Page 89 of The Woman on the Jury

Then, with a lot more confidence than I felt, I strode through the apartment, and out the door.

The guards jumped and straightened, both sharing a worried look.

“What do you think you’re doing?” one of them asked.

“Leaving,” I said, taking steps toward the elevator, only to have my arm snagged by one of them.

I carefully lowered my gaze to that hand, then just as slowly back to his face.

“I don’t think Cosimo would like you putting your hands on me,” I said in a ‘cold, hard, bitch’ tone I’d heard Lauren need to adopt from time to time when someone was disrespecting her.

When I say he dropped my arm fast, you would have sworn I’d burned him.

“I’m leaving. You can follow if you want to, but I’m leaving,” I said, hitting the button for the elevator.

I wasn’t surprised when they joined me, though I was a bit disappointed. I kind of hoped they would just accept that I was a free woman, allowed to come and go if she wanted to.

Apparently, that was not the case.

But it was fine.

I had a plan.

One I was crossing my fingers would work.

I strode down the street, feeling one of them beside me, and the other behind.

I had to admit that it felt good just to be outside, to be moving, to feel the damn sun on my face. I don’t think I’d ever been stuck inside for so long before.

“I need to go in here,” I declared as I turned into the pharmacy.

I’d been there a million times before. I knew it like the back of my hand.

I was counting on their discomfort as I led them confidently down the feminine care aisle, and I wasn’t exactly disappointed by how tense they seemed as I grabbed a box of tampons off the shelf, then opened it, and pulled one out.

“I have to run to the bathroom,” I told them, waving the tampon at one of them while pushing the box into the other one’s hands.

Then I made a beeline for the bathroom. Much like a woman in need of a tampon would.

The thing was, the ladies room was down a hallway that opened up at the other end as well. So I just kept walking, tossing the tampon into the trash, then emerging behind my guards who were so busy feeling uncomfortable about holding a box of tampons that they weren’t scanning the store like they might normally be.

I just… walked right out.

Back into the crush of people.

I had no money, so I couldn’t escape into a cab or the subway like I could if I did. But I’d chosen the most understated outfit I could when I’d chosen what I was going to wear.

I reached up, twisting my hair into the claw clip I’d had hanging off the bottom of my sweater, hoping that they wouldn’t be smart enough to spot the difference in a crowd as I picked up the pace.

I wasn’t that far from Lauren’s place.

And her doorman knew me.

He would let me in.

Lauren wouldn’t be home, but that was okay.

I could see if I remembered her number to call her, ask her to unlock the door with her phone app.

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