***
TRACE
Light angled through the slats of the blinds, striking
the magazine cover on Sherman McMillan’s desk. He sat unshaved and in shorts
eating his breakfast of Shiner and leftover pizza, trying to ignore the photo
of a smiling blonde woman holding an equally blonde, equally cheerful little
girl with Down syndrome. The magazine was a giveaway for parents of children
with special needs, one of those things he would never have touched, never even
noticed before Suzy was born.
He’d picked up a stack of them the day after his
confrontation with Emma.
He pulled the magazine off a pile of unopened
envelopes addressed to “occupant” and flipped the pages, looking for the
advertisement he remembered for some therapy called brain balancing. He downed
the rest of his beer and skimmed the list of disorders the therapy promised to
treat.
It didn’t mention fetal alcohol syndrome. None of them
did. They never, ever talked about fetal fucking alcohol syndrome. He clenched
his teeth, wadding the magazine into a ball. He doubted any of the smiling
women in its pages, probably guzzling pinot grigio as soon as they were
off-camera, would admit to bearing children with a disorder they were
responsible for. They’d sooner abort.
He took deep breaths through his nose like the prison
shrink had said to, until he calmed enough to spread the magazine open again.
He’d urged abortion on Emma. What choice was there
after Taliaferro dumped her, leaving her still married but pregnant with a kid
who obviously wasn’t her husband’s? And drinking in a way that alarmed even
Sherman. Sometimes after the bars closed, he’d wake to find her gone. He
installed a trace on her old beater, but she’d drive until she ran out of gas,
then abandon the car, wandering country roads, alleys, interstate right of
ways. While he searched, listening in anguish to the police monitor in his car,
dreading he might not find her. Dreading still more what he might find.
He turned back to the ad for brain balancing – free
seminar, space limited, call today! – punched in the number and opened his
laptop to scan the website until somebody picked up.
An alert flashed at the bottom of his screen – trace
active.
The tracker he’d slipped in Emma’s car? But she’d
found it. She must have. She’d seen too
many of his PI tricks -- although what else could he do to protect her? The
trace had stopped transmitting minutes after she stormed out and left him at
Schultz’s.
The trace coordinates came up on his screen. He ended
his call to the therapy center without a word. A bus station -- what the hell
was going on? Had Emma put the trace in her purse? She had to be playing a game
with him. Or Taliaferro was. If he was back.
If Taliaferro was the reason Emma wouldn’t return his messages.
He called Greyhound’s downtown Dallas number, ignoring
the automated menu, hitting zero over and over, demanding to speak to someone
at the ticket counter.
“I’m
calling from the CVS at Hillside,” he said, “trying to reach a Mrs. Emma
Taliaferro. Blonde lady, probably had a little girl with her – curly hair, kind
of reddish, freckles.” He stopped. He
was making it sound too personal.
 |
| image: pixabay |
The ticket clerk asked him to please hold. The trace
signal stayed motionless on the screen, a blip, ten seconds later another, then
another.
The clerk returned to the line. Mrs. Taliaferro, she
said, didn’t answer the page.
Was she traveling with anyone besides the little girl?
he asked. Perhaps her companion could help.
The clerk was snappish now. The lady’s ticket was for
only one adult and a child.
So Taliaferro hadn’t come to get her. There was a
chance for them. Still a chance.
Suddenly the blip on his laptop screen moved. It
pulled onto Commerce. A few seconds later it emerged with a jerk from the snarl
of downtown highway interchanges. It was on Interstate 35, heading south.
He cursed silently. She was going back to Taliaferro.
That was the only explanation. Going
back after everything, after all the promises she’d made while he was in prison
for her sake. But she’d reactivated the trace. She must want him to save her,
to save her and Suzy. Save them from herself and from Taliaferro.
Might he inquire about the lady’s destination, he
asked the ticket clerk. The line went dead.
He checked Greyhound’s schedule. The only bus leaving
Dallas at 11 a.m. for destinations south along I-35 was the 9369, one of the Autobuses
Americanos coaches, going all the way to Laredo. He pulled on jeans and a
shirt, buttoning haphazardly.
But Emma wouldn’t go to Laredo. Too dangerous on the
border now. She must be going to Austin, the next stop south, back to
Taliaferro. He shoved his feet into boots and pulled a jacket from where he had
thrown it down last night. It was a little big for him now. He’d lost weight in
Huntsville.
He’d have to reach the Austin station before the bus’s
ten-minute layover to catch her. Before Taliaferro could get his hands on her
again. On her and on Suzy.
He grabbed his briefcase, half filled with
paperwork – old cases, dead cases the licensing board wouldn’t let an ex-felon
work anymore. The briefcase
still held his shoulder holster. He stuffed
his laptop in, hesitated a second before adding the Glock his parole officer
had ordered him never to carry, and ran out the door.
***
From the bus station’s waiting room, Emma watched the
big red, white, blue and green Autobus pull out. The smiling cowboy who’d helped stow her
suitcase hadn’t left the bus since she dropped Sherman’s trace in the pocket of
his denim jacket.
With any luck, he wouldn’t find it until he got out at Laredo. But even if he
tossed it in a trash bin at his first smoke break, she’d gain enough time to
throw Sherman off her trail.
She slipped the ticket clerk another thank-you twenty
and led Suzy into the women’s restroom. The little girl protested changing her
Hello Kitty pink t-shirt for a black one, protested having her hair tucked
beneath a Texas Rangers ball cap.
“Ice cream time, sweetie,” Emma said, soothing her,
checking her own disguise in case Sherman bribed somebody for the bus station’s
security tapes. She glanced at her watch. Just enough time for ice cream before
they caught a commuter train to the car rental kiosk. Before they left Texas,
free from Sherman McMillan forever.
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