Thomas Perry - Runner

"Obviously I can't let you go at this point. It's sort of up to you what you do with Richard. If you manage to solve his problems you'll get every bit of the benefit out of him and deserve it. I'd like to see you get along and have more children and stay together. Maybe that's too much to hope for. But I can tell you, you're not going anywhere before the baby is born."

"I can't fix him, and I don't want anything to do with him, or you, or your husband."

Ruby shrugged. "I'll never be one to blame you if you can't do what I couldn't do in thirty years of trying. You'll go on and live your life. You'll have all the money you ever wanted, because we need to keep you free to raise your kid. And God help anybody who tries to hurt your child or his mommy. That'll be true whether you stay with Richard or not." She reached out and grasped Christine's hand. "You're a Beale now, Chrissy. You're our beautiful daughter, and you're having our only grandchild."

Christine shook the hand off and held her hand up in a fist, ready to repel another touch. "You're out of your fucking mind. I'm not your daughter. I'm the person you kidnapped. Your jerk Steve Demming and his stupid friends set off a bomb in a hospital to get me out. People got hurt. When the cops get here they'll put you all in a cell forever, not me."

"This is hardly a cell, honey. This is a master suite in a twenty-million-dollar house. People would kill to have a vacation like the one you're having."

Christine sensed the menace in her voice, and reminded herself that making Ruby angry at her wasn't smart, so she modulated her answer. "They'd be wrong. It's not good being locked up."

Ruby smiled and said, "We love you, and we'll take the best possible care of you. There will be plenty of time for you to come around. I think in the long run, when you throw into the balance all the good we're going to do for you, then you'll wonder what all the fuss was about. In the meantime we agree on the only important thing—having a healthy baby." She patted Christine's knee, stood, and said, "I've got to go. Try to eat your breakfast."

Christine watched her turn and step to the door. The key to the dead bolt was in her apron pocket. It looked like the key to the exterior door of a house, and the lock was heavy, like the lock on the storeroom in a business. The door was like the outer door of an apartment—thick, solid wood. Christine watched Ruby unlock it and pivot out so the door closed immediately. For a big woman Ruby was graceful, and she was surprisingly quick. But she did everything the same way every time. For the whole week that Christine had been here, it had always been the same, like a dance.

When Christine was about ten, her stepmother, Delia, moved in and brought her cat, Sue. Because Delia had brought it from Santa Barbara where she had last lived, she was afraid to let it out in San Diego, where it would get lost and probably killed. Sue the cat sat in the living room or in the kitchen whenever people were around, and patiently watched people opening and closing doors. Then one day, Delia's car pulled in the driveway, Delia unlocked the front door and pushed it inward, and the cat was already there, streaking out. Sue was so fast that she was off the steps and prowling through the brush beside the house before Delia had even begun to react. Delia let out a howl that was so late in coming that at first it seemed to Christine that a second, actual catastrophe must have happened.

Christine had also watched Sue, and knew the cat wasn't going to run off into traffic. She went out, found the cat walking on the grass and sniffing her surroundings, scooped her up, and delivered her to Delia. After that Sue was allowed to go out. Now, years later, Christine found herself envying the cat. If Christine hadn't been so pregnant, she was pretty sure she could have timed her move as Sue the cat had, bumped Ruby aside, and run for it.

But she was pregnant, and now was the time when she would have to make a move. The baby was due in two weeks. The whole prospect terrified Christine. Was she supposed to give birth here on her own? And it was very clear to Christine that Ruby and Andy were absolutely fixated on her baby. Ruby had said a dozen times that they were placing all kinds of hopes on this tiny unborn child. The day Christine had learned she was pregnant she had been afraid that Richard would see the baby as leverage, a hostage to force Christine to stay with him. Now she was beginning to believe that Ruby was the one to worry about. Ruby wanted to control Christine and her baby for the rest of their lives.

Christine got up and examined the food tray. Ruby really was a good cook. Christine had been smelling the food since Ruby came in, and it had made her hungry. She sat at the table. No matter what happened she was going to need to be healthy. During the first few days, she had worried that Ruby would put sedatives or something in the food, but now she knew better. Ruby would never do anything that might affect the baby. Until the baby was born, the food would be fine and she would be safe.

As Christine picked up the knife to spread blueberry jam on her toast, she noticed that there was another knife this morning. It was a sharp, serrated steak knife, probably put there so she could cut the thick, old-fashioned chewy bacon more easily. She looked around the room, then thought of the bathroom. She stepped in, looked around, and decided that the best spot was inside the big green plastic shampoo bottle in the shower. She unscrewed the wide top, pushed the knife into the thick shampoo, and closed the bottle again. She examined it carefully to be sure the knife hadn't displaced enough shampoo to make it drip over the side, then closed the shower door. Christine could hardly contain her excitement at her acquisition.

She went back to the bedroom, ate her cold eggs, and resumed work on her project. She used the fork to dig away at the plaster that covered the wall beneath the window. She was sure that if she kept at it, she would soon expose the spots where the bolts that held the framework of bars across the window were anchored in the wall. Her plan was to gradually loosen them from the inside, and then on the day when she was ready to go, push the bars into the shrubbery and go out the window. She had been working on her project since the day she arrived a week ago and opened the window to see the bars. She had refused to eat each meal until Ruby left her alone.

When she heard Ruby's footsteps retreating down the hall, she would eat quickly and then use her silverware to scrape away at the plaster.

Each mealtime, she worked as long as she dared, and then cleaned the silverware and returned it to the tray. She used wet toilet paper to clean up the plaster dust from the floor behind the bed and then flushed it down the toilet. This time she was careful to stop scraping before she heard footsteps coming. She had used some time to hide the steak knife, so she had to be careful.

When Ruby returned a few minutes later to take the tray, Christine pretended to be napping. She couldn't let Ruby look into her eyes and see that she had a secret. She was sure that Jane would be proud of her for hiding it so well.

23

Ruby didn't serve lunch at noon that day, as she always had every other day. Christine stared at the clock and waited, trying to prepare herself for Ruby's arrival, and the conversation that was sure to come with it. She had been persuaded that Ruby wasn't evil. Ruby wasn't cruel or spiteful like Christine's stepmother, Delia. She was just crazy, deluded into thinking that she had a right to things she couldn't have. Today Christine was determined to be less bitchy about things. She couldn't be completely nice about being held captive, or Ruby would know she was up to something.

Christine planned exactly what she would do as soon as Ruby brought the tray and left. Christine was becoming very efficient now, making her movements economically and without having to stop and think. Today her goal was to expose the first of the bolts that held the bars over the windows. It was the lower left one that was hidden by the bed. She was sure that if she bared one, the others would be much easier to expose and remove. She would know how to get directly to the others without unnecessary digging, and she would know what the next steps would have to be. Christine might need to fashion a wrench of some kind to remove a nut that held the bolt on this side of the wall. Or she might learn that the bolt was the pointed kind, just a big screw that bit into a two-by-four and held tight.