frying pan and dumped them out on my back. And I could see where somebody hit you with a switch, too. In some ways that was the worst for me, even though it hurt less than the burns or the punches. It was humiliating, like a child being whipped for doing something bad. I'm sure you know.'
Jane said, 'I'm not much like the person I've been pretending to be. Let's try to figure out what you can do, and where I can take you.'
'I'm not the way I seem, either. I'm a normal person. I never even knew people like Steve. I met him at a club in LA. He carried himself like a bad boy, and I thought that was dark and mysterious and sexy. He was very male, always in charge. And there was an edge to him, sort of a repressed anger that I took for toughness. I fell for him-or for the man I had invented. That's the right term-fell for him, like you fall for a hoax or a fraud. I married him. A few months after that, he started to work on me. I was young and naive, and to him that was the same as being stupid. I wasn't a poor kid, brought up in the backwoods somewhere, and I hadn't raised myself on the streets, so I was weak. I liked pretty clothes and things, so I was spoiled. After a while I was sad. It was hard to live with his contempt and be happy. I told him I didn't like being treated that way, so I was a nasty bitch. After a while he was watching everything I did, but without ever looking at me when he spoke to me. I was an enemy, and the minute he got up in the morning he started noticing things about me that weren't right. The day after the hitting started I left. I slipped out and went to my parents' house in Sherman Oaks. I filed for divorce from there. My father was a doctor, and we had a nice house with my old room and everything, but he told me the best thing for me was to go to another city until the divorce was final. I should get a job and meet nice people my age and do some thinking about the future I wanted.'
'That sounds smart. That's exactly what I'm trying to get you to do now.'
'I went to Boston. I only came home for the final decree, then went back. And then my father died. It was the last thing in the world I expected. He was always very fit and healthy, and he seemed so young that I always forgot his age. He had a massive heart attack and died, and then I realized I hadn't actually been seeing him. I'd been looking at him and seeing him as he'd been fifteen years younger. When he died, my mother was all alone.'
'So you came home to be with her.'
'Yes. She was alone, after being married for over forty years. He was the sort of person who just quietly took care of everything. She never seemed worried about anything, because he was this big, reassuring presence. Now she was lost. So I moved in. I don't know how he found out, but Steve knew immediately that I was living there. He showed up at the door a few days after the funeral and said he wanted me back.'
'Did you fall for it'
'No. I told him there was nothing at all left between us, and that he should go away and never come within a mile of me again. He, of course, wanted to stay and argue about it.'
'But you didn't give in'
'Not then, and not the next fifty times. He called at all hours, showed up when I went to work and stood in front of my car, sent presents I didn't want and apologies. He said he hadn't ever wanted to be mean to me, but I had forced him. Surely I understood that.'
'Iris, honey. I've heard this story before. I don't blame you for any of it. But you need to think about tomorrow and the next day. We need to make a plan for how you're going to spend the next month or two.'
'Please,' Iris said. 'I've got to tell you, so you'll understand.'
'All right.'
'I got a restraining order. He violated it about three times before the cops or the judge or someone persuaded him he couldn't prevent me from going to work or wake me up in the middle of the night. A few months after my father died, my mother got sick. It was a heart problem, too. And then she died. I heard afterward from a lot of people that this kind of thing happens quite often with couples who have been close. The one who was left didn't take long to follow the one who died.'
'What did you do then'
'I was alone, and I saw the world a little more clearly. The house that had been the symbol for me of safety and security since I was a baby had changed. Without my parents, it was just an empty, sad building. There was no help or advice or companionship, or even safety there anymore. There was a sadistic, crazy man out there somewhere, and the house suddenly seemed so fragile and insubstantial that he could walk in through the walls to get me. I mean, it was a one-story, sprawling ranch-style house with big glass windows everywhere. All he'd need was a rock. I went to a realtor and told him to estimate what the house was worth, price it twenty thousand cheaper, and sell it fast. The house sold, I deposited the check, packed up, and moved out in a hurry. I put my parents' furniture in storage, rented a one-bedroom apartment in a duplex, and moved in. Steve waited until one day when the people in the other half of the duplex had gone to work, and came and got me.'
'Just like that'
'Pretty much. He kidnapped me-put tape over my mouth and wrists, then dragged me out to the back door into a van, taped my ankles, shut the doors, and drove off. He's big and strong; I was small and weak. That's all it takes. He drove to a place he had leased in Nevada. And then it began. Being his ex-wife was about being punished for being a failure as his wife, and for leaving him and divorcing him, and for not coming back when he told me to. There were no illusions about a romantic relationship. It was him getting even and teaching me a lesson. I was a person who had done him grave injury, and now I'd pay for it. He had me for five months before I got away.'
'How did you accomplish that'
'He went grocery shopping. A couple of times when I'd gone with him I'd tried to get people to call the police, but they never had. Still, he kept his hand on my wrist after that. This time, he couldn't take me with him, because my face didn't look too good. So I waited until he was gone, and slipped out of the chain he had on my wrist. I had been preparing by not eating for a few days. He put the lock on the same link as always, but it was too big this time. I didn't really know where I was, but I knew it was Nevada and the sign on the highway said, `Las Vegas, 146 miles.' I hitchhiked to Las Vegas, but if I hadn't been picked up, I would have walked. I stopped when I found the shelter where I met you. I know I should have kept going, but I needed food and rest. But now I'm out, and I'll have a big head start on him, thanks to you.'
'You're welcome,' Jane said. 'I'm glad you're okay. But I have something urgent I need to do when we get to Salt Lake City. I'll leave you as much money as I can, and get you checked into a safe hotel. But then I have to go. If you'd rather I leave you somewhere else, I'll try to do that.'
'With you,' Iris said. 'I want to go with you.'
'I can try to come back for you.'
'Why can't I help you do whatever you're doing'
Jane took a deep breath, and then let it out slowly. 'I know how this is going to sound, but I guess I have to say it and hope your gratitude or your ability to recognize me as a friend will keep you from ever repeating it. I'm running. I'm being hunted by some men who will kill me if they catch me, and they plan to take a long time letting me die. The reason I couldn't hang around to wait for the police in Henderson is because the cops are searching the country for me, too. And I'm in no shape to protect you. That bandage you saw around my leg is covering a gunshot wound. Just about the most dangerous place in the country you could be right now is with me.'
'Please,' said Iris.
'Are you even listening'
'Sure. I can repeat it all if you want.'
Jane could see sincere fear in Iris's eyes, and the profound sadness of abandonment. Jane drove on, trying to make as much distance as she could. The next three times that she looked, Iris's eyes were still on her, unchanged. The fourth time, the eyes were closed. Iris was asleep.
Jane sped out of the lower slice of Nevada and kept going across Arizona. She knew she was driving through some of the most dramatic places in the country, but the deserts consisted of the two cone-shaped beams of headlight illuminating a road that seemed straight and infinite beyond her sight, and the mountains were a steep, winding ribbon of pavement that sometimes made her feel as though she were flying up, down, left, right like a plane in a dogfight. She could see the North Star in the clear black of the sky in the unlighted places she drove through.
She passed towns-Saint George, Cedar City, Beaver, Elsinore, Scipio, Nephi. The sun began to rise on her right, in time for Spanish Fork and Provo. When she came off the interstate at Salt Lake City she was glad she had told Jim Shelby to meet her here. By her reckoning she had driven 430 miles in about six hours. She was far enough from the West Coast so the escape a few days ago from the courthouse in Los Angeles would be little remembered
