Chapter 16
“Right,” he said.
“Go catch your plane.”
Carey picked up his suitcase and went out to the garage.
She watched his strong back as he lifted the suitcase into the car trunk and got into the driver’s seat, and began to miss him.
She tended to think about all her time with him at once, because it was all one story, from the time they met at college, both eighteen and two of a group of a dozen friends, to their first real hug ever on graduation day when they thought they’d never see each other again, to the day eight years later when he simply showed up on her porch, already a surgeon, and knocked on the door as though the friendship had never been interrupted, and then nearly ten years of marriage.
From this moment’s perspective, it could have been one day.
She watched him drive his car past the kitchen window and out to the street, and then she let go of the curtain.
Jane heard Katie above her, walking toward the stairs. It was too early for May to wake up, and she hadn’t yet heard any of her stirring sounds from the baby monitor yet. Katie came into the kitchen. “I heard Carey’s car. Is he heading for the airport?”
“Yes,” Jane said. “Since he’s up early for surgery most days anyway, he picked the first flight out.
You gain three hours flying to Nevada because it’s the only landlocked state on Pacific time.
If the plane isn’t delayed, he arrives in time for a late breakfast with friends. It also gives us more time.”
“For what? What are we going to do?”
“Carey’s conference is our chance to go on a long drive to see some friends of mine who can help with your identity.”
“I thought we already did that,” Katie said.
“We got a good start, but there’s more to do. And this will give you a chance to learn some things. Pack for an overnight trip. We’ll give May a bath and take her out for a walk and then get started this afternoon.”
By mid-afternoon they were a hundred miles southwest and approaching the southern tip of Canandaigua Lake. “Do you see that big hill?”
“I see a bunch of them,” Katie said.
Jane pointed. “That big green one there. People around here call it South Hill. Our real name is Onondowaga, the People of the Great Hill, right? Well, that’s it—the great hill we’re supposed to have come from.
There was a village on that lower hill beside it.
In the old days before the peace, when the first five nations joined to be the Haudenosaunee, villages were elevated and fortified.
You can still see signs to show you where that one was. ”
Katie said, “So that’s it? My relatives—mostly my grandma—told me the stories, but it was all so far away, and so old, that I never thought of any of the places as real spots that you could pull your car up to and walk around on.”
“This part of the state is full of them. And the rest of the state is full of places where Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, and Mohawk villages were. Most of the big roads started out as trails between them, including this one.”
It was after nightfall when they reached the small central New York town.
On the outskirts there was a sign that said “Welcome to Cantrell Falls” and then beyond it a John Deere farm equipment lot.
Jane drove into town slowly, looking to both sides whenever they reached a cross street.
She drove up and down a few streets, cutting back on her path every few minutes.
“Are we looking for something?” Katie said.
“Not exactly. What we’re doing is fishing.
We’re the bait, trying to see if anyone is watching, or has followed us here.
This is the place I was heading from the beginning.
When you’re trying to disappear and become somebody else, you need the help of experts.
What the experts are doing, and what you’re doing, is against the law.
That means each of you is dealing with a criminal.
A few people who break laws do it for good reasons, but not many.
Others will take what you have and leave you dead.
The people we’ve come to visit are ones I’ve learned I can trust. There’s nothing more valuable than that. ”
“But you have to do all of this to protect us from them?”
“No. We’re protecting them. They’re a couple.
The man, the one who started doing this in the first place, is named Stewart.
” She drove onto a circular street that went around a park with tall, wide old trees surrounding an antique bandstand.
“He bought that big brick house across the park about twenty years ago, moved into it, and made sure the local people liked him, thought of him as a quiet, decent person, and then largely forgot to wonder about him anymore.
Even then, he was one of the most skillful forgers anywhere.
“The woman is named Molly. She was young and being hunted, and she found her way to Stewart looking for some identification. He took her in to keep her out of sight and safe while he made a new identity for her. Stewart’s work takes time.
She was here for a week, two weeks, five weeks.
