Runner

5

"Wake up."

Jane sat up, and saw Francine standing in the doorway of the Victorian sitting room. When she moved, Jane followed her down the hallway.

Francine said, "I wanted to talk for a minute before you go."

"All right."

"I was on the run once," she said.

"How did you find your way to Stewart?"

"Luck," said Francine. "I got lucky and met somebody who had the same kind of problem I had, and she showed me her identification. She told me where she got it." She stared at Jane for a moment. "Stewart tells me that you're somebody we don't ever have to worry about. He said you were reliable. Is it true?"

Jane stared back at her. "I try to be. I've been out of this life for a long time. Before I quit taking on runners, I had found a few people I believed were safe to do business with, and Stewart was one of them. For all I know, all the others are dead or in jail now. So he's pretty important to me right now."

Francine kept her large, dark eyes on Jane. "I want you to know that I'm not jealous of you or paranoid or something. The reason I was running is that I killed somebody who deserved it. If the police take me in and fingerprint me, it's not going to make a bit of difference why, then I'm gone."

"I'm sorry," said Jane. "For my sake and yours, I hope they never find you or Stewart. You seem to care about him."

"When I got here, I didn't have any money left. I didn't have anything much to trade. I told him that I would pay him by being his personal whore."

"You don't have to tell me this."

"Yes, I do, because I want us to understand each other. When I was running I got to the point where I knew I would do anything to be safe again, and I figured that was something he'd want. It was going to be pure business, but I discovered that the idea, the badness of it or something, excited me. What happened since then is that we fell in love. If I had to open somebody's artery again to hold on to the life we have here, I'd do it in an eyeblink."

"Not mine. I'll keep your secret."

Francine glanced toward the door to the sitting room. "Will she? She's a kid."

"I'm betting my life on her."

"You are," said Francine. "There are people looking really hard for her and for you. Things have changed since the last time you were running. There are more people in the chasing business these days. I want you to be careful, because if you fuck this up, I'm probably dead."

"I'll do my best." Jane put her arms around Francine and held her for a moment, then released her.

Jane heard a door open behind her. "Jane?" It was Christine. Francine opened the door beside her and disappeared into Shattuck's workshop.

"What was that about?" Christine asked.

"We were wishing each other good luck."

"Good luck?"

"Yes. You'd be amazed at how much depends on luck."

"Now you're scaring me."

"Good."

The door opened and Francine said, "He's done. Your traveling documents are ready."

Jane went inside and examined the driver's license, the Social Security card, and the birth certificate. They were superb forgeries, all in the name Linda Welles. "Who's Linda Welles?"

Stewart said, "I like to give an old customer like you a bargain now and then. Linda Welles is an identity I grew. The Visa card is real, the birth certificate is a duplicate of a real one. The license has a counterpart in the North Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles. All I changed was the photo."

"Thank you." Jane took her cell phone and a credit card out of her purse. She looked at the phone number on the back of the card and dialed, listened to a recording, punched in the numbers on the front of the card, and then handed the card to Stewart. "Hello. Yes. My name is Cecilia Randazzo. The reason I'm calling is that I'm about to make a kind of big charge on my card, and I wanted you to know it's real. Forty thousand dollars." She answered a series of questions from the woman on the other end of the line, then disconnected. She said to Stewart, "All done. Charge away."

He scanned the card in his scanner, then returned it. Jane gathered up the false identification and said, "Thanks, Stewart. Take care of Francine and keep her safe." She turned to go.

"See you, Janie."

Jane stepped out the door, swept Christine to the front entrance, and stopped while Francine scanned the neighborhood. Jane said, "Persuade him that he's got enough money to retire, and get him out of here."

In a minute Jane was driving, and they were already out of town. It was after four A.M. now. They didn't speak much, just let the dark landscape float past the windows and the headlights reveal new stretches of road that weren't different from the last ones. Route 20 intersected with a big county road a couple of miles past the next town, and Jane felt an urge to take it, but she decided it would be better to keep going on the highway for a bit longer. They were making good time, and she wanted to do most of their traveling before the sun came up.

