Chapter 5 #2
Jane answered in Nundawaono, “I know what you said.” Jane lifted May from her and took a step back, holding her close. Jane could feel her own heart pounding, but May was looking serene.
The girl said, “I would never hurt a baby. I love babies.”
“What’s your name?”
“Clare Markham. From Oklahoma.”
“What do you want here?”
“I was looking for Jane Whitefield.”
“You were?”
“Not now. I found you.”
Jane stared at her. She could feel her new contentment and feelings of security and freedom crumbling. “What makes you think that’s who I am?”
“This is your house and I knew this is how you would be.”
“Who told you this address?”
“My grandmother. She met you in Oklahoma. My mother died in a car crash a few years ago, and my grandmother raised me the rest of the way. Her name was Dorothy Woods.”
“I remember her. Is she still alive?”
“Not for two years.”
“I’m very sorry about that. I liked her. Who takes care of you now?”
“My aunt moved into the house. She pays for everything, and we all split up the work.”
“What are you running from?”
“I stabbed a man. He had friends.”
“Had. So he’s dead.”
“Yes. Not before they got him to say who stabbed him. I read somewhere that when somebody says something while he’s dying, they always believe it.
I wouldn’t have denied it anyway. He had dragged me off the sidewalk and wrestled most of my clothes off me and was prying my legs apart, and he’d opened his own jeans and pulled them down a ways.
I could see the handle of a knife sticking out of his pocket so I grabbed it.
The knife had a spring-assist blade so I opened it with one hand and stuck him in the leg.
I just wanted to get away, but it hit some artery and he started bleeding like crazy. ”
“I’m pretty sure that’s self-defense.”
“The cops who were in the hospital room when he died wrote down that he said I’d accepted money from him, but really just wanted to lure him into the park to stab and rob him. I didn’t even know him. He was a grown man—somebody said he was, like, twenty-six—but they came after me just the same.”
Jane said, “Are you smart or are you stupid?”
“I guess I’m not smart about some things, but I’m getting smarter as fast as I can.”
“How about getting followed?” Jane asked. “Would you know if anybody could have followed you here?”
“I knew I couldn’t get on a plane. I left my cell phone plugged in at home, and got a ride from my best friend, who took me all the way from Oklahoma to St. Louis.
I wore my baseball cap and looked down so the camera wouldn’t get me and I bought bus fare from St. Louis to Buffalo with cash and gave the name Marcy Hall.
My bus didn’t leave until 1:30 at night so I stayed away from the station until then.
There were five stops, and each one was a new ticket and new bus and driver.
It took almost two full days and nights.
I think they would have caught me by now if they could. ”
“You’re smart enough.”
“Enough for what?”
“Living.” Jane pointed. “Sit down there.”
Clare sat down on the couch and waited. May had fallen asleep again, so Jane set her down on the blanket and stood in front of Clare.
Jane said, “Before anything else happens you need to know some things. I know you think that because you found me, you’re safe.
But being here might actually be the most dangerous thing you’ve done.
I’ve taken a lot of people away from their troubles.
Dozens. For each of them, there’s somebody out there still searching.
After the first few years I’ve always told my runners that.
But as years came and went, there were more runners, more people who wanted to kill them and kill me too, if that was what it took to get to them.
It’s also gotten harder to keep from getting found.
And the world has become a more warlike and dangerous place in general.
It makes the things I did for years—getting false identifications and documents and making false histories for people to help them start new lives—nearly impossible. ”
“You’re saying you can’t help me?”
“I’m not saying that. I’m making sure that I’m not asking you to tell me the truth without first telling you the truth.
Your chances—our chances—are worse than they would have been even three or four years ago.
If you know of any other way to go somewhere and be safe, take it.
You said you had a public defender. What’s his or her name? ”
“Monica Fawcett.”
“What did she tell you?”
“That the district attorney would charge me as an adult. That they almost always do in a case like mine, where the man was twenty-six and I was sixteen, because otherwise they would be saying the victim—that’s Gerry Fenton, not me—was a child molester.
That’s something prosecutors wouldn’t do.
There were other details in the police report that she thought were made up, like if I took money for sex, it would make me seem older to a jury.
She said that they would probably start out saying I should get the death penalty, but that would probably just be to make me want to take a deal to plead guilty. ”
“Did you?”
“I didn’t get to court yet. Not real court. My lawyer said I was going to plead not guilty, so they just set bail and a few hours later I was out.”
Suddenly May was awake and screaming. Both Jane and Clare lunged forward to reach her, but Jane was there first and scooped her up. She said, “You felt that, didn’t you?”
Clare said, “That cry, it’s like it grabs your heart.”
“She’s just hungry,” Jane said. “My job.” She raised her sweater and her bra and held May to her breast. “Were you the oldest?”
“Yeah. I helped out with the others. Then babysitting and stuff. That cry, it’s designed so you can’t ignore it.”
“How did you get in here?” Jane asked. “I didn’t see any broken windows or anything.”
“I found this address about five thirty yesterday. Nobody was home, so I walked, found a house about half a mile from here behind a chain-link fence. The fence had a notice on it that said it was a permit for demolition. There was nobody around, so I climbed over, and went in. The furniture was gone, but there were some cardboard boxes, so I slept on a pile of them. I came back here a couple of times to check your house through the windows. This time you were here, and the back door was unlocked.”
“How did the rest of the house look to you?”
“Look?”
“Yes. Is anything broken—a window? Does it look like somebody has been living here?”
“It looks like a normal house. Nothing is broken or anything. I was afraid you’d gone on vacation, because your dog wasn’t here. Everything else looked like you’d be back any minute.”
“Good. Then we can get going as soon as May is finished eating.”
“Where are we going?”
“Home.”