Thomas Perry - Runner

"No. We're going to keep moving west a bit longer, and stopping in big cities is a lot of time and work. You have to fight traffic all the way in, then find a room in a place you think might be safe but don't really know. Even expensive hotels can fool you, because they're in the center of things, and certain criminals like that. The room will cost twice as much as it should. Then you have to find your way out in the morning rush hour."

"So where do we stop?"

"Suburbs, or smaller towns along the way. The chain hotels near airports can be good because they're generally on big highways and they're cheap, quick, and anonymous. They're full of business travelers who check in late one day and head out early the next. They have restaurants, so you don't have to show yourself outside."

Christine looked apprehensive. "Are you trying to tell me that big cities are out? That from now on I'll never be able to live in a real city?"

"Not at all. Probably you'll end up in one, or near one. That's where the jobs are, and most of the universities that will offer what you want to learn. It's where the big hospitals are—which for the next few months, you'll need. And big cities are easy places to hide."

"But which one?"

"Right now we need to find a place to simply put you for about four months. You'll live under the name Linda Welles."

"Four months? But what am I doing?"

"As little as possible."

"I don't understand you."

"You're pregnant. You'll take care of yourself—eat right, get the sort of moderate exercise your doctor should have told you about, get a full eight hours of sleep at night. We'll buy you a few of the better child-care books, and you'll read them. You'll make lists of the things you'll need to buy for the baby—clothes, diapers, crib, changing table, toys, blankets. The more of that you do ahead of time, the less you'll have to do later."

"That's it?"

Jane looked at her thoughtfully, and kept driving. "You've been out of their sight for less than twenty-four hours, but we've created a break in your trail. Remember, the bigger we can make the break—the longer you haven't been seen or heard from—the harder you'll be to find. While you're spending your time taking care of your health and your baby's, what are the four hunters doing?"

"How should I know?"

"They're searching for you. They won't have any idea where you are, so they'll be working very hard, trying everything at once to pick up any hint of your location, or even your direction. That's one of the ways that we'll slowly manipulate the odds in your favor."

"Against those people? It doesn't sound as though the odds ever go in my favor."

"It depends on how you think about it. Every day that you're free and healthy, we're wasting their time, tiring them out. We'll get you into a comfortable, safe place. Then, every time it rains, I want you to think of them standing outside in the cold and wet, watching some hotel entrance a thousand miles from you. While you're sleeping, they're sitting in a car in an airport parking lot watching for you to step off a shuttle bus. Every day will make them more tired and frustrated. And eventually Richard will run out of money or patience and stop paying them. Then your odds go way up."

Christine thought about it for a few seconds. "I guess I'd like that to be true. I'll try to think of it that way." She paused. "Most of the time I've felt the opposite way. Every day I'm getting bigger and heavier and slower. A lot of the time I don't feel so great."

"That's just for now. We'll use the time keeping you invisible, and preparing for the next stage. After the baby is born, you'll be ready to be a new person."

"Two people."

"Right," Jane said. "The main thing is not to allow yourself to feel defeated. You're already having a lot of hormonal changes, and there will be others later that might make your head spin. So we'll give you specific practical things to work on that will help."

"You seem to know a lot about this—pregnancy and everything."

"I've thought about it a lot."

"But you don't have kids."

"No. You don't always get what you want."

"Maybe you will."

"Maybe," said Jane. "But you're the one we've got to get through it right now." Jane had been feeling more and more deprived as they talked about babies, but now the feeling had grown into a painful emptiness, and she wanted it to end. She had admitted she wanted a baby, and it was obvious that she didn't have one. What else was going to be required of her?

Christine was quiet for a time. Then she said, "Jane?"

"What?"

"When it happens, do you think you could be there?"

"Be there? At the hospital?"

"In the delivery room. At least at the hospital, though. It's just that being there, doing this alone, with nobody around who even knows who I am or cares about me, it just scares me so much. No, I'm sorry. I guess it's too much. I'm sorry."

"I understand. I'll try to be there when it happens. There are all sorts of practical reasons for me to be with you then, and for at least a few weeks afterward. I'm a pro at dealing with doctors, and I'm pretty good with babies, too."

"How did you learn?"

Jane hid her emotions and spoke about it as though she were speaking about someone else, some future Jane who could look back on this and feel no sadness. "When I was a teenager, I used to babysit a lot. I was an only child, so babies were great fun to me. Then when I grew up I married a surgeon. I wanted to be the best wife the world has ever known, so I had to find volunteer work I could do at the hospital. There are hierarchies to volunteer organizations. You can't just pop in one afternoon and announce you're going to be chair of some important committee. You have to find things to do, help out where you can until people get to know you. Since I knew babies, I started out volunteering to hold the babies who needed it—preemies and drug babies, mostly. I would come in and read to the toddlers and watch them in the playroom. I also spent a lot of time doing fund-raising mailings. It made me a world-class envelope stuffer, but I'm still better with babies."

"Will you teach me?"

Jane hesitated. "Sure. I'll tell you everything I can in advance, and then show you when the time comes. And, as I said, the books can be useful. If you do your homework ahead of time, you probably won't find yourself at three A.M. holding a screaming baby in one hand, trying to find the page about colic with the other."

"It's intimidating, but it sounds so—I don't know—normal. Colic is a regular problem that other people have to think about, too. It's just as though everything is okay."

"Things are going to be okay. We're going to make them okay."

"When I used to think about this, I always thought I'd be a little older, and that Richard would be there with me. We would figure everything out together."

"Of course."

"'I always thought.' That's stupid, isn't it?"

"No. It isn't. The most common mistake that women make is sleeping with the wrong man. And most of the time, the men aren't even trying to hide what they're really like."

"Have you?"

Jane hesitated, then relented. "Yes. But I'll leave it at that. No details."

Early in the evening Jane said, "We'll be near Madison, Wisconsin, in about an hour. That ought to be a good place to spend the night."

"I'm ready," said Christine. "I feel as though we've been driving forever."

"It's been over six hundred miles since we left Buffalo." They watched for signs, then came off Interstate 90 and took smaller roads toward Madison, but stopped outside the city at a tall, monolithic white building that Jane judged to be the right kind of hotel. Christine said, "I hope they have a room for us."

"They will. It's already evening, and the parking lot is just over half-full. We're not near the airport, and there isn't any congestion here, so people probably don't take taxis."