Quinn laughed. “How else was I going to leave Sid and take a lot of Sid’s money with me?”
“What about the lovely and talented Christie?”
“She’s really dead. Nothing to do with me. Got killed in New York, I heard.”
Jane was silent for a long time. Had his voice come from a different spot? She listened for fainter sounds that might be movement.
Quinn broke her concentration. “You know, there’s one good way to get out of this, Janie.” He was still under the window.
“Maybe more than one.”
“I said one
“Great offer, Quinn. But your last partner seems reluctant to give you a reference.”
“You know what really killed him?”
“Besides you?”
“He didn’t get out enough,” said Quinn. “He lost touch. He knew zero. He sat here all alone, waiting for everybody to come to him, and without me—”
“All alone?” said Jane. Was it possible he didn’t know?
“Yeah, all alone,” Quinn repeated. “He sat here on his fat ass. He didn’t even change the locks after I got killed. So ten minutes ago, I walked right in and—”
Jane said, “Quinn, listen to me. Get out of that house. Get out now.”
Quinn laughed again. “I head for the door, you pop me through the window? Sure.”
“No, you don’t understand. Sid wasn’t alone. He must have sent them out on some errand. I swear I won’t go near the window. Just get out now. They’ll kill us both.” She took three steps from the tree.
The barrel of Quinn’s gun appeared above the windowsill, and Jane dived back toward the tree. She heard the gun spit four or five times, and a stone near the base of the tree jumped upward into the weeds.
She lay behind the tree listening. She had not heard a car pull up on the street, but now she heard doors slamming and running feet. She was not sure whether Quinn’s sudden silence meant he was listening too or he was just moving to another window to get a better shot at her. Then she heard the roar of the Ingram MAC 10 tearing his body to pieces.
Jane lay still as a young girl appeared at the window. Jane could tell this was the one she had seen hiding at the top of the stairs on the night she had come here with Dahlman. The girl pressed her thin, feral face against the metal bars and her sharp eyes stared out into the dark.
Then Jane heard the voice of the boy she had seen that night. “What—you think somebody went out through the bars?”
The girl bristled. “Maybe I need some air. Do you mind?”
“He’s dead, and the other old guy is dead. You want to be dead too?”
The girl sighed in heavy annoyance. “Go pack the car. I’ll look around for money.”
Jane heard the boy’s shoes on the floor, hurrying out of the room into the foyer. The girl stayed where she was for a moment, then moved toward the door after him. She looked down at the body. “Bye, Sid.” Her voice sounded like the voice of a little child. Then Jane heard her move out into the foyer after the boy.
Jane stood, wiped the gun off, and left it on the ground. She whispered, “Bye, Sid,” picked up the cellular telephone she had brought, and moved off into the darkness toward her car. As she drove, she made three telephone calls. The first was to an apartment in Cleveland, the second to a retirement home in Carlsbad, and the third was to the Minneapolis Police Department.
As soon as she had made the last call, she stopped the car at a parking lot beside a picnic area overlooking the Mississippi. There was only one street lamp near the entrance to the lot. She drove to the far end of the pavement and turned off her lights. She left the car running, got out, walked across the lawn to the edge, and hurled the telephone into the slow, dark water.
Jane turned and walked back to the car. She sat down in the seat, pulled the safety belt across her chest, and fastened it. She put the car into gear and began to make a wide turn toward the entrance.
“Jay-nee …” It was a soft, female voice, like a song just above a whisper. It made the hair on the back of Jane’s neck stand.
Jane’s foot hit the brake and the car jerked to a stop. She whirled in her seat to look behind her, and what she saw made her breath catch in her throat.
The woman’s face was illuminated in the glow of the single street lamp. It looked supernaturally pale under the long, black hair, but the red lips were set in the same amused, knowing smile that Jane remembered. “Jay-nee,” came the voice again. Then came the horrible, mocking laugh. Jane could see the big, square-looking .45 pistol held just above the woman’s lap with the muzzle aimed at the center of Jane’s backrest. They both knew the car seat wouldn’t stop the bullet.
The voice rose to a normal volume. “Say something.”
Jane said, “Everybody around here seems to come back from the dead. First Quinn, now you.”
The woman looked irritated. “Not exactly. I’m not Christie anymore. Quinn and I figured you must be dead, so I died too, only the death I came back from was yours.”
Jane said, “You’re supposed to be me? That’s why you grew your hair long and dyed it. You’re Jane?”
Christie shrugged. “I was the only one who had the qualifications. I got rich at it. Did you?” She seemed to enjoy the thought for a moment, then said, “You surprised me tonight, though.”
“By staying alive.”
Christie nodded. “I knew you were coming. I sent Quinn in to do Sid, so you could be Little Red Riding Hood, and Quinn could be the wolf. I spent the evening driving around, waiting for a rental car like this to appear in the neighborhood.”
“Why?”
“If the one who came out of the house was Quinn, great. If Sid came out, still okay: I could make him believe anything—that I was Quinn’s prisoner or something. But if the one who came back was you.… What could I do?”
“Christie,” said Jane. “You don’t have to—”
“I’m not,” Christie interrupted. “I’m sick of the whole business. Without Quinn or Sid, it’s too much trouble. I wanted to let you know. Drive back to the dark part of the lot and park. When you get there, I’ll get out and you drive off. I’ll be watching until you’re out of sight, so don’t do anything strange. Don’t even look back.”
Jane turned the car and drove in the direction of the river. Christie was lying. There was no reason in the world for Christie to do anything now except pull the trigger. Jane pressed her foot down on the gas pedal a little harder. The car was moving faster now, slowly gaining speed. She had not turned the headlights on when Christie had appeared, and she didn’t turn them on now, in the hope that Christie would not notice just how fast the car was moving.
The voice came again. “Slow down.”
Jane said nothing. Christie was more alert than she had expected. There was no hope of hiding the speed now, so Jane accelerated rapidly. The faster she was going, the fewer options Christie would have. It was already too late to shoot and jump.
“Stop the car or I’ll blow your head off.”
The car left the pavement and bumped onto the uneven surface of the lawn without losing speed. Jane watched the rearview mirror and saw the arm come up carrying the gun, then swing hard at her head.
Jane ducked to avoid the impact, but the gun caught the back of her head in a glancing blow that knocked her forward and made her see a red afterimage. Then she realized that the car had already reached the end of the grass. It shot outward, and it felt for a moment as though they were suspended in the air, and then the car began to fall. Jane’s seat belt seemed to tighten and drag her down out of the sky.
For a second she was aware that Christie was rising behind her in the back seat, both hands pressed against the ceiling to keep it away from her. Jane straightened her spine and sat up in her seat, looked out the windshield, and tried to see the surface of the river below. It was all darkness. She waited a second, then another, and then came the shock.
The car seemed to stab downward into the water at an angle. There was a bang as the airbag exploded out of the hub of the steering column and flattened Jane against her seat and, at the same time, a heavy thump as
