He squinted a little as he studied her face. 'Why?'
She returned his stare. 'I've been at this a long time. A lot of people would be dead without me.'
'I've heard that,' said Barraclough. 'Sometime I'll get you to give me a list.'
'No, you won't,' she said simply. 'Mary Perkins isn't the sort of person I want to risk my life for. She's not worth it. I gave her a chance and she disappointed me. I know that she's got a lot of money. You seem to think you can get it. I'm not interested in that kind of work.'
Barraclough tilted his head a little to watch her closely. 'You know what will happen when I have her?'
'You'll end up with her money. I also know that if you have her she's not coming back to ask me how it happened.'
'That's true,' he said.
She took a deep breath and blew it out. She had done it. He had agreed on tape that he was going to take the money and kill her. 'This is a one-day sale,' she said. 'Tomorrow she goes up for auction. You want her or not?'
'I want her.'
'The price is three million in cash. You hand it over and I give her up three weeks later. I know you'll mark it, so I need time to pass it on before you start tracing.'
A laugh escaped him abruptly, as though a small child had surprised him by saying something unintentionally profound. 'Done,' he said. 'Of course, that's assuming I get to see her in person so I know you can deliver.'
'You can,' said Jane. 'She'll be along any minute.'
'Here?' he said. She could see his mind working. He wanted to get back to his car to retrieve the weapon he had hidden, but he had not yet thought of a way to do it without Jane's noticing.
'There,' said Jane. She pointed across the ten lanes of the freeway at the white car just like hers gliding onto the shoulder on the eastbound side. 'That's her now.' Mary Perkins's car rolled to a stop just at the spot Jane had shown her. 'She'll get out of the car so you can see her. Then she'll pick up something I left for her in the bushes over there. She thinks you're a wholesaler who sells me stolen credit cards and licenses.' Jane watched Barraclough's hands. 'You're not trustworthy, so I can't pay you until she has them.' Mary got out of the car and stepped over the barrier into the bushes.
Jane let her eyes flick up to Barraclough's face. 'Well?'
'Hard to tell,' he said. 'She's so far away.'
'Nice try,' she said. 'I saw you start to drool the second she opened the door. You get one more peek.'
Mary Perkins came back out of the bushes. Jane could see the bulge of the tapes from the video camera and the recorders in her purse. Mary nodded and Jane stepped away from Barraclough, closer to her car. Now was the time when it would occur to him to hold her.
Barraclough was smiling again. His arm straightened and he waved happily at Mary Perkins.
'What are you doing?' Jane snapped.
He turned to face her, but his arms were poised in front of him. He looked like a fisherman about to make a grab for a hooked fish. 'Just waving to the lady. We don't want her to think I'm not a friendly wholesaler.'
Jane's body tensed, not certain whether to run for the car or attack him. He was signaling someone, and it wasn't Mary. What had she missed? She jerked her head to the left to look back up the freeway - and saw the man Barraclough must have been waving to. He stepped out of the bushes and ran back along the shoulder just at the entrance ramp. In another two steps he disappeared around the curve.
He must be getting into another car that had been idling out of sight beside the entrance ramp. Now she saw its lights come onto the freeway and they seemed to jerk upward into the sky before they swung around and leveled on the pavement ahead of it. The car accelerated toward Jane and Barraclough, its right tires already on the shoulder as though it were going to obliterate them.
Jane waved her arm at Mary. 'Go!' she shouted.
Mary seemed to be transfixed by the sudden arrival of an unexpected car. She stared across the ten lanes of the freeway and watched the red car rushing up the westbound side toward Jane, knowing it was time for her to leave, but not knowing how.
Jane screamed. 'Go! Go! It's a trap!' She started backing toward her parked car, the adrenaline making her legs push too hard so she half walked and half danced, trying to watch the car bearing down on her and Mary and Barraclough at the same time.
Mary dropped her keys, bobbed down to pick them up, then got into her car. Jane took one more look at Barraclough and hurried to the door of her own car.
The headlights of the car Barraclough had summoned dipped down as it decelerated suddenly, moved past Barraclough, and then pulled over. As it slowly moved up behind Janes car, her heart began to pound. Its headlights went out, the driver's door opened an inch, and the dome light came on. The one in the passenger seat was Timothy Phillips.
Barraclough opened the other door, pulled the little boy out onto the shoulder of the freeway and yelled, 'Hey, Jane! How about a trade? Is he worth it?'
These were the first words loud enough for Mary to hear across the freeway. She started the engine and shifted to Drive, but her eyes were on the activity going on across the freeway. The little boy must be the one Jane had told her about. Who else could he be? He was scared, straining to get closer to Jane Whitefield, but the big man in the white shirt had a grip on his thin arm and it was hurting him. Anybody could see it was hurting him. Headlights settled on them, grew brighter and brighter, and then flashed past. Were those drivers blind? Couldn't they see that something horrible was happening?
The knowledge slowly settled on Mary that none of the drivers knew who the big man was, and you had to know that. They probably thought he was a father who was afraid his son might stray too close to the lane where their cars were speeding past. There was only one person here who had any idea of what she was looking at.
Mary turned off the engine, got out of the car, and stood on the shoulder of the road. She could see Jane ten lanes away, caught for a second in the headlights of a speeding car, staring back at Mary, her mouth wide open and her arm in motion, waving her back into the car. Her voice reached Mary faintly across all the lanes, but whatever it was saying was only a distraction.
Mary was concentrating, so there was no room for Jane's voice. She waited for a moment while a truck barreled past and the hot, sulfurous wind from its passing tore at her clothes and stung her face. Then she stepped onto the hard pavement of the freeway. She walked at a normal pace. She never stopped to wait on the dotted line between two lanes, because anything that was not in motion might blend in. It would take only a second of blindness for a driver going sixty miles an hour to travel eighty-eight feet and kill her. She made it across five lanes to the middle island and rested her fear for a moment inside the barrier before she could face walking across another five lanes.
Now Jane was much closer, and Mary could see the anguish on her face. 'Run! Go back!' Jane shouted. Mary was disappointed. Jane simply didn't understand.
Mary looked across the last five lanes at Barraclough. They stared into each other's eyes, and she could see that he understood. He pushed the little boy back into the red car that had brought him, then ran back along the edge of the freeway and got into his big gray car.
Mary Perkins's eyes never left Barraclough after that. She could see him glancing in his rearview mirror as he pulled out into the traffic, then crossed over one lane, then another, then another. He had already gone far past her, but she walked in his direction patiently, watching him take the last two lanes and stop far ahead of her on the center island where she walked. Then she saw his back-up lights come on, and he began to move in reverse on the center margin to meet her. She had never seen anybody drive backward so fast. Oh, yes, he had once been a policeman. They all learned how to do things like backing up on freeway shoulders.
Timothy Phillips looked out the window of the red car and watched Jane staring in horror at the other lady. But as the man who had brought him here started the car, Timmy saw Jane's right hand move down beside her leg and beckon to him.
Timmy got the passenger door of the red car half open before the driver lunged across the seat and clutched his shirt to drag him back. The sudden movement was enough. Jane flung the driver's door open, delivered a hard jab to his kidney, and snatched the key out of the ignition.
The driver turned with a pained snarl and started out the door after her. Jane retreated toward the front of the car. The driver heard the boy opening the door behind him again just as his foot touched the ground. He yelled,
