Flowers for Her Grave

Chapter Three

“You have got to be kidding me,” Death said. “Is this the step up I’ve been requesting?”

The Drive-In Motel sagged along the road in northern Georgia. Casey had hitched a ride just that far, and found this grungy hotel with no problem. “A step up would ask for ID. You know that.”

“A step up would also have a room you don’t have to rent by the hour.”

“Try to be patient. We’ll be out of here soon.”

She didn’t like the motel any better than Death, but it was a necessity. Where else could she crash for a few days and not leave a paper trail? She left her bag, zipped tightly shut, on the room’s spindly table, and pocketed the key.

“Where are you going now?” Death was right on her heels.

“To start the process to get us out of here.”

Death was so eager to leave the room Casey had to step out of the way to avoid being walked through. She didn’t need that chill, even though it had to be in the nineties and the room’s AC was anything but efficient.

A Holiday Inn took up a corner lot a mile from the Drive-In, and Casey walked in the front door. She smiled at the desk clerk, and continued through the hallway toward the back, to the outdoor pool. The swelling in her face had gone down over the past twenty-four hours, so the sight of her wasn’t an automatic shock. No one raced after her, asking if she’d been mugged. She waited by the pool’s inside door for almost twenty minutes until someone came in from the outside, and she went through with a, “Hi, how’s it going?”

There was an empty chair under one of the trees surrounding the water, so she took a seat and pulled out the paperback she’d brought along. This pool, as opposed to the one in Nashville, had sparkling blue water and no ducks.

“What are we doing?” Death asked, sinking onto another chair.

“Waiting long enough the desk clerk forgets me coming in. Then, when it seems an adequate time I could have spent in my room, I will go back over and use the computer they have for guests.”

Death nodded. “Sneaky.”

“That’s my middle name.”

After a half hour of sweating and pretending to read, Casey went back to the hotel lobby. The computer was not in use. She exchanged nods with the desk clerk, sat down, and typed “buy fake ID on-line.”

The search came back with over two hundred million results. She clicked the very first one. Buyfakeidonline.com. The web site offered several “Qualified and Reliable” sources, as well as some red flags to be aware of.

Like anyone buying a fake ID wasn’t a red flag on her own.

Casey clicked on one of the “reliable” sites and was shown the list of states they would be able to give her. She checked for the scam clues the other site had given her, and saw good signs: they weren’t promising to have it ready in a day (apparently there was no way to make a good one in that amount of time); they accepted cashier’s checks (“please don’t write ‘fake ID’ in the subject line!”); and they had an actual physical address to use for sending the order, rather than just a P.O. box.

Because of Casey’s situation, she couldn’t exactly print out the order form on the desk clerk’s machine, so she copied all of the necessary information onto the back of a hotel brochure. The money would have been prohibitive for a lot of people, but she had more cash than she knew what to do with, and it was worth it to start a new life.

She clicked out of all of her search windows, cleared the cache, and walked back through the hotel to an exit out of sight of the desk clerk. From there, she went to the Rite Aid, where they took passport photos. Fifteen minutes later she was on her way back to the Drive-In Motel with a mug shot. Not the most attractive picture she’d ever taken, but it would do.

Back in her lovely room, she tore a sheet with one blank side from the outdated phone book in the nightstand and made her own order form, filling in a new name, the address of the Drive-In, and the request for Express Service, which was to take only five days. She had registered at the hotel under the name Molly Meade, and made certain the package would come addressed to that name. She didn’t need the icky desk clerk knowing her new identity.

“Daisy Gray?” Death snickered, peering over her shoulder at the order form.

“It’s a lesson I learned from John D. MacDonald.”

“The author?”

“He said when you pretend to have a different name you should make it sound as much like your real name as possible, so when people call you by the new name you react naturally to it.”

“I get it. Casey. Daisy. I guess they’re a lot the same, although the ‘s’ sound is different, isn’t it? Casey has the hissing sound, while Daisy sounds more like a z, which could be confusing—”

“L’Ankou?”

“Yes?”

“Shut up.”

“Okay, so they’re pretty close. I see that. But Gray?”

“It doesn’t matter how that sounds. People won’t call me by that. Besides, I hardly know what my real last name is anymore.”

“At least this is better than Smith or Jones.”

“At least.”

She finished up the order form and got her wallet.

“Now what?”

“Now I go get a money order and mail it. We should just be able to get to the post office before it closes.”

“And then we wait.”

“Yes.”

“Here? At the Drive-In?”

“That’s right. You don’t like it, you can go away.”

Death frowned. “Are you doing this to get rid of me?”

“Think what you like.”

