Something Like a Criminal: Part 3
Despite her preparations, Frankie finds herself unprepared to be on the run.
In the previous chapter, Frankie began her escape and got us up to speed on her current situation. We met Mr. Allcaps. She reached out to her friends for help.
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I left texts for Mouse, Shay, and Trace. Mouse got back to me first. She called.
“Frankie! Are you ok?” she said. “You sound out of breath.”
“I’m OK,” I said, trying to hold the phone up to talk while steering with my other hand, and barely staying upright with all the damn cracks and potholes. “I’m on a bicycle.”
“Why’re you riding a bicycle?”
“I had to… it’s not important.”
I explained the situation and Mouse said come on over.
About twenty minutes later, I made it to her street, and about the same time, I saw a cop car turning the corner. The car didn’t have any markings. I could tell from the license plate. I quickly turned to enter the parking lot of a squat, four-block apartment building and ducked around the corner of the building.
After about fifteen minutes, the cop car reappeared.
I called Mouse and let her know. She wished me luck.
I texted Shay. She called me.
“Frankie, kid, you ok?” Shay said.
“I’m OK.”
“Sounds like you dyin’.”
“I’m not dying. I’m on a bike.”
“Bike? Like a bicycle? Why you on a bicycle, girl?”
“That’s not the important thing,” I said, and gave her the rundown on my situation.
Shay said come on over.
I rode that bike as fast as I could out of the parking lot and headed west toward Shay’s place. Sweat ran down my face and I felt like my clothes were plastered to my back. I made a mental note to start exercising. Nothing extravagant. Maybe just doing a plank in the morning or some squats? I made another mental note to Google for workout ideas.
After a half hour, I made it to Shay’s street. This time, a cop car nearly caught me.
Fortunately, the cop was looking the other way. I saved it by squeezing into an alley between a nail salon and a bodega. There was a Chinese woman in the back who looked like she was going to make a fuss. I gave her a twenty and she was chill. She even gave me one of those Asian drinks with the little marble that makes the drink fizzy.
I dropped the bike over the back fence, hopped after it, and found myself in the garden of some kind of crazy Zen shrine. Nobody was around. I found a friendly dark corner.
I sipped the drink that the Chinese woman had given me. Since I screwed up with my spare clothing, I went through the other pockets of the bag to make sure I hadn’t forgotten anything else. My multi-tool, travel deodorant, and cash were there, except they’d been moved to different pockets. I had to move closer to the light to see what else was in there. In the other pockets, I found a box of crayons, three bright plastic hair clips, a friendship bracelet, glitter markers, a fidget spinner, and a kid-sized pair of blue socks with white cartoon Pomeranians on them.
Clearly, Parker’s little girl was bound and determined to break my heart.
I put it all back, found the exit on the next block, booped a stone Buddha’s nose with my finger, and got rolling again.
Thinking: The cops don’t want Parker. They want me. They asked for me.
Why me?
I had to get ahead of this train wreck.
My phone buzzed.
I’M WAITING
Yeah, I get it, I thought.
Trace finally got back to me.
“What’s up, girl? Sorry I couldn’t get back to you faster. I haven’t been feeling well.”
“Trace, I got a problem.” I noticed that I was wheezing. “Need to go to ground for a while.”
“What does that mean?”
“Hide. It means hide.”
I made a wide turn, diving between two cars, and headed for her house.
“You feeling OK? Sounds like you’re running a marathon.”
“I’m on a bike.”
“A bicycle? What’d you do, hold up a day care center?”
“Look, I get it. I don’t have a normal job. My van’s in the shop so I had to get creative.”
“That’s my Frankie,” she said. “Come on over. I got your back. Oh—but I’m not at my house,” she said.
I grabbed the brake levers and the bike squealed to a stop. “Why aren’t you at your house?”
“I’ll explain when you get here.” She gave me an address.
I turned around and headed back up the block. Hopefully, there wouldn’t be any cops where Trace was, because I didn’t have any more friends.
Stay tuned for the next chapter!
If you enjoy Frankie in this short story, check out the first novel in the Rossi/Lopez series, The Good Killers (ad), where she plays a pivotal role.
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