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“So you were able to resume your life. Your real life.”
“Yes. That was years ago now, and I’ve done okay on my own. If nothing else, living on the run gave me a strength and courage I never knew I possessed. Before that, I was just another abused woman. Frightened, afraid to leave him and afraid to stay.”
“Why did you finally leave?”
The woman met Grace’s eyes fiercely. “It was one thing when that bastard struck me. It was another when he turned on our child. He broke her arm.”
“Oh, God.”
“It was horrible, yes, and we’ll carry the scars all our lives, but we have a good life now.” She nodded toward the living room, where her daughter was still talking a mile a minute on the phone, the TV still on in the background. “Her biggest problem now is what to wear to school. I’m very lucky. We’re very lucky.”
Grace sat back and stared into the middle distance. She knew, in her heart of hearts, that her own story, that Charley’s future, could never be as bright. In four days—closer to three now—the court expected her to carry out the order to surrender Charley to his biological mother. And when Grace failed to turn him over, when the authorities learned she had fled with the child, she would forever be a fugitive. There would be no turning back.
Shortly before midnight, she slipped quietly into bed next to Charley. She could hear the little sounds he made as he slept, and she carefully snuggled up next to him and drew in his scent. She could do this. As awful as it sounded, as frightened as she was, she had to do it. Her hostess on this first night of a long journey had told her to be strong. She could, she would, do it.
She shut her eyes and tried to empty her head of all thought. She needed to sleep. Her body was craving precious rest. Sleep.
She listened to the night sounds outside the open window and she tried to breathe deeply. All in vain. Rather than slow, her heart drummed against her rib cage and tiny nerves beat sporadically against her skin, causing her to twitch. Once, her heart seemed to do a somersault in her chest and her breath halted in her lungs.
A lifetime of running from the law. Fugitives. Both of them. And how would she support them? What would happen when her classes started in the fall? Where would they end up? What would happen to Charley’s psyche?
The digital clock on the dresser blinked 3:00 a.m. and all of Grace’s resolve fled. She couldn’t handle it. Tomorrow she would return to Boulder, to their lives, and she would turn Charley over to Kerry Pope. Not for long, though. She’d think of some other way to convince the judge he had made a terrible mistake. She’d hire a fleet of lawyers. No matter the cost. Surely a dream team of lawyers could somehow right this ghastly wrong. It might take time, though, and meanwhile, Charley would be in Kerry Pope’s care and…
Oh, dear God, what was she going to do?
THE MILES THROUGH the Rocky Mountains crept by. She’d gotten a late start. First, after listening to her hostess and hearing how long she might have to be on the move, she had decided to all but wipe out her checking account, and she’d had to wait for the branch bank in Denver to open. Then the lines had been long and Charley had had to go “Pee-pee, Mommy,” and then there’d been heavy traffic along the Interstate 70 corridor crossing the Continental Divide, and then Charley had needed lunch. And they hadn’t even reached Vail. Her only good news was that with each passing mile, no matter how slow her progress, she was putting distance between herself and Boulder, herself and the court and Kerry Pope. She was doing the right thing, the only thing possible for the safety of her child, and she clung to that thought as she drove through Glenwood Springs on the Western Slope, toward the high desert of Utah.
Charley was really very good in the car as the afternoon proceeded. She stopped at rest areas and gassed up in Green River, Utah, where she bought Charley an ice cream. Too much ice cream, she thought. His teeth would rot out of his head. But it was an easy way to make him happy in this awful fix they were in. A kind of bribe. Though not the best way to handle a child, her psychologist’s mind admonished silently.
While Charley busied himself with his treat, she called the number of the next safe house on the underground railroad. She’d been told she could just show up in Salt Lake City, and she’d be given shelter—no questions asked. But what if this person was not home? She supposed she could pay cash for a room that night, but she had no idea how long her fifteen hundred dollars would hold out. Certainly not for years. But, she thought ruefully, like Scarlett O’Hara, she wouldn’t think about that until tomorrow.
“Hello,” Grace began when a woman answered, “my name is…well, sorry, I was given this number, and I’m on the road with my son in Green River and I was hoping—”
But Grace was cut off. “Get off the interstate. I assume you’ll be on Interstate 15?”
“Yes, in a few hours. Going north.”
“Okay, then get off at exit 198, take a right…”
Grace memorized the directions, then said, “We’ll be awfully late getting in.”
“Your room is over the garage. Use the side steps on the left. I may or may not see you in the morning. I’ve got to work at eight. Will you be here for more than the night?”
“I…probably not.”
“Well, then, if I don’t see you, best of luck. I’ll turn on the light for you and leave another number for you to call. You said you’re heading north?”
“No, I’m going to the coast, the San Francisco Bay Area.”
“Okay, then, I’ll figure around a ten-hour drive from here and leave the number. Is that going to work okay?”
“Yes,” Grace said, feeling Charley tug at her shorts with sticky fingers, “and thank you so much.”
“It’s the least any of us can do.”