She began to consider where she would go when the road reached the Hudson. Years ago, when a runner showed up at her door with chasers close behind, she had simply started the car and begun to drive. When she was sure she had built up enough distance, she had gotten them both on an airplane. Even in those days, when she could walk into an airport, dream up a new name, and buy a ticket, flying had been a risk. Once a person stepped onto a plane there wasn't much mystery about where and when she would step off.

As Jane crested a rolling hill and began to coast down, she saw two big unmarked black American cars pulled across the center of the road in a V shape, with a third in the right lane about ten yards beyond. That would be the chase car, in case someone ran the roadblock. She said, "Roadblock up there. Sit up and look innocent."

Christine sat up and looked. "Is it the police?"

"It looks that way. I don't see how it could be the people who are searching for you."

"I don't either," said Christine. "They'd have to be psychics. But I'm scared. Can we turn around and go back the other way?"

"I don't think so. That's the best way I know to get stopped and have the car searched."

"So what? We don't have anything illegal in the car, do we?"

"Nothing but a few thousand dollars in cash and a few driver's licenses in different names."

"But what if it isn't the police? What about those people—Stewart and Francine? Did you tell them Richard's name? They could have called him while we were sleeping."

"That didn't happen." Jane slowed her Volvo and watched two men get out of one of the cars and step toward them. There was one walking toward each side of the car, and each held a large flashlight in his hand. That wasn't reassuring to Jane. It looked like what police did when they were checking cars looking for a fugitive.

She rolled down her window so she would be able to hear them. She could see that the two wore sport coats. There was a badge pinned to the belt of the man who was walking toward her. She said, "See? That one has a badge."

"No!" said Christine. "That's—"

"It's them!" the man shouted. He sidestepped quickly as he reached across his chest and under his coat.

"Get down." Jane wrenched the wheel toward the man and pressed the gas pedal. He sprinted for the side of the road. When his feet hit the gravel shoulder, he spun around to face the Volvo with the gun in his hand. His instant of understanding was visible in the headlights as he realized that he had not run far enough. There was a loud thump as the Volvo hit him, and a series of bumps as he rolled up and over the hood toward the windshield. Jane held the wheel to the left to keep the car spinning, and the centrifugal force threw him off onto the pavement. Jane saw him bounce, roll, and then lie still.

Jane turned off the headlights and accelerated up and over the hill. She realized she had heard shots behind them, first one gun firing a round, then three rapid shots, and then a second shooter firing steadily.

Christine yelled, "You hit him!"

"We each had a weapon, and mine's bigger," said Jane. "Sometimes I wish it were faster." She stepped harder on the gas pedal, steering with both hands and straining her eyes to keep the car on the pavement.

"My God," said Christine. "How can you see anything? It's completely dark."

"I don't have to see much—just where the road is." Jane steered for a few more seconds, still accelerating, but then let the car's speed stay constant. "We're out of sight and out of range for the moment. Did you hear any bullets hit the car?"

"I don't think so. What does that sound like?"

"You'll know when you hear it. We're alive and the engine still runs, and I think we're going to have to get rid of this car anyway. It'll just be easier with no holes in it." Jane looked in the rearview mirror every few seconds. "They're not following us. I wonder what's keeping them." She looked again. "I get it."

"Get what?"

"There weren't five of them back there, only three. They must have gone ahead to set up the roadblock, and the others have been coming along behind us. Now they'll be waiting for us somewhere along this road."

"What can we do?"

"There was a turnoff for a county highway back there. We'll head for that as fast as we can. Most likely the two who were following us will have heard we're coming back this way, and they'll be trying to block the road so we'll have one roadblock ahead and one behind. If we're faster than they expect, then maybe we can make the turn and never meet them."

Christine felt the car accelerating again, and pushed her body back into the seat. "Don't you think we could turn on the headlights?"

"I can make out the broken white line. As long as I keep it a foot to my left, we'll be okay. Just check your lap belt so it rides around your hips, tighten the chest belt so it's comfortable and holds you still, and let this happen."

