both she and Corbett turned their gazes to Charlie. The boy shifted his weight from foot to foot and hummed as he stared outside. He tugged restlessly at his brown forelock.
She had tried to prepare Charlie for the possibility that they would have to leave. But how, really, did one prepare for such an extreme and desperate action?
“I—I—” Kate stammered “—well, it’s necessary. It has to be done. That’s all there is to it.”
“Yes,” Corbett said. He came to her, put his hand on her shoulder. “If we can’t keep him away from you, then you’ve got to get away from him. Both of you. Where he can’t find you.”
We have to run. Like hunted animals. Because there’s a madman out there. This can’t be happening. Not really.
Kate shook her head to clear it. “I didn’t want anybody else involved. Why can’t Charlie and I just leave on our own? I could go straight to my friend. Eliminate this middle person, this stranger—”
“We were in the Secret Service together,” Corbett said. “He retired two years ago. He’s the best, Kate. And he’s worked with kids. Consider it a security move for a while, that’s all. I couldn’t trust you to anyone better.”
But his words didn’t reassure her. She felt stunned, shocked, empty, unreal. “Won’t you at least tell me his name?”
“Kate,” Corbett said wearily, “the less you know the better. I want you to go home, pack the bare necessities. I’m taking you someplace else tonight. In my car, not yours. I’ll get your plane tickets. You’ll have to travel under another name.”
She straightened her back and tried to square her jaw, which felt twitchy, undependable. “How soon? When do you want us to go?”
“As soon as possible.”
“How long are we supposed to stay with this—person?”
“Until we think you’re safe.”
Safe. A bitter giddiness filled her. She smiled at the irony of the word. Safe.
“Until we make sure he hasn’t traced you,” Corbett said.
“He,” Kate echoed. Her stalker was nameless, faceless, shapeless. He was nowhere and everywhere. He seemed like some monster out of mythology, with a thousand eyes to watch her, a thousand ears to listen to her, a thousand invisible tentacles to reach out at her.
“Our things—” she said, thinking of their small condominium, stuffed with its trove of mementoes. There were the photos, the antiques, Charlie’s toys, her precious books.
Corbett kept his expression matter-of-fact. He folded his arms. “I’ll see you get them when you’re settled. I’ll arrange it so it can’t be traced.”
“My bank account,” she said. “I’ll have to transfer the funds. But if I don’t even know where we’re going—”
“I’ll take care of it.”
She thought fretfully of the man to whom Corbett was sending them. “This person—this friend of yours—I’ll need to reimburse him. I don’t want to owe anybody.”
Corbett’s only answer was an ironic smile. “I know you, Kate. You’ll pull your own weight.”
“But how?”
“There’ll be something. He’s thinking of selling his place. He needs to put it in shape. Maybe you could help him.”
“Yes,” she murmured. “I can do that, all right.” She’d worked her way through high school and most of college as part of a cleaning crew for a real estate company. She didn’t like the work. But she knew how to do it.
Charlie, bored with looking out the window, ran to her, tugged her hand. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go home.”
Kate bit her lip. How did you tell a child that this might be the last time he’d see home? That you were fugitives now, and that perhaps you could never come back?
But she stood, forcing herself to smile. She gave Charlie’s hand a confident squeeze.
“Charlie,” she said, injecting all the cheer she could into her voice, “remember that trip I told you we might take?”
THE WOMAN AND KID were arriving that night. Hawkshaw was no happier than before about the prospect; he felt as evil-tempered as a snake shedding its skin.
Still, he was nagged by the alien thought that he should clean house. This was such a distasteful impulse that he promptly quelled it
He did, however, force himself to put sheets on the twin beds in the guest room. At least, he supposed it was a guest room. Up until now he’d been lucky enough to avoid having guests.
Outside, rain poured down, hammering on the roof and streaming down the windows. The weather was too vile to fish or kayak, so restless, he stayed inside and did push-ups.
He told himself he would do a hundred, then make himself examine the file of material Corbett had faxed him about Katherine Kanaday.
But after a hundred push-ups, he still felt too restless, so he started a second hundred. After three hundred, he gave up. He lay on the floor for a moment. He swore, muffled, into the braided rug.
Then he rose, snagged a beer from the refrigerator and picked up the Kanaday file. He wore only a pair of denim cutoffs; he didn’t bother much about dressing these days, and he didn’t intend to.
He swung his long body down on the couch, kicked a couple of boating magazines out of his way. He plumped up the ancient sofa pillow, settled back and opened the file Corbett had faxed.
There were a couple of fuzzy pictures of the woman and kid. The kid was cute. In his heart of hearts, Hawkshaw liked kids; he considered them a sort of separate species and thought it a damn shame they grew up to be human beings.
The woman he dismissed as nothing special. Too thin, her hair too long and curly. Corbett said her hair was reddish. Hawkshaw had never been attracted to redheads. Carrot-tops, he thought dismissively.
He began to read about her. She was thirty-two years old, had a college degree, and had worked as assistant manager in a new-and-used bookshop. Had been married to a professor of computer science at the local college.
Ho-hum, thought Hawkshaw, looking over her background: a quiet life, boring and bookish. Nothing out of the ordinary.
Until a year and a half ago. Then her husband had suddenly and unexpectedly died of a brain tumor. Ten days later, the stalking began. An odd sequence—was it a coincidence?
Hawkshaw stretched. He scratched his bare chest and took a sip of beer. He read on.
Corbett had written,
On the morning of February 11, Kanaday opened front door of her apartment to get paper. On doorstep found single white rose wrapped in cellophane. Beneath
