Runner jw-6 Read online

  Runner

  ( Jane Whitefield - 6 )

  Thomas Perry

  Copyright © 2009 by Thomas Perry

  To Jo, Alix, and Isabel

  1

  The girl kept half-turning in the back seat to stare out the rear window of the cab, as though she were being chased across Buffalo to the hospital. It made Pete Sawicki as nervous as she was. He kept flicking his eyes to the rearview mirror, but all the way to the hospital he saw trucks, people driving station wagons to the supermarket, kids throwing baseballs beside empty streets—nothing at all that was suspicious except her. He pulled up to the emergency room entrance and got out of his cab to open her door.

  She had a pretty face. She was very young, maybe even jailbait, with long light brown hair, eyes that looked gray-green, full lips that seemed to pout as she concentrated on getting out of the back seat of the cab. Pete held his hand out to help her, but she deflected his attention with a look that went past him as though he were gone already. Usually somebody who wanted a cab ride to the hospital emergency room wanted a hand.

  She stood and once again her belly showed, stood out from her body under the loose shirt. It was none of his business, but Pete couldn't help seeing the pregnancy as tragic in somebody her age. How could it not be?

  "How much?" she said, her hand already moving into her purse.

  "Eight bucks."

  She frowned. "It can't be."

  He pretended to look inside at the meter, and chuckled to himself. "You're right. It's twelve." He took the fifteen dollars she handed him. "Thanks. And thanks for noticing that." He stepped around the cab to his door, watched her walking to the emergency room, and waited until he saw the glass doors slide open to admit her and then close. He got back into the cab, reached into his pocket, took out a ten-dollar bill to pay for the rest of her fare, and put it into the cashbox. Then he drove out the circular drive. He supposed he would head out to the airport and take a place in the line there. It was still early in the day and flights from the west would start coming in soon.

  AT THE RECEPTION DESK the woman in the uniform told the girl to sit and wait, but the triage nurse came out only a couple of minutes later and brought her into an office. The nurse said, "If you've got to be in the emergency room, you picked a good time. Beginning in the late afternoon, things get pretty hectic." The girl recited the symptoms as well as she could remember them, and then she had to answer the nurse's questions. Some were the obvious ones anyone would ask a pregnant woman, and some seemed to be all-purpose questions for emergency rooms. If you answered yes to any of them, you would belong in a hospital.

  When the nurse started to stand, the girl said abruptly, "Do you happen to know a woman named Jane Whitefield?"

  "I'm not sure. I may have heard the name. Why?"

  "Oh, it's not important. Somebody I know told me if I was in this hospital I should say hello for her."

  "It's a big hospital. I'm going to have you wait in an examining room. A doctor will be in to see you shortly."

  The girl sat on the narrow bed in the small white room to wait for the doctor. She felt stupid, humiliated. Why would anybody ask her to say hello to somebody in an emergency room? Her mistake made her more nervous. She looked at the complicated telephone mounted on the wall. It made no sound, but she could see colored lights along the top, some steady and others blinking—green, red, and yellow. She stood and looked at it more closely. Maybe she could find the right button to make an announcement over the hospital's public-address system. She had a professional-sounding telephone voice. If she could find the right button, she could say, "Jane White-field, please report to the emergency room. Jane Whitefield, there is a patient to see you in the emergency room." It would be a huge risk, because they might throw her out or even have her arrested, but she had to do something.

  The girl stepped closer and looked for labels on the buttons, then heard a woman's voice talking, growing louder as the woman came up the hall. The girl turned away from the phone and heard the swish of fabric as the woman stepped into the room. The woman was brown-skinned, about forty years old, and seemed to be from the Middle East or Asia. She wore a starched white coat with a gold name tag. "Christine?"

  "Yes."

  "I'm Dr. Depredha. Are you in pain? Are you having cramps now?"

  "Once in a while they come back."

  "Bleeding?"

  "I think it stopped."

  Dr. Depredha touched Christine's forehead, then took her stethoscope and pressed it against Christine's neck for a few seconds. "All right. Let's get you undressed and I'll give you a brief exam, so we'll know more." She opened a drawer, took out a package, and tore it open. Christine could see it was a gown. "You can put this on, and I'll be back in a minute." She started out, pulling the door after her.

  "Doctor?"

  "Yes?"

  "Do you know a woman named Jane Whitefield?"

  "Sounds familiar. Is she a doctor?"

  "I don't know. Someone I know said I might run into her here."

