The Attraction, page 9
Lisa studied her a moment; then she said, “I liked riding in the taxi. It had a radio inside that you could talk on, like a police car.”
“Well, there won’t be any more taxi rides for a while. Also, I’m afraid that we’re going to have to eat all our meals at home. No more stopping for hamburgers and ice cream until I get another job. Okay?”
“Okay,” the child said, but the perplexed expression on her face indicated that she didn’t really comprehend the connection between her mother’s job and stopping for fast food.
Because the insurance-company paychecks were for the period ending two weeks before they were issued, Cassandra’s final check was larger than usual, which would help. Also, there was the money in her savings account, her half of the proceeds from the sale of the house in which she and John had lived. It was reserved for Lisa’s education, but in an emergency she could withdraw some of it, redepositing the money when she was working again. Although she was out of work, her situation wasn’t desperate. She had time to find another job.
She recalled the plan she’d come up with earlier, before Nan the Nazi had informed her that she wasn’t working there anymore. A picnic wouldn’t be very expensive. A little gasoline, some sandwiches and potato chips and the like. And Lisa would love it.
Cassandra was on the verge of suggesting this to her daughter when she recalled what Detective Hoskins had told her. “I think you should be very careful.” Going on a picnic wasn’t being very careful. Out in the country somewhere, she and Lisa would be alone, vulnerable, with no one around to help. And if Clark followed them …
Cassandra walked to the window and peeked out. Dusk was giving way to night. Although the streetlights provided pockets of illumination, the areas between them were filled with shadows. Was Clark somewhere out there in the darkness, watching, waiting? Releasing the curtain, she shivered.
“Is there something outside?” Lisa asked, watching her mother from the couch.
“No,” Cassandra replied. “There’s nothing there.”
And she hoped it was true.
8
“This looks good,” the woman at the employment agency said as she studied Cassandra’s application. She was blonde, about forty, heavyset.
“Do you think you’ll be able to find me something?” Cassandra asked. They were sitting in a small modern office with upholstered furniture that matched the brown carpet.
“I don’t have anything at the moment, but suitable openings come in regularly. You won’t be hard to place.”
“How long do you think it might take?”
“I should have a couple of prospects for you by the end of the week. And even if the first few job interviews don’t pan out for you, everything clerical or secretarial is done with word processors or VDTs these days. You’ve got experience with this equipment, and you’re neat, attractive, personable, intelligent. Really, there shouldn’t be any problem.” She smiled.
When she left the employment agency a few minutes later, Cassandra felt fairly confident that she would find another job without too much hassle. Maybe it’ll work out for the best, she thought. Maybe I’ll make more money. Maybe I’ll have a better boss.
The employment agency was located in a small building across the street from a shopping center. As she walked toward her car, which was parked in a corner of the paved lot, Cassandra realized how summerlike the weather was becoming. The day was warm and sunny, almost hot. Muggy days and mosquitoes were only a few weeks away.
Although there had been no sign of Clark, neither she nor Lisa had left the apartment over the weekend. It was Monday, and Lisa was back in school; Cassandra had begun her hunt for another job. Despite everything that had happened, her life could easily fall back into its normal routine, with everything just about as it had been. If only Clark would leave them alone.
As she climbed into her car, Cassandra realized that there truly was a way she could get her life back to normal. She would be getting a new job, one Clark wouldn’t know anything about. If she moved to a new apartment, enrolled Lisa in a different school, he wouldn’t know where to find her. He’d have nowhere to look.
“I’d be free of him,” she said aloud. “Free of him forever.”
She sat in her car without starting the engine, just considering the possibility. The more she thought about the idea, the more enthusiastic she became. I can get him out of my life, she thought. I can really do it.
Unless he followed her from the old apartment to the new one.
No, she thought, it doesn’t have to work that way. There had to be some means of doing it so that he wouldn’t know what was happening. Then she pushed this problem aside. It could be dealt with later.
