The Unforgivable Fix by T. E. Woods

bed where Patrick was supposed to be. She looked to her left. Where was her marble bathroom? The dingy grass cloth on these walls was streaked with tobacco and water stains.
    Then she remembered. She wasn’t in Barbados. Patrick wasn’t there to protect her. He’d taunted the Rusian by going after his woman. Tokarev would have no other option but to respond in kind. She’d had to leave. And now she had to stick with her plan.
    You’ve done it now, Allie.
She rubbed her eyes and willed herself to full attention. She pulled the thin covers tight around her shoulders and took stock of her situation. She had money. Four years with Patrick had taught her about opening accounts known only to her and the bank, but she was in no position to access them.
I have expenses.
She’d fled with only what would fit in her bag. Allie glanced across the room and saw the Hermès Birkin lying on top of the pressboard bureau.
I could buy a car with what Patrick paid for that bag.
But she didn’t know how to turn assets into cash. She supposed she could go to a pawnshop, but did the small Georgia town where she’d rented the room even have one? Would they know the value of her bag?
    First things first, Allie. You’re safe. You’re back in the States. Everything is going to be just fine.
    She knew it was a lie even as she thought it. Patrick would be looking for her. And he’d be angry. Tokarev would be looking for her. And he’d be murderous. She burrowed deeper under the blanket and pushed the thought from her mind.
    I need clothes. Cosmetics. Toiletries.
I need to go shopping.
Not the kind of shopping
    where designer boutiques bring trunks of haute couture to her living room for inspection. Not even the high-end avenue shopping she and Alyssa used to do in Palm Beach or Cannes.
    I need to find a mall.
    She and her mother used to go shopping. They’d leave Robbie and Dad to do whatever they did down in the basement workshop and head off to South Center or Alderwood. If it was back-to-school time, her mother would take her downtown, calling it a treat. But Allie always preferred mall shopping. Walking in climate-controlled perfection past kiosks of cheap trinkets. Often she’d see someone from her school who was there with her own mom. Each girl would smile, drop her eyes, and count the number of bags the other held. An all-day mall excursion meant lunch. She and her mother would linger over tuna-salad sandwiches in the restaurant of the flagship store.
    A sadness swept over Allie. She’d never shop with her mother again. She thought of Robbie. Did Claire take Hadley and Hayden shopping?
That would be a great aunty thing to do. I’d spend too much on those twins for hair clips and party dresses. Robbie would fuss and say I’m spoiling them, but he’d smile.
Allie wondered if either of her nieces was like her. They were so young. She tried to imagine their lives. Robbie a reporter, but now with a bestseller under his belt. Claire a stay-at-home mother.
I’ll bet those girls have cookies and stories every afternoon when they get home from school.
Was it enough?
she wondered. Would they be content with a middle-class life? Would they grow up to make their grandpa proud?
    Or would they be like me?
Allie wondered if either of her nieces yearned for more. Did they hunger for things and tastes and places and people not available to those who follow the idealized American dream of two kids, two cars, and two-week vacations? She stared at the ceiling of her sixty-dollar-a-night motel and traced a crack from the overhead light to the far corner. She thought of her life with Patrick. The places they’d seen. The celebrities they’d met. The birthday parties she missed. Her mother’s funeral she didn’t attend. The awareness that regardless of how important she’d been to him, she’d always be viewed as Patrick’s whore.
    The heaviness pulled at her chest. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and tossed off the covers.
    I’ve got