Page 110 of Missing White Woman

She’d taken it. It was gone—and Billie and Janelle would be gone too.

And it was all my fault. I’d been so close. Ty had made sure I would find it. Only for me to fuck it up. Dejected, I sat on the bed and felt something crinkle.

The Muddy Buddies bag.

And just like that, I was thankful for my laziness. That I hadn’t bothered to move it before “making the bed.” It was still there.

The comforter was on the floor and the bag was in my hand before I could think. I dumped the entire thing onto the bed—saying sorry to the poor housekeeper who’d have to clean it up—and watched powdered sugar rain down like snow. The plastic-wrapped digital wallet looked like hail.

It was there.

Thank you, God.

* * *

“Here you go. It’ll come on track 4.” The agent gave me the ticket, the one I’d wanted in my hand for so long. “You still got some time, so feel free to wait in the lobby.”

I hadn’t checked out of the hotel or called anyone to tell them I was leaving—or coming. I hadn’t even taken my suitcase with me. I never wanted to see the name Kenneth Cole again. The same with my workout clothes and my one nice dress. I also left the mask.

Besides my handbag, cell, and the crypto wallet secured in a hidden pocket in my pants, I’d brought only one thing.

The grant application.

I found a seat on a hard wooden bench and pulled it out of my handbag, along with a pen I’d swiped from the hotel. The application wasn’t much. Just two pages front and back asking for standard information.

I started with my name, address, date of birth, filling in things I’d known since I could write. My hand only stopped moving when I got to the part that had already stopped me before: Do you consent to a background check?

I checked yes and kept going until I got to the next question, which stumped me.

What’s your company’s name?

I thought about it for a minute and then wrote.

Gunk.

By the time I finished, I had fifteen minutes until my train.

I followed a mass of people into the hallway, then took the stairs up two at a time to my track. The station was busy, and all the trains from New York seemed to stop on the same track. The first train to come belonged to New Jersey Transit. A double-decker—split-level from the looks of it. It came to a gradual stop, then the doors opened. People spilled out. None of them looked in my direction. Just instinctively moved around me like I was a wall. I didn’t move.

“New Jersey Coast train,” the conductor said. “Next stop Union.”

Folks got off. Folks got on. The process was quick and efficient, and they were gone in two minutes, leaving me with nothing to stare at but the train platform across the way. I was hyperalert. I’d gotten this far, was just a train ride away from home. And I wasn’t going to let some internet sleuth ruin it by recognizing me. Or attempting to take my pic.

I stayed like that, watching as a train came in and the entire process was repeated. People in. People out. The only difference, the conductor screaming out this was the Northeast Corridor Express. The next stop was Princeton Junction.

Once everyone was on, the train dinged and the doors started to close.

At first, I thought I was dreaming. I had to look three times to know it was real. That she was real.

But there she was.

A woman. She sat in a window seat on the bottom level. Blond. White. Slim. Wearing a red crystal-encrusted face mask and leopard-print sunglasses. I hadn’t seen her in over a week, yet she looked just like I’d pictured so many times since.

Even through the dirty glass, I knew it was her. I should’ve done something. Yelled her name. Called for the police. Run to the nearest train door so I could pry it open and try to catch her. Instead, I just stared. Frozen. Not able to move. Unable to look away. Just watching as she impatiently looked down, as antsy as I was.

She must’ve sensed me, because suddenly she looked up, her face shifting to my direction. And I could feel it even if I couldn’t see it. She was smiling. Not at me but at the irony of the circumstances that had all led to this—the two of us separated by a closed train door. Both of us finally leaving town.

But only one of us had the crypto drive. And that’s when I finally was able to move, walking closer to the platform edge. I walked right up to the window, ignoring the bumpy yellow stripe at the edge of the tracks, and bent down so she saw me.

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