She opened his closet and studied herself in the full-length mirror that was attached to the closet door. Today she had made some good progress. She studied her eyes, her hair, her clothes. She looked like a new person again, and felt strong. She heard the sound of the ink-jet printer taking in a sheet of paper, and raised her eyes slightly to look into the mirror at the part of the room behind her.
Ty was printing his maps and directions, but he wasn’t looking at the printer. He was staring at her now, looking at her longingly, hoping that the lightning was going to strike again.
She looked into the mirror at herself. “They fit,” she said. She locked her eyes on his. She had to keep him happy, just a little bit longer. She began slowly, deliberately, to take off her new clothes.
Two hours later she lay on the couch in Tyler’s bathrobe with her head on his lap. As he held the remote control and flicked from channel to channel, she said, “Stop.” The policeman with the potbelly that hung out over his silver belt buckle was behind the podium again.
Behind the chief were four severe-looking men in suits and a woman in a navy blue pantsuit with the cuffs and collar of a white silk blouse showing. She liked the look of it, she decided. She would probably look good in navy, now that her hair was light again.
“Nicole?”
“Anne. Learn to call me Anne. Get used to it, Jimmy, because we leave in a day. We’re Anne and James Forster.”
“Do you think—”
“Hush,” she said. “I want to hear this.” She took the remote control out of his hand and turned up the volume.
The chief said, “. . . and now I would like to let Detective Sergeant Catherine Hobbes of the Portland, Oregon, Police Bureau have the microphone.”
“Oh, my God,” Anne whispered. “It’s her.”
“It’s who?”
Someone off camera shouted, “Sergeant!”
“I’ll be around to take questions after the conference,” said Catherine Hobbes. “I just wanted to speak for a moment to Tanya Starling. Tanya, we’ve spoken on the telephone, so you probably recognize my voice.”
“You bet I do, bitch.”
“If you’re anyplace where you’re able to hear me, I want to appeal to you to turn yourself in now. If you can’t get to a police station, just dial nine-one-one, and officers will come to pick you up and take you there. At this moment police organizations in at least fifteen states are watching for you, and it’s only a matter of time until you’re found.”
In the pause, Anne said, “Fuck you.”
“I know you’re frightened,” said Catherine Hobbes. “But everything I told you on the telephone still holds. I can guarantee your safety if you will come in voluntarily.”
“You see?” said Anne. “She’s threatening me, trying to scare me and get her face on television at the same time.”
Tyler Gilman gaped at her. He had never seen her when she wasn’t in control of her emotions. She seemed to be irrationally angry.
“She’s hounding me. She won’t leave me alone until she runs me down and gets her cops to kill me.”
“She doesn’t seem like that,” said Tyler.
Catherine Hobbes left the podium, and the chief took her place. He said, “We believe that someone picked up Tanya Starling and gave her a ride away from the Flagstaff bus station in a private car. I urge and appeal to this person to call the police immediately. We need to know where you took her, what name she is using, and anything else that might hasten her apprehension. I caution you that her appearance is deceptive. We believe she is armed and extremely dangerous. If you are with her now, you are in peril. Get as far as possible from her right now and dial nine-one-one. You need not fear prosecution. We believe that you merely intended to help a stranger in need.”
“Liar!” said Anne Forster. “He’s lying.”
“Him too?”
“They all are. She’s just the worst, because she’s decided I’m going to be the one that makes her into a success.”
“It’ll be okay.”
“No, it won’t. People think the devil is a cartoon character, all red with horns, but that’s not what it is. It’s a person like that, all self-righteous and sure that anything they do to you is right because you have to be punished. She keeps trying to tempt me. She says, ‘Come in,’ like she was asking me to come to the doctor’s for a checkup. But as soon as I let them know where I am, the cops will come and nobody will ever see me again. They’ll take me out into the desert and shoot me.”
“You really think they’d do that?”
“Do you believe her instead of me? Did she come to your house because you said to, and have sex with you to prove that she was a sincere person?”
“Obviously not, but—”
“But what?”
“Don’t worry about her,” Tyler said. “She can’t do anything.”
“You look at her, and I know you only see that she’s pretty, and she’s talking with a soft voice, so you think she must be telling the truth. She’s not. Take a look. See her standing there? That’s what death looks like.”
The press conference vanished from the screen, and the television stayed on, but neither of them was watching or listening to it, so after a half hour, they turned it off, went into Tyler’s room, and collapsed on the bed.
She awoke early the next morning and started to make her preparations for departure. She packed her suitcase, then went to Ty’s closet and dresser to pack a suitcase for him too. When they spoke they practiced calling each other Anne and Jim.
Later that morning she sent him out to run errands. The first was to fill the Mazda’s tank with gas. “Jimmy, when you’re trying to get away from a place, you don’t take a single risk that isn’t necessary, and you prepare. Stopping for gas anywhere near here later with me in the car is foolish, so we won’t do it. You do it alone ahead of time, when it’s safe.”
“Sure,” he said.
“And go to the grocery store. I made a short list, and here’s the money. Buy at least twelve bottles of water, some nuts—peanuts, cashews, almonds—a few candy bars, some apples, and pears.”
“What’s all that stuff for?”
“The drive. We don’t know how long we’ll be on the road. In this heat we’ll need water, and the nuts have fat and protein, so they prevent you from being hungry, and they keep. And by the way, Jimmy. Don’t just buy gas. Check the oil, water, tire pressure, and whatever too. We get one chance at this.”
“I guess I’ll get started,” he said. “What time do you want to leave?”
“Tonight. Right after you finish work.”
“Why then?”
“Because your going to work gives us extra time before anybody notices that anything else is wrong. Just before you leave, tell your boss you want to take tomorrow night and the next night off. Your parents have car trouble in Lake Havasu and you have to go get them and leave the other car there to be fixed.”
“I don’t think he’s going to be okay with that.”
“You say, ‘Gee, I’m sorry, but I don’t have any choice. If you have to fire me for it, then you do.’ ”
He looked at her with admiration. “That’s really good.”
“Either way, it keeps anybody from noticing you’re gone until your parents get home, which gives us two full days. Now get going.”
He went out, and she listened to his car going up the street. She selected the clothes she wanted to wear for the trip and laid them out on the bed: the black pants and the blue top, with the sweatshirt out where she could reach it if she got cold during the night drive. She took out some clothes of Tyler’s too.
Now that she was used to Tyler’s computer and scanner and could make birth certificates and driver’s
