Shadowkiller

by Wendy Corsi Staub

  No one does as she makes her way along the aisle to the exit. She’s glad she opted to wear basic black, noticing several similarly dressed female passengers, also with shopping bags stashed above their seats.

  “Station stop is Glenhaven Park,” the conductor announces again from the other end of the car as the train begins to slow.

  Leaning against a pole near the double doors, Carrie watches the scenery beyond the window, seeing low, rambling stone walls shaded by towering trees with arching branches—a far cry from the Caribbean jungle.

  She bites her lower lip to suppress a triumphant smile. At long last, the journey she began on board the Carousel last month is drawing to a close. She only hopes this part—the most dangerous since she disembarked the ship in Miami—goes as smoothly as the rest of it has.

  After the ship dropped anchor on that gray morning five weeks ago, Carrie had held her breath all the way from the cabin to the taxi that finally shuttled her away from the pier.

  What if word had already gotten out that Molly Temple had gone missing?

  What if the American authorities were waiting to arrest her?

  What if they knew who she really was, and what she had done all those years ago—not just in New York, but long before that?

  Of course that didn’t happen. As always, she’d planned carefully and covered her tracks with exquisite attention to detail.

  Not a single official she encountered through the disembarkation process batted an eye when she handed over Molly’s passport and her ship ID. She even remembered to thank the appropriate members of the staff and to tip them just well enough, but not so well that they’d take notice.

  Besides, she needed to conserve as much of her cash—and Molly’s—as possible, preparing for whatever lay ahead. There was no telling, at that point, exactly how she was going to get from Point B—Miami—to Point C—New York—and beyond.

  She instructed the cab to take her to the hotel Molly had already so thoughtfully reserved, a large, busy Marriott overlooking Biscayne Bay. Again, she remembered to thank and tip the cabdriver and the doorman, firmly refusing his offer to get a bellman to help her with Molly’s luggage.

  He seemed surprised, but then smiled when she said, “I just got off a cruise ship. I need all the exercise I can get!”

  The female desk clerk, an attractive blonde in her fifties, didn’t bat an eye when she used Molly’s ID and credit card to check in. Again, Carrie was asked if she needed help with her bags. Again, she said no, offering her quip about the exercise.

  “Which ship were you on?” the girl had asked with a smile.

  “The Carnival.”

  “Is that the one that goes to Barbados?”

  Wondering if it was a trick question, Carrie shook her head and rattled off the ports of call she’d memorized so long ago.

  “Oh, how did you like Saint Martin? Did you do the day trip to Anguilla?”

  “No,” Carrie told her, wondering again if it was a trick and disturbed by her own negligence. Why hadn’t she bothered to memorize every shore excursion in the ship’s ports of call? Was there really one to Anguilla? Was the clerk stalling until the authorities could get here?

  “Anguilla’s supposed to be one of the most beautiful places in the world.” The clerk, whose name tag revealed that her name was Pamela, pushed her honey blond hair over her shoulders as she tucked an electronic key card into a paper folder. “I’ve had it on my bucket list for a while now.”

  “Your what?”

  “My bucket list—you know, things I want to do before I die.”

  That was a new phrase for Carrie, who forced a smile and a nod, hoping that she wouldn’t find it necessary to see that this woman’s bucket list remained unfulfilled.

  It would be a shame to start eliminating problems like these before she even left Miami, mostly because things could get messy rather quickly. But of course, she’d do whatever she had to do.

  I might even enjoy it, she thought, eyeing Pamela’s slender, tanned neck and resenting her next question even more than the previous ones.

  “Are you traveling alone, Ms. Temple?”

  “Why?” Carrie asked far more sharply than she’d intended—so sharply that the clerk seemed taken aback.

  “I was just wondering if one key is enough, or do you need two?”

  “One is fine.” She took the paper folder, thanked the clerk, and scurried away with her bags.