Christine was silent, just did as Jane had said. Jane watched the dark road, concentrating on keeping her speed as high as she dared, and steering partly by the memory of the road she had from driving it in the opposite direction and partly by staring down at the blur of lines coming at her from the darkness like projectiles, then slipping past her left tire. After a couple of minutes she caught herself letting the moonlight on a stretch of bare ground ahead fool her into interpreting it as part of the pavement, but she managed to correct the car's course and stay on the road. She looked into the rearview mirror for a second, but saw no sign of the cars from the roadblock, not even a glow of headlights approaching the top of the rise. Jane returned her eyes to the road ahead, and after the next turn, the rise was out of sight.

A set of headlights appeared far ahead of them, then another set. "Two cars," said Christine. "Do you think it's the others?"

Jane squinted at the two sets of headlights coming toward them. One car pulled to the left as though to pass, but it was the front car. Now there was one car coming at them in each lane. Jane switched on her headlights.

The car approaching in Jane's lane blinked its high beams on, then off.

Jane switched on her brights and left them on. She kept her foot on the gas pedal, maintaining her speed toward the car in her lane.

"Don't play chicken with them!"

"I'm not playing," said Jane.

The pair of cars stayed together, streaking toward them. In one of the cars, the driver punched the horn three times, then stiff-armed it, holding it down so the sound started high and seemed to go down the scale as the cars approached.

The row of four headlights kept growing bigger and brighter. The two cars seemed to be linked, impossible to separate, impossible to avoid. Christine put her hands in front of her face. "Oh God oh God," she said.

The car in Jane's lane wavered a little, then altered its course slightly and moved to the shoulder of the road to allow Jane to pass between the two cars, but Jane muttered, "It's not that easy." She pulled onto the shoulder, too, so she was once again on a course to collide with the car.

"Stop! You're crazy!" Christine shouted.

The driver of the car that was approaching them had no choice except to veer farther to the left and sail off the shoulder in the only direction that was open, into the sloping field below the road.

Jane and the remaining car passed each other at high speed, and she looked into the rearview mirror as she moved along the highway. The car in the field was stopped, enveloped in a cloud of dust. Jane couldn't tell how badly it was damaged. The car on the road pulled over. Its white backup lights came on, and it backed up until it was close to the spot where the other car had stopped. Jane saw the dome light go on and off, and someone ran from the car across the road, and then she lost sight of them.

Jane drove faster now, searching for the junction she had remembered, and then took the turn. She glanced at Christine. "You okay?"

Christine was breathing heavily, as though she had run a race. There were tears running from her widened eyes. "I can't believe you did that."

"I didn't chase them. They chased us."

"You know what I mean."

"They're hired hands. That means they're willing to kill us for money. It doesn't mean they're willing to die for money."

"You bet our lives on that? And my baby's life, too. You weren't just trying to get past. You wanted to force that car off the road."

Jane turned to look at her in curiosity. "Of course." Then she returned her eyes to the road and kept driving.

CARL MCGINNIS LAY on his back, exactly where the white car had thrown him, on the damp, weedy slope beside the shoulder of the road. He could smell the sweet aroma of crushed plants near his head. He knew he was hurt badly. He suspected he might be in some kind of shock, and he suspected that if he moved what was waiting for him was pain, so he had not tried to move yet. Breathing was difficult, so he supposed he must have broken some ribs. He lay there staring up at the sky with an expression like a man listening.

Steve Demming's head and torso appeared above him, a deeper darkness bending to block the night sky. "Carl, I know it hurts. But can you tell me how bad it is?"

Carl was unable to make out Demming's face well enough to read his expression in the dark. He was too frightened to complete the inventory of his injuries. He knew there must be a reservoir of pain waiting, and it would burst and overwhelm him if he moved in the wrong way. He had heard impatience and frustration in Demming's voice. What Demming wanted was to hear Carl say, "I'm all right," and then watch him get up and walk it off. Carl could tell that he wasn't going to be able to stand up. He stared up at Demming's dark shape against the sky, but was unable to gather enough air into his lungs to calm his impatience.

