It Happened One Christmas. Ann Lethbridge
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voice recited an address. It was in Denver. Good, not too far. She could get there easily by tonight. It was only thirty miles away. Thirty miles, but a gulf so wide she could never leap back across it.
“Memorize the address.”
“Yes, no paper trail.”
“Will you be all right? Get as much cash as you can. A credit card can be traced. Do you have a car?”
“Yes.”
“All right, good. But be warned that an APB could be put out on your car, on your license plate number. Also—” the voice hesitated “—if you leave the state with your son, if your action is declared a kidnapping, be aware that the FBI will be called in.”
“Oh, my God.”
“Weigh the consequences. We’ve had success, but we’ve had a few failures, too.”
“Yes, yes, I see.” Her voice quavered.
“Anything else you need to know?”
“I don’t think so. Oh, wait, is there a…a charge for your help?”
“No. If you’re able to leave some money at your stops, feel free to do so.”
She hung up, trembling, staring at the address she’d written down.
“Mommy, what are we going to have for dinner?” came Charley’s voice.
“Dinner, well…” She tried to sound lighthearted. “Charley, sweetie, I have to go out to run some errands, so let’s go to McDonald’s. How about that?”
“Cool, McDonald’s. Can I get the Kiddie Meal?”
“Sure, anything you want.” She was distracted, her brain going at full speed, planning, figuring.
Cash. After McDonald’s she’d go to the ATM at her bank, take out as much as she could. Gas her car with her credit card—no one could trace that any farther than Boulder. She had four days before the alarm would go out. Four precious days.
Ask Stacey next door to feed the cats. Buy cat food. How long would she be gone? Days, months, years? Her career, her life, her friends, her uncomplicated, comfortable existence—all gone. She’d be a fugitive.
Pack. Clothes, toiletries. Charley’s favorite toys. Some groceries to take in the car. A pillow and blankets for Charley.
The car. A gray Volvo station wagon, nondescript except for her license plates. But she had four days before she had to worry about that. Maybe she’d sell her car or rent one. No, no, she couldn’t rent one; that always required a credit card.
She stopped and drew in a breath, needing to calm herself. Then she moved around the house, getting suitcases, trying to think. It was too hard. Images kept flying at her out of the blue—her friends’ faces, the lecture hall full of her students, the women at the day care where Charley went to preschool. The courtroom again, Kerry Pope’s big triumphant smile when the judge had ruled. Charley, Charley in his crib, Charley in his new bed, all his toys, her cats, the basement stacked high with file boxes from her classes.
Her whole life was here.
Somehow she managed to pack, even remembering coats in the event they were still on the run when fall arrived. Towels, one set of sheets—just in case—pillow, blanket, toy cars and plastic dinosaurs and Charley’s favorite books.
“Charley, let’s go,” she called out.
At McDonald’s, Charley got ketchup all over his T-shirt. She could hardly eat—a chicken nugget or two, a Coke. Her heart raced and her hands trembled.
The pickles slid out of Charley’s burger onto his lap. He looked up at her guiltily, but she didn’t care, just wiped the mess up with a handful of napkins.
“Charley,” she said, “guess what?”
“What?”
“We’re going on an adventure tonight. A trip.”
“A trip. Where, Mommy?”
“Oh, nowhere special, we’ll just visit friends for a while. We’ll drive wherever we feel like it.”
Ketchup smeared on his face, dribbled down his shirt. Her beloved baby. She had held and rocked him, sat up with him when he had colic, gone through the ear infections and ampicillin routine. Read stories to him and taken him to Bambi and Lion King and Snow White. She was his mother, she thought fiercely.
By six o’clock that summer evening her car was packed, Stacey given her key and shown the twenty-pound bag of Cat Chow.
“And could you collect my mail? I’ll get it from you in a little while. Maybe you can send it. I’ll call.”
“God. You’re sure in a hurry,” Stacey said.
“Uh, yes, my dad is sick. My mother called. An emergency.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I hope he gets well soon.”
“Yes, we all do. Thanks, Stacey.”
She took one last look around her side of the duplex. Her home. The only home Charley had known. But she had to be strong and leave it behind. For her son.
“Come on, sweetie,” she said, and they went out the front door together. Grace let it lock behind her, walked down the path to her car, put Charley in the back seat and fastened his seat belt.
She drove away, down the familiar tree-shaded street, past her neighbors’ houses, past the large red-roofed, sandstone buildings of the University of Colorado, out to the Boulder Turnpike and south to Denver. Behind her was her whole life. If only she could see ahead.
CHAPTER TWO
GRACE NAVIGATED through Denver’s tidy Bonnie Brae neighborhood, craning her neck to read the street signs. Part of her was calmly aware of how mundane everything seemed in the quiet, middle-class area. Another part of her quivered with nerves in the warm summer evening as the shadows of the trees and houses reached darkly toward her. A dog raced out of the growing dimness and barked, chasing her tires.
“Mommy,” Charley said from the back seat, “that’s a bad dog. He’s going to get in my window. Mommy!”
Grace studied the house numbers. This couldn’t be the street. It was too…ordinary. In her distress, she must have written down the wrong address.
She shook herself mentally. What did she know about a safe house? She realized she’d been envisioning some foreboding, secret structure set back in trees, all shuttered up, no lights and windows. But she supposed the house could be any sort, even a mansion, for goodness’ sakes.
“Mommy, the dog’s jumping at my window!”
“Oh, honey, he can’t get in the car. There. See? He’s leaving, going home to his yard.”
“I don’t like him.”
“Well, he was probably just curious,” she said, on motherly autopilot.
She slowed the car to a crawl, squinting at the house numbers. There it was, the house near the corner of Adams and Mississippi. Could this place, this innocuous, square brick home, really be part of the underground railroad?
“Are we there, Mommy? Are we there?”
“Yes, ah, yes, sweetie, it looks like we’re here.”
Grace parked at the curb, as there was already a car in the narrow drive. She got out, noticed the weak watery feeling in her knees and took a breath. What if this wasn’t the place? What if…?
But she wouldn’t think about that now. She’d memorized the telephone number. If this really were the wrong address, she’d call the number again. No big deal.
No big deal? her brain cried. But Charley was undoing his seat