THE WESTERN UNITED STATES, and particularly the high desert of Utah and Nevada, was suffering an intensely hot dry summer, and as Grace drove away from Salt Lake City the following morning, she knew the day would be a rough one both for her and her son. Last night, just before she’d taken the exit on Interstate 15 to the safe house, her air-conditioning had gone on the fritz.
“Mommy,” Charley said from the back seat, where he was playing with his Lego toys, “I’m firsty. It’s hot, Mommy.”
“Yes,” she said, feeling her short-sleeved cotton top glued to the leather seat. “It sure is. We’ll stop at the first rest area and cool off, okay?”
“Put on the air conditioner, Mommy,” he whined.
“I wish I could,” she said, but she’d already calculated the cost of stopping and having the car fixed: the time and expense made that impossible. They’d have to suffer.
By noon, driving along Interstate 80 toward Winnemucca, Nevada, she wondered if they would even survive. Utah at least had mountains and greenery in places, but Nevada…She might as well have been driving the surface of a long-dead, barren planet that broiled unprotected beneath a giant sun.
Charley justifiably complained and wanted to stop often, and she herself felt the summer heat frying her brain cells. Still, despite her discomfort and nagging doubts, a plan was beginning to take hold. She realized there were only two options open to her. Well, three, she decided. But the third—turning around and surrendering Charley to his…to Kerry Pope—was out of the question. So that left two options.
One, she and Charley could stay on the underground railroad until it was safe to stop and take on new identities, even get a job, settle somewhere for the rest of her life—their new lives, that was.
Or, she thought, there was option two. She was not yet a fugitive and at this point she could elicit the advice of her parents, particularly her father, who was a retired policeman. The last thing she wanted was to get her folks involved in this mess, but her dad could at least advise her on what she needed to do to enlighten the court on the inadequacies of Kerry Pope, forcing that court to admit the very real danger to Charley.
In short, as her father, Big Bob Bennett, would say, Grace needed to get the goods on Kerry Pope. And Big Bob had not only been a policeman, but a juvenile officer with the San Francisco PD. Who better to advise her? On the other hand, she hated to lay her troubles at his feet. Really hated the thought. She’d never had to turn to her parents for this sort of support. Thinking about it now, she supposed she’d been a real Goody Two-shoes. Shy, cerebral, nonconfrontational. Heck, the only experimenting she’d done as a teen had been in science class. How was she going to explain her actions?
But who else could she turn to?
They spent their third night on the underground railroad on the outskirts of Sacramento, and from there, using a pay phone at a convenience store, she finally called her parents. As she dropped change into the coin slots her hand trembled, and she had to tell herself over and over that her mother and father loved her as much as she loved Charley. Turning to them for help was the right thing to do.
Amazingly, she realized as the phone rang in her ear, she’d never fully comprehended the true commitment of parenthood. She would ask for their help and they’d unstintingly give it, just as she was going the whole nine yards to protect her child.
The phone continued to ring. Maybe they had already left on their annual summer vacation. Maybe…
“Hello?” Her mother, Sally, whose name Grace also carried.
“Mom?” Grace had to clear her throat. “Mom, it’s me.”
“Gracie! What a lovely surprise. You never call.”
“I do, too. I…”
“Not enough. Is Charley there with you?”
“Yes, Mom, he’s standing about two feet away, eating an ice cream cone.”
“It must be his bedtime.”
“Well, ordinarily it would be, but we’re not in Colorado.”
“You’re…?”
“Mom, we’re only a couple of hours away, just east of Sacramento.”
“You’re where?” Sally gasped, and Grace began the awful tale of the past two days. When she was finished, all Sally Bennett could say was, “I guess I’d better put your father on.”
Grace sighed. “Good idea. And Mom, I love you guys. I’m so, so sorry to be dumping this…”
“Oh, for the love of Mike, honey, just can it, will you?” And then Grace heard her call, “Bob! Bob get in here, Gracie needs you.”
Telling her father was even tougher. She knew it was because he’d been a policeman his whole life and Grace, in another forty-eight hours, was about to break the law big-time.
He surprised her, though. Rather than tell her to turn around, drive back to Boulder and obey the court order, he hesitated for a second and then said, “Those damn juvie courts. Sorry, baby, but if this just doesn’t top it all. You should have let me come to that hearing. I warned you. Your mother and I were wondering why we hadn’t heard from you, but then we figured everything must have gone okay.”
“Well, Dad, now you know,” Grace said. “And I hope I’m not making things worse. I just couldn’t let Kerry Pope have him. It isn’t that I’m selfish, Dad, honestly, and I haven’t gone crazy. If you could see Kerry’s criminal history, Dad. If you could—”
“You think that after almost thirty-five years with juvies I don’t realize? Grace, honey, give me some credit.”
“Sorry, Dad. It’s just that I don’t know how to get proof that a girl like Kerry will never be rehabilitated, certainly not to the extent that she could raise a child, and—”
“Look,” Bob Bennett cut in, “you get yourself to San Francisco with Charley and call us. Best you don’t stay here, okay?”
“Of course, I understand.”