Carl heard a cell telephone buzz, then Demming's voice again. "Yeah?" There was a long pause. "I hear you. Jesus, what a night. You might as well keep coming and meet us. We're still set up here. Carl got hit by her car. Yeah. It looks that way. Okay. Bye." Carl heard Demming's heavy footsteps receding, and then some low conversation with Pete Tilton.

Carl heard one of the car doors open and shut, and the sound of the car engine as one of the two men moved the car off the road and parked it on the shoulder, then the same thing repeated as they moved the other car. Then there was silence again. He couldn't move his head enough to see, but he supposed they were sitting together talking inside one of the cars, while he was out here in the open, alone and helpless. After a while Carl heard more cars approaching from a distance.

Steve Demming got out of the car and leaned against the hood while he watched the headlights of the two women's vehicles coming toward him. The hot, humid air outside the car reminded him of how alien this place was to him. San Diego air was dry and flowing, either fresh from the ocean or fresh from the desert. This air was thick with moisture, and it seemed heavy, like something draped on him. As he waited, it seemed to him that the chirping of crickets was growing even louder. He sighed. This should have been a simple, easy errand, like going to pick up a stray dog at a pound. It occurred to him that he was as miserable at this moment as he had been in his life.

The two cars dipped forward a bit as the two women applied their brakes, and then they rolled off onto the shoulder. When they stopped, their headlights illuminated big clouds of dust in the air. One set of lights went out, and Demming saw the tall, slender shape of Sybil Landreau silhouetted for a moment in the headlights of the other car before the second set of headlights went out. A moment later he saw Claudia's shorter form trotting toward him. The two women joined Demming at the front of his car. "How bad is he?" asked Claudia.

"Bad," Demming said. "He can barely breathe. If you listen, you can probably hear it from here. When I talked to him, I think he was trying to move, but he didn't seem to be able to."

Sybil said, "Think it's his spine?"

"It could be."

Claudia walked to the spot where Carl McGinnis lay. She knelt in the weeds beside him, put a small, soft hand on his forehead, and then gently stroked his hair. "Carl," she murmured. "Carlos, Carlito. I heard you got clipped. How ya doin', baby?"

"I ... I don't know," Carl said. "Maybe the four of you should start getting me into one of the cars. I think I need to get to a hospital."

"Can you walk?" she asked.

"I'm not sure, but I don't want to try and make things worse. I think my left hip might be broken. That whole side hurts like hell." He tried to move his head to see her clearly. "Claudia, honey. It's really late. Before too long, the sun is going to start coming up. I can't be lying here when that happens."

"I'll go talk to the others and see how we're going to do it," she said. "Just close your eyes and try to rest for a minute. Getting you into the car might be a bitch, so try to prepare yourself and save your strength."

Claudia got up and went back to join the others. Pete Tilton was out of the car now, too. He and Demming and Sybil looked at Claudia expectantly.

"He's really fucked-up," she said. "He winced when I touched his hair. His hair hurts, for Christ's sake. He thinks his left hip might be broken, but if the car caught him in the midsection, he could easily be bleeding to death inside."

Sybil shrugged. "I've got a bad feeling about this. We can't drop him off at a local hospital. They'll fill him up with painkillers while the cops ask him questions."

"I've been thinking about that, too," Demming said. "There's no way we can go in and talk for him. If he can't walk, we can't drop him off at the door."

"No way," Sybil said.

Demming said, "And every minute we stand here, Christine Monahan gets another mile away." He and Sybil and Pete Tilton looked at Claudia.

"I'll do it," she said. "I was the one who invited him to work with us, and he's still closer to me than he is to anyone else."

Sybil's body slouched and her head cocked, and the others knew she was giving her familiar smirk. "Something's closer than fucking? What did you do?"

Claudia felt her jaw clench. "He trusts me."

"I'm sorry," Sybil said. "I'll help you with it."

"I don't want him to know. Hold his hand, be nice to him, and I'll do the work."

"Okay."

When Carl McGinnis heard the small, light footsteps coming toward him, he knew it must be both women. Claudia sat above him on the slope and cradled his head in her lap, while Sybil held his hand. "Hey," he said. "Did you get her?"

