Chapter 34
During the next few weeks, Jane and Karen rested and recovered, and Carey took over the care of Karen’s wounds and Jane’s.
Karen’s burns were going to need some plastic surgery, but the rest of their injuries would heal without it.
Jane called the mailbox rental store in Chicago that she used as a mailing address and had the owner forward her mail to her at a new box she rented in Pittsburgh.
She put May in a sling and, usually with Carey, or sometimes Karen or Katie or Carolyn, walked the big farm.
On the eighteenth day, Karen’s new birth certificate and Real ID driver’s license arrived.
Jane and Karen drove into the city to pick them up and mail the payment in cash to Stewart.
Karen and Katie became friends. Jane had told Katie that Karen was not a fugitive, but a friend Jane and Carey had made in college who had become a successful criminal lawyer in California. Jane also mentioned that she was brave and could be trusted.
Within a few days, Katie had told Karen about her case, and Karen told her that most of the time the legal system came up with the right answers, but that sometimes it didn’t.
In rare instances, a victim was justified in refusing to allow it to determine her fate, at least temporarily.
Katie was one of those people. She had taken a big risk, but if she did exactly as Jane was teaching her, from now on, she was very likely to live a free and happy life.
As soon as Karen was ready to travel, Jane took her to the Pittsburgh airport, where she caught a flight back to Los Angeles under the name Stewart had put on her documents, Laura Shepherd.
Almost as soon as Jane returned to the farm, she was in the barn opening the door panel of Carey’s car’s left front door and retrieving the Glock 17 pistol and loaded magazines she had hidden there when the car was new.
She took out the clothes she had left in the trunk of her Volvo, packed them in the new suitcase, put the pistol and ammunition inside, took the two switchblade knives out of the space under the spare tire, and slid them into the outer pocket, and carried the suitcase inside to the bedroom she and Carey shared.
While she was taking out pieces of clothing, holding each one up to look at it, and then laying it on the bed, she heard Carey come into the room behind her. He said, “Are you unpacking or are you packing?”
“First one, then the other,” she said. She waited for a few seconds, but he didn’t say what she was dreading. He said nothing, which she thought might be worse.
She stepped close to him and put her arms around his neck and hugged him.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I know I’ve probably said that a hundred times since this started, but I am, so I say it.
Karen is safe, and she’s on a flight home.
Katie is safe with us here. Brian has his new identity documents, and I’ve been giving him lessons about how to be a new person since we left my old house.
The people I took him to for identification papers spent the last couple of weeks teaching him more.
As soon as I can get him transportation, he’ll be ready to go too.
There’s just one more person I have to go see. ”
Carey said, “I know you wouldn’t go if you didn’t think you have to.”
“Thank you. I wouldn’t.”
“But do you?”
“Yes.”
“When do you leave?”
“As soon as I’ve gotten Brian out of here in a car that will take him where he’s going, and can get some laundry done and my suitcase packed again. Probably two days from now.”
Carey nodded. “I’d better go take May from Katie now. It’s my turn.”
Jane closed the suitcase. “Let’s take her for a walk together. She hasn’t seen enough of me lately, and I can’t ever see enough of either of you.”
That night after May was asleep and they could hear her on the baby monitor where she slept in the next room, Jane and Carey had a bath together in Carolyn’s oversize bathtub and made love. After that, Jane fell asleep with the soft sound of May’s baby breaths amplified in the monitor.
Jane dreamed that she heard the sound of footsteps coming from the monitor speaker, and sat up, alarmed.
The steps came closer, and she looked up and saw the door swing open.
The bent-over, shrunken shape and the loosely fitting jacket over it were a relief.
Harry said, “No need to get up. We’ve seen enough already. ”
“Don’t be disgusting,” Jane said. She pulled the sheet up to her neck and glanced at Carey’s sleeping face.
“He won’t wake up.”
“No?”
“No,” Harry said.
“What are you here for, Harry?”
“Recent developments. You were always the woman who decided to do something that made sense to her. Working to make more machines that were turning the world into an overheated desert, or working forty years to add a few bucks to some guy’s hundred billion dollars didn’t make sense.
Keeping a person from being killed always made sense. Remember that?”
“That’s what I’ve been doing. You can’t be saying that the twin brothers think I’ve changed my mind or that I want something different now.”
“The brothers are about keeping the world in balance, not making moral judgments. An island volcano erupts molten lava and burns the plants and trees, and all the people and animals vacate. When the lava cools, the island is much bigger and there’s a fresh bunch of minerals that help grow things.
Right away the island starts getting repopulated, but also getting eroded by rain and wind and time.
Something is destroyed, something is created and then destroyed too.
The brothers are busy with the big picture, which is balance, which is health. ”
“What do they want, Harry?”
“Did I say they sent me? The only place I’m alive is in your mind.
The one who conjures me into her dreams is you.
You took in Katie. You rescued Brian Finlay.
A few weeks ago, you dragged your family away from your husband’s home.
Then you found out Karen was probably in danger, so you went there and saved one life too.
How many lives did you take there? My count is four people. The term ‘bloodbath’ comes to mind.”
“Do I have to relive that now?”
“You’ve been reliving it since it happened.
Your number of people saved has stayed about the same, on a per annum basis.
None during the couple of years since the Russians caught you the first time, of course.
Having the baby might count as one life contributed.
The number of people you’ve killed has been growing much faster. ”
“I never wanted to kill anybody, ever. That hasn’t changed,” Jane said. “The world has changed.”
“Okay,” said Harry. “No argument there. In each instance you’ve been trying to save somebody from being killed.
You might have known at the start that it meant going up against killers.
And how about right now? You’re packing to go on another trip.
Is it unavoidable? Are you being forced to do it? Who are you saving?”
“May, Katie, Carey. Everybody I’ve ever taken out of their old lives and given new ones. And me. I can’t just say it’s over. That was my mistake three years ago.”
“Then there’s nothing more I can do. I’ve done my job. You’re welcome. I hope you get what you want.” He turned and walked out through the closed door.
Jane heard Harry’s voice in the baby monitor. “Hi, baby. Go back to sleep now.”