he asked.

  Chrissy shrugged. “I guess years of practice have given me very strong ankles. I love heels.”

  Micah stood, but looked back at her shoes. “You must, you wear them all the time.”

  They lapsed into silence, until Micah met her eye and smiled. “So, you ready for today?”

  “Why not?” she said, walking past him to get her purse. “Most things in life simply take a little work, a little faith, and a sturdy pair of heels.”

  “I’ll take my sneakers, thank you very much,” Micah said as he followed her to the door.

  “Suit yourself,” Chrissy said. “You won’t mind if I keep my stilettos?” She couldn’t help but cock her head coyly to the side as she awaited his answer. Feminine wiles—outside of her control sometimes.

  The right side of Micah’s mouth pulled into a grin. “Oh, I don’t mind a bit.”

  Chapter 77

  Micah stood a couple of feet behind Chrissy as she put her hands on the countertop and smiled at the woman behind the desk. The other woman was Hispanic—Colombian, Chrissy guessed from the fact that she was very beautiful and rather tall and slim for a Latina. A dark-skinned, dark-eyed toddler sat in the corner playing with blocks.

  Based on the open doorway behind the desk, Chrissy guessed the woman and the child lived on the premises. Chrissy could only hope this woman didn’t watch the news or read the morning paper. On their way here they’d picked up a copy and found an article about the police looking for Chressaidia.

  “Hi,” Chrissy said. “I need to get into my unit but can’t remember the number.” They’d searched the statement to see if the number was on there somewhere, but couldn’t find it. However, she’d managed to intercept the first bill and learned that the unit had been opened only a month ago.

  “Here’s my statement and ID.” She kept her tone light and innocent-sounding . . . she hoped. She dug into her purse and pulled out her statement. The woman looked at it, looked at Chrissy, and looked back at the statement. She went to her computer and typed, then looked at the license again. Chrissy still held her breath.

  “This isn’t the address on the application.”

  “I know. I moved to Idaho after it was opened. I’m ready for all my stuff sooner than I expected I’d be. I must have misplaced the paperwork in the move.”

  The woman eyed her with continued caution. Chrissy smiled, hoping the woman wouldn’t notice the license had been issued two years ago. “I’m assuming you also forgot the entry code to get into the storage area.”

  There’s an entry code? She grimaced. “I’m afraid so.”

  “There’s a thirty-five dollar fee for me to give you the code again,” the woman finally said, and Chrissy felt like she could breathe again. San Diego and their fees! No wonder the cost of living was so high.

  “No problem,” Chrissy said, fishing out two more twenty-

  dollar bills. Maybe she’d find a suitcase full of cash in the storage bay. One could only hope.

  Chapter 78

  Idaho Falls, Idaho

  But where’s Chrissy?” Rosa asked after Livvy opened the front door of Chrissy’s house and ushered Rosa and the boys inside. Around one o’clock in the morning, she’d remembered her spare key to Chrissy’s house.

  “She’s in California for a few days, but you’ll be fine here, okay?”

  “Why can’t we stay at Doug’s?” Nathan asked, throwing himself on the couch and letting one leg dangle over the edge. “We can play with the dog there.”

  “Well, here you’ve got Chrissy’s computer,” Livvy said, checking the doors and windows to make sure they were locked. “And Chrissy’s not here to make you set the timer.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Carlos said with a grin. Nathan scrambled to his feet to follow his brother. They were soon contentedly bickering with one another over who got to be Mew and who would be Mewtoo.

  “Aren’t you already late for work?” Rosa asked once the boys had cleared out. She hadn’t asked a lot of questions when Livvy told her they weren’t staying at Doug’s today. Livvy was grateful; she really didn’t want to put words to her fears right now. It didn’t help that she missed Doug, that she still wanted to be with him. It confused and disgusted her to feel so torn. Knowing she was doing the right thing, despite her feelings, gave her confidence. And for now, that was enough.

  “I actually called in sick today,” she said, keeping to herself that she might not go back. She liked her job, but Doug worked at the hospital too, and she didn’t know that she was up to seeing him again. She could only imagine how he’d react when he got home and found that she’d left. She loved him and would miss him, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t afraid of him as well. “We’re moving out of Doug’s place.”

  “We are?” Rosa said, her whole face brightening. “Are we moving back to our house?”

  Her house was already under contract—something Livvy had thought to be an incredible stroke of luck, but now seemed a bitter irony. Livvy didn’t know if she could break the sale. That was another issue she needed to deal with. It would all be so much easier if she hadn’t heard that voice last night, if the impression had at least faded so she could talk herself out of it. But instead it had grown until the fear that something would happen was not some vague possibility, but a fact.