After a while they realized that she was still here because neither of them wanted her to leave.
Once they both knew that, she just moved from the room he’d given her to his room and stayed forever. ”
“That’s kind of romantic.”
“They still have to be practical. There are rules to coming here. You can’t call and make an appointment, because if the authorities knew about him, or knew about any of his customers like me, they’d be listening in, and would round us all up.
We have to park a distance away and walk to the front door, so they have time to see us, see if anybody is following or watching us, and decide if it’s safe to let us in.
” She pulled the car over to the curb and turned off the engine.
“What would their other choice be?” Katie asked.
“I don’t know,” Jane said. “They probably have a car hidden somewhere nearby. But they’ve never told me, or probably anybody else.
I wouldn’t even be surprised if there was a tunnel to it.
” She lifted the sleeping May out of her car seat, put her in the modern version of a cradleboard, and slipped the straps over her shoulders.
“Okay,” she said. “I’m sure they’re aware of us by now. Time to walk.”
Jane took the first steps, and Katie joined her.
They walked across the small circular park on the walkway made of fine-ground gravel, which led to the steps of the antique bandstand, then curved around it and continued to the far side.
They crossed the street and went up the steps of the large redbrick house to the front porch.
As soon as they were on the porch, the polished wooden front door swung open and as she followed Jane inside, Katie’s attention was drawn by two things at once.
The door was about three inches thick, and the inner side was black steel.
The second was the sight of the woman who pushed it shut.
She was pretty, seemed to be in her mid-thirties, shorter than Seneca women like Jane and even Katie, with long reddish-blond hair.
The woman stepped aside, into what looked like an open coat closet to put a rifle with a long magazine into a recessed vertical space that seemed to have been built to hold it.
The woman closed the door on the closet, then turned to Jane.
“Jane, Jane, Jane,” she said. “Whenever you leave us, I’m afraid I’ll never see you again.
It’s been a couple of years.” Jane turned to the side and Molly saw May. “Oh my God, Jane. Is she yours?”
“Yes,” Jane said.
“No wonder you disappeared. She’s beautiful.”
“It’s wonderful to see you, Molly. But that’s another long story I won’t be able to tell you,” Jane said. “Here’s someone else I want you to meet. Her name is going to be Katie. It’s the one we use already.”
Molly said to her, “It’s a good name. You look like you could be a Katie. Or a Kate. I assume the paperwork will say Katherine.”
“I guess so,” Katie said. “I’m new to this, so I’ll do what Jane says.”
“Come on. I’ll take you up to see Stewart. He’s in the studio. He’ll be so pleased to see you, Jane. All three of you, in fact.”
They all climbed the old-style curving staircase to the second-floor landing. Stewart came out of the large open room at the top of the stairs. “Jane! I thought that sounded like your voice,” he said. “It’s great to see you.”
His eyes widened in surprise, and he stepped closer. “Yours?”
“It finally happened,” she said. “We’ve been trying for years. Her name is May.”
“I never knew there was a ‘we’ to try with. Congratulations. And who is this? Are you still taking on runners?”
“Her name is going to be Katherine with a K Marie Barnes.”
“I’m pleased to meet you, Miss Barnes,” he said. “I’m Stewart, and I guess Molly and I will be working on your identities.”
“Identities? More than one?”
Stewart turned and looked at Jane.
Jane said, “I should have explained this ahead of time. No matter how good your identity is, and how closely you guard it, things can happen. Ten years from now you’re in an airport in Chicago and someone who knows you bumps into you.
So I ask Stewart to make not just the identity you live with, but also two others.
They’re not as elaborate, but they’re good and they include the main things—a driver’s license, a social security card, and a birth certificate.
I’ll add a credit card in each name later, so every time the bill gets paid, the identity is older and deeper. ”
“I get it,” Katie said. She turned to Stewart. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be stupid. It’s just all so new.”
Jane said to Stewart, “I’m afraid we only have another day to do this part, but the rest can take a month or two.”
“We’d better get started on what we have to do right away.”