Thomas Perry - Runner

Christine turned right when she got to the big brick wall at the back of the property. She could tell that she wasn't as hard to see from the house as she had hoped. If they missed her and began to look around, they would certainly be able to spot her within a minute or two. But she was far from the house now, and that would help. The grove was wide—at least as far as a football field—and she had to cross it quickly. The piled-up leaves were slippery and noisy, and once her toe hit a raised tree root, and she jolted Robert so hard that he gave a startle reflex. She hummed to him to make him aware she was there, and corrected the way she cradled him to make him more comfortable, and he sank back into sleep.

The sweat was pouring from Christine's scalp down her forehead now, and her breaths came in little huffs, as though she had been jogging. She could see the back of the long garage ahead through the trees. She kept moving as quickly as she could, corrected her course to go along the outer wall so close that she sometimes brushed it. And then she was there. She walked to the corner of the garage, slipped silently along the narrow passageway between the back wall of the property and the side wall of the garage toward the open brick pavement in front.

She approached the end of the passageway, and she knew there would be open garages and probably cars parked in the open. She stopped, leaned forward slowly and carefully, and looked. There was Richard's car. Her chest seemed to tighten and her eyes watered for joy. She knew the car, knew Richard's unbreakable habit of leaving a magnetic case with an extra key in it in the compartment that held the gas cap. She looked out farther, saw that the six garage doors were all open, and saw the front ends of cars, but saw no people. She stepped out.

Sybil Landreau stepped out of the garage beside her. "Where do you think you're going?"

She had failed. All of that effort had failed. Christine gave a wan smile. "For a little walk, that's all."

"Lying bitch."

She noticed for the first time that Sybil had a gun stuck into the waistband of her jeans. Sybil took a couple of strides toward her, and Christine turned and took two steps to get back around the corner of the garage. When Christine looked the way she had come, she could see Claudia standing at the far end of the passageway, walking toward her.

Claudia called, "This time you don't get another chance. Take a last look at him."

Christine's heart froze. They were going to take Robert away from her. She heard Sybil's footsteps, knelt quickly, set him down, and then leaped toward the sound. She threw her fist into Sybil's face, but somehow the face wasn't there when her fist reached it. She felt Sybil's first blow as a revelation. She had never been hit in that way before, a strike so fast and hard that her head snapped to the side and she felt dizzy. The second blow was a quick punch to her chest. She was down on the hard brick pavement, wondering if the paralysis she felt was permanent. She heard a door slam some distance away. She looked up to see Ruby's overweight, middle-aged body coming from the house, a great deal of arm-pumping and bouncing, but steps that were too small to bring her here in time. Christine heard Ruby's voice: "No! Don't!" and suddenly she knew. Claudia hadn't meant that Robert was the one going away.

Christine saw Sybil Landreau tug the pistol out of her waistband, and hold it out toward her with a straight arm. Christine saw the muzzle flash, heard the bang, and felt something like fire spreading over her upper body.

24

When Carey came home from the hospital at precisely six-fifteen, Jane knew that the traffic had moved at its usual pace, with none of the sudden fits of highway repair that occurred in the Buffalo area during the late summer. Jane stood at the side window in the dining room and watched him drive his BMW up the long, sloping driveway, follow it around the corner of the house to the carriage house his great-grandfather had converted to a garage, and stop. He didn't pull in beside her Volvo, as she had expected. Even though Carey's car wasn't particularly small, when he got out he seemed to be unfolding, his long arms and legs straightening. She could feel the sense of freedom he was feeling to stand at his full height.

She had known him for so long now, listened to him and watched him so many times since she had met him in college, that it often seemed to her that she could feel what his nerves felt, and see what his eyes saw. She turned from the window, then heard him open the kitchen door and then close it.

As Jane walked through the dining room to the kitchen she saw his eyes focus on her and his smile appear, and she felt it again. She began to see herself in his expression. She touched her hair to sweep it back from her eyes.

"Wow," he said. "As I was driving here, I hoped a stunningly beautiful raven-haired woman would just show up. I need a date for dinner tonight."

"Raven-haired?" She laughed. "Do you actually think in words like that?"

"I don't think when I talk to you. I just start talking." He reached out, pulled her to his chest, and kissed her. "So how about that dinner? I made a reservation at Oliver's."

"I'm perfectly happy to cook. It's all easy stuff that could be ready in twenty minutes—a couple of steaks, fresh asparagus, corn on the cob."

"Keep them for another day. Tonight we're going to celebrate, not do dishes."

"What are we celebrating?"

"I guess we're celebrating a great August day."

"I can support that. But you know, I always feel a little sad when it's August. It's sunny and warm and the leaves are all as thick and green as they can get, and everything has grown all summer. It's so perfect, but that means it's going to end."

"Then it's even more crucial. We've got to get this in before the end. Pretty soon fall will descend on us—fall on us, in fact. Besides, maybe I'm just learning to appreciate you because I missed you so much while you were away this summer, and I want to show it."

"That gives me something to celebrate," she said. "But I hadn't been suffering from a lack of appreciation before. When is the reservation you made? I assume you've given me no time to get ready."

"Seven-thirty. You have an hour."

She stood on tiptoes and kissed him. "Then come on. Let's get started. We can share a shower and save water."

He followed her to the staircase. "I love saving water."

"I'll bet." And as she climbed the stairs, she felt the same sensation she had felt earlier—that she could see herself through his eyes, and what he was seeing made him feel not just a sense of warmth and contentment, but actual joy.

AT FOUR IN THE MORNING Jane was asleep, but she was becoming more and more aware that she was cold. She snuggled closer to Carey's side, trying to get farther under the cover and be in the zone of heat his body radiated.

"Janie, you can't lie around like this."

"Harry?" She sat up. As always in her dreams, Harry wore his moss green sport coat. When he had picked it out, he'd undoubtedly had no idea that he would wear it forever.

He said, "You're cold, aren't you?"

"Yes." She rubbed her bare arms.

"The summer is over. Days are shorter already. Things are in motion."

"What things?"

He shrugged to make the coat sit properly on his narrow, rounded shoulders. "You know."

"She's safe, isn't she?"

His chest rose and fell in the characteristic sigh she remembered from when he was alive.

"What is it?"

"You're suddenly interested again? You take a little vacation and pretend the whole universe has stopped to wait. You took half the summer off, mostly to lie around in bed with your husband."

"That's not fair. I checked on her twice through her doctor. Communicating with a runner makes her weak and homesick, and sometimes it helps her enemies find her."