At all costs

by John Gilstrap

  As Rivers and her cohorts executed their search warrant with all the zeal of a demolition crew, he tried to anticipate the next step, wishing every second as he leaned forward to keep pressure off his hands that his captors had been gentler with the cuffs. He could count each beat of his heart by pinpoint throbs in the tips of his fingers.

  Clearly, they didn’t recognize him yet. Amazing what a few years, a few pounds, and a full beard could do for you. He figured he had three hours-five at the most. No way would it take them any longer than that. When they finally got around to fingerprinting him, the fuse on his future would grow dangerously short.

  He wondered if he and Carolyn still owned the top slots on the Ten Most Wanted list.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Crazy Pumpkin Days at Perkins’ Discount Department Store ran 120 hours straight, from Tuesday through Saturday, bringing wild-eyed bargain hunters into Phoenix from three states. They gathered at the front doors in a formless crowd, beginning around eight, waiting for the opportunity to trample store manager Phyllis Bly the instant she turned the dead bolt.

  As Carolyn watched the tidal wave of humanity flood the aisles at precisely nine o’clock, she realized she was in hell. Like so many locusts, they swarmed every department. Within a half hour, clothes littered the floors and display racks as frantic shoppers unwrapped shirts and pants and shoes and sporting goods equipment, only to find that they didn’t fit, they didn’t look right, or they didn’t perform to expectations. With one mess made, they’d move on to make another.

  After nearly two hours in the arena, Carolyn felt like she’d been playing linebacker. As a contingent, salaried employee, Carolyn spent her days moving from department to department, filling in for whoever might be missing in action. Because she hadn’t been with the store long enough to qualify for commissions, five percent of everything she sold was split among the tenured union employees in her department, making her presence a pain on a slow day and a boon on a busy one.

  This morning she manned the Boys’ Department, where countless moms dragged their truant children around by their ears, hoping to fit them into one last bargain before the Christmas shopping season began. At the moment, she was leaning against the wall outside of the fitting room, trying to make herself comfortable as an enormous Italian woman negotiated with her eight-year-old over the purchase of a two-piece suit.

  The poor little kid looked ridiculous in the triple-knit navy-blue monstrosity. “Do you think it fits okay?” the woman asked, mistaking Carolyn for an ally.

  “Well, that depends.” Carolyn didn’t bother to suppress her smile. “Do you expect him to gain fifteen pounds before the weekend?” The suit was the last of its kind on sale for $39.95, and the family had a wedding to go to on Saturday. On a different day, Carolyn might have considered lying just to make the sale, but a morning of full-contact competitive shopping had soured her mood. Besides, he looked like he’d been eaten by a polyester gorilla. She just couldn’t do it to him.

  The mother scowled. “It doesn’t look that bad, does it?”

  Clearly, there was only one right answer, but Carolyn held her ground. “Ma’am, I wish I could say something positive, but I think it looks way too big.”

  The kid saw his chance. “See? C’mon, Mom,” he whined. “I look like a dork in this. I don’t wanna go to the stinkin’ wedding, anyway.”

  The mother shot a lethal glare at Carolyn but ultimately caved in. “Okay, then, try on the gray one.”

  “Mom!”

  “Michael, just do what you’re told,” she commanded. “And don’t back-talk me.”

  The kid stomped his foot once, then yanked the charcoal-gray suit from the rack and dragged it and himself into the dressing room. “I hate weddings,” he fumed as he disappeared.

  The woman folded her arms and glared down her nose at Carolyn. “It wouldn’t hurt if you could be a little helpful,” she snorted.

  Carolyn smiled as politely as she could. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but it would have been child abuse to send him outside in that suit. You asked for my opinion and I gave it. If that’s-”

  “Is there a problem here?” Phyllis Bly had materialized out of nowhere.

  “I don’t think so,” Carolyn said defensively.

