Las Vegas Savior

Emily had thought Detective Simpson was going to protect her. He had put her in what he had called protective custody and had hidden her at a safe house on the edge of town.

The police may have considered it protective custody but to Emily, it was more like she was the one in jail while Derrick and his friend were allowed to run around free. She had not been allowed to leave or go anywhere for over a month and there was always at least one, usually two officers with her at all times but frankly, it had gotten old fast.

Derrick was the one who had killed someone and she was the one being made to feel caged. She had not been allowed to call her job or her landlord to explain what was going on and they probably thought she had not been able to handle the pressure of her life and had decided to skip town because she had never shared any of her personal details with anyone.

Emily figured that her landlord had probably donated all of her stuff to the goodwill or sold it for whatever he could get for it since Emily had had to run on very short notice. All she had with her was her purse and the clothes on her back. Detective Simpson had brought her some clothes she could wear but they weren’t her clothes and they didn’t fit right.

She had been so embarrassed when it came to her time of the month and she had to ask them to buy her the required supplies. They had sent a female officer with not only that but some basic toiletries as well. She had been about to demand that she be allowed to go back to her apartment and gather some of her things.

She had decided that she was going to tell them that she wanted to go stay with her sister in Portland until the trial. Derrick didn’t even know she had a sister so she figured she would be safe enough. She had decided that when Detective Simpson came on duty in the morning she was going to tell him and had her little speech all figured out. He had made a habit of coming by every Monday morning and Emily often wondered if that’s how they had found her.

On Sunday night, Derrick and some of his buddies had somehow found out where she was being hidden. Emily had been in the kitchen of the safe house when Derrick pounded on the door and started yelling her name. She had run into the bedroom, grabbed her coat and purse and was standing there shivering and terrified when she heard shots being fired. All she knew at that moment was that she was scared and that she needed to get out of there.

She had locked the bedroom door and put a chair under the knob. She could hear Derrick walking through the house, yelling for her to come out. She knew that hiding wasn’t going to work, so she climbed out of the bedroom window and ran down the access road that ran behind the houses. She kept ducking behind the dumpsters and cars parked along the way so that she could look back to see if anyone was following her.

She had made it all the way down the alley and had stopped to catch her breath at the corner when she looked back and saw Derrick and two other men run into the alley. She hid behind the corner of the shop at the end of the alley and watched them as they stopped and looked both ways for her.

Derrick motioned for one man to go check in her direction while he and the other man ran the other way. Emily had run like the devil himself was chasing her. She ran across and down the street and around the corner. She made it into a shop on the next block before the man who was chasing her came around the corner.

She watched as he stopped and looked around. He was the same tall, bald man who had been there the night the man was killed. He was overweight and out of breath. He seemed to hesitate about which direction to take. She breathed a sigh of relief when he turned and went on further down the street in the opposite direction.

She had stayed hidden in the shop where she had taken refuge until she was sure the coast was clear enough to go out. She took off one sleeve of her jacket and looped her purse straps over her arm, then put her jacket back on and zipped the front closed. That way, she wouldn’t lose it and it would leave her hands free. She was thankful that her jacket had a hood to it and she pulled it up over her hair. It had begun to drizzle again as she hunched her shoulders and walked quickly down the street in the opposite direction from the way the man had gone as she tried to think of what she needed to do next.

If she went back into protective custody, which had never made her feel protected, more like caged, something told her Derrick would find her again and wondered if he might have connections in the police department that had told him where she was staying.

She decided she would contact Detective Simpson and let him know she was OK but that she had decided to go underground on her own. She just couldn’t take being caged up like an animal waiting on them to capture Derrick, who had managed to evade capture for over a month now. She also wanted to know that if they knew who he was, why hadn’t he been caught by now?

Something was just not adding up and she couldn’t have explained what it was that was telling her she would be safer on her own. She had planned to tell him that she would check in with him every so often and if and or when they did catch Derrick, only then would she return to Seattle. Until then, she had to be free.

She had taken back streets, ducking into stores to watch the streets as she made her way back to her side of town. She had been so afraid that he was going to find her that she finally got on a cross town bus that would take her to within a couple of blocks of her apartment building.

She had slumped down low on the bus seat and kept a careful watch out of the bus windows, waiting for it to pass through her neighborhood. She got off about a block from her apartment and had gone into a small shop across from her building to watch to see if he was around anywhere.

Emily had been shocked when she saw Derrick come out of her apartment and stand on her balcony as he smoked a cigarette. She should have called Detective Simpson right then and there but something told her to get somewhere safe first.

Getting somewhere safe meant she needed to get out of town first and to do that she was going to need her car. So she had watched out the window and after what seemed like an eternity, until she saw Derrick leave her building and get in the car with the other man that had been there that night.

Apparently they had assumed that now that she was no longer in police custody and was running scared, that she would go home and they had been right! She decided that nothing in her apartment was worth her life and she stayed hidden in the shop until it got dark outside. She wondered why Derrick had left the lights in her apartment on until she saw a shadow move across the window and she realized that he had left someone there to wait for her. Sneaky. So she made a beeline for her car.

Thankfully, the landlord had not had it towed away yet. She had been dying to go up to her apartment and get some of her things but if there was someone waiting there for her, well it just wasn’t worth it. She had jumped in her car and shoved the key in the ignition then started her car.

She was tempted to peel rubber out of there but knew that would draw attention to her. She forced herself to take several deep breaths before she put the car in gear and drove out of the parking lot. She decided that if her car was still there and Derrick was in her apartment that maybe her stuff was still there.

