Runner

by Thomas Perry

  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.

  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."

  Christine had manipulated Richard into complacency with a couple of words. Talking about real estate, money, and control distracted him. The rest of the news wasn't so good. The night she had been brought here she could not even have guessed what state she was in. Rancho Santa Fe wasn't a good place to be locked up. It was rich—she had once heard it was the richest community in the whole country—and the properties were huge. She could scream until her jaw got tired, and nobody would hear her. The houses were hundreds of yards apart, most of them owned by people who also owned other houses in distant places and so were gone much of the time. The roads wound among gentle hills wooded with low California oaks, and there wasn't much traffic. If Christine made it to the road, she wouldn't necessarily meet any rescuers before she got caught.

  Richard took her hand, this time less roughly, and led her out one of the glass doors into the garden. If he had called it "the secret garden" she would not have thought it was a joke. On one side was the wing of the house where her room was located. On another was what seemed to be a pool house, and the third was blocked by a windowless wall that must be the back of the garage.

  There was a table set for two people on a small stone patio surrounded by rock gardens. There were summer flowers and native plants—agave, Mexican sage, and matilija poppies. It was a beautiful spot, and so isolated and private that she felt an impulse to look around for witnesses to be sure Richard wasn't about to kill her. He sat at the table and waited until she sat in the chair opposite him. She saw pitchers of water and fruit juice, a basket of bread, and a large wooden bowl of salad. She said, "Did you make this lunch?"

  "No," he said. "My parents have a cook. I just wanted to be alone with you for a while and let you enjoy being outside without a lot of people around." He paused. "And I wanted to talk to you about our future."

  She frowned. "Isn't this getting tiresome for you, too? We don't have a future. I spent a couple of years trying to make things work. They didn't, and I left. It's over."

  "You didn't really think it was over, or that I'd let you do that."

  "You're right. I thought you'd do something crazy, and you have. I tried to be very hard to find, but I blew it, and you found me. That doesn't mean we have a future."

  "Step back about five paces in your mind and look at us," he said. "We're married. You may not like the way it happened, but if you go to the county clerk's office you'll see ours is the same as anybody else's marriage. We're going to have our baby in a couple of weeks. I know it's my baby, and a DNA test can prove it. We're sitting in a garden at a beautiful house my parents own in one of the most desirable places in the country."

  "Richard—"

  "No, let me finish. I made mistakes with you. I took you for granted, and I didn't make enough of an effort when we were together. I apologize. I've apologized a hundred times. I'm planning to make it up to you. I know you're mad at me, but we've got to be able to deal with each other."

  The way he had raised his voice and talked over her to force her to listen to his apology was like a recapitulation of the changes in their relationship. He had always been overbearing, but now his vehemence had become frightening. Christine tried to speak calmly, to choose her words with great care so he wouldn't lose his temper.

  "Richard," she said. "I didn't leave because I was mad at you. I left because I was scared to death. You hit me a lot of times. I didn't know how you would react when you found out I was pregnant, but I knew I no longer had the right to take the chance and find out."

  "If you're so scared of me, why are you trying to piss me off? If I hit you now, then you're right? Is that it?"

  "I'm not trying to piss you off. I really don't want to make you mad. I'm just trying to get you to accept the situation as it is."

  "That's just the situation as you think it is. You're young, practically a kid. You'll learn more about life as time goes by, and then you'll feel better about the one you have." He watched her for a second, then sighed and picked up his fork.

  Christine stopped looking at him while he ate. She looked at the silverware on the table, but saw it was actually good silver, so it would be soft metal, useless as a tool or a weapon. She looked at the shadows on the lawn to figure out which way was west. When she slipped out of here, it was probably going to be night, and west was the best direction. Interstate 5 was just to the west of Rancho Santa Fe, and that would be where all the traffic was. If she made it to the freeway shoulder and started waving her arms, she wouldn't have to wait more than a minute or two before she got picked up, or maybe even arrested.

  She studied the trees, the hedges, the buildings. What she would need was luck. If only one of the gardeners had been careless and left a trowel or a pair of clippers lying around, she might have a chance to conceal it under the big, loose top she was wearing. She studied the rock garden. Where was everybody? What if Richard really was alone? She had seen Andy Beale leave. The cook Richa
rd had mentioned wasn't visible anywhere. The whole estate was silent except for the chirping of small brown birds with off-white breasts. Maybe this moment was her last opportunity. If she could get behind him and pick up one of those rocks, she could hit him on the head with it. Richard always had his car keys in his right front pocket. She could grab them, run around the far side of the garage away from the house, find the black Porsche, get in and drive. She would be free.

  But she thought about how horrible it would be to crack somebody's skull with a rock. It could kill Richard, or leave him paralyzed or something. As she tried to visualize it, she raised her eyes to gaze across the table at him. He gave an insincere smile, and behind it, there was a smirk of self-satisfaction. He thought he had charmed her, fooled her into some relapse of bad judgment. She felt a tightening in her chest. He wasn't trying to get her back. He was trying to fool her, to destroy her life, and then laugh at her for it. Yes, she decided. Yes, she could hit him. She looked past him and chose a smooth oval rock about the size of an ostrich egg. If she were behind him she could probably lift it in one hand and bring it down hard.

  How would she get behind him? She was nearly finished with her salad. Maybe she could get up, go pick a flower, and tell him she wanted a few of them to put in a glass of water for her room. She played the whole conversation in her mind, and decided she could be convincing. The only remaining problem was forcing herself to act.

  His cell phone rang. He still had the same irritating little tune for a ring tone. She watched him snatch the phone out of his shirt pocket and flip it open. "Yes?"

  The phone call was like a message to Christine that she should act. She had been reluctant, but the call took all of Richard's attention. He was scowling down at the table, not even looking at her. Christine stood up and slowly, casually walked a couple of steps away from the table with her hands clasped behind her. She saw him look up at her for a second, but somehow he satisfied himself and stared down again.