  “Let’s just say that your help is not being very helpful,” Michael’s mother tattled.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Phyllis said. As a manager, she seemed constantly at war with her employees, and the look she shot at Carolyn told her there’d be hell to pay later. “Well, I’ll be happy to take over.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Carolyn was stunned-not that Phyllis was angered, but that she was actually going to work the floor.

  “You have a phone call,” Phyllis explained. “It’s your husband, and he says it’s important.” Upon taking over control of the Phoenix store, one of Phyllis’s first efficiency improvements was to disconnect the register phones from the central switchboard. That way, all incoming calls went to the Customer Service Department, and all outgoing calls could be relegated to the three pay phones in the employees’ lounge.

  Carolyn’s stomach constricted at the news. Jake never called her at work. She assumed it must be Travis. I knew we should have taken him to the emergency room for his head. “Uh-oh,” she groaned. “I’ll be back.”

  “Don’t make this a habit,” Phyllis called after her, as if one in a row was a trend.

  Carolyn controlled the urge to shove people out of her way as she fought through the hordes of shoppers. Customer Service sat all the way in the back of the store, in the opposite corner from the Boys’ Department. Three minutes felt like ten by the time she got buzzed in behind the counter and reached over one of the customer service reps for a telephone. She ignored the dirty look as she stabbed the blinking light. “Jake?”

  “Carolyn!” His tone was urgent; borderline frantic. “Where have you been? I’ve been hanging here for-”

  “Is Travis okay?”

  “Huh? Oh, yeah. He’s fine, I guess. Listen-”

  “Oh, thank God.” Relief washed over her like a refreshing dip in the pool. Then annoyance rushed in to fill the vacuum. “Why are you calling me, then? Phyllis already-”

  “Carolyn, listen to me. I’ve been arrested.”

  She distinctly heard the edge in her husband’s voice-a tone from a distant past. His words were like a cutlass, lacerating her soul and leaving her instantly light-headed. She sat heavily on the desk. “Oh, my God,” she gasped. They were the only words she could think of. Long-suppressed terrors flooded her brain as a wave of panic rose high and broke over her soul.

  “Carolyn, listen to me, dammit!” Jake’s voice was a whispered shout, and she realized that he’d been trying to get her attention. She could barely hear past the blood rushing in her ears. “You can’t panic on me, honey,” he whispered. His tone softened as he regained her attention. “Are you there?”

  She nodded, oblivious to the tears that she blinked onto her cheeks. “Yes,” she croaked. “Oh, my God, Jake, what’s going to happen to Travis?” The thought of her little boy being raised by strangers was too much. How would he ever survive if his parents went to prison?

  The realization that people were listening hit her with a jolt, bringing her to her feet and prompting a nervous glance toward the line of CSRs, who quickly looked away. What had she said aloud, and what had she simply thought? What could they know? Suddenly, she was horribly aware of the fish-eyed security camera overhead, and she turned her back on it.

  “I’m at the police station now,” Jake stated as calmly as he could. “They’ve got me on some bullshit assault charge, but I think Lucas Banks is talking them into letting me go.”

  There was something in the measured pace of Jake’s words that ended the disastrous scenarios whirling through Carolyn’s head. He was trying to tell her something without telling her, but she’d missed it in her burst of panic. She wrestled with her mind to bring order to the random flurry of useless thoughts. They�
��d planned for this moment, practiced even, though not in a long while. Everything was in her head somewhere, but she was having trouble making it come back.

  “I–I’m sorry, Jake,” she said, steadily gaining control. “Say that again.”

  Now she could hear the smile in his voice. He knew now that she’d know what to do. “I said, I’m here on assault charges, but I think they’ll be letting me go.”

  An endless list of questions fought to paralyze Carolyn’s brain, but she pushed them aside. Only one thing mattered now. “Are you being charged with anything?” Now, that question turned some heads.

  “Yes. But only with the assault. They’ve already fingerprinted me, but Lucas Banks said they should be letting me go soon. Own recognizance, if he gets his way.”