Quickly, she started the engine and drove across the street to the shopping center. There had to be a drugstore here that sold newspapers, and she wanted to check the classified ads for help wanted—and apartments for rent.
“It’s about four miles from here,” Cassandra said. “The place is a little bit bigger for the same money.” She was sitting with Grace on the couch in the Konecznys’ apartment. Steve sat a few feet away in a recliner. Lisa and their ten-year-old daughter, Nicole, were entertaining each other in a bedroom.
“We’d hate to lose you as our neighbor,” Grace said. “But I can certainly understand why you’d want to move.”
“I can’t believe this woman you worked for actually fired you,” Steve said. “On any job I’ve ever had, we’d have just pitched this Clark guy out on his ass. We sure as hell wouldn’t fire anybody.”
Clearly, Steve, who’d never worked at anything other than construction, had no concept of what the white-collar world was like, but Cassandra decided not to attempt to explain it to him. The Konecznys’ apartment was laid out like hers, but it contained more furniture, more knickknacks, more pictures on the wall. Cassandra liked to keep her environment simple and uncluttered; Grace liked to be surrounded by objects.
“I haven’t said I’d take the place yet,” Cassandra said. “I wanted to talk to you first. This whole thing will be for nothing if Clark is able to follow me when I move. Do you have any ideas how I can do it so that he can’t follow me?”
“Gee, I don’t know,” Grace said.
“There is no way you can prevent him from following you,” Steve said. “Your stuff would have to go by truck. A fully loaded truck sure as hell can’t outrun anybody, and it’s easy to keep track of.”
“You mean …” Cassandra let her words trail off. The hope that she’d been nurturing was suddenly fading.
“The idea,” Steve said, “is to fool him.”
“What do you mean?” Cassandra asked.
“We’ve got to make him think the stuff coming out of the building belongs to someone else.”
“But he’s been in Cassandra’s apartment,” Grace said. “He knows what her stuff looks like. He’ll recognize it.”
“Not if we covered it and some of our furniture was moved out with it. Cassandra could stay out of sight. He’d have no reason to connect her with what was coming out of the building.”
“He could come inside and check,” Cassandra said. “He’d see whose apartment it was coming from.”
“Not if we watch the doors to make sure he doesn’t,” Steve said.
“All this would take a small army,” Cassandra said. “Where would I get all these people?”
“I’ve got some cousins that would be glad to help.”
“I couldn’t afford to pay them much, but if they’d be willing—”
“Pay?” Steve said. “They owe me about fourteen favors each. If they took any money from you, I’d put lumps on their skulls.”
A tear ran down Cassandra’s face. These people were being so good to her, even offering to mix some of their own furniture in with hers, furniture that could get bumped and scratched in the process. They were only her neighbors; they owed her nothing.
“I don’t know how to thank you,” she said, wiping away another tear. “I really don’t.”
“We’ll do it this weekend,” Steve said. “My cousins will be here, or they’ll find out why Grace calls me the Incredible Hulk.” He grinned.
Grace said, “I see one problem, Steve. Even if we fool this guy with the furniture, he’ll still recognize Cassandra herself. All he’ll have to do is follow her.”
“I’ll let Carl take care of that. It’ll make his weekend.”
Again, he grinned.
Cassandra spent the week packing. Just in case Clark was watching, Steve and Grace rounded up the cardboard boxes she used. On Wednesday, the employment agency sent her for an interview at a company that made containers, including cartons like those in which she was packing her belongings. The person who interviewed her said he’d let her know.
Although she never saw Clark, he found ways to let her know that he hadn’t lost interest. On Tuesday, she found a note taped to her door that said, CASSANDRA JENNINGS IS A WORTHLESS BITCH. On
Thursday, a letter arrived. It said:
Cassie,
The other part of me is taking over. Call me at 555-8238. Please. Before it’s too late.
Clark
Cassandra warned Lisa not to mention to anyone that they were moving—not even her teacher. Cassandra thought the child could be trusted.
