I was being chased, and I had to get away.
CHAPTER TWO
I tore back onto the main road. I slammed the gas pedal down so hard that I shot ahead faster than ever before. The world became a blur, and yet the yellow in my rear window wouldn’t disappear. I shot back onto the highway. I weaved past car after car after car, but at the end of my passing spree, the yellow car was still there in my rearview mirror, closer even. I careened off onto the first exit I saw.
If I couldn’t outdrive this person, I’d have to outrun them, hide somehow.
After I twisted down one street and then another, my rearview mirror was clear. The yellow car seemed gone, though I was not going to wait around to find out. I continued fleeing. Every time there was another turn, I took it. I needed to find a good spot to park for an extended period, but all the spots were either taken or had a meter.
Finally, I pulled into a green-roofed plaza, grabbed my purse, got out, and started running.
Sprinting away as fast as I could wasn’t exactly inconspicuous, but I didn’t have much of a choice. If I was caught, it was over. I crossed the street, passed a series of red stone buildings, and then practically fainted in front of a building when I saw the word “hotel.” My gaze moved to the word before it—“Auberge”—and I stumbled on.
My aunt and uncle had always moaned about how expensive the Auberge Hotel was, which was ironically still the only place they stayed when they came to downtown Aspen. But I couldn’t afford it, not now when I only had whatever was in my bank account, if Angelo hadn’t found a way to confiscate that yet. There was only 3,400 dollars that I knew of, and who knew how long that was going to have to last me. No, I’d find a different, cheaper, hotel.
I hurried past squat buildings that were notable only because they weren’t hotels. Finally, I caught the word “lodge” on an orange sign and froze. Molly Gibson Lodge, the white-lettered orange sign read. The building was squat with gray wooden walls, and it would do. It would have to. At this point, I didn’t care if this cost every cent I had. I’d stay here or collapse outside. I couldn’t go on any farther.
The kind, red-haired clerk behind the front desk seemed to understand just how exhausted I was, and booked me a single room on the first floor, no questions asked.
I handed over my card and held my breath. When the card terminal beeped with my Visa’s approval, I smiled as if I’d expected that all along. As soon as her manicured fingers handed me my white “Molly Gibson Lodge” key card, I was out of there. I had no time to admire the well-finished wooden lobby with its nice tan leather seats. All I had time to do was stumble down the hallway to my room.
The room itself was just as beautiful as I’d expected it to be: shiny wooden floors, matching brownish-gray stones, a fireplace with what looked like real wood, and, most important of all, a white paradise of a bed. I collapsed on it and disappeared into its white, fluffy depths.
CHAPTER THREE
I woke up back in the factory.
My husband was kneeling over a crumpled-up man. Dressed head to toe in black, wearing the face of a stranger, there he was: my husband, Angelo. He was holding a big black gun.
“This is a message from Gabriel,” he said.
The gun’s blast into the man’s body was the period to his sentence. I gasped, and my husband whirled around. Our eyes met in understanding, and he lunged for me. I ran. Past twists of old machines, all reflecting back my horrified face. Past leaning towers of chairs, hunched over like resigned giants. Every look I threw over my shoulder showed no Angelo.
After what seemed like forever, I finally made it to the parking lot outside, to my car. I threw myself inside, locked the door, and there he was. Gun still in hand, he yanked on the handle. I slammed my foot on the gas and tore back and away.
He ran after me, his mouth moving with words that weren’t his. That man was no longer my husband. Maybe he never had been.
I woke up into white, painful reality. My body was throbbing with hunger, my mind with memories.
I moaned quietly. How did it get to this, from marrying my college sweetheart to passed out on a hotel bed in Aspen with my clothes on? As the answer began bubbling in my chest, I rose. I could moan about my bad luck later. First, I had to eat.
When I got up and looked in the mirror, I almost smiled. Sure, my hair was twisted into chocolaty bed head, but I was otherwise good to go. I hadn’t even taken off my shoes.
As I made my way downstairs, my stomach growled in a way that indicated the tiny free hotel breakfast wouldn’t cut it. I’d have to go to one of the food places I had passed on the way, maybe that deli with the sandwich on its sign, Great Deli or something.