  It didn’t make sense, but she knew that Jake would not misspeak under these circumstances. She had no idea who Lucas Banks was, or why he’d be helping Jake, but none of that mattered much right now. It was time to fight or flee.

  “So you should be home?” she asked. Suddenly, she was precisely aware of every word she uttered.

  “Why don’t you just go on with your usual day, and I’ll catch up with you.”

  “Usual?” Clearly, Jake couldn’t talk, but she still had to be sure.

  “Yeah, usual. You know, what you’ve always planned to do today.”

  Got it, she didn’t say. “And you?”

  “Do what you’ve got to do,” he urged. “And if I get hung up here and can’t meet you, then you might have to pick up some slack for me. You’ll know.”

  And that was it. The nightmare had begun. She felt ill, and for just a short moment, she wondered if she might throw up right there on the CSR’s burnt-orange suit. With nothing left to be said, she paused before hanging up. “Jake?” she said softly.

  “Yeah, I know,” he said. “I love you, too.”

  Everyone stared. Not just the customer service reps-and God knew they had a right-but everybody in the store. She’d see them looking away just as she turned to lock eyes with them. Somehow they all knew. Was that even possible?

  Of course not. You’re just being paranoid.

  She felt the panic welling up from somewhere deep in her gut, and she did her best to will it away. Suddenly, her mind was blank. There were a thousand things to do, but she couldn’t remember a single one of them.

  One step at a time, she told herself. Step one: get the hell out of here.

  Where was her purse? In her rush to answer the phone, she’d left it in the drawer under the cash register. She considered leaving it there, until she remembered that it held her car keys.

  Their plan started to come back to her. First she’d go get Travis out of school, then…

  “Oh, my God!” She said it at a whisper, but loudly enough to draw the attention of a shopper at the cosmetics counter.

  “Are you okay, dear?” the woman said.

  The field trip! Carolyn just looked at her, then quickened her pace. Oh, God… Oh, God…

  There was a way to do this; there had to be. Nothing was going per plan- nothing. But that was okay as long as no one panicked. She’d just have to change the order of things a bit. There was plenty of time to think. Plenty of time. Okay, so how come she couldn’t make her brain work?

  “Where have you been?” Phyllis snapped as Carolyn returned to her workstation. “I hope you told your husband that this is a place of business, not some-what are you doing?”

  Carolyn hip-nudged Phyllis from in front of the cash register and removed her purse from the drawer.

  “It’s not your break time!” Phyllis said, drawing looks from shoppers. “You get back here right now!”

  Carolyn never said a word. Her mind was elsewhere, reliving the terrors of her past, wondering how this could have happened again. An assault charge? Isn’t that what Jake had said? Who on earth did he assault? She chastised herself for not paying closer attention.

  The escape plan was built around a single theme: family first, at all costs; everyone and everything else second. Carolyn’s first mission, then, was to retrieve her son from school. Even without Jake, she and Travis could make a go of it. Jake was resourceful-brilliant, even-at these things. If they couldn’t make the initial rendezvous, he would figure out a way to catch up. But Travis was still a boy. He had no idea what awaited him. He’d have to be taken care of, guarded and protected.

  Damn that field trip.

  With family accounted for, the next priority was to obtain the tools for survival. Life would be harder where they were going. She shivered at the memories of their previous life in hiding as they learned how to disappear; taking refuge in safe houses owned by her Uncle Harry’s “business associates.”

  They’d learned a lot about survival in those days. A little ferret of a man who called himself Lanford “Lanny” Skiles taught them the art of disappearing. A street-smart forgerembezzler with bulbous eyes, Lanny had worked for days to change everything about them-all the intangibles. New speech patterns, new tastes in food, new dreams, new fears, were all drilled into them to the point where reality became blurred.

