Woman On the Run

WOMAN ON THE RUN

Lisa Marie Rice

Prologue

September 30th

Boston

“Your new name is Sally Anderson,” the U.S. Marshal said.

“That’s ridiculous,” Julia Devaux snapped testily. “Do I look like a Sally?”

“Well, to be perfectly truthful…” The Marshal looked her up and down with compassion. “What you look like right now is a mess.”

“Thanks a lot.” Julia pulled the smelly, worn hotel blanket closer around her shoulders, sure that generations of traveling salesmen had jerked off on it. But it was warm. For three days now, she’d felt chilled to the bone. Of course, for three days now someone had been trying to kill her, which would be enough to chill anyone.

The man sat down next to her on the dingy hotel bed in the dingy hotel room and took her hand. As
U.S.
Marshals went, Herbert Davis was no Gary Cooper. Not much taller than she was, he looked more like a CPA than a U.S. Marshal.

Had Julia worked for Central Casting, she would have chosen someone else to play the role of a U.S. Marshal. Had anyone asked Julia, she would have said that Herbert Davis simply didn’t have
le physique du
role. Marshals were supposed to be tall, athletic, steely eyed, a six-shooter strapped to lean hips. Not short, roundish and nearsighted, with a cellular phone in the holster. But no one had asked her opinion and she had to go with what she had.

“Listen, Sally—”

“Sally?”

“From now on, you are Sally Anderson.” Herbert Davis pulled some papers from his rumpled suit jacket. “Your full name is Sally May Anderson. You were born on
August 19th, 1977
, in
Bend
,
Oregon
, to Bob and Laverne Anderson, bookkeeper and homemaker. You have lived your entire life in the
Pacific Northwest
and have never been abroad, not even to
Canada
. You graduated from the local teacher’s college in 1999 and have been teaching school and living at home in
Bend
ever since. You wanted to get away from your parents, so you have just accepted a job in
Simpson
,
Idaho
as a second-grade teacher.”

A grade school teacher?
Ewww.

“No way,” Julia said firmly, standing. The tiny mud-colored carpet with coffee stains and cigarette burns was too small to pace so she quivered instead.

“This isn’t going to work. I’ve never been to
Oregon
and I’ve never been to
Idaho
. I’ve never been further west than
Chicago
, actually. I couldn’t possibly pretend to be a grade school teacher. I’m an only child. I’ve never been around kids, I’m not interested in kids, I don’t know anything about them. I’m an editor—a good one—not a teacher. My father and my mother are both dead. They were definitely not a…a Bob and Laverne. I was born abroad and have never in my life been without a passport. And I am definitely not…a…Sally. And most certainly not a Sally May.” She stopped to drum her fingers on the cracked plastic shelf holding the few personal effects Davis had picked up for her in a drugstore, then dropped back onto the bed, hugging the scratchy blanket. “So, you see, you’ll just have to come up with something better.”

Herbert Davis listened to her rant with his head bent to one side, looking at her soberly, letting her have her say. “Well.” He rubbed his hands on his knees and pursed his lips. “I suppose all of this is not really necessary.”

Julia blinked. It wasn’t?

Davis
sighed. “I guess you could always decide not to testify against Santana and we’ll just go ahead with the evidence we’ve got. The law says we have the power to restrain you as a material witness, but we don’t often enforce it. Nobody can force you to do your duty as a citizen to put the scum of the earth away behind bars. If you really want to, you can simply walk out of this room, go home and pick up your life where it was before you saw Dominic Santana shoot Joey Capruzzo through the head last Saturday.”

Hope thrilled through her.
Yesss!!
It was all a nightmare, and now it was going to fade away. Julia started to feel warm again for the first time in three days. The sharp three day-old pain in her chest started to abate.

It hadn’t occurred to her that there might be a way out. Of course, it was her duty as a citizen to see justice done. For about two seconds, Julia weighed good citizenry against getting her life back.

It wasn’t even a contest. Her life won hands down.

She threw the reeking blanket down on the bed. “Well, if that’s the case, then I guess—”

“Of course,”
Davis
mused, picking at the lint on the blanket, “you wouldn’t last more than fifteen minutes out there. Santana’s put out a contract for you and our word from the street is that the first person to bring him your head—and I’m not being poetic here, lady, he wants your head, cut from your shoulders—gets a cool million. One million buckaroos, Sally—”

“Julia,” she whispered as she slumped back onto the lumpy bed. She could feel the blood draining from her head.

“Sally,”
Davis
said firmly. “As I was saying, the first person to bag you gets one million dollars. Cash. Lotta people out there would do a lot worse than murder and decapitation for a lot less. It’s hunting season, Sally. And you’re the game.”

