Save Me - Lisa Scottoline [126]
She zoomed around the curve, but the white VW was slowing even more, below the speed limit. The state cops had pulled somebody over on the right shoulder, and a police cruiser sat idling behind a blue van, its bar lights flashing red, white, and blue. Traffic slowed as it passed the scene, on temporary good behavior or gawking. The VW slowed to a crawl.
“Come on!” Rose slammed her palm on the wheel. She glanced over at the shoulder, then looked again. The driver of the stopped van looked like Eileen.
Rose switched into the slow lane, double-checking. A woman driver. Short blond hair. It was Eileen, and she was driving the same car she’d showed up in at the hospital, that awful night.
Well, are you happy now?
Rose passed Eileen and the state police car, her thoughts racing. What if the cop hadn’t stopped Eileen for speeding? What if they’d found out that Eileen was on her way to the Harvest Conference? Would they alert someone at the plant? Homestead security? Mojo, too?
Rose’s gut churned as the traffic picked up speed. She wasn’t following Eileen anymore, she was leading her, and it put her in a better position. She steered off the exit and down the ramp, then took a left onto Allen Road, keeping an eye on the rearview for Eileen’s blue van.
She sped up. She had to get to Homestead before Eileen, and now she had a fighting chance. There was no traffic, and Reesburgh was dark and empty, the town gone to sleep. She sped past the CVS, the line of box stores, and finally the elementary school, where it had all begun.
And now, finally, it would end.
Tonight.
Chapter Seventy-three
WELCOME TO HOMESTEAD SNACK FOODS, read the sign, and Rose saw it with new eyes. The campus was quiet without the hubbub of school groups and visitors, but the streetlamps and the windows in the corporate offices blazed with light, like a plastic town in a model train set-up. Bright, false, and lifeless.
She cruised down the access road, passing the exits signed for VISITORS, BUSES, and MAIN PLANT. The main plant had no windows to show the lights inside, but she could hear the faint noise of the production machinery. Clouds of steam spewed from the smokestacks, hissing when they hit the cool night air. The employee parking lot was only partly full, and Rose remembered from the tour that a third of the employees worked the night shift.
She kept an eye out for Eileen’s van but it wasn’t anywhere in sight. She hadn’t seen it in the rearview mirror on the way over, but she hadn’t gone slow enough to let Eileen catch up with her. She had a different plan in mind.
She took a left at the Conference Center sign, peeling off onto a long road that wound through the trees and fed into its large parking lot, almost full to capacity. Lamps illuminated the lot at regular intervals, casting cool light on the still cars. She parked at the back near the entrance, as far away from a lamp as possible, then cut the ignition, scanning the scene.
The lot was quiet, because everybody was already at the huge party at the Conference Center. The building had floor-to-ceiling glass windows, and inside, hundreds of dressed-up couples danced on the wooden floor or ate at round banquet tables, lit with candles. A large band played, and the thumpa-thumpa of bad seventies rock carried on the night air, then the horn section segued into some sort of fanfare. Men in tuxes ascended a decorated dais, presumably the Homestead CEO and other corporate officers. The last tuxedoed man in line was Senator Martin, who climbed the steps waving his hands, and the crowd broke into applause loud enough to be heard in the parking lot.
Rose checked the building entrance, on the side of the building facing the corporate offices. Smokers stood outside the main doors, the red tips of their cigarettes glowing, and two security guards were talking, visible only because of their bright white shirts and caps. Parked off to the side was a white sedan that read PLANT SECURITY,