  Thus, Jake and Carolyn Donovan ultimately became Jake and Carolyn Brighton, leaving the first names the same because, experience demonstrated, responding to them is too ingrained a habit. Early on, Jake suggested leaving the country, but Lanny said no. Hell no, in fact. You needed a passport to leave the country, which in turn required a birth certificate. Photos would be more carefully scrutinized, and the FBI would be reinforced by State Department investigators. Each additional step-each new involvement by law enforcement agencies-represented one more chance to screw up.

  “Absolutely not,” the ferret had insisted. “You and Miss Muffet here”-he gestured toward Carolyn-“are better off sticking to a country where you know the ropes. But that doesn’t mean goin’ back to your old stomping grounds. You better make damn sure to stay clear of any place you visited prior to going on the run. And don’t even think of calling the ‘people who knew you when.’ Do that and you’re toast.”

  Carolyn was the one who noticed that Lanny never said the word “Donovan” in their presence. If differentiation was needed between their old and new identities, he’d always say “back when you were in the world.”

  Some attributes, however, remained unchangeable in the short term, and they became the weakest links in their new identities. Height, weight, and fingerprints, for example, were not forgeable, though over time, age took care of two out of three. People on the wrong side of the law had tried for years to alter their fingerprints, but never with any meaningful success. About the best you could hope for was a lot of pain and a collection of scar tissue that would draw more attention than the original prints themselves.

  The art of disappearing hinged entirely on one’s ability to be so normal as to deny people the desire to ask probing questions. “You’ve got to live like Mr. and Mrs. John Doe,” Lanny had told them a thousand times. “No one ever questions a white shirt with a blue suit, but get all snazzed up and you may as well be wearing a sandwich board: LOOK AT ME.” No bow ties, no flashy dresses, no expensive anything-not that they could have afforded much, anyway.

  And, of course, no kids.

  Well, they’d drawn the line on that one. Truth be known, Travis was an accident. Once conceived, however, they saw him as their gift from God. In a world of deception and pain, he was their one source of genuine pleasure and pride. Carolyn shuddered at what he was going to think of them when he heard the truth.

  But these were thoughts for another time, she told herself as she slid in behind the steering wheel of her Celica. At the moment, she needed to focus on necessities: tools and weapons and food and clothing. All of these things were packed in the staging area, ready to go. The question that plagued her now was whether there’d be time to collect them. There were supplies back at the trailer, all packed in duffel bags and stored in a locked closet, but she didn’t dare go back to the only address the police would know. Thos
e things were gone forever now; special things. In blatant violation of the rule against mingling identities, she’d sneaked a couple of old photos into those bags, along with one of Travis’s favorite teddy bears from way back when. It hurt to leave them behind.

  Every second that ticked by was a liability, and they were prepared to survive with nothing but their family and the clothes on their backs. Everything else was gravy.

  Well, everything but money. Cash was the one ingredient that made everything else work. Jake always talked big, swearing that if push came to shove, they could always get money, but Carolyn knew as well as her husband that he could never threaten some clerk’s life just for the cash in the kitty. Even in their most desperate times, he’d never done that. The “plan” required Carolyn to make a trip to the bank-the single weakest link in the chain. Banks were funny places, highly secure, and populated by people who were paid to be paranoid. Every place you went in a bank, your picture was taken, and there was no way of knowing how closely those pictures were scrutinized, or by whom. Today, however, she’d have to risk it.

  The drive took a half hour; a full ten minutes longer than she’d anticipated. She nosed the Celica into a space outside of the Safeway, on the other end of the parking lot. Although the lot in front of the bank was virtually empty, the potential for a quick getaway seemed less important than the benefits of blending in with the other midday shoppers. The last thing she wanted was for the bank security guy to be able to say, “Yeah, I saw that lady get into a silver Celica.” It was safer to be seen disappearing down the sidewalk.

  She killed the engine, and instantly, her heart started pounding hard enough for her to hear. This truly was it. Everything they’d struggled so hard to hide was moments away from discovery.

  “Stay cool,” she told herself aloud. She took a deep breath, held it, then let it go. “You can do this.” Straightening her shoulders, she checked her hair in the mirror, then climbed out of the car.