Thomas Perry - Dance for the Dead

She watched the mirror so she could spot his helpers coming up to join him, but no other car on the freeway was traveling as fast as theirs were. She checked the cars ahead, but none of them did anything out of the ordinary either. She waited until the last second to cut back across the right lane to the feeder for the Ventura Freeway, then stayed in the eastbound lane until it was almost too late before she cut across the painted lines to the westbound ramp. She looked into the mirror again, not to confirm that he was still chasing her but to be sure that no other car could have followed him.

She drove westward until she saw the telephone with the blue "177" painted above it, then turned on her emergency flashers and coasted along until she made it to the shoulder and stopped twenty feet past the call box. She got out of her car and walked to the spot where she had aimed her directional microphone and camera. She saw his headlights after five seconds, then the turn signal, and in a moment he was rolling up along the shoulder of the road to stop behind her.

He swung his door open on the traffic side, got out as though he were invulnerable to getting clipped, and walked up to her. His arms were out from his sides, but he was carrying something in his hand. She stepped backward to the door of her car. He saw her move and seemed to understand that she was preparing to bolt. He set the object on the ground and stepped back.

Jane kept her eyes on him as she stepped forward and picked it up. It was a small box with a metal hoop and a thumb switch. She recognized that it was a hand-held metal detector like the ones they used in airports when somebody set off the walk-through model. She ran it over herself from head to foot, then tossed it to him and he did the same, turning around so she could see there was nothing stuck in his belt. The little box didn't beep.

Barraclough's eyes scanned the area around him in every direction, returning to her face abruptly now and then to see if she reacted. He said, "Mind if I look in your car?"

"Go ahead," she said. "Mind if I look in yours?"

The mysterious smile returned. "No." He watched her as he took a step toward her rented car. She never moved. He said, "You driving or am I?"

She said, "I'm not getting into a car with you."

He looked around him again, as though this meant he needed to do a better job of searching the middle distance for witnesses. He said, "What made you panic back there?"

"That's not what I want to talk about. I say it was a trap, you say it wasn't, I say you're a liar."

His smile seemed to grow a little. "What do you want to talk about?"

"You've been chasing Mary Perkins, I've been hiding her. Now I'm ready to sell her."

He squinted a little as he studied her face. "Why?"

She returned his stare. "I've been at this a long time. A lot of people would be dead without me."

"I've heard that," said Barraclough. "Sometime I'll get you to give me a list."

"No, you won't," she said simply. "Mary Perkins isn't the sort of person I want to risk my life for. She's not worth it. I gave her a chance and she disappointed me. I know that she's got a lot of money. You seem to think you can get it. I'm not interested in that kind of work."

Barraclough tilted his head a little to watch her closely. "You know what will happen when I have her?"

"You'll end up with her money. I also know that if you have her she's not coming back to ask me how it happened."

"That's true," he said.

She took a deep breath and blew it out. She had done it. He had agreed on tape that he was going to take the money and kill her. "This is a one-day sale," she said. "Tomorrow she goes up for auction. You want her or not?"

"I want her."

"The price is three million in cash. You hand it over and I give her up three weeks later. I know you'll mark it, so I need time to pass it on before you start tracing."

A laugh escaped him abruptly, as though a small child had surprised him by saying something unintentionally profound. "Done," he said. "Of course, that's assuming I get to see her in person so I know you can deliver."

"You can," said Jane. "She'll be along any minute."

"Here?" he said. She could see his mind working. He wanted to get back to his car to retrieve the weapon he had hidden, but he had not yet thought of a way to do it without Jane's noticing.

"There," said Jane. She pointed across the ten lanes of the freeway at the white car just like hers gliding onto the shoulder on the eastbound side. "That's her now." Mary Perkins's car rolled to a stop just at the spot Jane had shown her. "She'll get out of the car so you can see her. Then she'll pick up something I left for her in the bushes over there. She thinks you're a wholesaler who sells me stolen credit cards and licenses." Jane watched Barraclough's hands. "You're not trustworthy, so I can't pay you until she has them." Mary got out of the car and stepped over the barrier into the bushes.

Jane let her eyes flick up to Barraclough's face. "Well?"

"Hard to tell," he said. "She's so far away."

"Nice try," she said. "I saw you start to drool the second she opened the door. You get one more peek."

Mary Perkins came back out of the bushes. Jane could see the bulge of the tapes from the video camera and the recorders in her purse. Mary nodded and Jane stepped away from Barraclough, closer to her car. Now was the time when it would occur to him to hold her.

Barraclough was smiling again. His arm straightened and he waved happily at Mary Perkins.

"What are you doing?" Jane snapped.

He turned to face her, but his arms were poised in front of him. He looked like a fisherman about to make a grab for a hooked fish. "Just waving to the lady. We don't want her to think I'm not a friendly wholesaler."

Jane's body tensed, not certain whether to run for the car or attack him. He was signaling someone, and it wasn't Mary. What had she missed? She jerked her head to the left to look back up the freeway - and saw the man Barraclough must have been waving to. He stepped out of the bushes and ran back along the shoulder just at the entrance ramp. In another two steps he disappeared around the curve.

He must be getting into another car that had been idling out of sight beside the entrance ramp. Now she saw its lights come onto the freeway and they seemed to jerk upward into the sky before they swung around and leveled on the pavement ahead of it. The car accelerated toward Jane and Barraclough, its right tires already on the shoulder as though it were going to obliterate them.

Jane waved her arm at Mary. "Go!" she shouted.

Mary seemed to be transfixed by the sudden arrival of an unexpected car. She stared across the ten lanes of the freeway and watched the red car rushing up the westbound side toward Jane, knowing it was time for her to leave, but not knowing how.

Jane screamed. "Go! Go! It's a trap!" She started backing toward her parked car, the adrenaline making her legs push too hard so she half walked and half danced, trying to watch the car bearing down on her and Mary and Barraclough at the same time.

Mary dropped her keys, bobbed down to pick them up, then got into her car. Jane took one more look at Barraclough and hurried to the door of her own car.

The headlights of the car Barraclough had summoned dipped down as it decelerated suddenly, moved past Barraclough, and then pulled over. As it slowly moved up behind Janes car, her heart began to pound. Its headlights went out, the driver's door opened an inch, and the dome light came on. The one in the passenger seat was Timothy Phillips.

Barraclough opened the other door, pulled the little boy out onto the shoulder of the freeway and yelled, "Hey, Jane! How about a trade? Is he worth it?"

These were the first words loud enough for Mary to hear across the freeway. She started the engine and shifted to Drive, but her eyes were on the activity going on across the freeway. The little boy must be the one Jane had told her about. Who else could he be? He was scared, straining to get closer to Jane Whitefield, but the big man in the white shirt had a grip on his thin arm and it was hurting him. Anybody could see it was hurting him. Headlights settled on them, grew brighter and brighter, and then flashed past. Were those drivers blind? Couldn't they see that something horrible was happening?