MISCHA'S HEAD JERKED forward as she spun out of a dream that drifted away like smoke. Her heart was pounding. She held perfectly still and listened until she was satisfied that she was hearing only the sounds of nature, not the urgent footfalls of a nationwide manhunt.309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgRTZF29kfC
She didn't have a watch, so she didn't know what time it was. The sun, filtering its rays down through the tree branches and their few remaining leaves, was high. She figured it was somewhere around eleven in the morning.
She walked about thirty yards or so, back to the stone path. Now she had company. Couples milled aimlessly about, hand in hand, admiring the forest and enjoying their time away from the real world. A few of them looked her over briefly, but they were vacationing, not conducting critical analysis, and she had to assume they would soon forget her altogether.
She took the Audi and spent the afternoon in downtown Périville, first stopping at a café for a croissant and café americain. A simple bread twist and basic coffee, but the meal was like a symphony to her taste buds. She had a copy of Le Monde laid out on a table along with a notepad. She was facing a wall so she could keep her back to the other patrons. Nobody would expect to see the notorious fugitive sitting in this quaint little restaurant, but she didn't have to make anybody's job any easier.
There was a bar in this place, and therefore a television, and the news was all about her. If she turned around she probably would have seen an unflattering photograph of herself splashed across the screen.
The front page of Le Monde didn't cover her; news of her escape had presumably come well after the paper went to press. Anyway, she was concerned with the section devoted to arts and entertainment, where a half page was dedicated to none other than Benito McLaughlin. She'd read about him in prison, his upcoming movie about Adolf Hitler. Apparently the opening-weekend box office in the States had exceeded all expectations. Benito was probably happy that Hollywood had turned its back on the project, leaving him to privately finance the movie; all the more money for him now. And this week he was off to Europe, hitting all the major cities. The premiere in Germany was expected to be controversial, to say the least, which would surely translate into millions in box office receipts. How nice for Benito.
Well, enough of that asshole. Mischa left the café and walked over to the train station to familiarize herself with it. Would the police have it covered? They didn't. There was only a single uniformed officer, whom she avoided.
She found a pharmacie in town and got some hair products. She added some basic toiletries and accessories----soap, shampoo, some eyeliner, and lipstick. Then she grabbed a cheap Mickey Mouse watch, scissors, and a hand mirror, a small flashlight, sunglasses, and more bottles of water. She went down to the street to another store and bought a cheap costume wig that roughly matched her current hair color and a baseball cap bearing the emblem of some soccer team.309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHqfRMB0Fkr
On her way back to Le Domaine, she wondered, only briefly, how things were going at JRF.309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGDNNPaQ0gl
