I started my day early. I had a lot to do and only one real day to get everything done.
My mother always was quick in trash-talking my job and that nothing good ever came out of it. Today, as it turned out, I would proof her wrong. The kind of people I came in touch with throughout the years would prove more than just useful today.
My first stop was Stark Street. I met a dealer who I had busted a few months earlier. He was an ok kind of guy and didn't deal in really hard stuff. Apparently he had a conscious since he also didn't sell to kids. I think Angus was the only dealer who requested ID to see that you were 18 or over to buy from him. Don't get me wrong, what he did was still wrong, but there also were way worse guys around Stark Street that sold you way shadier and more dangerous stuff than what Angus had on offer.
"Whatever it is, I didn't do it," Angus said when spotting me.
"I'm not here for busting you. As a matter of fact, I'm here for some business," I said, handing him a piece of paper with the name of what I required. He unfolded it and stare at me, shocked for a moment.
"Yo ain't in trouble, pretty girl, are you?" he asked, his eyebrows raised.
"Not more than what made the papers," I assured him and got a grin as reply.
"You didn't do nothing. A pretty face like yours couldn't hurt no soul…" How reassuring, that a dealer thought I was innocent as well, though only because I seemed to have an innocent face.
"Well, we'll see about it, won't we," I replied.
A moment later he looked around us and handed me a small bottle, for which I handed him a twenty dollar bill. And just like that our business was done and I apparently had just succeeded in scoring. Not sure whether that was something I should be proud of really.
"Don't do anything stupid, pretty girl, yo hear me?" he asked, when I was about to leave. I was wondering whether that question was only for me, or whether all his customers heard it as well. As I said, not your regular drug dealer.
I walked back to my car, when I ran into Morelli.
"Please tell me I didn't just witness you scoring from a dealer?" he almost yelled, and I saw a few heads around us turn. Subtle was never a strength Morelli possessed.
"I didn't…" I said meekly, knowing he wasn't believing me. Just my luck, the one time I actually do something semi-illegal Morelli was there to witness it.
"This isn't working in your favor, Cupcake. I'm supposed to be your character witness. But with you being here and doing… that I don't think I can…"
The way he said it sounded like I was selling my body rather than buying ... well, sort of drugs from a dealer. And the way he said it…something sounded off.
"Wait a minute. You… you don't believe I killed Joyce, do you?" I asked more or less shocked. His silence was more than enough answer for me.
"I don't know what believe anymore, Cupcake. The evidence is piling up like crazy and it all points towards you. Then I find you on Stark, buying drugs. You know… I start wondering whether Manoso and his guys finally rubbed off on you. Maybe Joyce was in your way or saw something she wasn't supposed to see and you took her out. Or how else would you explain your prints on the murder weapon?"
"Are you fucking kidding me?" I almost screamed. I know, not mature or grown-up, but how else was I supposed to react to Morelli's crazy theory. And yeah, I couldn't explain the prints or anything really. "You have known me since we were kids, Joe. You don't possibly think I would ever do this, do you?"
"You wouldn't be the first one to play one hell of an act, Cupcake. Regardsless of how many years I do know you. Lately I have seen sides of you I didn't think I'd ever see…"
"Sides? What sides please?"
Joe just let out an annoyed sigh. "You have changed ever since you started hanging out with Manoso and his thugs…And there are plenty of people to say the same by now. Maybe I should handcuff you and get you back to the station and behind bars. It isn't a big step to go from buying drugs to kill someone."
He wasn't making sense and I wasn't sure whether he actually wanted to believe I did it. Whether the rumors, stories and all the other crap hadn't finally caught up with him and convinced him that maybe I really killed someone.
"I…. I don't believe this? So you really think I did it? Just because you have seen me on Stark buying something?" I almost yelled. This was too much. I knew what I did wasn't right, but I sure as hell wasn't here feeding an addiction. I fished a pack of pills out of my bag – which weren't what I bought, but I could hardly show him that now, could I? "I bought sleeping pills so I can actually sleep at night and not be kept awake by what turns out to be the biggest nightmare of my life!"
The pills in the plastic tub where actually tic tac's but he didn't need to know that. When Morelli looked at me dumb folded and like he was about to grab the pills from me I turned around and walked away. It wasn't as if I needed anymore reason for doing this, but my altercation with Morelli sure as hell helped me push all the 'you shouldn't' thoughts to the far back of my mind.
My next stop was technically only a few blocks away, but since I couldn't be certain Morelli wasn't following me I made a few longer detours and stopped at all sort of supermarkets and other places until I was certain he'd either given up following me or found something more interesting to do.
I made my way eventually to my actual destination: an apartment of another guy I had taken back in a few weeks back. Larry Steincorn was convicted of domestic abuse and DUI. When I picked him up I also discovered he had another, rather illegal hobby. He forged IDs. That fact might have slipped my mind when bringing him in and it turned out to be a good thing.
His place wasn't hard to get into, especially when you picked up a thing or two in regards of lock picking from Ranger. Not that he actually ever taught me. No, he explained to me once that I managed to get into enough trouble without having knowledge on what he liked to call grey-areas of the law. Not sure what exactly was gray when it came to lock picking, but well…. it was Ranger.
