The Courage Tree - Diane Chamberlain [36]
After finally forcing herself to reshelve the scrapbooks, she began rummaging through the cardboard boxes stacked on the other side of the room. She found the brochures of West Virginia and the Sweetwater Spa in one of the boxes marked Travel on the side. She and Max had visited the spa several years ago, selecting it because of Max’s old family roots in that state. People had stared at them while they were there, of course, and cameras had flashed, but for the most part, they were left alone.
She and Max had taken a break from the spa activities one afternoon to visit some of Max’s elderly relatives, and while driving back to the spa, they became extremely lost. Intentionally lost, laughing with abandon at the sudden freedom they felt as they wandered, unconcerned, away from everyone and everything, down the deserted country roads that twisted through green mountains on the outskirts of the George Washington National Forest. The only signs that anyone had ever been in those parts were the occasional little cabins, abandoned, boarded up or simply left to rot. She had thought then how someone might hide out in one of those cabins. A fugitive could probably stay there for years, undetected. She’d spoken this aloud, and Max had asked her how the fugitive would eat. He would have to know in advance what he was going to do, she’d said, and before going on the run, he would have to bring supplies to the cabin. Her imagination had been on fire, thinking about it. He could bring everything he would need ahead of time so that he could sustain himself there for long periods. And he could learn to eat squirrel or rabbit. He could fish in a stream.
“What about electricity?” Max had asked her.
“Candles,” she’d replied. “Lanterns.” He would bring a lot of books to read for entertainment. He’d need to find a cabin with a fireplace for warmth.
Max had commented that she sounded almost wistful, and she supposed she had. Their life had grown too complicated. There were the two houses to take care of, in Malibu and Montana. There was too much money to oversee. Too much of everything in their lives, she’d said, and he’d looked at her with some concern. She’d reassured him she was very happy and grateful for all they had, and turned away from the thick forest and its abandoned homes. Never would she have guessed that she would one day be the fugitive in her imagination.
She was better at living a life on the run than she ever would have guessed. She’d become a real master at hiding cars, for instance. It was remarkably easy. There was a lot of empty space in this country, and if you were willing to walk a bit after leaving your car, you were home free. Before her putative suicide, she’d rented a car at one of those “junkerforrent” places. After performing radical surgery on her hair and covering it with a wig, she’d donned large sunglasses and disguised her voice for the visit to the rental counter. She produced one of the several fake driver’s licenses she’d been able to get through a shady site on the Internet for a grand total of two thousand dollars. The clerk had still looked at her suspiciously, making her heart beat so hard she was afraid it might be visible beneath the tight, trampy-looking jersey she was wearing. But he’d handed her the keys to the car, and she was on her way.
First, she’d hidden her own car deep in the mountains east of Los Angeles, taking the plates off. With the well-paid help of the guy who’d supplied her driver’s licenses, she’d transferred the plates to the rental car, which she ditched in the Texas panhandle after picking up another one. Two more cars had brought her to West Virginia, and she’d left the last rental in a glade that seemed to be a car dumping ground. There were four or five cars there already, none of them as new and shiny as the rental car, but she figured it wouldn’t take long for it to look as though it belonged there. Then, she’d spent a couple of hours in an old, deserted barn, preparing it for Marti’s eventual arrival in accordance with their