As soon as she was far enough away that she felt safe, she would call her landlord and arrange for him to let a moving company come in and pack up all of her stuff and put it in storage for her. She would be able to take care of everything with her credit card and a phone. She was so thankful that she still had her purse and her wallet.

Emily slept in her car for the first couple of nights and then decided that she had to chance going to a store. She needed tampons, having used the last one she’d had in her purse that morning. She drove to a Walmart on the edge of town and had bought some basic necessities like a sleeping bag, a couple of changes of clothes, basic toiletries and most importantly a new cell phone that didn’t require a contract to sign up for services.

They didn’t have the kind of backpack she wanted so she decided to wait until she could find what she wanted. Instead, she had treated herself to a small travel size pillow and a couple of pillow cases. She prayed she would not have to be on the run for long and these were things she would be able to use anytime.

Emily had been running ever since she had seen something she never should have seen and often wished she could forget but it was burned into her memory and haunted her dreams all too often. She wondered if she would ever be able to trust any man again. She had thought she could trust her ex-boyfriend Derrick when they had first met but after she had seen him murder a man, her trust was once again shaken to the core!

During her first summer on the run, she had found an army surplus store and invested in a pup tent and some other camping gear like a mess kit and a good flashlight and a propane camp stove but her most prized find had been her rucksack, a backpack like the soldiers in the military used.

She had also kept the illustrated survival guide her father had given her that first summer. She had been tempted many times over the years to throw it away and had put it in her trunk, thinking she would donate it to the book store the next time she was there. She couldn’t explain why she had kept it all these years but now she was glad she had it.

She had spent the majority of that first summer hiding in the woods just outside of Seattle. She had moved her campsite every other day and had lived like her father had taught her to during their survival camping trips.

The survival guide had kept her from eating berries and mushrooms that might poison her and guided her on how to find stuff safe to eat. She had tried to go into the city several times to get in touch with people she worked with, hoping to get some help but everyone just kept telling her to go to the police.

No one had even offered to let her stay with them, even for a night. But then she couldn’t really blame them. They all had their own lives to live and she wouldn’t wish what she was going through on anyone but it had hurt that no one had been willing to do anything to help her.

When the summer was almost over, she finally took a chance to make one last trip into Seattle. She needed gas money and that meant that she needed to get to an ATM. She also wanted something to eat besides “found food”. She was so tempted to check into a hotel, just so that she could get a hot shower and sleep in a real bed for a change.

She had been standing in the lobby of a Chinese restaurant, waiting on her take out order when she saw Derrick get out of a car across the street and look around. “How did he find me so fast?” She wondered as she paid for her food and asked the girl behind the register if there was a back door out of the restaurant.

The girl pointed at the kitchen and then handed her the change from her twenty dollar bill. Emily told her “If anyone comes asking where I went, tell them I’m in the ladies room.” The girl nodded and Emily grabbed the bag with her take out order and quickly walked through the restaurant.

The kitchen staff was surprised when she pushed open the door but didn’t try to stop her as she almost ran for the back door. She barely made it back to her car when Derrick spotted her. She got in and took off before he could cross the street back to his car.

Emily quickly got “lost” in the traffic and after driving around town until she was certain he wasn’t following her, she got on the highway out of town. She went back to her “camp”, gathered her things and kept going until she felt like she was far enough away to be able to stop and make a new camp.

That episode taught her to never leave her camping gear again. From then on, whenever she left camp for any length of time, she packed everything up and stowed it in her trunk. Summer was going to be over soon and she needed to find some place to stay. She looked at the balance on her bank receipt and knew that the funds in her savings account were not going to last forever so she needed to find work!

As soon as she had broken camp, she had driven right out of town that night, stopping only for gas, the bathroom and something to eat. There is a lot to be said about convenience store food and none of it very good.

Emily didn’t sleep hardly at all the first few months, catching cat naps at best, usually in her car while she was parked in a busy car lot, like at Walmart where it would be hard to single out her car from the hundreds of others. Sleeping in your car with all the windows rolled up during the summer was almost impossible even if she did manage to find some shade to park under and in the winter, she was always so cold.

She had headed south first, usually choosing to live at the YWCA or in cheap motels or rooming houses. Sometimes she would get lucky and the manager of the motel would let her pay for a room by doing maid services in exchange. She never stayed in one place for very long and would move on, eventually going more south as it began to get closer to winter.

She had been in almost every state on the western side of the US over the past three years. Spending the summer months in the north and the winter months in the south. She had worked in several fields, sometimes doing things that she absolutely hated but so long as they paid her cash, she did the work.

She had seemed to develop a sixth sense about Derrick getting close and more than once, she’d had to duck out the back when he was coming through the front door. She would never forget the time she had been cleaning rooms in a small motel just off the highway in Arizona.

She had made a deal with the owner to clean rooms for a place to sleep and some cash for a couple of days while his regular maid was out sick with the flu. She had woken up that morning with a feeling of dread but didn’t know why.

She had eaten a quick breakfast in the diner, which was also part of her deal with the manager, then had gone about her duties. She was almost done for the day when she had heard Derrick’s voice. She was on the second floor and had just shut off the vacuum cleaner when she heard him walking down the breeze way on the floor just below her.

“That’s her car in the back. She’s got to be around here somewhere. Go ask at the front desk. I’m going to use the men’s room.” Derrick’s voice carried up to her. The box shape of the inner court of the motel caused the sound to bounce back loud and clear.

She leaned over the railing and saw them walk towards the lobby. As soon as they were inside, she took off running for her car. She wasn’t going to get paid for the work she had done that day but her freedom and safety were more important.