'Oh, my God,' said Demming. 'You look exactly like Christine. Exactly.'
'Think so?' said Claudia.
'Absolutely. You're right on the money. Don't you think so, Richard?' Demming's forced smile begged for the right answer.
'Perfect,' Richard said. He smiled, too. 'I mean you were perfect before as yourself, Claudia, but this ... This is something.'
Sybil and Claudia went back into the guest room and closed the door.
'She doesn't look like Christine,' Richard said. 'She's short, but she's not the same body type as Christine. What are we doing? Why say she does, if she doesn't? She's ten years older, and Christine gained thirty-five pounds in the pregnancy, at least.'
'She'll be wearing padding, and that'll make her look fat,' said Demming. 'The wig is a perfect match for Christine's hair. She's the same height as Christine, and with the makeup, she's fine. You've got to remember it will be midnight, and there will only be a sliver of moon tonight. Once she's out of the house it will be like walking around in the bottom of a well. If the woman gets close enough to see the difference, Claudia will be close enough to shoot her.'
'Jesus, Steve. I don't know about this. I don't think we should make her think she'll fool anybody. It could make her take chances.'
Demming put his arm around Richard's shoulder. 'We don't have a choice. You're the one who talked to this woman, and we're locked into giving her a Christine. Claudia is our only possible Christine. All we can do is make her feel confident and back her up.'
Sybil Landreau reappeared and stood a few feet off, waiting. When Demming saw her he nodded. 'Now we've got some more things to do before dark. We'll see you later.' He and Sybil went outside, and in a moment Richard heard Demming's car accelerating onto the coast road.
Richard sat on one of the living room couches, leaning back with his face toward the ceiling and his eyes closed. He didn't want to succumb to the fear, the shortness of breath, the throbbing in his head that made him feel sick. He knew that he needed to rest now, before the long night.
He heard something quiet, a swish, a rustle, and smelled perfume a half-second before he felt the lips against his. He opened his eyes just as Claudia's face pulled back a few inches. Her hair was blond again, and her eyes were brown.
'A sweet kiss, but a little short,' she said.
'Are you making a fool of me?' he asked.
'No. You'll have to do that yourself.' She lowered her head again and kissed him deeply, lingering there and letting her tongue tickle his lips and then slip into his mouth. They kissed for a minute or two. He put his arms around her and noticed that she had changed her clothes, too. She was wearing a light sundress held up by two thin straps. He moved his hand along her spine and verified that there was nothing under the dress. She tugged it back down and sat up, then looked out the large back windows at the ocean and squinted. 'It's so bright. Come to the bedroom.'
He got up and followed Claudia into the hallway. When she turned toward the guest bedroom where she had changed, he gently placed his hands on her hips and steered her into the master suite. He turned around to close the door and lock it.
When he turned back, she was kneeling on the bed, pulling the dress off over her head. She met his eyes. 'Sex calms the nerves. I knew I could get you to help me out, Richard. You're such a whore.'
34
Jane stood in Sharon's kitchen and fought the impulse to call Carey. After a few seconds she defeated the urge. If she told him she was calling because she might not be alive in a few hours, what would that accomplish? If she wasn't up to dying without tormenting him, then she had become a different person in five years. The only way to increase her chances of survival was to concentrate on what she had to do.
She went into the bedroom and laid out her black clothes and her running shoes, then went back to the kitchen table, checked the pair of Beretta M92 pistols, and loaded the two fourteen-round magazines. She took a shower, scrubbed in the bathtub, and then showered again to be sure she had washed off any trace of makeup, shampoo, or deodorant. She was going to be moving in the dark tonight, and she wasn't going to let a scent betray her.
Dressed in her black clothes, she returned to the kitchen for the small backpack and packed the kit she had devised for the evening. She had a spool of fifty-pound test monofilament fishing line, her razor-sharp folding knife, and the small plastic container of grease paint. She had bought a cell phone under the name Helen DeLong, and that was the one she placed in her kit. She had bought a battery-operated baby monitor and receiver and two thick chains with heavy padlocks.
Jane took her kit, her guns, and her bicycle to the garage and loaded them into the SUV. She knew she needed a safer place to hide her vehicle this time, so she drove to a hotel on the road to Rancho Santa Fe, rented a room, and parked in the parking structure where her SUV would not be visible. Then she put on her pack, took her bicycle out and rode it to the estate bordering the Beale house where she had climbed the wall on her earlier visit. She walked her bicycle into the oak woods off the road, left it in a dry creek bed, and covered it with leaves and fallen branches, then walked toward the Beale estate.
She came onto the estate by climbing the tree and using the overhanging limb she had used earlier. Before moving on, she found her half-stripped sapling and made sure it was in place in case she needed a ladder to reach the top of the wall again.
Once she had moved through the pine woods at the back of the Beale land, she crawled to the edge of the lawn to study the buildings. There was no sign that anyone was waiting. It was only three in the afternoon, nine hours early, but Jane wasn't sure yet that she was alone. She needed to reach the house without being seen. After she had waited an hour without hearing a sound from the house or seeing anyone pass a window, she decided it was time to move.
She stepped quietly along the back of the big garage, skirting the open lawn, and then walked to the back of the pool house. She didn't want to go any farther and leave the pool house behind her without first being sure no one had chosen it as the place to wait in ambush. She stepped to the doorway and peered inside, then slipped in and opened cabinets and drawers. She stared through each of the windows to determine what parts of the house and yard could be seen from there. She was almost ready to leave, when she opened the cabinet under the sink in the bar and found a gun. It was a .45 Glock, loaded, with a round in the chamber and the safety off. She took out the magazine, cleared the round, buried the magazine in the flower bed beside the pool house, and then returned the gun to its hiding place.
When she reached the side of the house, she stepped along it until she found the electric meter and circuit breakers. She could see the wheel in the meter turning very slowly, as though the only things still drawing current were the electric displays on the built-in appliances.
She opened her pack, took out her roll of monofilament fishing line, tied it to the master power switch beside the circuit box, and then ran it around a bar in the iron fence surrounding the pool, and finally along the side of the main house to the garden. She tested the line once by tugging it to turn off the power to the house, then went back to the box and closed the switch again.
The next step was to find a good way into the house. She approached the sliding door to the main room. Through the glass she examined the latch that locked it to the doorframe. She jiggled the door on its track. It was an expensive, well-fitted door: It wouldn't move from side to side. She tried grasping the handle and lifting the door straight up, and found that she could lift it nearly an inch. The wheels that held it on its track could be raised or lowered by adjustment screws recessed on the inner side of the door, and it was clear to her that nobody had adjusted them for years, so they had gotten very loose.
What she needed now was something she could use as a pry bar. There was nothing in the garden, but she remembered seeing a barbecue set in one of the drawers below the counter in the pool house. She went back and selected a big butcher knife. She returned to the sliding door, knelt, and lifted it again, pushed the knife into the space beneath it and moved it until she found the spring-loaded wheel under the door. She used the blade to hold the wheel up, and pushed the door off its track. Then she slipped the blade into the space she'd created between
