Page 123 of One Last Promise

She’d used her one call on Roz, who had sent cash to a Western Union some six blocks from the detention center, and that, along with her old passport, the one under her real name, might score her a burner phone, and then an Uber to Miami Beach.

Maybe.

Her stomach roiled. She’d ignored the breakfast the detention center served this morning before the van took her to court for her arraignment with seven other women. She’d looked at their faces, some of them bearing the effects of drug use or domestic trouble, and seen the life Pearl might have had if they hadn’t run.

So no, no regrets. But . . .

She passed a motorcycle rental place, mostly Harleys but also a couple old Suzukis with sale pricing, and an idea formed.Thank you, Arch Henry, for those lessons.

Arch. A fellow marine. He’d been a good friend after she’d moved to MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa. Handsome, a Gunnery Sergeant, looking to go spec ops. She’d left him behind when she’d deployed onto theUSS San Antonio, and when she returned, he too had deployed.

Turning onto a side street, she walked through a couple blocks of hard-living neighborhoods with multifamily housing and a few homes surrounded by broken chain link. A dog ran out and snarled at her, and it dragged up memories of Hazel and Kip.

She picked up her pace, replaying her conversation with Flynn on the plane earlier.

“I never meant for it to get this far. I just wanted to keep Pearl and Hazel safe.”

In fact, she’d told Flynn a lot of things, including,“I know Rigger had a place in Miami Beach. I just don’t know where.”

Flynn had typed the information into her phone, and the fact that the woman had believed Tillie had given her the courage to not run. To submit to booking in Miami, to not curl into a ball and weep during her twelve-hour stay at the detention center.

To face the judge today in her orange jumpsuit.

She’d sort of half expected to see Flynn in court. But Flynn had made her no promises.

And frankly, that wasn’t fair. It wasn’t up to Flynn—or even Moose—to keep her safe.

Tillie spotted the overpass and cut down the street to cross the river. Here the neighborhood turned upscale and clean, sleek, with gated apartment buildings on one side,cobble-roofed, gated townhomes on the other, and after a couple blocks, she picked up her pace, seeing the shopping center ahead.

A Winn-Dixie connected to a dollar store, with Western Union in the back.

She pulled out her passport and used it at the counter to withdraw the money Roz had sent her.

She headed out and bought new clothes—a pair of leggings, a black T-shirt, a pair of running shoes, a windbreaker, a hat, glasses, and a backpack.

Then she walked back to the motorcycle shop, slapped down cash, and haggled for a couple of used helmets. She put one on, strapped the other onto the back.

She’d forgotten the power of a motorcycle, the freedom of weaving in and around traffic as she took the back roads to the MacArthur Causeway over to Miami Beach. Here, the vibe turned to vacation, the tiny apartments bearing art deco styles, the neighborhoods deeply wooded with overhanging palm trees, and cars wedged into tiny spaces along quiet streets. Bicyclers rode alongside convertibles, and music pumped into the air, hip-hop mixing with pop, Adele versus Dr. Dre.

She slowed, stopping at a light, popping open her visor. Sweat layered her skin despite the breeze from the ride, and when the scent of street tacos found her, she angled the bike onto a side street and squeezed into a space between a couple other bikes.

Locking the helmets onto the seat, she piled her jacket into her backpack and headed over to the beachside walk.

The taco stand was set up across from a volleyball net, and after scoring a shrimp taco, she sat watching the players, barefoot, carefree. An old memory stirred up of her and Pearl sitting on the beach watching two-year-old Hazel play in the ocean, running into the waves and back, screaming, falling down sandyonto their blanket.

Wow, she’d made a mess of things. One stupid decision after another.

And now . . . what? She would restart the cycle. She and Hazel always looking over their shoulders. Never in a thousand years had she thought she’d someday end up a criminal.

“God is at work even if we don’t believe it.”

Axel sat down in her brain, and for a moment, she was back in the cabin.

“Or deserve it?”

“Especially if we don’t deserve it. Fact is, that’s his specialty. Rescuing the lost, the broken, the guilty.”

The criminals?

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