  Safely inside an elevator, glad there were no other passengers, she leaned back and exhaled. It wasn’t going to be easy being back in the States, particularly here in the South, where people’s friendliness bordered on nosiness, something Carrie couldn’t afford.

  Not only that, she reminded herself, but this was a far different America than the one she’d left behind just after September 11. Acutely aware that Big Brother was most likely watching her every move from the moment she set foot on the pier, she’d kept her head carefully bent away from likely spots where security cameras might be concealed, and wore her hat and large sunglasses despite the overcast day outside.

  She was tempted to spend her first hour back on American soil dining on room service pizza and surfing the Internet, but she didn’t dare do either. Instead, she deposited the luggage in the room, took everything she was going to need from that point forward, and left the hotel.

  She walked to a nearby mall, paid for a new outfit using cash, and changed into it in a ladies’ room near the food court. She kept the dark wig on, but put Molly Temple’s clothes and hat into the bag, which she deposited into the nearest trash can.

  Now it was time to find a new candidate who might fit the bill. As she walked and browsed, she kept her eye on fellow female shoppers. She found several who bore enough resemblance to herself and Molly, but they were all too careful with their possessions.

  Finally, after a couple of hours, just outside the dressing room of a crowded store, she found a woman who would do. She was so busy scolding her teenage daughter about the short skirt she’d just tried on that she wasn’t paying attention to the large purse she was carrying. In an instant, Carrie had removed her wallet and was on the escalator, heading for the mall’s exit.

  She walked to the nearest hotel, got a cab to the airport, and used the stolen license and credit card to pick up a car at a busy rental counter. She got on the road immediately, heading north.

  In Fort Lauderdale, she ditched the car and the Miami woman’s wallet.

  She stole another one in a crowded movie theater, from a woman who was too busy munching popcorn and engrossed in a thriller to notice that Carrie was reaching into the purse she’d left resting on the vacant chair between them.

  She bought a bus ticket with cash from Fort Lauderdale airport to Orlando. There were plenty of budget motels in that touristy town, and the one she chose was locally owned. The night clerk didn’t ask for an ID or register surprise when she paid for the room in cash.

  She checked out the next day—and right into another motel down the road. Orlando was so pleasantly crowded with tourists that no one gave her a second glance. That was why she’d chosen it when she knew, even before leaving Saint Antony, that she’d need a place to stop for a while. She stayed for over a week, finally allowing herself to breathe more easily and get ready for the next phase.

  Her first objective was to change her appearance as drastically as possible, as quickly as possible.

  She visited a salon and had her hair cut short and stripped of dye, telling the young stylist that she thought it was time to go natural again.

  “Gray hair will look right nice on you,” the girl drawled politely.

  It didn’t. That was fine with Carrie, who had already lost herself in decadent American fast food that made short work of packing on pounds.

  On motel televisions and public computers, she followed the unfolding search for Molly Temple, whose family back in Ohio had finally reported her missing. By all accounts, though, the authorities believed she’d met with foul
play after she’d checked into her Miami hotel.

  Her aging mother appeared at a news conference. “I just want my Molly back,” Nancy Temple sobbed. “Please, whoever took her—don’t harm her.”

  Too late for that, Mama, Carrie thought.

  She had read, online in a Caribbean newspaper, about the explosion at the Blue Iguana. Jane Deere was, as she expected, listed among the casualties. So was the name of the bar’s owner. Apparently, Jimmy Bolt had had the misfortune of paying one of his unannounced visits at precisely the wrong moment. All the better, as far as Carrie was concerned. The notoriously laid-back island detectives—who so often looked the other way when it came to Jimmy’s dealings—would undoubtedly have assumed that one of his many enemies had gotten to him at last. Case closed.

  The most important research Carrie conducted in Orlando was in preparation for her return to New York. High-speed wifi was a marvelous thing, she discovered—and readily capable of being “borrowed” from unsuspecting network owners with the help of some off-the-shelf software Carrie installed on her own laptop.