"Sure," Claudia said. "We ran her off the road. She's not in great shape, but it's over. She's in the trunk of my car."

"Good. How about the other one?"

"She's dead," said Sybil.

"Good," said Carl. He was trying to hide the fact that he was getting more worried. He had felt intervals of cold, and then repeated waves of light-headedness, and he assumed that must mean he was getting weaker. "I really think...," he said, then felt the pain find him. Getting past it was like climbing a hill, struggling as it got worse until he reached the crest and it went down again. "We've got to go. The guys. Tell Pete and Steve not to worry. I won't tell anybody anything. I was driving down this country road, got out to take a piss, and a car whacked me."

"Must happen all the time out here," said Sybil.

"They know you're going to be okay," Claudia said.

Sybil said, "They're just trying to put together a stretcher." She looked at Claudia. "I guess it's time for me to pull the car up." She relinquished his hand and kissed his cheek, then got up and moved off in the dark.

Claudia said, "Hold on a minute, Carl. The dumb bastards need me." She gently moved back, disengaging herself. Carl heard her take a few steps up the slope to the shoulder. He lost sight of her, and then the bullet passed through his brain. Claudia came back a few feet, just far enough from his body so the blowback wouldn't spatter blood on her clothes, and shot him again.

CHRISTINE TWISTED in her seat to look out the back window. Watching the empty road behind them for a few minutes seemed to calm her. She faced forward again and adjusted her seat belt. "I'm sorry. I'm scared to death. I've been scared for weeks. I've been moving around, and the most sleep I've had was in that crazy house back there. I sort of lost it."

"It's all right. All of this is scary, for both of us. But we're okay, at least for now."

Christine sat quietly for a time, and then said, "You ran down Carl McGinnis."

"Is that who that was?"

"I saw his face in the headlights. Afterward it looked to me as though he was hurt really bad."

"It was all I could do once he took out the gun."

"Believe me, I'm not blaming you. I hate him. He gives me the creeps. He has a way of looking at you that makes you want to back away from him. Once I was leaving work when he was walking across the parking lot, and honestly, I got in the car as fast as I could, locked the doors, and started the engine in case he tried to get in." She looked at Jane. "Maybe the one who drove the car into the ditch is hurt, too."

"I couldn't tell, but I wouldn't count on it. More likely the air bag went off, and he couldn't drive after us right away."

"She, I think."

"She?"

"I'm pretty sure the other man I saw at the roadblock with Carl McGinnis was Pete Tilton. There was a third car, and the person in it probably was Steve Demming. That means the two coming up behind us would have to be Sybil Landreau and Claudia Marshall." She looked at Jane again, and noticed her preoccupied expression. "What's wrong?"

"Just thinking," said Jane. "How could they possibly have known where to ambush us?"

"I don't know."

"Let me make sure I've got everything straight," said Jane. "You knew these six people because they worked for Richard Beale in San Diego when you did."

"That's right. They didn't exactly work for the Beale Company, because they weren't on the payroll. But I never heard of them working for anybody else but Richard."

"When you ran away, how did they know where you went? Buffalo is a long way from San Diego."

"I don't know," said Christine. "I figured they must have found out about the plane reservation. I didn't think they could. I didn't make it on my computer. I called on Sharon's phone, and then she drove me right to the airport a couple of hours later. If they were following me, I never saw them, and I was looking."

"And what about Buffalo General? How did they know you were in a hospital?"

"I haven't had time to figure that out. I'm pretty sure I would have seen them if they were on the same plane. And I waited outside your house in Deganawida all night, and I know I would have seen them there. I was so scared that if anything had moved, I would have run. You know, when I went to the hospital, I had to show my ID and health insurance card. Maybe they called Richard's office to ask if I was covered or something."

"No. Hospitals don't call your employer. If they need to call anybody, it would be the insurance company. Since you were only there for observation, I can't imagine why they would do more than verify your coverage." Jane was silent for a moment. "Do you have a cell phone?"

"Sure. Doesn't everybody?"

"I mean with you—in your purse."