  One of Dr. Depredha's perfect curved eyebrows gave an eloquent upward twitch that conveyed sympathy, apology, and yet, a businesslike urgency. "I haven't been here long. I'll be back." She went out and closed the door.

  Christine's heart was beating faster. She was feeling more and more panicky. Sweat dampened her shirt and nausea was coming on. She had come so far, and she was so frightened. Now that she was here, the place seemed to be a lot of blank, unknowing faces and closed doors, and she had no idea how long she would be safe here. She fought the impulse to step out the door and run, and began to undress. This was the plan she had chosen. She had to carry it through and give it a chance to work. If she couldn't find Jane Whitefield, at least maybe she could stay here long enough to rest.

  DR. DEPREDHA HURRIED OUT to the reception area and spotted the big security officer near the doors to the parking lot. As she stepped toward him she saw his head turn, his dark, intelligent eyes see her, and his black face smile down at her. "Mr. Mathews."

  "Dr. Depredha. What can I do for you?" For an instant she felt the warm, reassuring attention that he always brought with him. He was about six feet seven and weighed, by her estimate, two hundred and eighty pounds, but his manner made him seem like a doting uncle.

  She had to speak quickly and just above a whisper. "I just got a patient, a pregnant female who listed her age as twenty. She's showing signs of extreme anxiety. She's afraid. Genuinely frightened."

  "Do you need help with her?"

  "Not with her. She's perfectly docile. But I have a feeling about this. She acts as though she were being chased. Do you understand?"

  He nodded. "What does she look like?"

  "Caucasian, brown hair, light eyes. Looks younger than twenty. Her name is Christine. The triage nurse noted that she arrived alone in a taxi."

  "I saw her. All right, Doctor," said Mr. Mathews. "I'll begin watching for anyone who might be looking for her."

  "Thank you, Mr. Mathews." She turned and hurried back through the automatic doors that led to the examining rooms.

  Officer Stanley Mathews stepped to the outer doors of the emergency room and looked out. He wasn't quite sure what he was looking for—an angry parent or brother, an abusive boyfriend, or even some female rival with a gun in her purse. Dr. Depredha wasn't some flighty, overprotected woman who imagined danger. Before she had come to this country she had been in a couple of wars, doing battlefield patch-up jobs while incoming mortar rounds thumped inside the perimeter near enough to bounce the instruments on the table. He'd seen a bit of that sort of thing himself. If she felt uneasy, he felt uneasy. He pushed open the double doors with both hands and stepped outside to see who might have pulled into the parking lot since he'd last looked. Some people had se
en enough terror and misery in their lives so they seemed to develop a sense of when trouble was coming. They could feel it.

  JANE MCKINNON SURVEYED the room from the doorway. Tonight the hospital cafeteria had been not only decorated but disguised, the windows covered with long drapes and the ceiling hung with clusters of hundreds of white Japanese lanterns of different sizes. The benefit seemed to be going smoothly. People were moving away from the hors d'oeuvre tables and circulating instead of knotting up near the food and drink. The conversation was loud and continuous. The band had arrived, set up, and done sound checks during the late afternoon, so that when the music started it would be tolerable. As Jane moved in among the guests, her tall, erect shape and the light blue evening dress that set off the dark skin and black hair she had inherited from her father made people turn to watch her for a moment. The intense blue eyes she'd inherited from her mother acknowledged them and moved on.

  "Jane!"

  A man's voice, too close, coming from above her head. Jane McKinnon pivoted to face him, her eyes taking in hands-face-body in the first fraction of a second. It was only Gary Wanamaker, the hospital's director of development. The muscles in her arms and back relaxed, and she managed a smile. Her knees straightened from the preparatory flex that the long evening dress had hidden from view. For some reason she hadn't recognized the voice. She was jumpy tonight, abnormally alert.

  His big, fleshy face came closer. "I just wanted to tell you what an extraordinary job you've done in organizing this evening. The fund is past the goal. I've already had three people come up to me to let me know privately that they were making big donations. I was hoping for maybe one gift that size."

  "Thanks, Gary," said Jane. "But I didn't do this alone. It was a committee."

  "You're the chairperson."

  "I made some phone calls, but they did most of the work—Monica Kaminski, Ann Fuccione, Terri Hauptmann, and Sally Meyer."

  "No men?" he said. "A sexist committee?"

  "We had work to do, so naturally we chose women."

