She stopped in mid-stride, feeling her heart ratchet up.
Eleven missed calls.
Parker listened to the first message.
“Oh, Christ...”
15
Packing.
Fast.
Careless.
In jeans, a gray sweatshirt and a quilted baby-blue vest, Allison Parker was tossing random clothes into a large gym bag and backpack with shaking hands, her muscles weak. “Two years early? Letting him out?” Spoken aloud or to herself? She didn’t know.
Hannah was in her room, slowly debating what to put into her own luggage.
“Just the basics! Get going.”
“Jesus, Mom. Chill.”
Her phone sounded with a noisy rock song she’d loaded because her daughter liked it. Her lawyer, David Stein, was calling back. Her quivering hands nearly dropped it. She plugged in earbuds and continued filling the suitcase. She stepped farther into her bedroom so her daughter couldn’t hear her side of the conversation.
“How did it happen?” she asked.
“I don’t know. You ask me, he worked them. He did one of his slick songs and dances.” He fell silent a moment. Then said in a voice even more somber: “Listen to me, Allison. There’s something else youneed to know.” A pause, as if working up his courage. “After he got out, a couple of cons—prisoners—went to a guard. They said Jon had told them when he got out, he wants to find you.” Decibels dropped as he continued. “He wants to find you and kill you.”
Allison Parker lowered her head.
“Of course he does...”
Maybe whispered, maybe thought.
“What, Alli? I didn’t hear you.”
So, whispered.
She was thinking. So, here it was: the moment she’d dreaded, the moment she’d thought she could dodge forever. And the plans she’d made for disappearing with Hannah to a new life, somewhere far away, before he was released were useless.
Of course he does...
She asked, “Do they know where he is?”
“No. He has twenty-four hours to register with his parole officer, with an address. He hasn’t. I talked to a detective at FPD. After what those cons told them, there’ll be officers looking for him.”
What to take? Jeans, sweats, underwear, socks, perfume... Wait, perfume? She set it back on the dresser, choosing Tampax and Advil instead.
“We’re leaving town.”
“You should. Where?”
“I don’t know. I’m not telling anybody. I’ll call from the road. Only your landline. I don’t trust mobiles.”
Paranoia was the unreasonable concern about an imaginary threat. The danger Jon Merritt presented was real.
“Alli—”