Jane drove out of the quiet neighborhood, down Colfax Avenue, east on Ventura Boulevard, and up the entrance to the Hollywood Freeway. Finally she looked at Janet McNamara. “Are you up to having a serious talk?”
“I don’t think so.” After a few seconds, she said, “But if I won’t, I’m in worse trouble, aren’t I? I’m lost, just as though I were floating on some dark ocean. Nothing in any direction—left, right, above, below.”
Jane reached out and touched the woman’s shoulder, but the woman cringed and shrank back. Jane said, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“Is that man dead? Did you—did we—just kill him?”
“If he’s dead, I killed him. I’m not interested in sharing the blame,” said Jane. She looked at the woman. “Did he rape you?”
The woman glared at her, but said nothing.
Jane said, “No matter what he did, it’s over. I’m not going back there to kill him again.”
“So he is dead.”
“I’m asking about you. I need to know if I’m looking for a doctor or an airport.”
“He didn’t. I’m sure you know exactly what happened. You set this up.”
Jane held her breath for a few seconds, then let it out. It had to be now. “I don’t actually work for the people who hid you. I didn’t set this up. I took you there because I wanted to see them without having them see me. When I realized they had arranged to meet you in an empty building, I got worried.”
“What are you saying? You don’t work for them? You said you did. You said—”
“I lied.”
The admission stopped the woman, made all of the evidence she was arranging in her mind irrelevant. Or maybe it didn’t: maybe this was the lie. “Why should I believe you’re telling the truth now?”
Jane looked into her eyes for a moment. “I’m not telling you the truth because I’ve suddenly become a sweet person.” She turned to look at the highway ahead. “I’m doing it because I think it’s to my advantage right now, and I don’t think it will cost me anything in the future. Listen carefully, because the truth doesn’t come trippingly to my tongue, and I use it only as a last resort. I’ve been trying to spy on those people to learn who they are and where they are so I’ll be able to destroy them. I was waiting for them in Minneapolis, and saw one of them taking you to the airport. I had two or three seconds to decide whether to follow him or to divert you. I picked you.”
“Why?”
“I thought you might tell me things. I knew the man driving you to the airport wouldn’t.”
“What are you—some kind of policewoman?”
“No. I’m Jane.”
“You’re … I don’t understand.”
“For thirteen years I was a guide. I took people who were in danger and moved them to places where they weren’t in danger. I gave them forged papers, taught them how to stay hidden, and left. Sound familiar? It was quiet, it was private. It wasn’t a business. But people heard about it. Now the ones you met seem to be using my name.”
The woman’s eyes flashed. “You used me to get revenge because they stole your trade name?”
“No,” said Jane. “These people have become a danger—to people I hid over the years, to people I love who have nothing to do with the disappearing business, and to me. I did use you.” Jane stared at her, unblinking. “But here you are.”
“You mean you put me in a fire and pulled me out before I got burned?” She was angry and Jane could tell that her vision was narrowing—she was literally seeing red. “Well, it wasn’t in time.”
“You said nothing happened.”
“Something happened. Not that, but something.”
Jane kept the emotions she felt from slipping into her voice. “What happened?”
Janet McNamara’s body began to shake. It was a slow movement of her head, the tears hidden as though she were refusing to give in to them. Then she sobbed, and gasped in a breath. The next sob was loud, as though she were angry at Jane for causing it and was defiant. But she didn’t sob aloud again. Her shoulders shook harder for a minute or two, and then she lifted her head and spoke just above a whisper. “I found out that I’m not smart, and I’m not strong, and I’m not brave.”
Jane’s tone was gentle, reasonable. “He was a man who hurt people for a living. He had a loaded gun. You had nothing. Smart is being able to walk away at the end of it. You’re smart. He’s not.”
The woman seemed to let Jane’s words go past her, because she had something to tell. “I went to bed, and when I woke up he was standing there in the bedroom doorway. It was like one of those dreams where there’s something big and awful that you can’t quite see. I sat up so fast I was dizzy. He said he was there to check on me.” She glared at Jane. “Just as you said he would.”
Jane didn’t answer. The woman needed to get something said, so she didn’t try to interrupt her with some disclaimer that would have to be a lie.
The woman looked out the windshield. “I pulled myself together a little bit after that. I remember actually laughing—a nervous little laugh—because finally something was happening the way somebody had said it would, and that meant everything was on track again. But it wasn’t. He said, ‘Get up,’ and switched on the light. He turned away, so I thought it was some clumsy attempt to be polite, because I was only wearing my nightgown. But when I got up I saw he was going through my stuff: my suitcase and my bag. I said, ‘What are you doing?’ and he said he was collecting the money I owed.”
“Did you owe them money?” asked Jane.
“No,” said the woman. “I paid all the expenses, and gave them fifty thousand dollars. That was supposed to be it. But he said I was mistaken.” She looked down at her hands in her lap.
“Did he explain what he meant?”
“I didn’t really listen carefully to the rest. There was something about extra expenses because I wasn’t on the plane, and that meant they had to look for me. And fees for other things. Once I knew where this was all leading, it hardly mattered what he called it.”
“Did you argue with him?”
“Sure. I wasn’t trying to run away from things I’d done and live in luxury or something. He was taking the money I was going to need to stay hidden and get started again. I was desperate. I started to yell at him.”
“And then what?”
“And then I stopped.”
Jane looked at her closely. “You figured it out, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” said the woman. “I did. It was one of those surprises that come, and when they do, the biggest part is wondering how you could be so stupid that you didn’t know before. All you had to do was step out of your own skull and look at yourself from anywhere but your own eyes. I saw him looking at me, and saw that the shouting didn’t make him nervous. He raised his voice too, but he wasn’t mad. He was just showing me he wasn’t afraid of being heard. He could make all the noise he wanted.”
“And you couldn’t.”
“No. I couldn’t. I saw it in his eyes. They were … amused. I don’t mean he thought I was funny. I mean that he was watching my face while it all occurred to me, and he was enjoying each step.”
“Each step?”
“I’m thinking, ‘Why am I yelling?’ The reason you yell is to bring other people—neighbors, passersby, police. If that happens, I’m going to be caught and shipped back to Washington and put in jail. Or maybe it’s more basic, less civilized. I’m angry, like an animal. My throat tightens and my mouth opens wider. But what does my animal anger mean to this other animal? He’s much bigger and stronger and faster than I am, and he knows how to fight—has fought. So yelling is not only pointless, it’s actually self-destructive. Yelling and fighting were out.”
“You said he was watching you figure that out. Did he say anything?”
“He said, ‘The maintenance fee will be five thousand a month.’ ”
“What’s a maintenance fee?”
“I’m surprised you don’t know. Or maybe you do, and you want me to say it. He said they’d continue to check on me to be sure I was okay, and if I needed things, they would get them for me.”
“What sorts of things?”
“Renew my licenses and cards and things. Even that had never occurred to me. I had a wallet full of fake