  “I don’t know, but for now we’ll stay at Chrissy’s.”

  “She isn’t mad anymore about you calling the police?”

  “No,” Livvy said, her voice choking just a little bit. Yes, Chrissy could be dominating and judgmental, but hadn’t she been right? Livvy had failed . . . again, and yet she knew Chrissy would be there to catch her. “She’s not still mad at me.”

  “Good,” Rosa said, smiling. “She’s going to be so happy to see us.”

  “Yes, she will,” Livvy assured her, but her stomach flipped. She did not look forward to making the call to her sister and admitting she’d been wrong.

  Chapter 79

  Imperial Beach, California

  The door to the storage bay rolled up its track, grinding and squeaking as it went. Micah held the new bolt cutters in one hand and the
cut-through lock in the other. He’d been silent since they’d left the office of the storage unit complex.

  “Would you rather wait in the car?” Chrissy asked, feeling guilty for him being involved in all this, yet reminding herself that he was the one who had followed her here. And she could never have done this without him. She’d have never thought of the bolt cutters, and now that she was in the thick of things, she couldn’t imagine doing any of this by herself. The door stuck about three feet off the ground.

  “And let you go in there alone?” Micah said, putting down the cutters and the lock before stepping forward and wrenching the door upward with those oh-so-nice arms of his. The door flew up, and Chrissy watched it come to a stop a few feet above their heads. She turned to her knight-in-the-Boise-State-cap and smiled.

  “Nice,” she said admiringly, putting a hand on his arm and squeezing for just a moment.

  He looked embarrassed and stepped ahead of her, pulling on the string of the single bulb hanging from the ceiling.

  Chrissy turned her attention to the storage bay. “This is it?” she said, looking at the twelve or so moving boxes lining the back wall.

  “What were you expecting?” Micah asked, stepping toward the boxes and seeming to read the content descriptions written on the outside.

  “I don’t know,” Chrissy said, moving to join him at the boxes. “Gothic skulls and a big, fat address book, I guess. Maybe a few crates of limited-edition Beanie Babies I could sell on eBay.”

  Micah snorted and pulled back the flap of one of the boxes. He stepped back to read the box again. “This isn’t kitchen stuff,” he said, pulling out a round, plastic object.

  “What is it?” Chrissy asked, taking it from him and turning it over in her hand. It was round and hollow, like a pipe, but with detailed grooves and notches.

  “I don’t know—looks kinda like sprinkler parts. This box is full of ’em.”

  “Sprinkler parts?” Chrissy repeated, looking into another box. This one had a lot of black plastic things wrapped in heavy plastic and the number 50 written on each bundle. She moved onto another box with loose parts. “My ijacker is a sprinkler distributor?”

  Micah was digging into another box.

  Chrissy threw the part she was holding into the box full of its brothers and sisters and moved to another box. “So what part of a sprinkler is this?” she asked, holding up a long, narrow tube. “It’s metal.” She turned it over, then squinted and looked through the small hole that ran from end to end. Suddenly, Micah grabbed it from her, causing her to jump and pull back. She’d have said something about his rudeness if his face hadn’t looked so scared.

  “No way,” he said under his breath as he looked the piece over, then moved to another unopened box.

  “No way, what?” Chrissy asked, watching him move at a more frantic pace.

  In answer, Micah pulled something out of the most recent box and turned to face her. “What does this look like to you?”

  “A handle of some kind,” Chrissy said, looking at the slightly-curved piece of black plastic. “Looks like part of a water gun,” she finally said. She looked up and met his eye. “So my ijacker is a sprinkler and water gun distributor? Is that what my ninety thousand has gone toward?”

  There were some papers on top of a closed box, and she picked them up. They said something about an order for baby formula. She flipped to the next paper that had all kinds of official-looking stamps. At the top was written “Border Crossing Agreement.”

  Micah had been still for a moment, looking at the two parts he held. In the next instant he threw them back in the box, grabbed Chrissy by the hand, and dragged her out of the storage unit. The papers in her hand fluttered to the floor.

  “Hey!” she said, stumbling in her heels and barely catching herself as Micah turned, pulled the door back down, and cursed the lock they’d cut off. “What?” she demanded as he turned to face her again.

  He grabbed her arm this time and began leading her to the car.

  “Wait a minute,” she said, wrenching her arm out of his grip and stopping. “What’s going on?”

  “Those weren’t water guns or sprinkler parts, Chrissy,” Micah said, turning to face her. “Whatever this is, it’s way too big for us. We need to go to the police.”

