“Other cops. One in particular. He’s retired, but he’d hear about it.”
“That’s it?”
“Whenever a person in trouble can be persuaded to come in peacefully, it makes everybody safer. And no cop had to do anything that gives him nightmares.”
“God, you’re such a liar,” said Judith. “You’d be a hero. They’d promote you, and they’d show the mayor on television pinning a medal on you. That would be my life. You could pin my life on the front of your coat. Each time you wore it you could remember me.”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to prevent—you losing your life.”
“Shut up, and don’t move until I tell you.” Catherine heard her step in the direction of the closet. There were sounds of hangers scraping on the pole, then other sounds like the sliding and swishing of fabric. There were more sounds of hangers moving on the pole, a couple of dresser drawers opening and closing. Finally, after a very long time, she said, “Very good, Catherine. You didn’t move. Now listen carefully. Roll over to the center of the bed onto your back. Do not sit up.”
Catherine had been listening carefully to the sounds, but she had not been able to devise a way to take advantage of any possible lapse in Tanya’s attention. Lying on her belly under the heavy blankets with her hands crossed behind her had prevented her from making any kind of quick move, and any move might be the wrong one. Now, as she rolled onto her back, she freed her arms, swept the blanket off her, and looked for Tanya. She was still standing at the foot of the bed, where Catherine could not hope to reach her before the gun went off. Tanya had learned a lot in a very short time.
Catherine saw the throw, and winced in advance, but what landed on her was an old white sweatshirt with the University of California seal on the front.
“Put it on.”
Catherine held it up with both hands, used the seal of the university to find the front, slipped it over her head and arms, and tugged it down in back. She knew she had to start talking again to keep herself human in Tanya’s mind. “Why do you want me to wear this?”
“For fun.”
That made Catherine feel the heavy, passive kind of fear again. Maybe Tanya had turned that corner too. Sociopaths talked that way. Things struck them as funny. Another bundle flew through the air. This one landed on Catherine’s stomach, and she flinched. She touched it and felt denim. It was a pair of blue jeans. As she slipped them on, still lying on her back, she decided that Tanya had made a mistake. Clothes made her feel stronger, less vulnerable and helpless.
“All right. Sit up.”
Catherine sat up. The light came on, and she saw Tanya. She felt her breathing stop for a second, as though her chest wouldn’t expand to take in the air. Tanya was standing at the foot of the bed, holding her gun. She had taken off whatever she had been wearing, and now she was in one of Catherine’s suits.
Tanya smiled. She opened the coat. Catherine’s badge was pinned on the belt, where Catherine wore it sometimes. “I’m Catherine,” she said. “Maybe Cathy. I think I’ll be Cathy.”
Catherine knew that she should have anticipated this. All this time, Tanya had been lost, trying to invent a person to be. Each time she had tried it she had succeeded for a time, been discovered, been chased. Of course this was what would happen. At last she had decided to stop being the runner. Now she wanted to be the pursuer, the one with the power and authority. “Don’t,” said Catherine. “Don’t do this.”
“You don’t think I make a good Cathy?”
“It’s not a name you can take, because it will get you caught, and maybe killed. People would know that something had happened to me.”
“Then what? They would search for me? They’re searching now.”
“You’ve got to start thinking clearly about how to end this.”
“I have.” She was Cathy now. There was nothing that she needed to decide. “All right, Catherine. Listen carefully. You and I are going out. We’re going to walk together about a block to the west, and get into my car. There will be no talking along the way, and no noises. If I think you’ve made a noise that might wake people up, I’ll wake them the rest of the way by killing you.”
“Where are we going?”
“I told you. My car.”
“After that.”
“We’re going to go for a ride. Or I’d like to. Obviously, if at any point you cause me trouble, I won’t be able to bring you any farther. You’ll stop there.”
“Why are you doing this? Do you think I’m the only one who’s been looking for you? I’m one little cop in one town. Police forces everywhere are searching for you right now.”
Cathy raised her gun and aimed it at Catherine Hobbes’s head. Her expression was cold impatience. Catherine waited for the shot. From this distance Cathy could hardly miss her forehead.
Catherine wanted to close her eyes, but she knew instinctively that closing her eyes would be a bad idea, a signal of resignation and readiness. She forced herself to keep her eyes unblinking and focused on the eyes of—she had to accept the new reality—not Tanya, but Cathy. She tried to keep the fear and anger out of her eyes, and show only calm. The two women stayed that way for several seconds, an age, while Cathy decided.
Cathy lowered the gun a few inches. “You’re right,” she said. “I did come to talk. I need to make a decision about how I want this to end. It will take time to make a decision and time to come to an agreement, and we can’t do it in this apartment. Being here is too dangerous for me. We’re going to my car now. Remember what I said. No talk, no noise.” She gestured toward the door. “Stand up. Put on those slippers and walk to the door.”
Catherine looked at the closet. “My sneakers are right there. Do you mind if I wear those?”
“Yes. Do what I said. Quiet.”
Catherine stepped into the slippers and began to walk, the slippers flapping at each step. Cathy was lying. She wanted Catherine to wear the slippers so she couldn’t run or fight. Cathy had no interest in talking. She had become so much more sophisticated at killing that she now knew how to make the victim help her. She had learned that anyone she held at gunpoint would help her fool him. The victim might detect the false tone, but he would choose to believe it because it bought a few more minutes of hope, a few minutes when he could still be a person who was going to live and not a person who was about to die. It occurred to her that Cathy might be trying the lie for the first time. Everything a killer like Cathy did was a kind of experiment. She was learning now, preparing for the next person.
Catherine walked to the apartment door and stopped in front of it. From this moment on, she had to force herself to stay calm, to see every spot of the world around her with immediacy and accuracy—with her eyes and not her mind—and try to construct an advantage. Accepting this woman as “Cathy” had been a first attempt to acknowledge the fluidity of events. Each second from now on, she would need to do it again.
Things were not as they had been, and not as they should be. They were what they had become. Catherine stood still and let Cathy open the apartment door. Catherine was thinking like a police officer again, and not like a scared young woman who had been dragged from her bed. She wanted to make sure that if she died tonight, there would be fingerprints here to tell the forensic team who had killed her.
She watched Cathy’s left hand clasp the doorknob and open it. Then Catherine stepped out into the hallway. As Cathy pulled the door shut, Catherine watched surreptitiously. Cathy had taken a tissue with her from the box in the bedroom, and now she wiped the doorknob clean.
Catherine walked toward the elevator, but Cathy touched her arm and shook her head. They walked to the stairwell. Once again, Cathy used her left hand to open the door, and kept her right hand on the gun. Catherine had to step into the stairwell, then stand in silence while Cathy closed the door with her left hand and wiped off the knob. There was no reason to wipe off the fingerprints unless Catherine was going to die.
The two women walked down the two flights of stairs to the ground floor, and Catherine stopped. She considered the possibility that this was the place to make her stand. It was a lighted, closed vertical space with only cinder-block walls and a set of steel steps, so no bullet would go through a wall and kill a sleeping neighbor. She took too long to think about it, and the moment passed. Cathy had the door open, and she was waiting with the gun aimed.
For a second Catherine felt anger at herself, but that passed too: the opportunity had to feel right before she took it. An intuition was not magical; it was a conclusion that came from a hundred small calculations made at
