Thomas Perry - Runner

"Why?"

"She said she asked him where Christine was and he didn't tell her."

"Shit."

"She asked me, too."

Demming looked at him closely, as though he were wondering whether Richard understood what he had just said. "Did she say she was going to kill you, too?"

"Not in those words, but I guess so. And all of you."

"There! See?" Claudia Marshall was up on the first landing of the staircase. "We've got ourselves stuck in the brain of a psycho. You think she's going to try to find Christine for a while and then give up and go away?"

Demming shrugged. "You're probably right. Maybe we could arrange to make a trade."

"What?" Richard was confused.

"Claudia? What do you think? You're about the right height. We could get you the right wig, and we've already got Christine's clothes. This woman was probably with her when she bought them, and she'll recognize them as Christine's."

Richard said, "You think you can pass off Claudia as Christine?"

"Not forever. Just long enough to get Claudia close to her. Then Claudia puts her out of our misery."

"I'm in," said Claudia.

"We don't even have a plan," said Demming. "Don't sign on to be the bait until we at least have a plan."

"We'll think of something," Claudia said. "I really want to be the one who pops her. I'd like to be close enough when I do it to see the surprise on her face."

"Richard." The three all turned their heads to see Andy Beale standing beneath the arch into the great room. He was dressed now, wearing a pair of blue jeans that were stiff and dark-colored as though they had just come off the rack, a green flannel shirt, and walking shoes. To Richard, his father looked the way he used to look when they went to the mountain lakes for a week or two during the summers. It was a happy memory, because the lakes in the Sierras had all been too small to be choppy, and his parents had paid attention to him intermittently.

"I'll be right there," Richard called. He turned to Demming. "What are you going to do now?"

"We can't do much until the cops get Pete's body out of the woods and finish looking for evidence. I don't think that woman will be back before then. That means tomorrow night, I think."

Andy Beale called, "Take your time, Richard."

Richard hurried into the great room after him. Andy Beale sat down beside his wife on a couch along the wall beside the massive stone fireplace. All that stone and mortar shielded the couch from any shot fired from outside. Richard had to take the only seat left, a large leather armchair that he hoped made him hard to see from a distance. He was alarmed at the way his mother looked. The usual healthy plumpness of her face seemed to have been deflated. She was pale and her eyes were red, as though she had been crying.

"You okay, Mom?"

Andy Beale said, "It's not our favorite way to spend a night, but we plan to live through it."

"You okay, Mom?" Richard repeated.

"I suppose so," she said. "It was a bit of a shock to look down and see her looking up at me in the middle of the night." She glanced at her husband. "Some people didn't think I really saw her. But your friend Mr. Tilton found her real enough."

"Yeah," Richard said. "I talked to her afterward. She called me up."

"She did?" Richard's mother seemed more interested in him than she had been in years.

"She wants Christine. She said that she asked Pete where she is, and he wouldn't tell her."

"Oh, my God," said Ruby Beale. "She keeps shooting people until somebody tells?"

"We don't know that," said Andy. "She wants Christine. She isn't after the baby. She doesn't even know we have him."

"Well," Richard said, "Steve says she won't be back tonight. She'll be scared of all the cops down the street. I guess I'll probably sleep here."

Andy said, "Tonight, anyway."

"What do you mean?"

"I think this will be our last night here, your mother and me. Tomorrow morning I'll be in the office to take a look at the list of places the company has on the market and pick out a house."

"That makes sense," Richard conceded.

"Glad you think so. You'll be in charge of getting us packed up tomorrow and moved the next day. I'll want the trucks to arrive at eight in the morning the day after tomorrow. When it happens I'll need to have what's left of your little gang following the trucks from a distance to be sure that woman doesn't show up and go right along with us."

"Good idea," Richard said. "They might even get a chance to spot her and take care of her right then."

"Maybe," Andy Beale said. "But that's not why I'm doing it. This is chess. I'm moving your mother and little Robert out of any exposure to danger. That woman has found this house, so we'll castle. This square isn't any good to us anymore. I'd advise you to find a new place, too."

"I can move in with you until this is over."

"No, you can't."

"What do you mean?" Richard was shocked. "It'll make us all safer if we stick together and protect each other."

Andy Beale sighed. It was late, and he looked old and tired. "There are several reasons. One is that you've got to be out moving around accomplishing things, and that might attract her attention. I want this house emptied, cleaned, painted, and prepped for sale as soon as possible, and that means getting the crews lined up. I want the business running smoothly and I want it protected. Get some real security on the office and other key places, not just a few unarmed night watchmen. That's enough for now."

Richard was listening carefully. When his father stopped talking, he realized that he had been sitting there with his mouth open. He looked at his mother and saw that her eyes were wet. She looked away from him. He said, "You said this is chess. You're offering to sacrifice a piece, aren't you?"

"I never said that," said his father.

"But that's what you're doing. You're putting me in the open, where this psychotic woman will concentrate on me and leave you alone."

Andy Beale seemed to be weighing the idea, as though he hadn't thought of it before. Then he raised his head and met Richard's eyes. "Well, I suppose that's one way to look at it. An adult male usually takes whatever risks there are as a matter of course, and keeps his wife and babies and elderly parents safe. That's always been the way human societies have done things. But I suppose you probably have a new way."

"Suddenly you're old and weak, to be protected. Ten seconds ago you were ordering me around like a general."

"Right. And I will again. The other thing about this plan, Richard, is that it places responsibility for solving the problem on the person who caused the problem. That's you. All of this nonsense that we're trying to live through right now is because you were idiot enough to hire an underage girl and screw her until she got pregnant, but not man enough to keep her, even though she had no place to go and no money but what you were paying her. It seems to me that at the age of thirty-eight you can hardly expect your mother and father to get you out of this and risk the life of our grandson to protect you." He paused. "Now, is any of that unfair?"

"You know it is!" Richard caught himself and tried to control the volume of his voice. "It leaves out the real reason why any of this happened. It's that you two wanted a grandchild. It had to be this one, and no other. I could have had a half dozen other children if you could just have waited a couple of years. But no, it had to be Christine's baby."

This time Ruby spoke, her hand clutching Andy's arm to keep him quiet. "We did wait a year or two. Then we waited another year or two. We've been waiting for a grandchild since you were twenty-two years old. Sixteen years. Robert is the only chance we ever expect to have, and we're running out of time. It had to happen while we've got enough left in us to raise him, too."