The door was open in less than a minute and I was hoping Larry's secret was still unknown to the law.
In one of his closets I found a few show boxes and about ten minutes after entering I left again, with a handful of new IDs that resembled me and would work one way or another. I knew in order to pull off what I had planned I needed to vanish and quite possibly never appear and never be found. I knew I needed to switch who I was more than just once. Having a few IDs already handy would make these transitions easier. I also knew, once I had switched, my previous IDs wouldn't be able to be used again by me. Once I changed, so did my ID. That way I could hopefully keep people long enough off my back until they got tired of chasing.
I made a quick stop at Macy's, a supermarket and a drug store on the way back to RangeMan, getting a few essentials I would need for my travels, before stopping at the train station to get a ticket to Washington at one of the machines. The city was only two hours by train from Trenton and hopefully far enough away that people wouldn't know who I was. Not that I planned on getting to Washington. No. I'd be getting off way before. But if people tracked me through the cameras, they'd see what I purchased and would follow wrong leads. I wasn't staying where I was going anyway. A few hours tops and I'd be gone again. My plan was to move. As quickly and as far away as possible. I needed to use the time I had as a head start, before they'd come and chase me around.
Packed with food and my mere purchases from the shops I made my way to RangeMan to set my plan in motion. I ignored the feeling deep in my stomach. I knew deep down, I had to do this. My last stop before returning to RangeMan was an ATM where I maxed out my credit cards for as much as cash as I could get. I also emptied my account.
"Hey…" I said to Cal once entering RangeMan again and seeing him behind the desk. "I got us dinner," I said, holding up the bags. "I figured it was one of these days where we would just smash our faces in unhealthy contraband and … sin. After all… I don't know how much longer I can…" I said, trying to sound hopeful and upbeat.
He just nodded and I told him I meet in the Controls Room whenever he was ready. I ran up to Ranger's apartment, stored my purchases away and I packed a duffle bag. Everything I needed I put and once finished I set out to find Cal.
He had switched to monitor duty by now, being relieved by one of the new guys from the desk in reception. Seeing that RangeMan had been understaffed with four of its core team members gone in the wind and a few more out of office due to vacation and other reasons, it was quite in the building. Not a lot of people were around.
"I ran into Morelli today," I said out of the blue, surprising myself. It wasn't as if it had been much on my mind, but still. It bugged me to a certain extend.
"How did that go?" Cal asked between bites.
"Apparently he thinks by now that I did it. He was one step away from taking me in and booking me for the night," I said, leaving out the fact that he also witnessed me buying on Stark. "Do you think so too?" I asked bravely. I wasn't sure I wanted to know to be honest and I also realized that moment that Morelli not believing in me was more painful than I initially thought.
"No, never," he said without even missing a beat or waiting for me to really finish my question. Cal put his food down and grabbed my hand in a friendly gesture. "Morelli is an ass. And that he got in line with everyone else who seems to think you did it just proves how little he knows you. All of us here at RangeMan always wondered why you were with Morelli to begin with. If he didn't belittle you or order you around or try to force you into this pre-made shape of a housewife he had of you in his mind, he was just yelling for stupid reasons. And… tomorrow will prove he is goddamn wrong that he never knew you at all when he really believes you did this. You are this great, fun person who fights every single day against a dozen obstacles thrown your way and always finished with her head held high. And you will get through this the same way. Head held high, as the force you are."
His comment made me laugh for a moment.
"I…I… trust in the system. I just don't know whether that trust is returned," I said, ignoring the fact that trusting didn't mean staying. This was already hard enough without thinking about what I'd be about to do. I'd betray my friends and their trust in me and even worse, I'd be stealing. But what did people sometimes say: Extreme situations called for drastic measures. What they didn't tell you that these extreme measures required a lot of ignoring and hating yourself and your feelings.
I hated this start to finish but there was no other way, at least not for now and not one that would resolve this quickly. I knew Batman would have had a whole list of things that could have been done, but well, I'm not Batman. I was never in the military, I wasn't trained to think in extreme situations and come up with a plan for infiltration or retraction. I wasn't used to any of this and I tried my best to work with what I had and could use.
Unfortunately, the first step in my plan was involving Cal. He was a good friend and had done so much for me these past few weeks. He had been my point of contact whenever I usually would have called Ranger. Since Ranger wasn't around, Cal became my go-to man. In a situation or two with one of my FTAs he even saved me from being shot. I owed him a lot and once again I had felt the biggest wave of regret and hate. This was how I was going to repay him?
I swallowed down once again what I was feeling. This… was the only way I reminded myself. And unfortunately, Cal was a part of my plan that needed to be taken out – for a few hours anyway.
In retrospective things were easier then expected. And went a lot quicker and smoother too. During a moment of unawareness I drugged his Coke with the drops I got from Angus. They would knock him out cold for a few hours and apparently also make things seem blurry when he woke up again. I hated myself for doing this to Cal, but I also knew I had little choice if I wanted to get away tonight.
