The Escape Diaries by Juliet Rosetti Read Free Book Online

was alarming
to hear someone say hello, whirl around, and discover that the person was
babbling into her phone. It wouldn’t have surprised me to see the toddler whip
a phone out of his diaper to set up a play date. Didn’t anyone ever talk
face-to-face anymore?  
                The
girls were wrestling on the floor, fighting over a package of Bratz
accessories, the woman was arguing with whoever was on the other end of her phone,
and the toddler was smushing marshmallow goo onto the handles of the shopping
cart.
                Maneuvering
my shopping cart next to their cart, I casually reached out and closed my
fingers around the Peeps-smeared car keys.
    Vicki Jean would
have been proud of me.

     

     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

Escape tip #5:
    So it’s stale and lint-covered—
    it’s still food.

     
                                                               

     

     
                Wanda
Kronenwetter’s van smelled like French fries and jelly beans.
                I’d
discovered my victim’s real identity while rummaging through the registration
papers in her glove compartment, hoping to find money or food. Not a red cent,
but I found half a soggy waffle stuck to a state map, a sucker glued to the
upholstery, a handful of honey-roasted peanuts beneath the seat cushions, and a
rainbow of jelly beans melted to the dashboard. I pried off the jelly beans one
by one and gobbled them as I drove.
                I
intended to drive north, figuring that my pursuers would expect me to head
west,
    toward my family’s home. But my
driving skills were rusty. I got flustered in the fast-moving traffic and ended
up driving east instead. I tried again, but kept getting shunted onto eastbound
streets. After my third attempt I gave in. Fate or karma or God obviously
intended that I go east.
    I’ve always
pictured God as Gregory Peck in To Kill a Mockingbird. The ship’s-prow
jaw, the thick black eyebrows, the deep voice—if Man is not made in
Atticus Finch’s image, then God needs an image makeover. When I was eleven
years old, I foolishly expressed this belief to my Sunday school teacher, who
sentenced me to the Satan chair for the rest of the morning. God was not to be
mocked; God had a long white beard and a see-through body and lived up in the
clouds. Everyone but me knew that.
                But
it was the Atticus Finch God I prayed to as I cautiously motored east,
crunching stale jelly beans, eyeing the police car creeping up my bumper, and
hoping that Wanda Kronenwetter’s brood had settled down to lunch in the snack
bar instead of returning to the parking lot.
                The
police car passed, its driver not even glancing at me. I breathed a sigh of
relief, thanked the Atticus-God, and fiddled with Wanda’s radio dial until I
found a news program. “ . . . still at large,” the announcer was
saying . “U.S. Marshal Irving Katz, head of the federal fugitive apprehension
team, said in a news conference that he is following up several leads and is
confident that Maguire, who escaped during last night’s storm, will be
apprehended today.”
    What leads? Did
they have a clue or were they just woofin’ —prison parlance for
putting up a big front when you got nuttin’ ?
    The car behind me
honked and I realized with a jolt that I was lollygagging along in the fast
lane. For four years I hadn’t moved faster than a slow jog. Now, going forty
miles an hour felt like racing across the Bonneville Salt Flats. Eventually I
managed to pick up the pace to highway speed and unclench my death grip on the
steering wheel.
    The countryside
was green and gorgeous, the sky was filled with wispy white clouds, and the sun
was hot and bright. The van’s air conditioner was cranky, so I opened the
windows and let the breeze whuff through, cooling my sweaty face and whirling
around the fast-food