  The Internet was chock full of personal information in this day and age. That made it much easier than she’d anticipated to find out everything she needed to know about modern life in the city she’d left behind—and about Mack and Allison and their children.

  Newly aware that passenger scrutiny was more intense than ever at public transportation agencies in post-9/11 America, and that hitchhiking had becoming increasingly rare and might garner her unwanted attention, Carrie opted to work her way north using the bus system. She did so painstakingly, using cash to buy tickets on local bus routes, zigzagging her way up the East Coast. At the end of every day, she’d stop and stay put for a night or two, preparing for the next leg.

  Rushing the travel would have been reckless, and she couldn’t afford that. It took weeks, but that was okay. She used her downtime in motels to research the best way to obtain the permanent new identity she was going to need when she got to New York. Homeland security might have come a long way since she’d become Carrie Robinson, but so had the underworld. It wouldn’t be all that difficult or time-consuming to become someone new. Just a lot more expensive. That was okay, though. She had plenty of money.

  A few days ago, she finally reached New Jersey, within commuting distance to New York. From there, it was easy to buy a PATH ticket from a machine—no ID required—and get lost in the crowd headed to Manhattan.

  Her only regret was that she came into the city via an underground tunnel, without a view of the skyline she hadn’t seen since it was smoke-shrouded on that fateful last day. That shouldn’t have mattered, but for some reason, it did. The media evidence she’d followed so avidly from afar suddenly wasn’t enough. Now that she was back she felt compelled to witness the new reality with her own eyes, longed to see for herself that the towers were really gone.

  But the PATH she caught on Thursday morning took her to Penn Station, and it was raining. There was no view, from midtown, of lower Manhattan. The sight would have to wait.

  She spent that rainy night and the next in a seedy hotel off Queens Boulevard, going through the final stages of her homework and covering her tracks one last time. She had to shed every bit of incriminating evidence she’d accumulated and prepare herself for this last leg of the journey, which couldn’t begin until today, a Saturday.

  On a weeknight, she knew, an early evening train to the northern suburbs would be crowded with commuters. Even if she had boarded early to ensure that there would be room for her, let alone the bag she didn’t dare let out of her possession, there was still a much bigger risk that a fellow passenger would notice her.

  She wasn’t necessarily afraid of being recognized by someone she’d once known. When she’d lived in New York over a decade ago, her acquaintances were largely limited to her coworkers in the north tower, a few of whom did live in Northern Westchester at the time. But of course they’re not living at all now.

  Anyway, anyone who’d known her then—including Mack himself—would scarcely recognize her. She’s older, yes, but more importantly, she’s deliberately plainer, grayer, heavier. Even when she looks at her own reflection—something she so rarely bothered to do when she was living on Saint Antony—she’s caught off guard by the frumpy stranger in the mirror.

  Now, searching for evidence of the woman she once was, she imagines that she might find her if she could take a chisel and chip away at the fleshy, weathered face staring back at her. Only in her blue eyes can she clearly spot her old self—but she avoids looking into them, because whenever she does, she sees her father as well as herself.

  Today her eyes are hidden behind sunglasses, to mask herself not from fellow passengers who might recognize her, but from those who might glance in her direction now and be able to identify her later.

  That was the main reason she waited until Saturday to take the train. Relying not just on her research, but on her memory, she knows that for commuters, the weekdays are all about routine. Even those who ride the crowded PATH or subway lines follow certain patterns, and often see the same faces every day, but there are countless new ones, making it easy for Carrie to lose herself in the crowd.

  Metro-North railroad to the wealthy northern suburbs is far more intimate, though. The same commuters ride the same trains every day, often in the same cars, the same seats, even—with the same people.

  On a weekday, a fellow passenger glancing up from her newspaper or opening his eyes from a nap might idly take notice of a newcomer carrying anything more than a briefcase. On weekends, these trains are not only far less crowded, but chances are higher that riders are largely strangers to one another and the conductors, far less in tune with patterns and aberrations.