He took three gulps and was out ten minutes later. I sat there for a minute, watching him, debating with myself whether this all really was worth the betrayal I was about to do. But it had to. Maybe at some point in the far future I'd see them all again and we could talk about this. But for now, for this very moment, I saw no way out other than my plan.
I got up, closed the door slightly, so that no one saw Cal right away if one should pass. I doubted it, understaffing and all that. Getting on the elevator, I pressed the button for the basement, but nothing moved. I pressed it again, but still the same. The button for the floor was shortly highlighted. And then not. I pressed the button three more times, holding it pressed, nothing. And then I remembered that the button to Ranger's apartment-floor was the same unless the token was held against the panel. So I tried my luck, held the token against the panel and pressed the button for the basement once more. This time the button remained illuminated and the cabin moved.
I knew about the safe. Ranger himself actually had mentioned it a time or two. Well, he mentioned the safe, but not what was really inside. I had always figured it was stocked with weapons and other things that gave me the creeps. Surprisingly little security was in place for the safe. One would assume in a place like RangeMan that specialized in security, getting into their safe would require work and workarounds for security issues – but nada. Then again, if you made it past the front desk and down the elevator – which was the only way, seeing there were no staircases, you probably proved already very little could stop you. The token once more would work its charm and I was inside, being astonished by the shelves of neatly stacked money. There were shelves that contained weapons and ammunition, as well as shelves with papers and what looked like passports. It wasn't hard to figure out where these came from, considering a few of RangeMan worked occasionally for the government on jobs that were legally spoken in probably a dark grey zone.
I thumbed through the passports and can't even say why. I expected them to be showing me pictures of Cal and Ranger, Tank, Bobbie and other guys at RangeMan, but was surprised when I saw myself staring back at me. Apparently among the amounts of passports was one for me as well, just that my name in the Passport was Anastasia. Anastasia Diaz-Suarte. I knew Ranger liked to be prepared for all sort of scenarios, but it was slightly beyond me what he assumed could happen that required for me to disappear as well, especially seeing that one of his passports had him listed as Javier Suarte – apparently we were married. Interesting, and of course something like that needed to be found now. When I was about to disappear for real. For a moment I wondered whether I should take my fake passport with me as well. Having another ID surely couldn't hurt. But than I would give the guys a way of finding me. They'd have my name and would be able to trace my steps at least to a certain point until I'd disappear again with another ID. And who knew, maybe that partial trace would help them find me completely. Not taking any chances I put the passport back on the shelve.
I turned away from the passports and papers on the shelves and walked towards the cash. I never had seen that much cash as I was standing in front of right now. I couldn't even estimate how much money I was looking at, and maybe that was for the better.
My conscious once again kicked in, telling me I was about to steal from my friends. But I was at a point of no return. I had just managed to drug Cal, had a stack of fake IDs in my pocket and was about to become a fugitive. Sadly, stealing money from Ranger didn't seem to even make the short list in regards of how bad I had become. This wasn't me and I was certain, come tomorrow and all the details of my escape unraveled, it only helped to build a case against me and convict me even faster. But… wasn't that the whole reason why I was running to begin with? To escape a conviction for something I didn't do to start with?
Before my conscious could make a comeback and win this argument I grabbed a few stacks of money, not even looking whether it was 100 or 1 Dollar bills and was making my way towards the exit. A last minute thought made me turn around and go for the shelf which held weapons. I grabbed a gun and a few packs of bullets. I didn't plan on using them, but you never knew what kind of trouble I would encounter – specifically people coming to look for me. As I said I was a magnet for trouble and I was certain wherever my route was taking me, being prepared for the worst was always a good idea. I stuffed the gun in the back of my jeans and left the vault for good.
Back up on seven I stashed the money in the duffel bag, along with the gun which I hid in the bottom. Looking inside Ranger's closet to make sure I had everything I needed I saw his SWAT cap laying on of the top shelves. I figured with the all the money I just took from the guy one baseball cap wouldn't make things much worse. And I would have something that was dear to both of us and would remind me of better times. So I grabbed it, put it on top of my duffle and left the seventh floor. Taking the stairs to avoid unwanted camera footage and someone asking what I was doing at this hour, dressed the way I was and with a duffle bag in my hand, I made one last stop before getting to the garage and forever away. I left a note on Ranger's desk, wrapped in an envelope, begging for forgiveness and hoping to some extend that he wouldn't hate me forever. I knew he loved me – in his own way – but I was pretty certain that this love was existing anylonger the moment he came back, heard I drugged one of his guys and robbed him of quite a bit of money. Then I stopped in the control room one last time, put a pillow under Cal's head, a blanket around his body and a note on the keyboard in front of him. Contraire to Ranger's note my note to Cal was short and only read
"I'm so sorry!"
And then I was gone, possibly never to return to Trenton, leaving my life and my friends and family behind.
I officially was about to become a fugitive! But all my thoughts were far away from me and what I was about to do. My last thoughts before leaving Trenton were with my friends and family and begging their forgiveness one last time. Because it was all I could do at this stage.
And then I was on my way.
