Thomas Perry - Runner

Her eyes moved to the pool with its artistic arrangement of fake boulders and its waterfall and the bubbling spa at the end of it. "Can we go outside?"

He opened the French door and followed her out to the lighted pool. He pulled a deck chair close to the spa, then another, and sat down. She strolled around the edge of the pool to the spa, then kicked off one sandal and touched her toe to the water. "Warm." She looked around. On one side was the house, and the walls on the other three sides sheltered the pool from view.

She stepped out of her other sandal. "I guess the main reason I stopped by was that I wanted to apologize for screwing up yesterday. I was in the Lompoc prison parking lot watching for your girlfriend, and then I spotted the woman I'd seen with her in New York. Naturally, I followed her. She pulled over and waited for me on the road away from the prison, and I thought she must be trying to lead me away so Christine could go in. That made me too hesitant. After that I overcompensated and chased her, and almost got smeared by a truck in an intersection. And then, well, let's just say I could have handled it better. I'm sorry."

"Steve said it would have happened to anybody."

"I don't like it when things like that happen to me." She stared at him over her glass as she took a drink. "We'll still get your girlfriend back for you."

"She's been gone for a month and a half."

Sybil shrugged with mock concern. "Poor thing. I'll bet you're really horny."

He laughed, partly out of surprise, and partly because no other response came to him in time. "That wasn't what I thought you were going to say."

She sat at the edge of the spa and put her feet in.

Richard said, "If you'd like to go in the spa, you're welcome."

Sybil cocked her head and looked at him.

He added, "There are lots of bathing suits upstairs. Christine left all of her clothes and things here. With a two-piece suit the difference in height wouldn't matter, right?"

"You'd better get rid of all of her things, Richard. If, by some remote chance, anything goes seriously wrong, those clothes could hang you." She looked away, and took a sip of her vodka. The ice clicked against her teeth to signal the glass was empty. "Maybe I will go in the water."

"I'll get you some suits to choose from."

"Just bring towels and that bottle of vodka." Sybil stood, pulled her tank top over her head and off, then pulled her bra down and turned it so the hooks were in front, took it off, stepped up onto the deck and out of her short skirt and her panties, and tossed her clothes onto the deck chair. She pretended not to notice Richard standing there staring at her, then raised her arms and turned all the way around to show off her thin, graceful body. "Feel free to look. You might as well get your money's worth for yesterday's mistake."

"Thank you," he said. "I feel a little better already."

She stepped down into the spa and sank low in the water. "This is great. Come join me."

Richard turned and went inside, then returned with the Belvedere bottle and two long yellow beach towels. He undressed and left his clothes on the other deck chair, stepped into the spa and sat beside Sybil. He refilled her drink, sipped his own, and then put his arms around her and gave her a kiss that in a slow, leisurely way became more and more passionate and greedy.

After another minute or two they both pulled back in a mutual, silent agreement, and sipped their drinks. Sybil looked at Richard with amusement for a few seconds, then took another sip of her drink. "Okay. I guess you're right. I do owe you the whole deal. Kiss me like that once more, and then we'll go inside to wherever it is you like to fuck."

They moved together in the warm water and shared a long, silent kiss. When they parted again, Sybil sighed, then opened her eyes. She stood and got out of the spa, quickly wrapped herself in one of the thick towels, and moved toward the French door. Over her shoulder she called to him, "Bring the bottle with you and I'll throw in a blow job."

19

It was another hot, humid evening in Minneapolis, and Christine was getting tired of the constant hum of the air conditioner, but she was still sweating. She turned off the television set, dropped the remote control on the coffee table, and lay back on the couch. She was tired. It actually took energy to conform to strict rules. Self-discipline was an effort. She was lonely and big. That was the feeling, really, the sheer unpleasantness of having lost control of her body. Even if she could have ignored her growing belly, her face felt puffy, her legs, even her fingers.

She had been extremely careful in the three months since she had come to Minneapolis. She hadn't gone out much except to buy groceries and paperback books. She wished she had a computer. Jane had left more than enough money to buy one, but there was a certain amount of red tape and verifying of credit to get an online account, and Christine sensed that was a bad process to begin. She would wait until after the baby was born and she moved to a new city using a permanent name and all her credit cards were real.

She didn't want to start taking chances now. The reason she was safe was that she had been smart from the beginning. She had gone to see Sharon Curtis, and Sharon had sent her right to Jane. Jane had taken only three days to bring her all the way to Minnesota and hide her in a place where nobody would ever think to look for her. And Jane had hurt two of Richard's people so badly that they would probably never want to come after her again. Seeing it happen would probably affect the other four, too. How could the others keep from becoming hesitant and tentative now that they'd seen the first two hurt? Could they imagine that what Richard paid them was worth getting hit by a car?

When Christine remembered the four people who were after her, it didn't seem so hard to be Linda Welles of Minneapolis. She felt as though she and her baby were in a different world from San Diego, and perfectly safe. Even so, she kept the revolver Jane had given her in her purse. When she drove anywhere in her car, the purse was there beside her on the passenger seat where she could reach it. When she was at home like this, the purse was never more than a few feet away. She had promised herself that she would never let herself be captured by Richard's friends.

When she and Richard had been together, she had given him more than enough chances, but he had never taken her seriously. And Richard had hurt her. The first time he had hit her she considered leaving, but she had not been sure he'd meant it. There had been too much ambiguity. They had been in their house in San Diego. It was really just Richard's house, but she had been living with him for at least six months by then, and so she thought of it as their house. They had just come home from work to get ready for dinner with some clients, so she was in the shower. She came out of the bathroom with a big bath towel around her, and when she passed Richard, he was standing in front of the full-length mirror on the door of the closet, buttoning a shirt.

His arm shot out like a whip and wrapped around her waist. He spun her around as he pulled her close, and the towel came off. She tried to get away, and they wrestled around a little. She struggled and she ended up on the bed bent across his lap. He gave her a light slap across the bottom. She shrieked, but not too loudly because there were neighbors, and she was laughing, too. She squirmed and wriggled, pretending to try to escape, but really just doing it because she knew it would excite him. The truth was that she liked the fact that he was strong and aggressive, and that he was paying this kind of attention to her. She knew he found it erotic, and she found his arousal erotic.