Laura Lippman by Tess Monaghan 04 - In Big Trouble (v5)

wasn’t a photograph, but a hand-tinted drawing of blue flowers dotting a green field. “Texas blue-bonnets,” said the legend on the front.
    On the back, Crow had written: “I feel as if I’m starting over. Things here are not as expected, but that doesn’t make it bad, right? As Dad said, I am following in an outlaw tradition by coming here. GTT, Crow.”
    “GTT?” Tess asked Chris.
    “Gone to Texas. It’s what outlaws wrote on their doors when they headed out to the frontier. ‘I’ve gone to Texas. Don’t bother to look because you won’t find me.’”
    “Is that so?” Tess said, lifting her chin. And they had her.

     

    Tess called Kitty the next day from Abingdon, Virginia, just before crossing the line into Tennessee. She called the private line, knowing Kitty would be in the store and the machine would pick up. She didn’t want to explain why she was going, she just wanted to go.
    “It’s Tess,” she said. “If Tyner calls, tell him I’m headed for Texas. I’ll call him tonight, when I’ve crossed the Mississippi.” She figured that was just far enough to be safe from Tyner’s wrath, that the Mississippi was wide enough to keep the volume of his voice from reaching out and lassoing her home.
    She had a generous per diem and a sizable advance. She had her Toyota and her overnight bag. She had a week’s worth of clothing purchased in less than thirty minutes at an outlet mall with a Gap and an Old Navy. She had the sweats she always carried in her trunk, along with a jump rope and a basketball. She had her dog, her datebook, and her copy of Don Quixote , because she had gotten in the habit of carrying it around, thinking she still might finish it one day, if only by osmosis. She had seven pairs of heavy-duty white cotton underwear, which had cost only a dollar at some off-brand store, possibly because “Wednesday” was spelled “Wenesday.”
    It was enough. Or at least plenty. Chris Ransome was right: You just had to change your definitions.

Chapter 4

    T ess, who never paid close attention in seventh grade social studies, had expected Texas cities to spring out of vast, dusty prairies, then disappear quickly in the rearview mirror. But Austin seemed to begin in fits and starts as a series of strip centers along Interstate 35. Where were the green fields with little blue flowers? What had ever happened to Lady Bird Johnson’s Highway Beautification program? Her eye was drawn to the strange names of local groceries and convenience stores. HEB, Circle K, Stop ‘n’ Go.
    Traffic was heavy, too, worse than any rush hour she had ever experienced back home. Even when the Toyota crested a hill on I-35 and she saw the Texas Capitol building ahead, the glimmer of a river or a lake beyond it, she was still unmoved. She also was overwhelmed and exhausted. What had she been thinking?
    “You shouldn’t be in Texas by yourself,” Kitty had scolded when Tess called her earlier that day. “Tyner will have a fit when he hears. He’s already called here twice, looking for you.”
    “I’ll call him pretty soon,” Tess said. She was at a roadside restaurant in Waco, the Health Camp, which seemed to specialize in spectacularly unhealthy food. A gas station attendant had given her the tip when she filled up her car outside Dallas that morning. She sucked up the dregs of her coffee milkshake, gave Esskay the last bite of burger and bun. More bun than burger, but Esskay was still grateful.
    “Where are you going to stay?”
    “Some fleabag motel that takes fleabags, I guess.”
    “That won’t do. You should be in a place where you have access to a fax machine, or even a computer if you need one. I know a bookstore owner down there. He might put you up, as a favor to me, and help you find your way around.” There was a strange, awkward pause, and Kitty laughed a coy, most un-Kittyish laugh. “We…were together at that convention for independent booksellers a few years back. The one in San