"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?"