self-deception, I cannot countenance actions that are so antithetical to the healing process. You knew this when you came here with your dream about Glen.'
'Maria, sometimes you have to work beyond the immediate good to see the long-term picture.'
'You are saying you need to do this work for Glen for your own state of health?' Maria asked dubiously.
'I'm saying there's unfinished business.'
'I thought the last case, the one that you took to Glen, was meant to settle unfinished business.'
'It was. But.' Anne thought for a moment and then said slowly, 'When I volunteered to go into Kansas, I was deliberately going after Martin Cranmer as a way to balance the disaster of the previous case in Utah. Kansas did that. Now it's a matter of reaching back to the beginning of the circle again, back to when Glen first took control of my life.'
'The creature has to stand up to the creator?'
'Something like that.'
'You and Glen have been very close from time to time. Tell me this, Anne: Do you love Glen?'
'I detest him,' Anne said without thinking. 'No, I suppose it's not that simple. I feel… God, what
'He declared himself God.'
'And was dressed as the devil.'
'So tell me, Anne: How does Glen feel about you?'
'I think I make him nervous.' There was a degree of satisfaction in her voice that neither of them missed.
'Why would that be?'
'He thinks he controls me but he's afraid he doesn't. He thinks he understands me, and he does on one level, better than anyone else in the world, but not on another. He respects and admires me, to the extent that he has an inflated sense of my abilities, but he also, without realizing it, hopes that I will fail.'
Maria had been a therapist for a long time, but even so it took her two or three seconds to wipe all trace of the shock and concern she felt out of her voice so she could ask evenly, 'Why would Glen hope that you will fail?'
'Oh, he's not about to set me up for a fall. If I screwed up again, it would mean his job. I just meant that deep down he has to feel some resentment that he's so dependent on me. I mean, really: don't all men secretly want to be the one to come riding on the white stallion to the rescue?'
Maria chuckled again at that, but Anne decided against any further revelations in the Glen department. If Maria, friend and therapist, was already worrying about Glen's motivations, it would only muddy the waters further if Anne were to voice her growing suspicion that Glen, deep in a hidden place within that smooth, whole, and completely unscarred skin of his, held a certain dark fascination with the scars and injuries that his job had inflicted on her body and mind.
No, they both had enough to think about; besides, her hour was up.
The term ended, the grade sheets were turned in, she had a final appointment with her lawyer, a farewell dinner with Antony and Maria, and a relatively full night's sleep. Two days, and she would be gone.
The next day she brought out the old Volkswagen bus named Rocinante from its resting place in the barn. Eliot had spent the better part of one enraptured week stripping down the engine and servicing it from roof to road, and it now had nearly-new tires, completely new brakes, a more powerful electrical system, a rearview mirror that actually reflected the road behind her, and it had seen the occasional and disconcerting loss of power during acceleration cured by a radical revamping of the entire fuel system. The old lady was set to tackle mountains and deserts again, albeit at her own placid speed.
Glen McCarthy's men had also had their hands on the bus, adding a new and very well concealed compartment for her gun and the supply of cortisone and needles for her knee as well as an emergency call transmitter that would be discovered only if the entire body of the vehicle were torn away. Even if a cellular phone would go with her persona (which it would not), it would be useless away from the cities.
Now the bus was Anne's again. She sat in the driver's seat and breathed in the musty odor of old upholstery and traces of mildew, a scent that always reminded her of her grandfather's old Chevy with its wide horsehair seats and soft cloth roof lining. She sniffed, wondering if any of it was the smell of ancient blood that Glen's men had missed after the Utah shootout. (Such a melodramatic word, that, and inaccurate as well: she'd been far too busy negotiating an escape to try to return fire.)
She shook herself out of her macabre reveries and got out of the car to begin her own renovations. She began by pulling the inside furnishings apart and scrubbing every corner and surface, then giving the bus back its personality. Curtains, a cheerful batik fabric with heavy lining to keep out the light, went up on the rods over the windows, along with new covers for the cushions. She filled the water reservoir and checked the propane tank, stocked the tight little drawers and cupboards with sheets and blankets, a quilt and a towel, foodstuffs and pans, and a wardrobe of jeans and flannel shirts that would have surprised her students. Hiking boots and a pair of sandals, heavy wool sweaters and an old but sturdy rain poncho, Dr Bronner's liquid almond soap (good for body, hair, and light reading matter), a first aid kit, a couple of coffee mugs with humorous pictures on them, some cones of pine-scented incense, and a myriad of colorful necessities went into the camper van that was to be occupied by the woman Ana Wakefield. She ended by hanging a small, well-balanced mobile of varicolored crystals that she had bought in the local alternative bookstore over the table that converted into a bed and then mounting a Navajo dream-catcher on the cabinet over the one-burner stove, where the spiderweb shape would be set off by the white paint. Finally she arranged the smooth leather cord of a tiny, fringed buckskin bag from the rearview mirror. This, her medicine pouch, was lumpy with bits of rock from the stream in back of her house, tiny thread-wrapped tufts of hair from each of the dogs, some bits of bee pollen she had bought at a health food store, and one red bead from Abby's favorite necklace.
It should have been a relaxing day, with the relief of physical work and the blessed simplicity of concentrating on one thing, but in truth it was nearly unbearable. Anne wanted only to climb into Rocinante and drive off, leaving Glen McCarthy to run after her and fling all the last-minute business into her lap without speaking, allowing her to sort out her new identity and purpose unimpeded.
Instead, he phoned that evening as she was sitting with her stomach in a knot, pushing lumps of food around on her plate, to say that one of her credit cards had not yet arrived and he thought they ought to wait for it. Did she mind putting off her departure for another twenty-four hours?
Oddly enough, she did not mind; in fact, the rush of relief left her light-headed. No, she managed to say calmly, that was fine, she actually had a number of things left undone here anyway. It was a lie, but Glen would not know that, and he said he would be up in the late afternoon tomorrow.
Giddy with an entirely unwarranted sense of freedom, Anne ate her meal and had another glass of wine, chose a handful of improving books to take with her in the bus, and sank gratefully into ten hours of sleep.
The next morning she took a last look at the now-thick dossier that she had compiled from the things Glen and Gillian had sent her. She was careful not to see the details—Glen's material even had the names of the Change members blacked out, at her request—but she leafed through, letting her attention roam.
The last set of drawings Gillian had sent her held her gaze for several minutes. This was the abandoned drawing pad of a child who had stayed with his grandmother for several days when the boy's mother had taken ill on a visit home. The sketchbook began with stiff, cliched drawings of houses and figures, but as the days passed, so did the artist's reticence, until the pages flowed with snakes and rocks, horses in a paddock, two distinctive cats, and a very lifelike scorpion that had obviously made a deep impression on the child.
Then toward the end, the second from the last drawing in fact, there appeared an odd image of what looked like a stick figure of a bearded man trapped inside a giant raindrop. On either side hung two huge monsters all gaping teeth and red eyes, looking as if they were about to bite into the pear-shaped raindrop and the man inside.
The details were difficult to make out because the child had drawn over it when it was finished, brief but furious swings of the red crayon across the image, and then quickly gone on to the next page and drawn a cheerful rainbow in primary colors, arched over a grassy field with bright flowers.
