Desert Heat

She might have believed him, if she hadn’t heard the message, if she hadn’t known some-thing was wrong. No, they were leaving for good. What they left in the house would only delay anyone starting a serious search. It was a time-honored way of skipping town without sounding the alarm for someone who might not want you to leave or, more likely, someone who was hot on your trail. Angie had pulled it a time or two herself.

“How soon will you be back?”

It was an i

He stalked from the room without even bothering to hit her on his way past. She followed him, expecting that he’d go by the hall-way closet and pick up the briefcase, but he didn’t. He went out through the door that led to the garage, locking the deadbolt behind him.

With the bath towel still wrapped around her, she hurried on out to the patio and stood listening, straining to hear the garage door open and close and for the tires to crunch down to the end of the gravel driveway. When she was sure he was gone, she raced back into the house and wrenched open the door to the closet. The briefcase was still on the shelf. Hardly daring to hope, she lifted it down. It was still heavy. Maybe she wasn’t too late. With trembling fingers, she worked the lock. It took three or four tries before the lid popped open. The money was still there. She could do it.

She had thought about ru

She closed the briefcase and hefted it with one hand. It was heavy, but manageable if she wasn’t carrying much else. On legs frail as toothpicks she raced back down the hallway the bedroom. There, forcing herself to calm down, she went into the bathroom for a self-inflicted make-over. She applied her makeup unerringly and pulled her blonde hair up on top of her head. Then she dressed in a stylish red silk jumpsuit with a matching hat which she wore at a rakish angle.

From the back corner of her closet, she pulled out one of the few possessions that had made the transition from L.A. to Tucson -an old, frayed straw beach bag. She emptied the money into it except for a selection of bills, large and small, which she wadded into her pocket. On top of the money, she loaded in two pairs of shorts and two nondescript shirts as well as her makeup kit and a pair of thongs. She zipped the bulging beach bag shut and placed it inside a medium-sized, tapestry-covered suitcase.

She took the briefcase back to the entryway closet and then walked through the living room. For only a moment, she felt a twinge of regret. Angie Kellogg had been a prisoner here, but it had been a very nice prison, a comfortable one, better than any place she had ever lived. At times, when Tony was out of town, she had almost been able to pretend it belonged to her. Now she found herself dreading leaving it. Prison or not, at least it was familiar. She was plunging off into the unknown.

It wasn’t until then that she ventured into Tony’s office. What she wanted was there, concealed in the top drawer of his locked desk. Using a nail file, she quickly picked the desk lock and removed the little black leather-bound notebook. It seemed like such a small thing, really, hardly worth the trouble, but Angie knew instinctively that the collection of names and addresses and phone numbers contained inside it was her one real insurance policy, her ticket out. She hadn’t quite thought through how she could use such a thing, but she understood beyond a doubt that the note-book was valuable. Somewhere there was a willing buyer for such an item, and once she found him, Angie Kellogg could probably name her own price.

With the book safely in her purse, Angie made one last tour of the house to see if there was anything else she wanted to take. Picking up her worn copy of the Field Guide to North American Birds, she slipped that into her purse as well. For her personally, that was the single item in the entire house that she couldn’t bear to leave behind.

Finally, after checking in the phone book, she called a cab. Taking a deep breath, she gave the dispatcher the address of a neighboring house, one three doors down the street which she had memorized for just such an emergency. When he asked where she was going, she told him the airport.

As Angie put down the phone, wild trembling once more reasserted itself. She had irretrievably set her plan into motion. If Tony came home and caught her now, she was doomed for sure.

Clutching the suitcase, her beach bag, and a pair of three-inch, red high heels, she hurried out of the house and dashed across the back-yard to the place where the dry wash ran under the fence, the place where she had watched the rabbits come and go, and had envied them their freedom. She had measured the opening with her eyes, but she had never dared approach it with a measuring tape for fear Tony might catch her at it and guess her intentions.

Weak with relief, she found it was easy to push the suitcase, hat and high heels through the high spot under the fence. It was much harder to wiggle under it herself. Once, as she squirmed along, she felt the fabric of the pant-suit hang up on the bottom of the fence, but she managed to free herself without tearing the delicate cloth. At last she found herself standing upright outside the fence, brushing sand and gravel from her clothing and hair and laughing uproariously. She had done it. Despite all of Tony’s deadbolts and alarms, despite all his precautions, Angie Kellogg was Out. The fu

She may have been out, but she wasn’t home free. Even now, Tony might drive up and catch her waiting beside the road. Resolutely, she crammed her feet into the heels and went tripping across the rough terrain that led to the road and to the house where she was supposed to meet the cab. If anyone saw her like this-and she hoped someone would-they were bound to remember. That was the whole idea. She wanted them to notice. It was Important that Tony pick up the trail and follow her-up to a point.

Her feet were out of practice wearing high heels, and she was limping by the time she reached the place where she was supposed to wait. The cab arrived after what seemed like an eternity, although Angie’s watch said that only twenty minutes had elapsed. “Where to, lady?” the driver asked.

She threw herself into the back seat, letting her head fall as far back as possible so her face was less visible to other cars they might meet along the way.

“The airport,” she said. “As fast as possible. I’ve got a plane to catch.”

The cab driver took her at her word and rove to Tucson International at breathtaking speeds. “What airline?” he asked her, as they approached the terminal.

“United,” she said, hoping that was an air-line that actually flew into Tucson. She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw the air-line’s sign in the departing passenger lane.

“Are you go

“No. There’s not enough time.”

Angie Kellogg had been to O’Hare once, and she had been a regular commuter to L.A.X. She was shocked at the size of Tucson International. It was tiny by comparison.

Once she was in the terminal, she sca