I close the letter back and slide it into the envelope, addressed to him, care of Lily. She seems to think he will wake up once the swelling on the brain goes down. I’m glad she has hope in her heart, I’m glad that he has someone like her in his life. I like to think that, if Summer had grown up, she’d be like Lily. She’d have been the one waiting in my hospital room, eating my chips.

I stand and look around the sea of boxes. It is funny that boxes are what brought Jeremy into my life and now, with my largest delivery, a stranger will take my life away. Everything that once sat in this apartment is now in cardboard. It took nineteen hours. In some ways, that seems long. In retrospect, it should take longer to pack up a life. Now the boxes are in three piles. One is for Goodwill. They are scheduled to pick up my furniture and donations tomorrow at ten a.m. I will not be here but the super will let them in. The second pile is for FedEx. I couldn’t bear the thought of another man in brown picking up my packages. FedEx will deliver those boxes to my storage unit back home, where I’ve arranged for them to join all of the pieces of my childhood, boxes with my webcams and sex toys slid next to photo albums and Summer’s art projects. Maybe one day I’ll return and go through the unit, maybe I won’t. The final stack, a small cluster by the window, is trash. The super will cart it downstairs and throw it away. His wife will clean the place and prepare it for the next tenant. I hope the new resident treats it well. I hope they understand and appreciate its beauty, its sanctuary. I will miss this space, these walls. If I didn’t have so much to run from, I’d stay here forever. I was happy here. Through the screams and the breaks and the crazy, there were whispers in time when I was happy. Times when I laughed. Times when I smiled and meant it.

There is a knock and I run a last, slow hand over the top of my boxes, then step to the door. When I open it, it isn’t FedEx, and I blink in surprise and angle the door to block any view inside.

“I’m sorry to bother you.”

“It’s fine.” I scratch an itchy spot on my neck. “Is everything okay? My attorney said my hearing isn’t until next week.”

Detective Brenda Boles waves her hand dismissively. “Everything’s fine. I just saw these come through and wanted to return them to you.” She holds out a plastic bag and my eyes drop to the contents.

“Oh. Thanks.” I grab the bag with the meager items from my intake. Eighteen dollars, the lotto ticket, and my watch. Yippee.

“You have to sign this.” She holds out a clipboard, a form attached to the front. “It’s a receipt.”

I sign my name Deanna Madden and pass it back. Whitney McTucket. That is my new signature.

“And here.” She reaches in her blazer pocket and pulls out something small, holding it out to me. “It’s the key to your car,” she says unnecessarily. “We never impounded it, but Evidence had the key from the day of the warrant search.”

“Oh.” FtypeBaby. In all of this packing, all of this preparation, I’d forgotten all about her. My beautiful wild child. My getaway girl. I lift my chin and smile at Brenda. “Thank you.” She drops the keys into my palm and I close my hand around them.

“I’ll be at your hearing. I’ll see you then.” It’s a threat, though I don’t know if she intends it to be. I smile politely.

“Thank you. You didn’t have to personally come by. I appreciate it.”

“I was so sure that you were guilty.” She shakes her head and laughs a little. “I’m not wrong very often.”

I say nothing and she steps back. Turns a step later and faces me. “That night you jumped out the window… I have enough just from what we saw to charge you with something. We don’t have to have Simon and Chelsea file assault charges to arrest you.”

I shrug. “You have a job to do. I understand that.” But I won’t be here if you come back.

I watch her walk down the hall, then I step backward into my apartment and shut the door. Drop the bag and the keys onto the floor and press my forehead against the door. Freedom. It is almost here.

I hear the familiar wheeze of a delivery truck outside, a sound that has so often brought me joy, and I blink back tears. I stay in place, the cool metal of the door comforting, and let the tears drip free. When the knock sounds, I step back and wipe my face. Open the door and smile at the two men who stand there, nodding my way through their introductions. When they mention the pickup, I step to the side and swing open the door.

“Come on in. You have a cart?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Great. It’s the stack in the kitchen.” I take the package the first man offers and scrawl my signature across his pad. I carry the thin parcel to the kitchen and rip the top of it open, shaking out its contents. A passport, birth certificate, and social security card. I open the passport and see my face, a gold credit card tucked in between its pages.

My name is Whitney McTucket. My birthday is February 16, 1989. My parents are two names I will memorize later. My passport photo is a good one, and it looks like I’ve already been to four countries.

“Ms. Madden?”

“Yes?” I glance up and set down the passport.

“We loaded up everything in that stack. Is there more?”

Loaded up everything? I thought it would take three trips, maybe four. But the two of them have stacked the boxes in neat order on their cart and there are fewer than I remember, only ten or eleven boxes, all of my life that’s worth keeping and 80 percent of it is sexual. I glance at the other two piles and shake my head. “No, that’s it.”

“Here’s a receipt for the pickup.” The shorter of the two steps forward and passes me a thin slip of paper.

“Thank you.”

“Have a nice day.”

Ha. I smile, they smile, and then they leave. I look at my suitcases, two of them, next to the door. Nothing to do now but leave.

CHAPTER 92

Two Weeks Later

CAN I SEE your ticket?”

I straighten and dig in my pocket, pulling out the yellow square and handing it to the man.

“She yours?” the man asks, tilting his head toward FtypeBaby.

“Yep.” I kick a tennis shoe up on the railing of the barge and lower my sunglasses. I could suffocate him with enough of those tickets. Stuff them down his throat like pushing batting into a pillow.

“She’s a beaut. You’ll certainly turn heads on the island.”

I force a smile and hold my hand out for the ticket. He passes it back. “When we land just get in and idle. The attendant’ll wave you forward. Welcome to the Cayman Islands, Ms. McTucket.”

McTucket. A horrible last name. “Thanks.” I stuff the ticket back into my pocket and close my eyes, resting against her side, the ocean breeze bringing the scent of salt with it. Two weeks of freedom down. I took the scenic route, driving south through Texas, then across the border into Mexico, spending a night here or there as I skipped across the country, my foot heavy on FtypeBaby’s gas, the top down, music up. Mike was my guardian angel, watching Tulsa PD for any sign of alarm, but they didn’t realize I’d left till the hearing and I was already in Mexico by then. As Brenda said in an e-mail to her boss, I turned myself in for an attempted murder I didn’t commit. Who’d have thought I would run from a misdemeanor? I bought a gun in Monterrey, and a knife in Tampico, both only for protection. And now, my baby’s first boat trip, one that would take us to our final destination and to the rest of my funds: two and a half million dollars, transferred from Deanna Madden’s accounts and now in Whitney McTucket’s possession. It’s enough for a small house on the beach and a new life.