Thomas Perry - Poison Flower

"Did checking the suitcase help set your mind at rest"

"The opposite."

"Why"

"When I found myself sneaking around and searching my wife's suitcase for evidence, I felt I had come to a low point. I wanted to know once and for all. I also didn't want to know. Maybe it was a brief fling and it would end, and she'd learn she loved only me, and she'd be a great wife forever. I hated myself for having that thought, and for wishing I could be protected from the truth until the ugly part of the truth went away. I hated myself for suspecting her, and I felt self--loathing for ignoring the signs for so long. Some nights I was ready to confront her with the whole mess, and then I'd wake up in the morning and start wondering if I was just putting bad interpretations on innocent facts. It was horrible."

"So you did confront her"

"No. I came home from work as usual one night, and she didn't. That wasn't unusual. But I had a funny feeling. I noticed something was different in the living room. Things seemed to have been moved. No, I realized. They were -missing -a couple of pictures, a vase or two. I went into the bedroom and opened her closet. There was nothing left in it. Her dresser drawers were empty, and the drawers in the bathroom and the medicine cabinet. Usually the bathroom counter looked like a cosmetics store, but all the bottles and jars and tubes were gone. I went to the phone and called her cell number, but her phone was off. I called her private office number and it went to voice mail. I texted her-`Where are you' I figured if she was checking any e-mail it would be her office address, so I sent a careful e-mail, so I wouldn't embarrass her. I just said to please call me as soon as possible. And I waited up all night, but there was no response. At around five a.m. it occurred to me that I should check on some other things. I called the number for our bank, and punched in the account numbers for our accounts. The checking account had a hundred dollars, and the savings account balance was zero. She had moved away and cleaned us out. At seven I called in to work to take a sick day. At eight I called her mother."

"What did she say"

"That Sue wasn't with her, and her leaving town was my fault. She couldn't even go home to her mother, because I was too close by and wouldn't have left her alone. She had left Texas entirely."

"Did that make you think about backing off"

"No. I was frantic. I just wanted to know what went wrong. Was she in love with somebody else Was I just too repulsive to stay with for another minute Was she mad about something I looked for her. I finally went to see a lawyer, and while I was telling him the story I mentioned the whole money issue, because I couldn't pay him a lot of money until after payday. Right away he told me I didn't have a prayer of ever seeing the money again, but it was an adequate pretext for finding her and asking her for an explanation. He hired a skip-tracing company, and they found her new address, which was in California."

In the back seat, Iris stirred and sat up. "Hi," she said. "Where are we"

"We're still on the interstate, getting ready to make a stop for gas," Jane said. "It's a good time to use the restrooms and get a cup of coffee."

"Great idea," said Iris. "You two can just head for the restrooms and come back to the car. I'll be the one to show my face and buy the coffee."

Jane said, "Good idea," and looked at Shelby.

Shelby got the hint. "Thanks, Iris," he said. "It'll make stopping a whole lot safer for us."

Jane pulled off the interstate at a large gas station and bought gas, and they all used the restrooms. When Iris returned to the car with the coffee, Shelby was asleep.

10.

Jane still drove with her left foot so she could rest the muscles of her right thigh and help it heal. She had been trying for all of this time to keep her mind on Jim Shelby's troubles and off her own. But as she drove through the last dark stretch of night on the interstate, the thoughts and feelings came back to her.

She had been shot, captured, and tortured. She had not allowed herself to think about the horror and the brutality of the torture right away, because the memories and images might weaken her. She'd had work to do to get herself away from Los Angeles to Las Vegas and on to Salt Lake City, and then to get Shelby back in motion. But the darkness and the solitude brought her own experiences back.

The three men had done her terrible harm. She was afraid that she wasn't healing quickly enough, and that she and Shelby-and now Iris-would be killed because she couldn't run and couldn't fight, and her limping would make them stand out.

Now that she was beginning to heal, and the car made her injuries undetectable, she had a new concern. Now she was feeling the loss of the beautiful, strong, smooth body she'd had. She had always been a runner, a member of the track team at Deganawida High School and then at Cornell. Over the years she had kept running, and also done tai chi and practiced aikido each day, but she hadn't thought much about how it made her look. Now she knew that beauty had been more important to her than she had ever admitted to herself. What would Carey think when he saw her.

Her mind moved deeper into the experience. The captors had not raped her. She supposed that since she had been shot right away, rape would not have happened until she had recovered. And then their priority had been to find out where Jim Shelby was, so they weakened and marked her further. But she had expected that sometime soon she would be raped. If they'd had the chance to complete their auction, then she would have been at the mercy of men who had been hunting her for years, hating her for outsmarting and outrunning them, but most of all for freeing their prey. She would have suffered everything they had been wishing they could do to her. Rape would have been only the beginning.

Jane checked her rearview mirrors, as she did every minute or two. There was a set of headlights that had been behind them for a few minutes. When she went faster, the other car sped up, too. When she slowed down, the other car didn't pass. Instead, the car slowed down, too, hanging back just far enough so she couldn't get a look at what was behind the headlights. She accelerated sharply.

Shelby sat up. "What's going on"

"I'm just trying to figure that out," she said. "There's a set of headlights behind us that's been there too long."

He turned in his seat and stared out the rear window. "Could it be cops"

"I can't say no to anything, but usually if cops get curious, they speed up and take a closer look at you. They run your plates on their computer. If they're still curious they pull you over."

Suddenly the car behind them pulled out into the left lane. Jane caught a clear silhouette of the approaching car in the headlights of cars behind it. "It's a cop," she said. "I can see the light bar on the roof. He's going to pass us. Sit tight." She slowed down.

The car moved steadily up to their left, accelerating all the time. It slid past them, and the cop in the passenger seat glanced at them but then let his eyes focus on the next car ahead. The police car was moving fast now, and its red taillights gradually diminished into the distance. "I guess we're not the ones he wants."

"That's a relief," said Shelby. "Want me to drive for a while"

"Not yet. Feel like talking some more"

"About what"

"When I've taken people out of the world in the past, all of them had somebody chasing them. But I can't recall any who were already serving a life sentence in jail and still had enemies trying to get at them. Why do you"

"I don't know. They sent me to prison for life. They should have been satisfied."

"I keep thinking it has to be something about the murder. If we can figure out what happened to your wife, maybe we'll know what these people are so afraid of."