Christine reached into her purse, took out a phone, and held it up. "I haven't called anybody since I left—not even Sharon, because the bill would come to Richard's house at the end of the month."

"Did he give it to you—Richard?"

"Yes. When I was working for him, he wanted to be able to be in touch every minute. Then when we were—"

"I think the phone might be the way they keep finding you."

"Oh, my God. Of course. That's just like him. I'll bet he got me a phone with a satellite tracking program, the kind parents give their kids. All this time he's probably been tracking me on his computer."

Jane said, "I didn't say I was positive. I just think it might be."

"I'm sure. You just have to know Richard. When I worked for him he would call me at all hours and talk about something I had to do the next day, or ask me about some piece of property, just because he happened to be thinking about it, or even call to tell me to remind him of something he wanted to remember. Instead of just writing it down, he would call me. But once in a while he would say something like 'I'll bet you're on your way to the mall.'"

"And he was right?"

"Yes. It got to be a kind of joke between us. And then other times, he would call when it was really inconvenient. I would look at the phone and see it was his number and turn it off. Then he would be mad at me the next day. After he and I started dating, I stopped thinking about the phone calls. I kind of liked it. Stupid me. He was just checking up on me." She began to roll down the car window.

"Wait!" Jane said. "Don't throw it away. Just give it to me." Jane took it and put it into her purse.

The sky began to take on the purple-gray quality that indicated night was nearly over. A few miles ahead they reached the entrance to the New York State Thruway at Liverpool. Jane accepted a toll ticket and headed east. She kept going until she came to a Thruway rest stop with a franchise restaurant and a gas station, coasted off onto the approach, then parked at the far side of the lot where the big tractor-trailer rigs sat idling. She took two elastic hair bands from her purse and slipped them over her right wrist, then said, "Let's get some breakfast and use the restroom." She walked close to a big truck that had license plates for four states, none of them nearby. She didn't move her head, but scanned the immediate area. When she saw nobody looking her way, she quickly knelt under the trailer, slid Christine's cell phone on top of a big nut screwed to the steel frame, and slipped the two hair bands over the phone to keep it there. Within a few seconds she was out from under the truck and had caught up with Christine.

They stepped through the glass doors into the restaurant, and found a small table near the window overlooking the parking lot. They ordered food, and the waitress brought it quickly without much chatter or insincere smiling. Just as the waitress came back with extra coffee, Jane watched a man in blue jeans and a baseball cap cross the parking lot with long-l egged strides, climb into the tractor-trailer truck, and pull the truck ahead onto the entrance ramp to return to the Thruway. She watched him use the long entrance strip to crank his transmission up through its forward gears to bring his speed up high enough to merge the big rig into the fast traffic heading east.

Christine said, "Where do you suppose my phone is going?"

Jane shrugged. "New York, probably. Maybe Boston or Montreal."

"Do you think they'll follow it all the way?"

"Sometimes playing hide-and-seek isn't about who is faster, it's about who makes the fewest mistakes. We've got to give them a lot of chances to choose wrong."

"I guess we won't know for a while if we won."

Jane became silent, and sipped her coffee as she gazed out the window.

"What? Did I say something wrong?"

"No," said Jane. "A lot has happened to you very quickly. When I was doing this kind of work regularly, sometimes my runner would be a woman who was trying to get away from a man who lived with her. I would try to go to meet with her while she was still in her old life. I would spend time getting to know what—and who—she was afraid of. I would work out the best ways for her to slip away with a long head start. We would plan the time when nobody would be watching her. Sometimes I would arrange a distraction. Once or twice I even made sure the person she was worried about ate something that put him out of commission for a couple of days. When the runner went, she would have her new identification and a place to live in a new town. Obviously I couldn't arrange any of that for you. But maybe the worst part is that I couldn't talk to you ahead of time."

"Talk to me? What would you have said?"

"One thing I would have told you about was winning. They're dogs, we're rabbits. If the dog wins once, he gets to eat the rabbit. If the rabbit wins, all he gets is the chance to go on being a rabbit."

"Are you saying you think Richard wants to kill me?"