  Carrie’s meticulous planning paid off, as always. She boarded early and got a double seat all to herself, pleased when no one filled the three-seater opposite her or even the row behind. The sun has yet to set, and even the suburbanites who spent the day in the city seem to have chosen to linger there. The car, just half full when they left Grand Central, has systematically emptied, discharging a passenger or two at each northbound stop until only a handful are now left.

  There’s a mechanical ding as the train pulls into the station, and a robotic voice announces, “Glenhaven Park.”

  Carrie is the only one to disembark here.

  This is it, she thinks as the doors close. I made it.

  The train rattles off to the north, leaving her alone on the platform. Giddy with anticipation, she carries her bags to the stairs that lead to the overpass that crosses the tracks. It, too, is empty, as is the stairwell that takes her back down the other side to Glenhaven Avenue, the main thoroughfare in this bucolic bedroom community Mack and Allison now call home.

  Having studied the town’s layout on Google Earth, Carrie memorized not just the names of streets, but the way they’re laid out. Here in the business district, she knows, they run perpendicular to each other. Always one to appreciate an orderly grid system, she knows that turning left on Glenhaven Avenue will take her to Church Street, where she’ll turn right, walk a few more blocks, and go left on Elm, right on Abernathy. In about twenty minutes, she’ll find herself on Orchard Terrace, where the MacKennas now live. If she walks slowly, it should be suitably dark by the time she gets there.

  But she finds herself instinctively picking up her pace just minutes into her trip. Lined with charming nineteenth-century storefronts that house boutiques and upscale restaurants, Glenhaven Avenue is surprisingly busy as dusk slowly falls on this, the longest Saturday of the year.

  Nearly every one of the diagonal parking spots is occupied—most, it seems, by Mercedes and Lexus SUVs. Clean-cut teenagers in two-hundred-dollar sneakers loiter in the old-fashioned gazebo just beyond the train station. A sidewalk café is crowded with patrons, and more waiting for tables on benches near the door. Families congregate with ice cream cones on the steps and low wall beside a shop called the Sweet Tooth, exchanging greet
ings with one another and with passersby.

  This is a small town, yes, but far more transient than the Midwestern ones she once knew. Here, newcomers are greeted with indifference at best. For all these people know, Carrie just moved with her family into one of the gabled houses on the residential streets branching out from the train station.

  Still, there are far too many people out and about for comfort. Carrie’s heart beats quickly as she makes her way past them, doing her best to appear as though she’s on a leisurely stroll back from the train, having walked this route many times in the past.

  At last, she rounds the corner onto Orchard, a quiet, leafy block lined with two- and three-story homes. The MacKennas’ center hall Colonial, white with dark green shutters, lies about halfway down. Carrie recognizes it instantly, thanks to the real estate listing she’d found still available online though it’s been six or seven years since Mack and Allison moved in.

  The ad included exterior shots of the house, with its tall shrub border and mature trees whose trunks are entwined with English ivy that also covers the trellis arching over the brick front walk and the black wrought-iron lamppost.

  As an added bonus, there were interior shots as well, depicting formal living and dining rooms, a glass sunroom, half bath, large expanded kitchen, and an entrance hall with a stairway leading up to the second floor, where there are three bedrooms, a small study, another bath, and a master suite.

  Only the floor plan was missing, but it was fairly easy to figure out using the photographs.

  As much as she longs to stop and stare, Carrie forces herself to keep walking past the house. With its large homes set well apart from each other and back from the street, screened by lush shrubs and old trees, the neighborhood feels deserted—but she reminds herself that it most definitely is not.

  People are most definitely lurking nearby. Mingling with the chatter of crickets and the whisper of lawn sprinklers, she can hear a basketball thumping on a driveway and children splashing in a pool in a nearby yard. The air is thick with barbecue smoke—the unmistakable aroma of grilling steaks makes her mouth water—and lights shine brightly, indoor and out, at every house, including the MacKennas’.