went off, it would have to maintain an office nearby. The sign was a fake, one of those signs that people picked up to fool burglars into thinking the place was wired when it wasn’t. Everything that Wendy Harper did showed a growing knowledge of how to stay hidden. Putting up signs probably gave her most of the protection an alarm system would.
Till left his car where it was, walked to the front door of the house, and rang the bell. There was no answer, no sound of movement inside, so he tried the bell twice more and waited. There was still no sound from inside, so he walked around to the back. There was a high wooden fence that ran from the house to the garage. He reached over the gate to feel for the latch, and opened it. He waited for a few seconds, scanning the yard for a sign that Wendy Harper owned a dog.
There was no dog. He was mildly surprised. Wendy had seemed to him to be a person who would see a dog as a cheap form of security. He stepped along the stone path from the gate, glanced at the pool, and felt her presence: She’d had it landscaped with a lot of rocks and a fake waterfall that reminded him again of the gardens outside the restaurant in Los Angeles.
He stepped close to the sliding glass door at the rear of the house and looked in. He could see a grand piano with framed photographs on it, and a few more on the mantel over the fireplace. He strained his eyes, hoping to pick out a picture of the woman of the house. He could see a few of a man and some small children, but none of a woman. He supposed that having no pictures of herself around confirmed that this was Wendy’s house. She was also certainly capable of getting some pictures of a man and some children to leave around and make her seem even more like other women her age.
Till saw something else, and he felt his breathing deepen and his muscles tighten. There was a frame lying flat with its back opened. The glass lay beside it. Someone had removed the photograph. Till hurried along the back of the house, looking in windows and doors. He wanted desperately not to find broken windows or forced doors. If everything was intact, then maybe she had taken the photograph with her.
But he saw it as soon as he turned the corner: a broken window that led to the master bedroom. The sash had been opened and left that way. He moved closer, his gaze automatically drawn to the bed, and then to the floor. There was no body. He used his handkerchief to touch the outer edge of the window where he would not be destroying fingerprints, lifted it higher, and then stepped over the sill into the room. He took out his gun and began to move forward cautiously, listening for sounds that would indicate the intruders were still in the house.
Maybe he had been unrealistic about Ann Delatorre. She had not been able to resist the beatings, and had given the killers this address. He moved from room to room listening and looking. There were two children. One looked from her picture to be about seven and the other about five. There was a man—not just a name on a deed, but an actual man who left his shoes lying on the floor and had coats hanging in the closet and shirts in the laundry hamper.
The kids had the same kind of thin blond hair that Wendy Harper had had six years ago, but they were too old to be her biological children. He scanned the collection of pictures on the piano and found a snapshot of a wide beach with big rocks, with Wendy kneeling there, hugging the kids and grinning. Biological or not, they were hers. He found a good picture of the man standing in front of a brownish Nissan Maxima that was no more than a year old.
The man was a shock to Till. When he realized that there was a real Dennis Donnelly, he felt an unexpected heaviness in his stomach. He tried to tell himself that what he had done six years ago had led her to this pleasant place and given her a life with a wonderful family. It was futile. Six years ago, Till had not wanted to take advantage of a desperate woman. He had not wanted to risk his daughter Holly’s safety by bringing home a woman who was a target for murderers. He had reminded himself that Wendy Harper was a client. Six years ago, he had resisted his strong attraction to her for the best reasons, and he had regretted it a thousand times since then.
He knew she’d given him plenty of reasons not to care about her. She’d had knowledge of a probable murder, but wouldn’t tell anyone who the murderer was, or even who the victim was. He had given her his standard ex-cop lecture about her responsibility to the community to help get a killer out of it. He had told her she would have a share of the guilt for the killing of the next woman this man met.
She had listened, she had agreed with the premise, but she had not told him anything he could use. She’d said she didn’t know the man’s name, couldn’t even describe him very well. In the end, Jack Till had accepted the argument that she had a right to leave town, and acknowledged that if she didn’t she would probably be killed. She had not done anything to invite the danger, and she had a right to get out of it.
Till looked hard at the man in the photograph, at Dennis Donnelly. He was young—maybe thirty-one or -two, but with a square-jawed, open face that seemed good-natured and pleasant. Till tried to decide whether he would have liked it better if Donnelly had looked ugly or stupid, but he realized he wouldn’t have. He had wanted Wendy to succeed, to have a happy life, and he supposed the man was part of what he should have wanted for her.
Till went through the rest of the house, but nothing had been disturbed except the empty picture frame. He knew that they had taken the photograph to use in their search for her. He avoided moving or even touching anything else, and left the house the way he had come in.
The hunters had gotten here first, but Wendy Harper was out, and she was alive.
19
I’M SORRY, Mr. Till is not in the office. This is the answering service. Would you like to leave a message?”
“Do you know when he’ll be in?” Ann Donnelly tried to keep the fear out of her voice. It was almost noon. Maybe he was just out to lunch.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t. He’s on an assignment out of town right now.”
Ann Donnelly took a couple of deep breaths, thinking hard. “My name is Wendy Harper. He’s been trying to get in touch with me.”
“Yes, he has.” The woman sounded different, as though she had just awakened. “He left a cell-phone number that we were to give you if you called. Do you have anything to write with?”
“Yes.”
“Then here’s the number.” She recited it.
“I have it. Thanks. I’ll try him right now.”
Ann hung up the pay phone and moved away from the brick front of the 7-Eleven store. She had not realized how much the visibility of standing in front of a building had contributed to her unease. Jack had taught her that pay telephones were the safest, but standing in the open was too unnerving.
She hurried toward her car, got in and began to drive. She was afraid to stop the car, so she dialed the number on her cell phone while she drove.
The telephone rang once, twice, and she realized she was holding her breath. Then she heard “Yeah?”
She recognized his voice in that single word, and all of the feelings about him seemed to flood her consciousness unexpectedly. That voice meant strength, safety, hope. “It’s Wendy. I heard that you were looking for me. Is it true?”
“Yes. Listen. I’ve got to see you right away, in person. Do not go anywhere near your house. The people who are hunting for you have been there.”
“Oh, God! I figured that might be next. I’ve already cleared out, but no more than half an hour ago.”
“Do you have a car?”
“I’m in it.”
“Can you meet me somewhere?”
“Yes.”
“You name it.”
“Pier 39. I can be there in maybe half an hour.”
“I’ll be there waiting for you.”
Jack Till was already on the Golden Gate Bridge, so it took him only twenty minutes on the freeway and the Embarcadero to reach Pier 39. He parked his car in a public lot and joined the crowds of tourists walking from the souvenir shops across the street toward the pier. He moved close to the knots of people getting off tour buses near the buildings where they sold tickets for boats to Alcatraz and admission to the aquarium.