“Okay. Then get here and we’ll come up with something. You haven’t broken the law yet. Maybe…I have to think about this. Talk it over with your mom. Listen, do you need any money? I hope you haven’t been using a credit card, honey.”
Grace laughed without humor. “No, no credit card, Dad. I’m getting to be a real good fugitive.”
Bob groaned.
“Sorry, but that’s how I feel.”
“Okay. You call us as soon as you get settled in one of your safe houses, and we’ll figure this out together.”
“Dad, I only need advice, really. No way am I getting you and Mom involved.”
“Now, you listen here, Gracie. I may have been a cop, but there’s nothing more important on the face of the earth than you and that boy. You let me worry about our involvement.”
“But, Dad…”
“Don’t Dad me. Just drive carefully.”
He hung up before she could utter another word of protest. She stood in the growing darkness outside the market and watched the customers coming and going. Ordinary people with ordinary lives. Sure, they had their problems, but not like the ones she had. She wished—oh, how she wished—she could be like them, back in her comfortable, safe life in Boulder.
But she couldn’t. That life was forfeit now. And she had to learn to live a new one.
CHAPTER THREE
LUKE SARKOV WAS BROODING. He was sitting at his desk in the downtown San Francisco offices of the Metropole Insurance Company, supposedly checking into a client’s bank accounts. He knew damn well the client had torched his own restaurant, but he had to prove it; these days, he was an insurance fraud investigator.
But that was only partly why he was brooding.
He stared at the phone, his sandy eyebrows drawn together and his long face taut and angry, the double lines bracketing his mouth cutting his skin harshly.
He wanted to call Judith, his estranged wife, and hear her voice. He wanted her to say their split was all a mistake. He wanted to call his buddies down at the department, get together for a poker game or a few beers, talk cop talk, discuss cases and the latest screw-up perpetrated by the powers-that-be on the heads of the hardworking policemen.
He was forty-one years old, his career down the tubes, wife gone, his life spinning out of control. And here he was, checking into an arson case for an insurance company.
He sneered as he willed himself to pick up the phone, dial the arsonist’s bank, get the records, make Metropole Insurance happy.
His finger pressed Judith’s number of its own volition, and he waited, hearing the ring, picturing the phone at the other end, the table it sat on, the room the table was in. Judith’s new apartment.
God, he wanted her back. He loved her, and despite her protestations, he was sure she still loved him.
The phone rang. It rang again. Then he heard the electronic click, and her answering machine switched on: This is Judith Bancroft. I am not in at the moment, but if you leave a message I will return your call. If this is in regard to a modeling job, please call the Best Agency at…
Her voice—slightly husky and sexy as hell. He drank the tone in, even if what he was hearing was only a recording. A lump formed at the base of his throat. Judith Bancroft. She didn’t use his name anymore. Damn it, they were not even divorced yet.
He hung up without leaving a message, aware that he was grinding his molars. That he was tense, up-tight, not sleeping well, spending too much time alone in the two rooms he was renting. Damn Judith.
Marriage meant loyalty, right? Till death us do part. Well, he’d meant it. Apparently, she hadn’t.
He shut his eyes for a second, took a breath. Reached for the phone, dialed the bank. He knew the bank officials were going to give him a hassle—they always did. But the bank had been served a subpoena and had to cough up the information.
“U.S. Bank, Haight-Clayton Branch,” he heard the receptionist say.
“Regarding Samuel Rae’s account. Mr. Dressler, please.”
The whole rigmarole would have to be gone through, but Luke could be tough. He’d had plenty of practice being relentlessly tough while on the Vice Squad. He could spot a lie a mile away, read people without effort, barge through prevarications and misleading statements, dig out the truth. He could handle pimps and pushers and whores and snitches. Hell, this was only a bank president, and the branch bank at that.
A half hour later he had Dressler’s promise to send him copies of Rae’s accounts for the past three years. And when he got them, he was positive the figures would show a business in trouble, kited checks, overdrafts, stop payment orders, the whole gamut. He’d seen the downslide of businesses before, seen the owner go into the weeds never to see daylight again. And then arson. A desperate act. A dangerously illegal act.
Of course, investigating insurance fraud wasn’t like being a cop. He was only chasing the miserable losers who cheated insurance companies.
When he’d been forced to resign from the San Francisco Police Department, he’d convinced himself that he didn’t want his old job anyway, that he detested the hypocrisy and addictive violence of big-city law enforcement. But, if he admitted the truth, he’d sucked it up, enjoyed the inside knowledge of man’s capacity for evil. What he couldn’t abide was the boredom and predictability of the ordinary world. He guessed he’d learned to love the power over the bad guys and the adrenaline high of danger too much.
Well, he sure wasn’t making the world better for democracy anymore.
His cell phone rang in the pocket of his sport coat, which hung on the back of his chair. Judith? His heart gave a lurch, as if he were coming alive for the first time that day.
He dug the phone out of his pocket, flipped it open and barked, “Hello.”
“Hey, kid.”
Not Judith. But a voice nearly as welcome.
“Bob, my man.”
“I’m not your man and you know it,” came Big Bob Bennett’s raspy voice.