  “The police who want to question me about a murder?” Chrissy reminded him. “We don’t have enough proof yet. I’m not going near a police station until I’m sure I can prove I’m not the woman they want.”

  Micah paused for a moment, then stepped toward her, his voice low and intense. “Better the police find you than the gun dealers who rented this storage bay. We need to get out of here . . . now.” He leaned down to snatch the bolt cutters off the ground.

  “Guns?” Chrissy said, looking over his shoulder toward the moving boxes. Why would someone take guns apart like that? she wondered.

  “Yes. Let’s go.”

  “No, wait,” Chrissy said, turning around and heading back to the door. She pulled up on the door, and it stopped at three feet again, but she bent down and headed back inside, picking up the papers as she went. Her heart rate increased. A storage bay full of guns and permission to cross the border? Holy cow! With a box in her arms, she ducked back under the door to get out and then headed for the car. Micah was still standing where she’d left him.

  “What are you doing?” he asked, running up behind her and attempting to take the box from her arms.

  “It’s proof,” she said, holding it as tight as she could.

  “We don’t need this kind of proof,” Micah said, looking to the right and left, as if waiting for a car to turn the corner and some thug to open fire on them. “We’ll just tell the police where they are.”

  She pulled hard, yanking the box from his hands. “No,” she said strongly, and balanced the box with one arm as she opened the trunk of the car. “I’m not taking any chances. We can’t fit them all in here, but we can fit some of them.”

  Micah stood there. “This is insane, Chrissy,” he said. “We need to get some help with this. It’s too big for us.”

  “It’s always been bigger than us,” she said. “And these documents show that in a few days these guns are crossing the border into Mexico. You really want to leave these here and let it happen?”

  Micah groaned as Chrissy put the box into the trunk and headed back for another one.

  “Hurry,” Chrissy said, passing him. “Or are you going to make me do this all by myself?”

  Chapter 80

  I’m not driving around with these things in the car,” Micah said. His already white skin was completely blanched around his knuckles as he clenched the steering wheel. She’d made him take her to the PO Box again, but there wasn’t any mail today.

  “Fine, we can take them to the motel,” Chrissy said. “We couldn’t just leave them there, Micah. If they are guns, then we need to get them away from the bad guys.”

  “This is not a video game!” he yelled.

  “Don’t yell at me!” she yelled back. They both went silent.

  After nearly a minute, Micah cleared his throat. “They are going to notice they’re missing half their stuff. And it’s not like we just took some dishes.”

  “Maybe they don’t go there very often.” She kept to herself that the border crossing papers were dated June 5—two days away.

  “She’s wanted for murder, Chrissy, and I don’t think people put illegal gun parts in a storage unit and forget about them. She’s a totally freaky woman, and we’re messing with her.”

  Chrissy threw her hands up. “Well, I don’t know what to do. But it just seemed wrong to leave them there, waiting for them to come back and ship them over the border. In fact, isn’t that aiding and abetting? To do nothing is as bad as helping it along. Besides, she doesn’t know we’re here.”

  “She will now.”

  “She doesn’t know it’s us,” Chrissy said.

  “We don’t think she does.” He let out a breath. “Look, I�
��m not keeping those boxes in the car and no way are they coming to the motel with us.”

  “Well, those are about the only two choices we have. So, do you want to drive with them in the trunk—where no one can see them—or take them to the motel and wait for a curious housekeeper to figure out what they are?”

  “I want to take them to the police.”

  Chrissy groaned.

  “What more do you want before you ask for their help?”

  She crossed her arms over her chest and looked out the window. “A guarantee,” she finally said. “I want some way to guarantee I’m not going to end up in jail.”

  “And if there is no such thing? Are you going to keep driving around San Diego with illegal weapons in your car?”

  She threw her arms up. “I don’t know,” she said, turning to look at him; challenging him. “I don’t know, okay! Just . . . give me a minute. I didn’t plan on this whole illegal weapon thing this morning, ya know.”

  Micah glowered at her and clenched his teeth.

  Chrissy was about to tell him if he couldn’t handle it, he should go home when her cell phone began ringing. She pulled it from her pocket and looked at the number, her heart skipping a beat.

  “What?” Micah asked. “Who is it?”

  Chrissy looked up at him. “It’s Livvy.”

  Chapter 81

  We can’t load yet,” Eduardo said as Chressaidia put the last of her items in her suitcases. She wasn’t taking them with her over the border because that would look too suspicious, but she couldn’t leave anything here. The household items had been left at the last rental—the one where the man had told them to leave before he called the police; her clothing would go to the Salvation Army. Most of the documents would be shredded. She would fill one bag with necessities, and just as she’d done on their first trip, she’d cross the border on foot.