On Sunday afternoon, she met Steve’s cousins, David and Carl Lukaszczyk. The brothers were stocky blond men in their twenties. Along with Steve and Grace, they stood in Cassandra’s living room, surveying the cardboard boxes and furniture that had to be moved to her new apartment.
“One trip,” David said, “if we stack it right.” He’d brought a large red truck with him. When Cassandra had offered to pay for the gas, he’d refused to even discuss the matter.
“Don’t forget that we’ve got to take some of my stuff, too,” Steve reminded them.
“We should still make it,” David said.
Steve nodded. Turning to Cassandra, he said, “Okay, we’ll take care of everything here. What I want you to do is take Lisa and go somewhere for a few hours. Drive out to the shopping mall or see a movie or something. If this guy’s watching the place, he’ll most likely follow you.”
Lisa stood beside a stack of boxes, watching in silence.
Cassandra took her hand. “Want to go shopping?” she asked.
Lisa shrugged. It didn’t matter.
At the door, Cassandra turned and said, “I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to repay you for this. I really don’t.”
Steve and his two cousins grinned at her.
Cassandra took Lisa to an enormous suburban shopping mall where they went from store to store, looking at clothes and toys and books. When they returned to their apartment, the big red truck was gone, and the place that had been their home the past few years was empty.
Standing in the middle of the living room, holding her daughter’s hand Cassandra surveyed the empty room. With her things here, it had been a warm, familiar place where she and Lisa had lived, played, cried. But now it was just a stark rectangle, cold and uninviting. Suddenly, she wanted to hurry to her new apartment and surround herself with things that were familiar. She found Carl, Grace, and Nicole waiting for her in the Konecznys’ apartment.
“They called just a little while ago,” Grace said. “They’re moving your stuff in now, and as far as they could tell, they weren’t followed.”
Cassandra nodded. The couch and some other things were missing from Grace’s living room. Grace was sitting in the only available chair. Carl and Nicole were on the floor.
“I hope your furniture doesn’t get damaged,” Cassandra said.
“I’m not worried. The stuff I sent isn’t all that hot, anyway. The couch is threadbare in spots. The table had a cigarette burn.” She shrugged.
“Daddy put that there,” Nicole offered, smiling knowingly. She was a pretty girl with brown hair and a lightly freckled face.
“You ready?” Carl asked.
“I’m ready,” Cassandra replied. “What are we going to do?” When she’d asked about this part of the operation, Steve had dismissed her question, saying simply that Carl would handle it.
“Carl’s a race driver,” Nicole explained. “He races stock cars.”
“That’s just a hobby,” Carl said, “a thing I do on weekends. Actually, where I learned how to make sure no one could tail me was on a job I used to have. I repossessed cars, and sometimes the people whose cars you were taking didn’t like it very much. They’d come after you, try to follow you in another car. Sometimes those were very nasty people who carried guns and knives and things like that, so I got very good at losing people and making sure I wasn’t tailed.”
“I’ll bet James Bond couldn’t follow him,” Nicole offered.
Getting off the floor, Carl joined Cassandra and Lisa. Grace said, “Keep in touch, okay?”
Cassandra promised she would, and then the two women hugged as if Cassandra were moving to another country instead of an apartment four miles away. A few moments later, she and Lisa and Carl were in her car, heading for her new home.
We’re on our way to our sanctuary, Cassandra thought as Carl stopped for a red light. To a place where Clark will never find us.
Lisa was in the back seat, and Cassandra turned around to look at her. “Everything okay?” she asked.
“Uh-huh,” the seven-year-old replied. Though apparently a little overwhelmed by all this, Lisa was coping pretty well. The light changed, and Carl turned left onto a divided thoroughfare.
“What do you do now that you’re no longer repossessing cars?” Cassandra asked.
“I’m a mechanic at your friendly neighborhood Ford dealer.”
A momentary doubt flickered through Cassandra’s mind. Here she was, ready to begin a new life free of Clark, and everything hinged on whether an auto mechanic about whom she knew almost nothing could make sure she wasn’t followed.
