For the first time since Dixie had come to work at the Byway the Bar was closed way, way early.
The place was deadly quiet.
Wilmot no doubt shut the place up after Conway got shot.
No-one would want to grab a whore or play poker after that happening and why risk having the place trashed by a drunken lynch mob that didn't get to lynch someone.
Dixie walked to the door of Wilmot's office, no light came from underneath it.

She tried the handle....the door opened.
She put the key in her hand back in the pocket of her skirt.

She thought about the key for a second, a key that she had taken from Adam Henry's set one night when he was passed out at the table beside the bar. He had never, to this day,even noticed the key missing. The very key that had let her into Wilmot's Office in the small hours to get help for poor Jeannie when things got bad. As they often would do. That Bastard Wilmot. He killed Jeannie as sure as stabbing her in her heart thought Dixie.

Jeannie Lawrence had been a new Girl who really didn't belong at the Byway. She was an Orphan, nowhere else to go and owned nothing but her body, well that was until Wilmot took over the ownership of that. Jeannie was 15 years old. Terrified. Dixie remembered Wilmot laughing as he watched Jeannie come down the stairs the first night she started working for him. Her eyes glazed, no expression on her face. The fifteen year old was gone and she never really came back during her short stay at the Byway and all thanks to Wilmot.

"See how you like a taste of your own medicine Wilmot" said Dixie under her breath.

Dixie opened the bottom drawer of Wilmot's desk and took out the half full Whiskey bottle, then she took the full Bottle of Laudanum from her pocket and carefully poured it's entire contents into the Whiskey Bottle and swirled the contents around. She smelled the mixture. Wrinkling her nose. It smelt more of whiskey than anything else to her mind. She replaced the Cork and put it back into the bottom drawer.
" Maybe he'll notice, maybe he won't. I hope the bastard drinks it all "
She left the Office and went back upstairs.

Looking around room for what was to be the last time in her Life, Dixie checked the now packed Carpet bag making sure she had everything. She lifted the Floorboard under the dresser one more time and checked. There was no longer anything there.
Her metal Box and the Box that Benjamin Huntington had given her for safe keeping where safely packed in her Bag.
Her 'working' dresses were hanging in the Closet. She would never be needing them again and the bottle of Rose water that was almost empty sat on top of the dresser, unpacked. As long as she lived she would never put a drop of that on herself again.
Dixie looked in the mirror, she didn't pinch her cheeks, she simply made sure her thick Black hair was secure in it's clasp.
She lifted her bag. Walked down the Hallway and down the stairs, looking only at the Clock as she passed the poker table to check the time. It was 7am Byway time, which meant it was just 5am in the world outside, "perfect" she thought. Then Dixie walked through the Kitchen and headed for the back door to the alley. She opened the back door and stepped outside, closing it behind her.
She did not turn to look at the Byway once as she walked the backways towards Sam Shepard's Office.
With each step Dixie took she started changing, head tilting upright, face setting into a determined look and her Green eyes more fixed than they ever had been on where she was now heading.

The Byway was missing a whore and that whore would never be back. Not to the Byway, nor to St. Louis nor to anywhere else for that matter. In fact the truth was, it was as if a whore called Dixie La Fleur had simply never existed