Runner

28

As Jane drove along the coast highway and up over the hill to the freeway, she reminded herself that she had still found nothing that would prove Beale had caught Christine. It was still possible that something else had happened. Christine had spoken with Sharon on the telephone. Maybe she had called another friend, someone her own age. Christine might very well have gone to visit the friend and still be there. The fact that Christine's car was missing didn't necessarily mean the four kidnappers had taken it away from her. She could just as easily have driven it somewhere and still be using it.

Jane dialed the phone number of Christine's apartment in Minneapolis again and let it ring until the voice mail came on. Then she hung up, called Express Jet, and booked a flight to Santa Barbara, then called a car rental agency. In four hours she was on the plane in a chestnut-colored wig, feeling glad that she wouldn't have to wear it for a long flight.

When she reached Santa Barbara, she picked up a white Chrysler 300 at the rental agency and drove it northward on Highway 101.

She checked into a hotel in Lompoc before she called the prison. She requested permission for Delia Monahan to visit Robert Monahan again on Saturday. When she called back to find out whether the visit had been approved, the official she was transferred to said she could come again at the same time as before.

She left for the prison an hour earlier than she had last time, stopped at various spots along the route, and studied every vehicle she saw, looking for any sign that Beale's crew was watching the road. When she reached the parking lot, she drove up and down the aisles, looking for the dark-haired woman who had followed her on the last trip. Then Jane drove another circuit looking for anyone at all who was waiting in a car, anything on a dashboard that could be a camera, or any other sign that the lot was under surveillance. She parked and made her way to the prison entrance to begin the long process of getting admitted to the visiting room.

The wait was not as long this time, possibly because she had shown up earlier than her appointment, or possibly because she had been here before and not caused any uneasiness among the guards. When the officer called Delia Monahan, she stood and followed him to the visiting room.

She could see the anxious look on Robert Monahan's face, and realized what it was. He was sitting on his side of the long counter expecting to hear that his new grandchild had been born. He stood up and held out his arms.

Jane gave him a brief hug to reassure the Visiting Room Officer that she was Delia, and that she had nothing in her hands that she was trying to slip to Monahan. They sat down and she said, "How have you been?"

"Not so hot, but it hasn't got anything to do with my daughter. Tell me about Chris and the baby."

Jane sighed. "You've got to stay calm and pretend that what I'm going to say isn't shocking. Can you?"

Monahan nodded.

"I went to stay with Christine a few days ago, and when I got to the apartment where I had left her, she wasn't there. Her car was gone and there were no signs of a struggle, but she'd been gone for a long time."

"How long?"

"The only one who had expected to see her was her doctor, and she hasn't been in for her checkups in a month. I think she may have been gone about three weeks."

"You said her car was gone. Could she have just driven it somewhere?"

Jane placed her hand on his forearm and looked into his eyes. "Believe me, I want that to be what happened. I just don't think it is."

"Why not? How can you know?"

"Last time I came to see you, a woman followed me away from the prison and up the road. I managed to lose her on the way through Lompoc, but each of us got a good close look at the other. I'm pretty sure she's one of the six people that Richard Beale hired to find Christine. There was no other reason for anyone to know who I was or that I was coming here. And there's certainly no other reason for anyone to follow me, except to find Christine."

Robert Monahan frowned. "I don't understand what you're saying."

"The woman wasn't here this morning when I got here, and neither were any of the others. Three months ago she was here, but today there's nobody here waiting for Christine or me to show up."

"Isn't that a good thing?"

"The only reason I can think of that they aren't here now is that they've already found her."

"Maybe you're wrong. Maybe they've just decided they've done all they could do here, so they're looking somewhere else. They've been here and talked to me, and maybe that persuaded them that coming here was a lost cause."

"Who talked to you?"

"Richard Beale's father. His name is Andy."

"When?"

"Not too long after you were here. He made a special request to the warden's office to be allowed in. They asked me if I would be willing to see him, and I figured, why not?"

"What did he tell you?"

"A lot. That Richard missed her and wanted to marry her. He said Richard had a ring with a three-carat diamond and all that. He wanted me to tell Christine I thought she should go back."

"You haven't had any chance to tell her that, have you?"

"No," he said. "I made it pretty clear that if she's hiding, I didn't expect that she would be visiting me here any time soon. Maybe that was all it was. Maybe they waited for a month or so to be sure I was telling the truth, then went away and stayed away."

"I hope you're right," said Jane. "I hope they decided the whole enterprise was futile or too dangerous for them. After all, this place is filled with law-enforcement people, and the city cops are probably ready for trouble, too. Maybe they thought that even if they saw her they wouldn't be able to kidnap her here."

Robert Monahan leaned forward to study her. "Do you think my daughter is dead?"

"I hope she isn't," said Jane. "I think the people Richard Beale hired were supposed to bring her back to San Diego. I think that Beale wanted her—and the baby, if it was born by then—brought to him. I don't know anything about him beyond that. I know that Christine got lonely at one point. She made at least one phone call to a woman she knew in San Diego after I told her to stop communicating with anyone from the past. It's possible that the people Beale hired to find her were monitoring some of Christine's old friends and picked something up, or she left a message and they broke in and replayed it, or got the passwords and were routinely calling in to hear the messages. That's the kind of thing that professional chasers do—cops, and private detectives, too, if they think they can get away with it."

"You're telling me you think she made some little mistake like that? Some slipup and it killed her?" He knew there was no way for her to answer, so he looked down and put his head in his hands. "Jesus."

Jane said, "Tell me about Andy Beale."

"He's about sixty. He's big, and he looks as though he did some physical work in his time. Kind of tough-looking, but well dressed. When he talks he watches you for a reaction, and I get the impression that he's prepared to say whatever will give him the best one. He told me the things he knew would make me likely to want to please him—that he and his son had Chris's best interests at heart and that all Richard wanted was a chance to be a loving husband to her. But if he thought it would be more useful to say Richard was a kangaroo he would have said that instead."

"What did you tell him about Christine?"

"Nothing he didn't know already. That she didn't want to go back with Richard and that she wasn't likely to come here, either. You hadn't told me anything else."

"Right." She sat still for a moment, trying to decide how to say the next part. "It's possible that when I leave here I'm going to find the four of them waiting outside to follow me to Christine. If so, I'll be very happy and I'll take them on quite a trip. But I honestly don't have much hope that's what's going to happen."

"I understand," he said.

"When I find out why Christine wasn't where I expected and what happened after that, I'll try to get word to you." She stood.

"Be careful," he said.

"Don't worry. I'll try very hard not to put her in danger."

"Or you," he said. "If anything happened to you, I wouldn't know where to start looking. All I've got is the address and number of your P.O. box in my memory."

She gave Robert Monahan a hug, then caught the Visiting Room Officer's eye and followed him to the door.

When Jane was outside the building, she walked slowly, scanning the lot. It was a hot, late-summer morning, and the sunlight glinted from every shiny surface of every car, and the distant parts of the lot melted into mirage lakes wavering in the glare. There was not a head in any car window to pay attention to her. As she approached her rental car, she was already sure that nobody was waiting. Wherever Christine was, Richard Beale was no longer curious about her.