"I don't know what he wants. His people have missed some chances, but when we drove away from them I heard gunshots."

"I don't really understand what's going on with Richard. I don't know what he thinks he's accomplishing. He always said he loved me."

"Do you believe it was true?"

"I believe he wanted me. Maybe he wants to make me stay with him and be his girlfriend forever. I know there are men who do that—or try to, anyway."

"Yes," said Jane. "There are."

"But the six—Demming and the others—are doing things that could kill us..."

"They don't seem to have made up their minds. If the six had wanted to kill you—the five, by then—they could have fired on us as soon as they recognized you at the roadblock."

"I just don't know. Maybe Richard doesn't even know what they're doing. It's possible he just wants another chance. Maybe all he wants is to be sure he can see the baby when it's born."

Jane studied her for a few seconds. "The moment that bomb went off in the hospital, those six people were finished. Eventually the police will find them, and they'll be in jail until they're ninety if they're lucky. I don't have any proof that Richard knew about that, or that he knows about it now. Maybe if he knew, he'd be smart enough to turn them in."

"Maybe he would," said Christine. "Maybe I should try to talk to him."

"If you want to talk to Richard, I think you should. The safe way is to use a pay phone, because it won't show up on caller ID. There are three booths over there outside the ladies' room, and they're the old-fashioned kind with a door you can close."

"Do you really think I should?"

"I think if you want to, this may be the last good time. Just don't tell him about your cell phone, where we are, where we're going, or anything about me."

"Of course not."

"I'll wait here," said Jane. "Don't stay on the line more than ten minutes."

Jane watched her go into the phone booth, close the door, and dial. Then she returned her attention to her surroundings. It was not unlikely that the six—now four—would make their way north to the Thruway, too. There were only about three big highways that ran all the way across the state, and they had blocked one of them. Jane had never seen the faces of the two women or the two remaining men who were hunting Christine, so she scrutinized every adult who walked into the restaurant. She also studied every car that coasted off the Thruway into the huge parking lot. She was still looking for a black sedan like the ones that they had been driving an hour or two ago, but by now they could be driving anything. Jane suspected that they would come off the Thruway and then drive up and down the aisles searching for her car, so she watched for any vehicle that seemed to be taking an indirect route to a parking space.

The tactics of the hunters reminded her of the police. There had been five of them in five cars, all apparently communicating by telephone or radio. Nobody caught more fugitives than the police, and the police did things in certain ways for practical reasons.

She kept her eyes up and scanning, but let her mind wander. It was still before dawn, but she could already see a subtle change in the quality of the darkness. At this time yesterday she had been in bed upstairs in the big old house. She remembered touching the button on the alarm and rolling over to wake up Carey by pressing her body against his big, warm back and kissing the nape of his neck. He had turned around and held her for only a minute because there had not been time.

Carey was always up early because his first surgery was scheduled for seven. She put on a bathrobe and went downstairs to make his breakfast, but she was already thinking about her day. She would have to get to the hospital to help prepare for the benefit that night. She remembered listening for Carey's heavy footsteps coming down the stairs. She'd had absolutely no premonition that in twenty-four hours things would be this different.

She saw a man standing in the entrance of the building, just inside the glass doors. He seemed to be browsing in the display rack for brochures for tourist attractions, but his eyes would flick upward to focus on Christine for a second or two, then return to the rack. Jane bent her legs to pull her feet back from under the table and shifted some of her weight onto the balls of her feet. She glanced at Christine, and saw her notice the man, but her face gave no sign of recognition. She simply turned away from him and continued her phone call.

Jane added the man to the array of sights that she was holding in her consciousness. He obviously wasn't one of the six, but he could be someone who represented some other danger. She would know him if she saw him again.

Her sense of how long things should take made her turn her attention to Christine in the phone booth. Jane saw her turn to the side, her head down. She was saying something emphatically, and she was crying.

Jane turned her eyes away to watch the road. She had been waiting for something, and now she saw it. Two identical black cars flashed past, and Jane waited, still looking out the window. After a minute or two another pair of black cars went by. Jane stood up, took the check to the cash register, and paid for their breakfast. Then she walked to the phone booth.

