Thomas Perry - Runner

She found the keys, held them up so Linda's captors could see them, then began to open Linda's car. In an instant the captors' car shot forward, and Linda's surprise made her notice the driver. She saw blond hair, and knew it was Claudia Marshall.

Linda tried to struggle to turn her body—didn't anybody see what was happening? But the two men on either side of Linda clutched her arms tightly, so she couldn't move.

"Don't," said Demming. "We can fight you all the way back to San Diego if you want, but you won't enjoy it."

IT WAS THE SEVENTH breakfast. Ruby Beale walked out of the kitchen, along the back hallway that ran the length of the big house, carrying a loaded tray. She held it high, balanced in her left hand with surprisingly little effort, as though it weren't heavy. She was big and blond and in her fifties, with a face that was in the process of changing from a ripe beauty to a preview of how she was going to look as an old lady. The blue eyes that must have been striking even ten years ago were half-hidden by puffy cheeks and lids. The skin above her full, red upper lip had wrinkled, and the soft skin on her neck and under her chin had begun to loosen. Her body still had the same rounded hourglass proportions, but it had widened everywhere.

She stopped at a door near the back of the house, put her ear to the wood for a few seconds before she straightened and knocked with one plump pink hand. She nodded to herself, took a key on a ring from her apron pocket, unlocked the door, pushed it open with her hip, and pivoted inside holding her tray. "Hi, honey. It's me, and I've got your breakfast."

She set the tray on the table at the wall of the room away from the window and looked at the girl on the bed pretending to read a magazine. "How are we doing today, sweetie?"

"I don't know about you," said Christine. "I'm doing shitty."

Ruby lifted the pitcher of orange juice and poured it into a glass, then looked back at Christine. "I've got poached eggs, toast, some really nice blueberry jam, some honey—everything organic. What would you like on your toast?"

"A set of keys." Christine looked away from Ruby at the window.

"Don't let your eggs get cold."

"I'm not hungry."

Ruby followed Christine's eyes. The window was old-fashioned and pretty, vaguely French, consisting of two small doors with panes of glass that opened inward. The steel burglar-proofing bars on the outside were nicely spaced so they matched the laths between panes. They weren't at all obtrusive unless the window was open, and then the five acres of lawns and gardens were visible. "Don't worry," she said. "It won't always be like this."

"How can it not be?" said Christine. "You kidnapped me."

"I kidnapped you? I?"

"You know what I mean."

Ruby stepped closer and sat at the foot of the bed. "Things sometimes happen in life that at the time don't happen the way we'd like them to. Maybe the bride is pregnant, maybe somebody gets a speeding ticket on the way to the church, maybe there's rain on the reception. But these things pass, and after a while, you don't remember all the particulars. What you remember you forgive and forget. It's like that in every family."

"I'm not in your family."

"You're my only son's wife, and that's my grandchild in your belly."

"That wasn't a legal marriage. It's not real."

"Let's not waste our time arguing. You and I are a lot more alike than you can admit in your present mood. When you get to know me, you're going to like me a lot. I'm going to be your friend, somebody that in the end, you'll be glad you met. We're going to have fun and we're going to be happy."

"Sometimes I think you're actually crazy. I was minding my own business thousands of miles away, when your gang of thugs dragged me across about ten states to get me here. I'm a prisoner. I'm locked in here. You're all criminals."

Ruby slowly moved her head from side to side with a kind of empathy. "Think of it as an arranged marriage. The parents arrange to bring the girl home, that's all. Not everything in life is the way the feminists tell you it is. Most of the marriages in the world are arranged. And the vast majority of them end up happily—much happier than the regular kind."

"This isn't an arranged marriage, or any other kind of marriage."

"It's legal enough. The papers are all filled out and it's been witnessed and filed with the county clerk's office and everything. I know what you mean, of course. You didn't get to wear a white dress and walk down the aisle and all that. I don't blame you for being annoyed. I don't blame you for anything." She looked closely at Christine. "Richard didn't rape you, did he?"

"No."

"You actually fell in love with him, and voluntarily went to live with him and then got pregnant in the usual way, right?"

"Yes! Yes, I did. I'm stupid. But being stupid doesn't mean anybody who wants to can grab me and lock me up. That's kidnapping. You go to prison for that."

"Honey," Ruby said, "I really like you, and I'm happy you're in our family now. You're going to have my grandchild, and I'll always be very grateful for that. And it's really not going to be bad for you. You started out as a girl deprived of an education, with no family left to speak of, and no way to make money but answering a telephone. Just being married to Richard makes you worth a few million if you end up divorcing him. And Andy and I have much, much more."

"I don't care about your stupid money."

"You'll get the last laugh, and there's not a thing we can do about it. Your child is going to be the one who ends up with everything we have. We intend to raise him or her to be the one who runs the business and inherits everything. I can see your face, and I know what you're thinking, but you can forget it. I'm not going to interfere with your mothering him. That's all you. I wasn't interested in that when I was the right age for it, and I'm never going to get in your way. Jesus, if I ever again have to spin one more of those arrow things and move some game piece five spaces, I'll blow my brains out."

"Exactly what crazy thing do you want?"

"I want grandchildren. I'm perfectly happy to stay in my place and let you raise your kid. But I'm going to be the one—mostly behind the scenes—who makes sure the kid is growing up strong and smart. I'm going to be sure you never have to worry about anything practical, and I'm going to pay for the best schools, from preschool through graduate school."

"Yeah, you really did a great job with Richard, didn't you?"

"Richard is another story." Ruby stared at Christine for a second, then said, "Okay, I'll admit he's been a disappointment. He's healthy, good-looking, athletic. He's even smart. Having him was like taking a photograph. You know how sometimes you take a picture and you just know it's going to be beautiful, and then you get the stack of snapshots back from the developer, and you flip through all the rest just looking for that one, but it's not right? The picture has the same outline, and the right shapes, but it's not what you thought at all. It hasn't got any of the feeling it's supposed to have. Something just didn't get reproduced that was supposed to be there. That's Richard."

"That's what you think of your own son?"

"For a long time, I thought Richard would change as he grew up. Andy wasn't so sure. Then he was grown up, and he wasn't much different. When Andy and I found out you had been living with Richard for months, we started to have some hope. His father said, 'Well, at least we know he's not queer, and he's not dating them once and strangling them.' That wasn't funny to me. I started to have hope that maybe you were what was missing."

"I'm not interested," said Christine. "Not for any reason, not ever, so you might as well let me go. He's always been a creep, an idiot, and now he's a gangster."