She made a noise in her throat, and
Davis
nodded.

“Now.”
Davis
consulted his notebook again. “Let me tell you about yourself. You were born in
London
on
March 6th, 1977
, an only child of elderly parents. Your father was an IBM executive and you grew up all over the world, attending American schools. Your parents are both dead and you have no other living relatives. After graduating from high school, you came back to the States for college and got a degree in English at
Columbia
. You’ve been working as an editor for a prestigious publishing house in
Boston
since 2001. You earn $38,000 a year with benefits. You bought a small apartment in
Boston
with what your parents left you. You live alone in that apartment with your cat, Federico Fellini. You love films, the older the better. You love books and spend most of your free time in secondhand bookshops. Your best friend’s name is Dora. You like spicy food. You occasionally date a man named Mason Hewitt.” He looked up, face bland. “How am I batting so far?”

Julia gaped at him, wordless.

“Everything I’ve told you is a matter of public record and your neighbors and colleagues were more than happy to tell us your habits. Believe me, anyone could find out what we know. A million dollars is a great incentive. So here we’ve got a portrait of a very sophisticated and well-traveled young woman who loves cities, books and art films and has always lived on the East Coast. Now do you see why we have to put you out West in a town so small it doesn’t have a bookshop and turn you into a grade school teacher who doesn’t have a passport?”

Davis
put on his old-fashioned tweed jacket and headed for the door.

“Please,” Julia whispered. “I can’t do this.” Her voice was a shaken whisper.

Davis
regarded her somberly out of basset hound eyes. “Welcome to the food chain, Sally.” he said quietly, turned the tarnished greasy doorknob and let himself out.

* * * * *

A million dollars.

The professional stared at the computer screen. Not that many years had gone by since the professional had been an ace hacker and cracker at Stanford. The power was still there. Information was power.

Most people thought contract killers were thickheaded goons, barely smart enough to point a gun. They were wrong. It was a wonderful profession for the upwardly mobile and ambitious. You made your own hours, the money was fabulous and—above all—it was tax-free. The final act, pulling the trigger, was the easiest part. A few hours a week on a firing range took care of that.

No, finding the victim, the hunt—that was the hard part. That was what distinguished the million dollar professional from the hundred dollar thug. This John—the professional smiled—or rather this
Joan
was a perfect target. Once found, a single shot would do it.

Hell, probably a simple cyanide capsule slipped into a cup of coffee would do it. It wouldn’t be hard to coax her into a cup of coffee. Everyone agreed that Julia Devaux was a friendly soul. Likeable, hard worker, bookworm, film buff. Grew up abroad, spoke three languages, degree in English, job doing book editing, loved cats, hated dogs. Her cat’s name was Federico Fellini.

It hadn’t been hard to come up with information on her. It was amazing what people would say to a well-tailored suit flashing a ten dollar fake FBI badge.

A million dollars. A tidy sum. With the money from the other jobs already completed, it was enough to retire on in that beachfront villa in
St. Lucia
, with the Swiss francs arriving every month, steady and sure, and the IRS far, far away. Retirement at thirty, in a luxury villa in the sun. What a wonderful job.

Julia Devaux had to die.

Bit of a pity, that. Everyone spoke so highly of her. And she seemed pretty, judging from the only photograph the professional could find—a smudged print in the company newsletter. Still…a million dollars was a million dollars.

Santana’s goons would be fanning out now, beating the bushes, making fools of themselves, leaving trails even the blind could follow.

No, the professional thought, tapping steadily on the keyboard. There were other, more intelligent ways to find Julia Devaux.

Chapter One

One month later

Halloween

Simpson,
Idaho

“Hey, Sally,” a breathless voice called out. “Wait up!”

Julia Devaux kept on walking down the school corridor, then suddenly froze. Sally. She was
Sally
now. Would she ever get used to that name? She didn’t feel like a Sally, though glancing down at herself, she just possibly looked like one.

Dark brown skirt, dull brown sweater, sensible flat-heeled brown shoes. All of which matched the blah brown Herbert Davis had insisted she color her hair, covering the glossy red Julia had been so proud of. Idiotically, it was when she’d had to color her hair that her predicament had truly come home to her. She had read the instructions on the box through streaming eyes—which might explain the lifeless, light-absorbing mass on top of her head. She’d cut it herself. She looked like a female George Clooney.

Herbert Davis hadn’t let her bring any of her own clothes. She had found two suitcases full of clothes waiting for her at the airport; stodgy, dull, shapeless, and unfashionable—things she wouldn’t ordinarily have been caught dead in.

At the time she hadn’t cared. That’s why God invented shopping. She hadn’t counted on the fact that the best-stocked store in town would be Kellogg’s Hardware Emporium.