Christine saw her and hung up. Jane opened the door and handed her a napkin to dry her eyes. "They just went by, heading east. Let's use the restroom and get back on the road."

In a few minutes they were in the car again. As they buckled themselves in, Jane said, "Did you learn anything I need to know?"

"Not exactly," said Christine. "Nothing is different. It's all awful."

"In what way?" Jane drove out of the lot and accelerated along the entrance ramp.

"At first he sounded the way he used to when I was with him. He said he missed me and had been so worried about me, and where was I and what could he do to help me. He said he knew I must need money and a place to stay. He tried to get me to check into a hotel somewhere and let him know where, so he could come and pick me up. He sounded so sweet, so sincere."

"Did you ask him about the six people he sent after you?"

"He said he didn't know anything about that. At first he said it couldn't be the same ones who worked for him. Then he said they only used to work for him once in a while, doing security on buildings. He said they don't anymore, and maybe they're trying to kidnap me to make him pay a ransom."

"Is there any chance that any of that is true?"

"I know they didn't just work for him once in a while. They were in and out of the office all the time. They made a lot of money. He seemed to have forgotten that I paid them. And we never hired anybody for security on the buildings. They were all rented out, and if tenants wanted guards for their stores or offices, they hired them. When I was talking to Richard, I really wanted to believe what he was saying. I even said to myself that I would make myself believe him. Maybe he wasn't telling the exact truth, but that didn't mean that the lies were important. Maybe he was just telling little lies to keep me from worrying or being afraid. He said he loved me and wanted me back, so maybe he was just lying to smooth things over. But he blew it."

"How?"

"He said something about you. He said you must have turned me against him. He wanted to know who you were and how I knew you. Don't you see? How could he know you existed if the six didn't tell him?"

"I can't imagine."

"I told him it proved he was lying, and then he changed. He started trying to scare me. He said that I was carrying around his child and endangering it, and that if something happens to the baby, he'll consider me a murderer. And if nothing does, then after the baby is born, Richard will make sure it's taken away. It was so horrible."

"You've had your conversation. Is there anything he didn't tell you that you'll need to know?"

"There are a thousand things I want to know. If he wants me, why did he treat me so badly? If he didn't want me, why did he make such an effort to keep me around? What will he do if I don't get caught in a month? A year? What will he do to me if I do get caught?"

"He didn't tell you?"

"Not the truth."

"Then is there any reason to talk to him again?"

"No."

"Then don't. From now on, any time you talk to him, you'll be putting yourself in danger of having him find you and give you the answers." Jane reached the first exit after the rest stop, took it, and paid the toll, then drove back to the Thruway on the westbound side and took another toll ticket.

"What are you doing?"

"It took us a long night and some luck. But right now, I think we have all four of them driving east following that long-haul truck with your cell phone attached to it. We have Richard thinking that they're about to catch up with us before we reach New York City. We have a good identification for you and a better set being made. It's time to drive as hard as we can in the opposite direction." Jane paused. "You might want to get some sleep."

"Can I turn on the radio?"

"Sure. But won't it keep you awake?"

"I go to sleep with the radio on," said Christine. "I know it's weird, but it's a habit." She turned it on and pushed buttons until she found a station that she seemed to approve of, and settled back in her seat.

An hour later when the music was replaced for the fifth time by a commercial for a mattress store in Rochester, a news bulletin came on. "Late-breaking story," said the newswoman. "Seneca County Sheriff's deputies have found a man's body beside a road in a rural area south of Waterloo this morning. The man was carrying no identification, but he was driving a rental car, so the Sheriff's office expects that they'll have positive ID soon. Our information is that he was shot to death execution style some time during the night. His body also showed signs of having been hit by a car, but the spokesperson refused to speculate on how that related to his murder."

Christine was sitting up again. "They killed him because he was hurt?"

"Because they didn't want to leave him there to answer questions." She drove on for a few seconds before she acknowledged Christine's stare. "It helps to learn to think the way your enemies do. You spend less time being surprised."