Chapter 8
She spent almost a sleepless night. It was almost dawn when she finally fell into exhausted slumber. It seemed that she had just dozed off when the alarm rang at seven thirty. But this morning, it was more clear than ever, what she had to do. It was the only answer.
She showered and dressed and went out for breakfast. She was at her lawyers' offices sharply at nine o'clock and made them cancel other appointments. She told them simply, that she was very tired and wanted to sell the business, go on a long vacation. She was going to leave immediately, she said, if they would draw up papers, giving them power of attorney, to handle the sale for her. She would write and inform them as soon as she got there. She instructed them to close her office immediately, giving all the employees severance pay and a bonus. That is, all except Harry Fields.
When she left the lawyer's offices, Lena went to her bank, closed out her personal account of about eight thousand dollars and had it put into Traveler's Checks. Then she went back to her apartment, saw her landlord and bought her way out of her lease, with two months' extra rent. She called a storage company to come and get her furniture and belongings, except for what she could put in a suitcase. When that was done, Lena left the house and got into a cab to Penn Station. There she checked her bag and went and sat in the waiting room, while she made up her mind where to gc.
Her heart ached when she thought about not seeing
Bart Laramie again at least not any time soon. But she consoled herself with the thought that he was well off. He was lucky to be rid of a psychopathic character like herself. The only thing was, Bait was stubborn. He would probably come looking for her. She would have to go someplace where he wouldn't think of searching for her. She didn't want him to find her.
So she couldn't go to any of the obvious summer resorts. Then the idea came to her that the safest place would be to go to the opposite kind of resort to a winter resort, like Florida. She had never been there. She had heard that it wasn't really so unpleasant in the summer; actually wasn't as bad as New York or some of the other large northern cities. Next she decided that it would be best to drive there. That way, Bart couldn't check the railroad stations or airlines for a record of where she'd gone.
She picked up her suitcase and took a cab to the nearest automobile dealership. She bought a compact convertible for a little over three thousand dollars and drove off, heading for the Holland Tunnel. An hour later, she was skimming along the Jersey turnpike with the top down and the wind blowing her hair. She felt almost at peace. It was a strange sensation. For the first time in ten years, she had no sense of responsibility, nobody to think about but herself, no employees, no rivals, no business deals. She felt almost like a school girl again.
But then, suddenly, memory of what had brought all this about cast a dark shadow over her happiness. She wondered what she could do about that. The only sensible thing to do would be to go see a good psychiatrist as soon as she got to Florida. She was sure that they'd have some there.