fidgety as he fumbled for an appropriate, nonthreatening place to put them.
A minute passed before Carolyn pulled away from her uncle, and even as she did, he continued to hold her at arm’s length, examining the face he hadn’t seen in so long. “You’re beautiful,” he said. “You look like a Sinclair. You have your mother’s eyes. And her mouth, too.”
“So, her mom cussed, did she?” Jake quipped, trying to be recognized as something more than a lawn ornament. He smiled, but no one else did.
Harry’s scowl spoke his mind: Haven ’t you left yet?
Jake extended his hand and stepped forward, bringing Thorne in close behind. “Hello, sir. Nice to see you again. You look well.” Again, he smiled alone.
Carolyn half turned, keeping one arm wrapped around Harry and beckoning her husband with the other, as if to include him in a group hug. “You remember Jake, don’t you, Uncle Harry? We dated back in high school? You had him to dinner once…”
“Of course.” Harry took Jake in with an extended glare as he shook his hand. His face twitched a bit around the eyes, as if he smelled something unpleasant or was perhaps enduring a sudden gas pain. The look prompted Jake to take a look at himself. At once, it seemed, everyone realized just how filthy the new arrivals were.
“Thorne,” Harry commanded, “send somebody to get my niece and nephew some new clothes, will you? Plain vanilla, understand? Nothing fancy. What size shoes do you kids wear?”
“I’m a ten-D,” Jake answered. “I think Carolyn’s a five.”
“Five and a half,” she corrected.
Thorne looked from one visitor to the other as they spoke, and then back to Harry, who dismissed him with a nod. “Please come in,” Harry offered.
“Nice place,” Jake said. Dominated by tasteful yet not extravagant antiques, and accessorized with cloth wall coverings and Oriental rugs, the farmhouse felt lived in; well loved.
“Thank you,” Harry acknowledged. “It’s not mine. Actually, it belongs to a friend of mine. He agreed to let me entertain you here.” He led the way into a spacious living room, where he lowered himself into a wing-backed chair. Overhead, one of the three fans churned the heavy air to create the illusion of a breeze. “Carolyn, why don’t you and Jack sit on the sofa there?”
“It’s, um, Jake, sir.” Harry looked at him oddly. “As opposed to Jack.”
Harry smiled. “Right. And you can call me Harry. So… what have you kids heard about the media’s take on all this?”
“We haven’t seen or heard a thing,” Carolyn said. Since the explosion at the plant, she and Jake had been so immersed in staying beyond the reach of the police, they’d suffered a virtual information blackout.
“Hmm.” The old man inhaled deeply through his nose and leaned back into the cushions of his chair, interlacing his fingers across his chest. “Well, I hate to break it to you, but you are the news. Very hot news, indeed. The minute you ran from that motel room in Buford, I’m afraid you lost any benefit you might have gained by turning yourselves in.”
“But we didn’t do anything!” Carolyn protested. “My God, surely we can prove that much!”
Harry inhaled deeply again, searching for the words that would cause this all to make sense. “While it should matter whether one is guilty or innocent, I’ve had some conflicts with the authorities myself, as you know, and I can tell you that culpability is frequently irrelevant. What is relevant is that you two seem to be the victims of a rather sophisticated conspiracy. Having kept one eye on the television for the last twelve hours, I’ve heard the words ‘airtight case’ dropped at least a dozen times.”
“But how can that be?” Carolyn said. “If we just-”
“Obviously,” Harry cut her off, “someone wants the world to believe that you did these horrible things. And it appears that they’ve accomplished that goal. Accomplished it in a way that is beyond refute. Since your guilt is assumed, you must behave accordingly. Remember: the police don’t differentiate between guilty fugitives and innocent fugitives.”
Harry let the words hang in the air, allowing time for the Donovans to absorb them. Jake noted the old man’s smile as Carolyn unconsciously sought her husband’s hand and squeezed it lovingly. Clearly, it was important to Harry that she be happily married.
“So what do we do?” Carolyn asked.
