He grinned proudly. “It’s brand new,” he said. “An Audi 80. Five cylinders, a two-point-three-liter engine. And this is all leather!” He reached over and ran his hand lovingly across the upholstery.
“A present?”
“Yeah. I bought it for myself. I made some money in the market.”
“Congratulations.”
“Thanks. But I was just lucky. I got out when the market heated up. It’s due for a crash.”
“You play the market?”
“I did. Now I’m into CDs and cash.”
Jennifer nodded but said nothing. When she was his age, she had only college loans and debt. She didn’t know anything about stocks. She slid further down into the seat, curling up as best she could in the tight space. She saw Kirk reach over and lower the music, and she smiled at him. Then she closed her eyes and thought how nice he was to leave her alone. She fell asleep in the bucket seat of his new Audi, grateful that he was such a nice guy.
In the last moments of her troubled dreams, in the silent drifting fog before consciousness, Jennifer saw the hand coming at her throat, and she tossed and turned trying to escape.
Then she was startled awake. Kirk Callahan’s hand rested gently on her shoulder, and he was whispering to her.
“Hey, Jennifer? Hey, I’m sorry. We’re getting close to St. Paul; it’s time to wake up.” He withdrew his hand as he slowed the car.
Jennifer saw overhead expressway signs slip past. They were in traffic, and she was aware of buildings, flashing billboards, the roar of trucks. She felt a wave of panic. The car’s dashboard clock read 7:32.
Kirk looked older now. His face was more sharply defined, with a blunt chin, a large, generous mouth, and a straight nose. It was a strong, masculine face, and it was made more masculine by his forthright manner. Jennifer mused as she watched him. A farmer’s son. A Minnesota lumberjack, perhaps. She remembered then that he had been in her Egyptian past life, and to keep herself from recalling anything more, she said, “Okay, Kirk, tell me about yourself?”
He blushed, as she knew he would, and shyly, hesitantly talked about growing up on a farm in the Midwest, about high school football and girlfriends, and going to college on a track scholarship. Jennifer listened attentively for a while, and then she realized she wasn’t listening to him, but was watching the way his lips moved, and how he cocked his head to the side when he started a new story, and how his eyes brightened just before he came to the punch line of a joke.
“What about it?” he asked.
“Pardon me?” Jennifer sat up, taken aback.
“What about riding with me into Chicago?”
“Are you going to Chicago?” she asked.
“Well, yeah, I’ve got an interview tomorrow afternoon downtown in the Loop, then I’m headed home.”
“But where do you live?”
“St. Louis. But I can drop you at O’Hare, that’s no big deal.” He kept glancing at her.
“I don’t know. That’s a long drive. We’ll have to spend the night somewhere, right?” She thought of the guy she’d shoved into the ice machine on the drive out from the East. She wondered if there was a warrant out for her arrest.
“They’re not going to get you, not if you’re with me,” he said softly, watching her.
“What do you mean?” Jennifer realized her hands were trembling. “Who’s out to get me?”
Kirk shrugged. “Those people at the farm.” Kirk held her gaze evenly. He was waiting her out.
She did not want to lie to him. She wanted to tell him what had happened to her, how she had gotten to the farm, and why she was now running for her life. It was true, she realized, how one would tell strangers the most intimate of secrets and hide the truth from friends. And so, there in the small car as they raced toward St. Paul, she told Kirk Callahan how she had met Kathy Dart and why she had come to the farm in the first place. All she withheld was her crimes.
What startled her most was that he didn’t seem surprised by anything she said. As she talked, he kept glancing at her with his sober gray eyes, never once registering surprise or astonishment at her story.
When she was finished, she finally asked, “Are you a follower of Kathy Dart? Do you believe in this New Age stuff? Are you going to turn me in or what?”
He shook his head as he looked ahead and watched the road. “All this New Age stuff is just a mind fuck. You do it to yourself. I took this course—abnormal psych—last fall, and you know, you start reading these cases, and suddenly you begin to think, Hey, I’m like that. That’s me! Or you know someone who’s slightly off and you think, He must be a paranoid schizophrenic, or whatever.”
“But you’re writing an article about it?”
“That doesn’t mean I believe in any of that shit.”
“Maybe you’re right,” Jennifer said vaguely, now not knowing who or what to believe. She thought again of the session with Kathy Dart and the vividness of her past lives. Those were true, she told herself. Whatever else had happened to her, she had seen into her past, she thought, sighing, and she had killed people with her primitive strength.
They drove in silence, out of St. Paul on Route 94, and into Wisconsin, then south through more flat farmland. For a while, Kirk fed cassettes into the tape deck. He played tapes of George Harrison, Billy Idol, and more John Cougar Mellencamp. She wished he wouldn’t play anything at all. She would have liked the silence, but it was his car, his drive, and she wouldn’t be demanding. She wanted only to get back to New York.
CHAPTER THIRTY
“DO YOU MIND SHARING a room with me?” Jennifer asked when Kirk decided to stop driving for the night. She had made up her mind when they had started across Wisconsin that she couldn’t spend a night alone in a motel room.
“Hey, sure.” Kirk grinned.
“I don’t mean anything by that,” she said firmly.
“Yeah, you can trust me!” he said, grinning.
“I know that.” She opened the car door.
“Wait!” he told her.
“What? Did you see someone?” She slipped down into the car seat.
“No, of course not. Hey, Winters, no one is going to find you out here in the middle of this farmland. The farm doesn’t employ the KGB. Just wait here until I get the room, that’s all.”
“Oh! How are you going to sign us in?”
“Well, I thought I’d put down Mr. and Mrs. Kirk Callahan. Or is that being too pushy?”
She allowed herself to smile back. “Fine! But don’t use my first name, okay?” She knew she was being paranoid, but still
“Here!” She reached for her purse. “Let me give you some money.”
He waved her off. “Buy me dinner.” He opened the car door.
“Okay, but we’re eating in our room. And make it the second floor, okay?”
He sighed. “Any other motel obsessions?”
“No.” She smiled after him, thankful that he was handling all the details. Then she reached over and locked the car door.
“How’s this, Mrs. Callahan?” Kirk asked, opening the door and letting Jennifer lead the way into the motel room.
“Good!” she said, taking in the dimly lit room. “There are two beds.”
“Hey, I asked for them!” He sounded hurt.
Jennifer watched him for a moment, holding her small plastic bag of toilet articles. She knew he hadn’t been told enough to know why she was so on edge, but at least he was willing to take a chance with her, to go along with her erratic behavior. How did he know that she wasn’t some wacko from a mental hospital?
She stepped over to sit down on his bed and said softly, “Kirk, I’m not trying to order you around or treat you like a kid.”
“Then stop doing it, okay?”