Thomas Perry - Runner

Her main goal was to use every second. She would only have about a half hour to work and ten minutes to clean up and hide what she accomplished. She had to exert all her strength and speed during that brief period. The three mealtimes constituted her whole workday. She thought about the sharp, serrated knife she had kept after breakfast. No, she couldn't use that to scrape plaster. The knife was too precious to use that way. She might need a sharp blade before this was over.

It was nearly one before Christine heard the sound of footsteps coming up the hall, and the sound was wrong. It was bigger, heavier than Ruby. Christine looked around her to see if there was anything to clean up, anything to hide, anything she needed to keep people from seeing. The key slid into the lock and the door swung open.

Richard. He stood in the doorway, smiling. "Hi, Chris," he said. There was an amused, ironic look in his eye, as though he were the one who had a secret, and not Christine.

"Why are you here?" she said. "What do you want?"

He stepped in and closed the door, but he didn't lock it. Christine kept her eyes on his, hoping he wasn't aware of the opportunity he was giving her. She thought about the loose maternity dress she was wearing, and the open-toed shoes. If only she'd worn something she could run in. He said, "It's really not necessary to use that nasty tone with me, Chris. It doesn't help you, it doesn't help me. Whether we like it or not, that baby means we're going to be involved with each other for life."

"I wouldn't count on that. The baby and I aren't likely to go to jail with you."

Richard shook his head. "I don't think that's going to happen. I brought you home, but I wasn't trying to hurt you. I just wanted you back."

"Richard," she said. "You hired Steve Demming and the others to kidnap me. They set off a bomb in a hospital. They did all kinds of terrible things along the way, and finally got me. It was wrong. It was also big-time illegal. You're acting as though if I stop making a big deal out of it, then it will be like it never happened. It won't. People got hurt. There were dozens of cops. They don't just forget."

"There's nothing I can do about it now," Richard said. "I've got to concentrate on things I can change. I can make sure you're safe. I can try to make things more pleasant for you."

"How about getting me to a doctor? Have you thought about that?"

"Of course we have. Don't worry about any of that."

"Please," she said. "You're just so full of it."

"I'm here to tell you it's lunchtime. Come on," he said. "We're going to eat in the garden."

"Don't you know they won't let me leave? That I've been locked up in here for a week?"

"You need to get some air and sunshine. It'll put you in a better mood."

Christine was surprised, and she was suspicious. There didn't seem to her to be any reason for them to let her go outside. Everything about the idea was to her advantage, not theirs. It really would be better for her health and the baby's. She could try to figure out where this house was, where the cars were parked, and how to get out when the time came.

Richard repeated, "Come on."

"Now?"

"What? You got another date?"

"I wish." She followed him to the door. She was a bit disappointed to realize that leaving the door unlocked had not been inadvertent. Richard had been planning to take her outside all along.

They walked along the corridor, with Richard slightly ahead because the space was too narrow to walk comfortably together. Christine hung back more and more. They had brought her here at night, and the combination of the blindfold and the tape across her mouth made her worry more about her breathing than about trying to peek. She saw that the corridor had four more doors at regular intervals, so she assumed they were all bedroom suites, but the doors were closed.

The corridor spilled them into a huge open room that had a three-story ceiling with exposed beams and a second floor with a loft walkway running the length of the room and disappearing into halls on both ends. Facing Christine on the far end was an enormous stone fireplace and chimney, and on the near end a whole wall of shelves that looked as though they had been designed to hold books, but instead held the same arty junk that decorated the realty office lobby. There were rows of pots that looked Central American, a few small statues of stone, wood, or metal, a few hideous wooden masks from various countries. She wondered if she could hurl one of the statues through one of the glass windowpanes beside her to get out. As she walked she looked out the wall of windows to see high, impenetrable hedges and acres of lawn ending in a grove of trees. The vast, lake-shaped swimming pool and the bubbling spa dominated the paved areas near the house.

When Richard saw her looking at the water he said, "We've already got the crew set to put in fences and gates to keep the kid safe. They start work in a couple of weeks."

"Don't bother. The baby and I won't be visiting this place."

"Oh. Right," he said, and rolled his eyes.

Christine stopped, turned all the way around, and tried to memorize everything she could see. The view through the front windows was not what she had hoped. A paved area in front of the main entrance stretched all the way from the house to a high hedge. There was a break in the hedge for a tall iron gate. There was a six-car garage to her left, but all six doors were closed and, she presumed, impossible for her to open without a remote control unit. There was nothing she could see that she was able to associate with a particular street or use in an escape.

"What do you think of the place?"

Christine turned her head. It was Richard's father. She had always thought of him as Mr. Beale when she had worked at the company, but somehow his crimes against her made her feel it was wrong to call him Mister. "Oh. Hello, Andy. It's very big."

Andy Beale resumed his progress across the room toward the door. "And how are you feeling?"

"Like a prisoner. It's not a good feeling. You'll see."

"I'll pass it on to the complaint department. Just take good care of yourself." He pulled open the front door, stepped out, and closed it.

"Jesus," said Richard. "That was rude." He started walking again. At the end of the great room there was a corridor that led off to the left, and he took it.

Christine hesitated once more to examine the latches on the big windows, scan the room to see if there was anything she could use as a weapon, and look out the front window again. Andy Beale had one of the garage doors open and he was driving a black Mercedes out and through the gap in the hedge. There was no way she could see how the gate opened from here.

Richard's hand clamped her wrist. "Come on."

"What?"

"Pay attention. We're heading for the garden."

"Did you grow up here?"

"In this house?"

"Yes. Did you?"

"No. In fact, I was the one who found this place and arranged for the purchase a few years ago. It was built by a guy from the east who wanted to retire from his law firm and have a lot of parties. I think he forgot that he didn't know anybody here. But it was too much house for him anyway, and people in Rancho Santa Fe don't like the noise and traffic from big parties. If he hadn't sold, they probably would have kicked him out."

"I'll bet the big attraction for you was the land."

He looked at her in surprise. "It was."

"Must be at least five acres."

"Twenty," he said, and there was pride in his voice. "Eight in the back here, and twelve more beyond that fence. It's not just the fact that it's a single twenty-acre parcel that makes it valuable. It's that this is Rancho Santa Fe. Every parcel is big, a lot of them much bigger than this. This has both privacy and status. And because every landowner is a member of the covenant, you get control over zoning and public works, so you can protect your investment from politicians."