Carl followed the thoroughfare for a while, then made an abrupt U-turn and headed back in the direction from which they had come, closely watching the cars that were coming toward him. After a few moments, he made another U-turn and again studied the cars on the other side of the street. Suddenly, he made a sharp left, accelerated for half a block, jammed on the brakes, and turned into an alley, which he followed until it intersected with another alley. Quickly turning left, he pulled in beside a parked delivery van and waited.
After a minute or two, he said, “If anyone was following us before, they’re not now.”
“Are you sure?” Cassandra asked.
“I’m sure. But for your peace of mind, we’ll do a little maneuver like this in another part of town before going to your new place.”
“Mommy,” Lisa said from the back seat, “are we trying to get away from the bad man?”
“We’re just trying to make absolutely certain that he doesn’t find out where our new place is. If he doesn’t know where we’ve gone, he can’t bother us anymore.”
“I hope we never see him again.”
“Me, too,” Cassandra said, reaching back between the bucket seats and patting her daughter’s leg.
As she’d planned, her new apartment was in an area served by a different elementary school. She hadn’t made any of the arrangements yet for transferring Lisa to the new school, because she hadn’t wanted to let anyone at the old one know she was moving. She could enroll her in the new school on Monday.
If Clark decided that the way to find her would be to follow Lisa home from school, he was going to be disappointed. Good-bye, Clark, she thought. And up yours.
After another set of doubling-back maneuvers, Carl drove her to her new apartment, which was located on the second floor of a brick building with old-fashioned metal fire escapes. The neighborhood was roughly the equivalent of the one she’d left. Nothing fancy, but the people worked for a living, and they cared about their homes. The big red truck was parked in front.
Accompanied by Carl, Cassandra and Lisa hurried up the stairs. The door to her new apartment was ajar, and she pushed it open. Taped to the wall was a paper banner that said, WELCOME CASSANDRA AND LISA. Steve and David stood beneath it, grinning. And then she saw the room. Everything was arranged. The furniture was placed appropriately, including table lamps and other things that had been in cardboard boxes. The empty cartons were gone.
“I hope we did okay,” Steve said.
Cassandra saw a thing or two she would have done differently, but on the whole they’d done a darn good job. “It’s perfect,” she said. “Oh, thank you so much—all of you.”
“Grace told us what to do,” Steve said. “She and Nicole were here until it was time for them and Carl to go back to wait for you.” From behind his back, he produced a bottle of champagne. “Your housewarming present.”
Cassandra didn’t realize she was crying until she tried to speak and found she could only blubber. Lisa stared up at her worriedly.
“Are you okay, Mommy?” the child asked.
“I’m—I’m not crying because I’m sad, honey. I’m crying because I’m happy.”
The girl looked uncertain, as if not sure whether to believe that such a thing could happen. Cassandra squeezed her shoulders.
Unable to restrain herself, Cassandra ran to Steve and hugged him; then she hugged David and Carl as well. David, the younger of the two, looked embarrassed.
After the three men had left, Cassandra sat on the couch and absorbed her new surroundings. Though older than her other apartment, this place was a lot roomier. The moldings around the windows and the mopboard were thick and wide. At one time, they had probably been stained wood, but now, like the walls, they were painted off-white.
Her desk-set-type telephone sat on a small table near the door, its cord connected to the modular jack by the floor. She assumed the phone was working, since Steve had phoned Grace to let her know that everything was ready. To be sure, she went to the phone and lifted the receiver. The dial tone hummed in her ear. She replaced the receiver.
Her phone number was still unlisted, and she wondered whether she’d ever have the nerve to let her name, address, and number again appear in the phone directory. Five years from now—or even ten—would Clark still be out there somewhere, waiting, ready to hound her again as soon as he discovered her whereabouts? Would he eagerly await each new phone book so he could see whether the name Cassandra Jennings was once more being listed?