Death disappeared in a blue fog, leaving Casey alone to run her errands, which was a nice change. She got the order sent off, ate a large, delicious dinner at a local diner, and went back to her room, where she took a nap. When she woke up she worked out, performing one of her hapkido kata, and took a long shower, which wasn’t necessarily as hot as she would have liked, but at least got her clean.

Interspersed between these various activities, she looked at the cell phone Bailey had given her. She longed to call someone—anyone—to hear a friendly voice. Her brother, her lawyer, Bailey herself. Eric. Finally, she took the phone and shoved it deep in her bag, where it wasn’t a constant temptation. She couldn’t afford to get found. Not now. Not before she had her new papers.

Casey’s stomach soon began protesting her big dinner, unused to having such rich food. That night was a long one, with cramps and other symptoms of system overload. The only bright spot was that Death wasn’t there to gloat.

By morning, Casey had sworn off rich food forever, and roused herself with a double workout. She barely made it through, but felt much better afterward. That was the beginning of a long several days, during which Casey just tried to keep herself occupied.

The first day, she bought her own cleaning supplies and scrubbed the room from top to bottom. She pulled the mattress and box springs apart and doused them with Lysol, leaving them to dry for several hours. Once the bed was ready, she put on a new mattress pad, new sheets, and a new blanket, leaving the others in a heap outside her door. The pillows, such as they were, went out with the sheets, and she replaced them with two new ones. She covered the carpet with shake-on sanitizer and swiped one of the vacuums and a brand new sweeper bag from the “Maintenance Closet”—not that she ever saw anybody maintaining anything. She moved the furniture to sweep every square inch. She purchased her own set of towels, and sent the old ones out with the rest of the linens, hopefully to be burned. For the rest of her stay she left the “Do Not Disturb” sign on the doorknob, and on the inside, she installed a brand new slide lock, which kept her feeling marginally safer.

After that, she had to find other things to do.

She did her laundry twice in the crappy Laundromat down the street. It was a novelty to have to guard her clothes while they were in the dryer.

She bought food at the closest Whole Foods store—many blocks away—and found delis for lunch where she could get soup, or sandwiches on whole wheat bread.

She worked out twice a day, once performing differing kata, once doing the more routine sit-ups and push-ups.

She studied her face in the mirror, amazed at how fast faces heal when one has a regular diet and enough sleep.

And she watched lots and lots of bad TV. Since the motel had no cable—their usual tenants not requiring the additional entertainment—she was stuck with whatever the networks were offering. Death always joined her for the evenings, getting a kick out of the various reality shows and offering advice to both the Big Losers and the nannies. The most memorable moment was when Death hovered inches from the screen, yelling at the mother of an out-of-control five-year-old that she should “shut the bugger up in the closet for a day with no food or water and see how he liked that.” Somehow Casey didn’t think Death would make the greatest parent.

It was a very long week later that Casey’s query at the front desk brought a positive response.

“Oh, yeah,” the icky clerk said, sucking on her cigarette. “Package came for you yesterday, Miss Meade.” She said the name with a sneer.

“Yesterday?”

“I hid it under the counter so no one would take it. Guess I forgot about it.” She inhaled again, her cheeks caving and her eyes regarding Casey with smug satisfaction.

“Thank you for taking care of it so well.” Casey wanted to knock the woman out with a quick punch to the nose, but she restrained herself.

It didn’t look like the old hag had tampered with the envelope, but Casey gave it a good once-over, to be sure. The seal seemed unbroken, and the postmark was the right one, so Casey would have to believe the best. The woman’s eyes flicked from Casey’s face to the package, and Casey could see the desire there. She wanted desperately to know what was in there. She’d probably studied it up and down to find ways to open it without Casey knowing.

She’d have to live with the disappointment.

Casey gave her a bright smile and took the plain brown package back to her room.

Daisy Gray had a Florida driver’s license with a Tallahassee address, a motorcycle endorsement, and a birth date thirty-two years earlier. She had dark hair—still dyed from Casey’s time in Kansas—and brown eyes. The heavily layered make-up made Casey’s messed-up face from a week ago look surprisingly normal. The license would expire in two years.

Casey took a deep breath, closing her eyes. This driver’s license was the beginning of a new life. When the cops came looking for Casey Kaufmann Maldonado or Smith or Jones they would find only air. Casey was about to disappear.

“So, can we finally blow this repulsive joint?” Death said, standing in the middle of the room, not touching anything. “Although I have to say you did at least make it livable.”

Casey packed her bags, leaving the cleaning supplies, the new linens, and the extra lock she was sure the motel’s usual clientele would appreciate. “Let’s go. And let’s never think about this place again.” She smiled, and for the first time in months, she meant it.