Free Nightlife by Thomas Perry

Mrs. Halloran, the landlady, had supplied with the house, trying to find any hairs that she might have left on a cushion. She wrote “Eve Halloran” on an envelope, slipped her house key into it, and left it on the mantel. Then she picked up her suitcase, went out the door, and pressed the lock button. Only after she was outside the house and in her car did she take off her thin rubber gloves.
    She was out on Highway 101 by noon, driving south, away from the city. San Francisco had been a terrible disappointment to her, and she wanted to get away, but she had no destination in mind. Today it seemed to Rachel that the world was a cold and treacherous place, and the only act that was appealing was to keep moving.
    For a few hours she drove and thought about her dissatisfaction with David Larson. He was a foolish man, one who had no idea what a wonderful future he had thrown away when he had betrayed Rachel Sturbridge’s trust. He really deserved to die, and it bothered her that she had been forced to let him go. It didn’t seem fair.
    When she began to feel hungry, she looked at the clock on the dashboard and noticed that it was five o’clock. She stopped at a restaurant in Pismo Beach and stared out at the highway while she ate, wishing she could see the ocean.
    She refilled the gas tank and drove all the way to the Los Angeles County line before she stopped again. She found a hotel off the Ventura Freeway in the west end of the San Fernando Valley and registered with her Rachel Sturbridge credit card. When she awoke in the morning, she showered, ate, and dressed, then settled her bill in cash. It was time to begin making herself safe from whatever problems David Larson might have caused.
    She needed to be anonymous for a time while she rested and decided what she wanted to do next, and the nondescript neighborhood where she had stopped looked like a good place for that. All of Los Angeles seemed featureless to her, a vast sameness. A young, white middle-class woman could avoid notice for a very long time if she paid attention and didn’t do anything stupid. She rented an apartment in Woodland Hills not far from the Topanga Canyon shopping mall by putting down money for the first month, last month, and security deposit in cash.
    She went to a copying store, just as she had in San Francisco, rented a computer and printer, and took out the CD where she had stored the blank birth certificate. During the long drive from San Francisco she had been thinking of using the name Veronica, but the girl who waited on her was pretty and energetic, and she was wearing a badge that said, “Nancy Gonzales, Sales Associate.” The name Nancy seemed cheerful, so that was the one that she chose. She filled in the blank with the name Nancy Mills.
    Next she bought a hair dye kit and lightened her hair again, then went to a salon to have it cut. She had worn it long and loose as Rachel Sturbridge, so now it had to be shorter. Long hair gave her an advantage with men, but she had decided it would be better if she didn’t attract any more of them for a while. On the way home, she went to an optometrist’s shop in a strip mall and bought some nonprescription contact lenses in different eye colors.
    Two days later, when she went to the Department of Motor Vehicles to apply for a new driver’s license, she wore the brown contacts, so in her license picture she had brown eyes and shoulder-length, light brown hair. She thought of the look as drab and ordinary, which was exactly what she wanted.
    She sold Rachel Sturbridge’s car through the
Pennysaver
to a woman she told she needed money to pay off a credit card debt. She could walk to restaurants, movie theaters, and even a grocery store from her apartment, so she decided that she could do without a car for the moment. Nancy Mills needed quiet and anonymity and solitude. She was disillusioned by her experience with David Larson, and had no desire to go anyplace where men might see her and talk