Harry broke eye contact. “You disappear,” he said to his hands. “You evaporate; cease to exist.”
“For how long?” asked Jake.
Harry looked up. “Assume forever. There’ll be a huge investigation, of course. Motives examined. Evidence sifted. My hunch is, the finger will still be pointing at you when they’re done. Something about this smells. It’s too neat and tidy. The game is rigged.”
The enormity of what Harry was suggesting pressed down on Jake like a block of granite. “But what about our friends?” he blurted. “All our things are back at the apartment, and the car…”
“ Forget about them. Forget about everything but survival.” Harry had made it sound so effortless, so ordinary. Like pumping gas or buying an apple at the grocery store.
Carolyn shook her head fiercely, on the edge of panic. “There has to be another way.”
“There is no other way,” Harry insisted. “You asked for my advice, Sunshine, and now I’m offering it to you. There is no other way.”
“What about money?” Jake asked. “And jobs? How are we going to support ourselves?”
Harry seemed pleased by these questions, as if comforted by the thought process behind them. “Thorne will bring you a briefcase in a moment,” Harry explained. “In it, you’ll find eighty thousand dollars. I’m sorry it can’t be more, Sunshine, but what with my recent vacation courtesy of the IRS, my business is not what it once was.”
Eighty thousand dollars! Jake’s mind screamed. And he’s apologizing for it?
Harry saw their looks of wonder and worked quickly to bring them back on track. “Listen to me, you two,” he said, extending a reproachful forefinger. “This will be your survival money, and you must dispense it wisely. If either one of you spends it on a fast car or a night in Vegas, I swear to God I’ll beat you both.” What might have sounded like an empty threat coming from someone else sounded like the most sincere of promises.
“Now, I can help you to establish new identities,” Harry went on. “Thorne, he has contacts who can take care of things. But from that point on, you’ll be on your own, do you understand?”
Carolyn nodded, but her mind had already left the conversation, racing ahead to God only knew what complications lay in wait. People couldn’t just cease to exist! They had fingerprints. They had faces, and as Harry pointed out earlier, those faces were plastered all over every media outlet.
“Sunshine, you’re not listening,” Harry barked. “We don’t have a lot of time here.”
“What about our faces?” There, she asked it.
“Creating a new face is not as difficult as you might think. Or so I’m told. A new nose here, some collagen there, a new hairstyle-you’d be surprised how easy it is. The paper trail is the hard part-giving you not only a present to live in but a past to explain it. But don’t worry about that. Thorne’s friends will take care of you there. What’s important is how you behave. You must never buy or produce or even own anything that you can’t walk away from in a heartbeat. Even with the identity work we’ll be doing for you, you must never forget that a single mistake can bring it all down. No homes, no stocks, no pets, and no kids.”
“No kids!” Carolyn objected. “But we were planning a family!”
Harry laughed; a release of frustration. “For God’s sake, Carolyn. You were planning a lot of things. And none of them involved any of this. Open your eyes. Kids weigh you down; slow you down. When it’s time for you to move, you’ll need to move instantly. You won’t have time to run by the grocery store for Pampers and formula.”
“Come on, Harry,” Jake interrupted. “We’ve got to have some semblance of a life. What you describe-we’d be as well off going to jail.”
Harry’s eyes turned to ice, and he set his jaw angrily. “What I’m giving you is a semblance of a life. I’m trying to show you how not to blow it. You say you want kids. That’s terrific. How screwed up do you want them to be? Here’s the one absolute truth in your life from now on, and never, ever forget it: whatever you had planned for the next sixty years or so doesn’t mean anything anymore. You’re going to have to move every year, some years more than once. You’ll never get a job that requires a background check, ’cause that would be stupid. You’ll never get another job in your chosen field, because you’re more likely to run into people you know. And when we’re done, you’ll never be called Donovan again. Whatever family you have, you’ll never talk to them again. Got a best buddy? Maybe the best man at your wedding? Well, to him, you might as well be dead.
