Runner

around her.

She listened closely and watched the trees brighten more and more, and then stepped away from the trunk to face him. The man on the motorcycle was thirty feet away, moving toward her. As soon as he saw her he sped up, as though he intended to run her down. As he came toward her, Jane took two steps in one direction and then the other, as though she were transfixed, unable to decide what to do.

The motorcycle roared toward her, but she stepped aside at the last second and flung her jacket over his head and across his face. The motorcycle seemed to jerk as he tried to brake, then tried to turn it and lay it down. The motorcycle went ten feet past Jane into the trunk of an oak tree. The man was thrown over it, half-turned in the air, and hit the tree beyond it.

The motorcycle was still running, lying on the ground in front of the tree with its light on and the rear wheel still spinning and the engine roaring. Jane knelt there for a second and turned it off, then approached the injured man cautiously.

He was conscious, and Jane saw him try to move his right arm toward his jacket pocket, realize from the pain and immobility that it was broken, then try to reach across his body with his left. She saw the gun before he could get a grip on it, kicked his ribs, and snatched it out of his pocket. She held it to his head.

'You have one chance, and it's right now. What's your name?'

'Pete Tilton.'

That was one of the names Christine had told her, so she accepted it. 'Is Christine in that house?'

'No.'

'Is she all right?'

'I'm not. I'm really hurt bad. Just call an ambulance and go. Nobody will come after you for this if you'll help.' He tried to raise his head as though he wanted to sit up but couldn't.

'Is Christine dead?'

He moved convulsively, trying to catch Jane's legs in a side-kick and bring her down where he might be able to wrest the gun away with his left hand. Jane stepped backward and fired.

'WHAT WAS THAT?' asked Ruby Beale.

'Probably nothing. A backfire,' Andy Beale said.

'I haven't heard a backfire in twenty years.'

On the couch in the great room, Andy Beale had his arm around Ruby. He said, 'Sometimes, when people are under a lot of stress, it gets into their dreams. They can wake up enough to walk around, and still be dreaming.'

Ruby took two deep breaths and blew them out through her nose. 'It wasn't a dream, Andy. I saw her. And if you had just looked right away when I pointed, you would have seen her for yourself.'

He spoke very gently. 'You saw me order Pete and Steve and the girls to go out there to look around, and so far nobody has found any sign of her. They're all still at it, but as the time goes by, the chance gets slimmer. You know, sometimes—I'm not saying this is one of those times—we see things with our heads instead of our eyes.'

She turned her whole body to face him. 'Just what are you getting at?'

'There's no such thing as a ghost, Ruby.'

'So. You did see her.'

'No, I didn't.'

'What do you think is crazier—to see something and admit it, or see it and tell yourself you couldn't have, so you didn't?'

Andy Beale thought for a moment, then shrugged. 'When you're at that level, who cares? Take your pick.'

She stood up and went to the elevator. 'Sometimes you're a real jackass, you know?' She punched the button and the doors closed.

Andy Beale heard it going up to the third level, where the master suite was. He knew that it was probably his job to follow her up there and make a convincing apology for being insensitive. That was just another way of saying he was a jackass, and it only applied after the fact when she wasn't mad anymore. He knew what was required of him, but tonight he couldn't bring himself to do it just yet.

31

Jane was back in Sharon's house taking a shower by one-thirty A.M. She knew it was a good idea to wash thoroughly after discharging a firearm into a person, but that was all she allowed herself to think for the moment. It was not until she had finished the shower and was soaking in Sharon's tub that she allowed herself to turn her attention to what she had done to the man on the motorcycle.

The first conclusion she reached was that she didn't especially regret killing him. She had needed to do the same thing to other people several times in the past. Right after college, when she had started making the hunted disappear, it had not occurred to her that she would ever kill anyone. She was only going to help people who were in danger run away. It had been a simple, logical proposition for her. Saving a life could never be wrong.

But after she had helped a number of victims begin new lives, she began to realize that some time, one of the enemies would find his way to her. On the day it happened, she had not made a slow, reasoned decision to kill. Instead she had acted instinctively in a second, and then recognized that this, too, had been part of her original decision. The moment she invented the profession of preventing murderers from getting to their victims, she had already made it inevitable that one of them would try to kill her. Her only choice would be to die or kill him. The first time, and every time after that, she had chosen to kill.

Tonight Jane's feelings were complicated. She was tired, but she was also acutely aware that time was passing. From the day when she had arrived in Minneapolis and found Christine's apartment abandoned, she had been racing to find her. She had to keep trying every way she could, and to press every advantage. Tonight she had a slight advantage, and if she used it in time, it might cause some anxiety and confusion.

Jane dressed and went out into the night. She took with her the telephone number from Richard Beale's personnel file, and drove to Kearny Mesa. She stopped at a brightly lighted supermarket on Balboa. The pay phone was on the wall outside under the front window. She put in a few coins and dialed.

'Yeah?'

'Richard Beale?'

There was a brief, breathless silence, then 'That's right. Who's this?'

'I'm not surprised you're awake. I suppose your parents called you.'

'Who is this?'

'You know who it is, and you know I'm not going to tell you a name, so stop asking.' Jane kept her eyes moving from the street to the supermarket parking lot. 'The man who came after me tonight—Pete Tilton, right?—is dead. I want you to know I can do the same to the three you have left, to anyone else you hire, and to you. Tell me what happened to Christine.'

'I don't know anybody named Christine.'

'Tonight I told your friend he had one chance to answer, but he decided not to take it. This is your chance. Be sure you take it.'

'You can't call people up and threaten them.'

'Is Christine alive?'

'I don't know her.'

'Good night, Richard. I'll see you very soon.'

The telephone went dead. Richard Beale stood with the receiver in his hand until it began to make clicking noises and he remembered to press End. Had she been trying to trick him into saying something incriminating on a telephone and record it? What was she doing?

Demming had said the woman who had helped Christine was crazy. Crazy people weren't interested in going to court. A person who drove toward another car on a dark highway, perfectly willing to crash into it, was not anybody Richard Beale knew how to interpret. He was used to people who wanted something comprehensible, like collecting next week's paycheck.