Francine said, 'I wanted to talk for a minute before you go.'
'All right.'
'I was on the run once,' she said.
'How did you find your way to Stewart?'
'Luck,' said Francine. 'I got lucky and met somebody who had the same kind of problem I had, and she showed me her identification. She told me where she got it.' She stared at Jane for a moment. 'Stewart tells me that you're somebody we don't ever have to worry about. He said you were reliable. Is it true?'
Jane stared back at her. 'I try to be. I've been out of this life for a long time. Before I quit taking on runners, I had found a few people I believed were safe to do business with, and Stewart was one of them. For all I know, all the others are dead or in jail now. So he's pretty important to me right now.'
Francine kept her large, dark eyes on Jane. 'I want you to know that I'm not jealous of you or paranoid or something. The reason I was running is that I killed somebody who deserved it. If the police take me in and fingerprint me, it's not going to make a bit of difference why, then I'm gone.'
'I'm sorry,' said Jane. 'For my sake and yours, I hope they never find you or Stewart. You seem to care about him.'
'When I got here, I didn't have any money left. I didn't have anything much to trade. I told him that I would pay him by being his personal whore.'
'You don't have to tell me this.'
'Yes, I do, because I want us to understand each other. When I was running I got to the point where I knew I would do anything to be safe again, and I figured that was something he'd want. It was going to be pure business, but I discovered that the idea, the badness of it or something, excited me. What happened since then is that we fell in love. If I had to open somebody's artery again to hold on to the life we have here, I'd do it in an eyeblink.'
'Not mine. I'll keep your secret.'
Francine glanced toward the door to the sitting room. 'Will she? She's a kid.'
'I'm betting my life on her.'
'You are,' said Francine. 'There are people looking really hard for her and for you. Things have changed since the last time you were running. There are more people in the chasing business these days. I want you to be careful, because if you fuck this up, I'm probably dead.'
'I'll do my best.' Jane put her arms around Francine and held her for a moment, then released her.
Jane heard a door open behind her. 'Jane?' It was Christine. Francine opened the door beside her and disappeared into Shattuck's workshop.
'What was that about?' Christine asked.
'We were wishing each other good luck.'
'Good luck?'
'Yes. You'd be amazed at how much depends on luck.'
'Now you're scaring me.'
'Good.'
The door opened and Francine said, 'He's done. Your traveling documents are ready.'
Jane went inside and examined the driver's license, the Social Security card, and the birth certificate. They were superb forgeries, all in the name Linda Welles. 'Who's Linda Welles?'
Stewart said, 'I like to give an old customer like you a bargain now and then. Linda Welles is an identity I grew. The Visa card is real, the birth certificate is a duplicate of a real one. The license has a counterpart in the North Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles. All I changed was the photo.'
'Thank you.' Jane took her cell phone and a credit card out of her purse. She looked at the phone number on the back of the card and dialed, listened to a recording, punched in the numbers on the front of the card, and then handed the card to Stewart. 'Hello. Yes. My name is Cecilia Randazzo. The reason I'm calling is that I'm about to make a kind of big charge on my card, and I wanted you to know it's real. Forty thousand dollars.' She answered a series of questions from the woman on the other end of the line, then disconnected. She said to Stewart, 'All done. Charge away.'
He scanned the card in his scanner, then returned it. Jane gathered up the false identification and said, 'Thanks, Stewart. Take care of Francine and keep her safe.' She turned to go.
'See you, Janie.'
Jane stepped out the door, swept Christine to the front entrance, and stopped while Francine scanned the neighborhood. Jane said, 'Persuade him that he's got enough money to retire, and get him out of here.'
In a minute Jane was driving, and they were already out of town. It was after four A.M. now. They didn't speak much, just let the dark landscape float past the windows and the headlights reveal new stretches of road that weren't different from the last ones. Route 20 intersected with a big county road a couple of miles past the next town, and Jane felt an urge to take it, but she decided it would be better to keep going on the highway for a bit longer. They were making good time, and she wanted to do most of their traveling before the sun came up.
She began to consider where she would go when the road reached the Hudson. Years ago, when a runner showed up at her door with chasers close behind, she had simply started the car and begun to drive. When she was sure she had built up enough distance, she had gotten them both on an airplane. Even in those days, when she could walk into an airport, dream up a new name, and buy a ticket, flying had been a risk. Once a person stepped onto a plane there wasn't much mystery about where and when she would step off.
As Jane crested a rolling hill and began to coast down, she saw two big unmarked black American cars pulled across the center of the road in a V shape, with a third in the right lane about ten yards beyond. That would be the chase car, in case someone ran the roadblock. She said, 'Roadblock up there. Sit up and look innocent.'
Christine sat up and looked. 'Is it the police?'
'It looks that way. I don't see how it could be the people who are searching for you.'
'I don't either,' said Christine. 'They'd have to be psychics. But I'm scared. Can we turn around and go back the other way?'
'I don't think so. That's the best way I know to get stopped and have the car searched.'
'So what? We don't have anything illegal in the car, do we?'
'Nothing but a few thousand dollars in cash and a few driver's licenses in different names.'
'But what if it isn't the police? What about those people—Stewart and Francine? Did you tell them Richard's name? They could have called him while we were sleeping.'
'That didn't happen.' Jane slowed her Volvo and watched two men get out of one of the cars and step toward them. There was one walking toward each side of the car, and each held a large flashlight in his hand. That wasn't reassuring to Jane. It looked like what police did when they were checking cars looking for a fugitive.
She rolled down her window so she would be able to hear them. She could see that the two wore sport coats. There was a badge pinned to the belt of the man who was walking toward her. She said, 'See? That one has a badge.'
'No!' said Christine. 'That's—'
'It's them!' the man shouted. He sidestepped quickly as he reached across his chest and under his coat.
'Get down.' Jane wrenched the wheel toward the man and pressed the gas pedal. He sprinted for the side of the road. When his feet hit the gravel shoulder, he spun around to face the Volvo with the gun in his hand. His instant of understanding was visible in the headlights as he realized that he had not run far enough. There was a loud thump as the Volvo hit him, and a series of bumps as he rolled up and over the hood toward the windshield. Jane held the wheel to the left to keep the car spinning, and the centrifugal force threw him off onto the pavement. Jane saw him bounce, roll, and then lie still.
Jane turned off the headlights and accelerated up and over the hill. She realized she had heard shots behind them, first one gun firing a round, then three rapid shots, and then a second shooter firing steadily.
Christine yelled, 'You hit him!'
'We each had a weapon, and mine's bigger,' said Jane. 'Sometimes I wish it were faster.' She stepped harder on the gas pedal, steering with both hands and straining her eyes to keep the car on the pavement.
'My God,' said Christine. 'How can you see anything? It's completely dark.'
'I don't have to see much—just where the road is.' Jane steered for a few more seconds, still accelerating, but then let the car's speed stay constant. 'We're out of sight and out of range for the moment. Did you hear any