  Wanamaker laughed. "Well, you accomplished a great thing. I'll let you know what the tally is as soon as I have it." He looked across the crowded floor of the decorated room, past women in colorful evening dresses toward a short elderly man in a tuxedo standing beneath a long wall of fabric that Jane had helped hang today to transform the cafeteria into a ballroom. "Oh. Know who that is?"

  "Mr. Hunter?" she said. "His family owned the old Shippers and Traders Bank."

  "Can't stump you on local history, can I?"

  "My family's been here for a long time."

  He gaped at her for a second. "Oh. That would be true, wouldn't it? Well, I'd better go talk to Mr. H. Thanks again."

  Jane felt her husband Carey's hand on her back, and turned her head slightly to look up at him. "Oh there you are."

  "I came to congratulate you."

  "So you overheard."

  "Not in this noise. He told me a couple of minutes ago. You're a fund-raising genius. Of course, I only care about how you look in that dress. Or under it, really. What are you doing in about an hour?"

  "Carey."

  "Nobody heard me." His voice and expression were exactly as they would be if he were doing a surgical consultation. "Don't change the subject."

  "Two hours. After that your chances go up to about a hundred percent." She moved away from him and walked the length of the decorated cafeteria. Ann Fuccione and Monica Kaminski were preparing to lead another tour of the surgical wing when Jane reached them. She said quietly, "Has Gary talked to you?"

  "A minute ago," said Monica. "We got the money for the surgical wing makeover. It's been a long time coming, but it arrived."

  Ann grinned. "Did he tell you who gave all that loot?"

  "Not yet," said Jane. "I'm sure we'll hear. Do Terri and Sally know we made it?"

  "I don't know. They were over there, trying to get the buffet table squared away and the coffee service in."

  "Thanks." Jane walked across the room, moving through the crowd with an ease that an observer would have thought supernatural, turning her body easily to avoid a crush, then making tiny adjustments to her posture or twisting to get to the next place, never appearing to pause. She stopped beside Terri Hauptmann. "Has Gary come by to thank you yet?"

  "Yes," said Terri. "Can you believe it?"

  "Absolutely," Jane said. "You were great. The whole committee was great."

  "It was mostly you," said Terri.

  "We've all been saying it behind your back," Sally said. "You're the best boss I ever worked for. Except maybe Jim. I used to be his nurse anesthesiologist, and he would take me out to lunch every day. You don't do that."

  "No, but I will. I'll give you a call next week, and we can all go out to celebrate. It's been fun to work with both of you."

  Sally eyed the seven or eight people who were standing politely a few feet off. "Oops. We'd better start our tour."

  Jane said, "Sorry. I'll let you go." As she moved toward a group standing along the wall near the counter that had been set up as a temporary bar, Jane felt another wave of uneasiness. She tried to tell herself that it was just the jumpiness from having Gary startle her, but that didn't feel true.

  Something was wrong. She must have heard or seen something out of place, but had pushed it to the back of her mind while she concentrated on making the hospital benefit run smoothly. Ignoring the feeling had been a mistake, and she had to find the trouble now.

  Jane scanned the big room. She looked at each of the entrances and exits to see which were open and which were closed, who was standing near enough to control one of them, which men and women she knew to be physicians or hospital employees and which were strangers. She recognized many of them, and there wasn't anyone she could spot as out of place, but she didn't stop looking. She hadn't felt this kind of uneasiness in a long time, but it was a familiar feeling. Her breathing was deep and steady, her vision was sharp, the colors almost unreal in their brightness as she moved across the ballroom. Even her skin felt more sensitive, as though she could pick up the electricity in the air.

  She skirted the dessert table at a fast walk and picked up a napkin. As she swerved to the inner side of the next serving table, she swept the napkin beside a plate. When she moved on, wrapped inside the napkin was the paring knife from one of the fruit trays. She kept moving until she came upon Carey, seemingly by happy accident. He was talking with an elderly lady in an elegant black gown with long lace sleeves.

  Carey saw Jane and ended his conversation. He stepped gracefully toward her path. She paused and leaned close. "Something's not right."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I don't know yet," she said. "I hope I'm imagining this, but be ready. I may have to leave in a hurry." She kept walking.

  She moved toward the doorway that led to the kitchen, and she knew what she had been feeling. Nothing was happening. It had been at least twenty minutes since anyone had come out of the kitchen. The waiter who had brought the first load of desserts to the buffet tables had disappeared through the swinging door and never reappeared. She had seen a second waiter push a cart into a corner near the dessert table, but he'd never come back. People had served themselves. The desserts that were laid out had nearly all been eaten now, but the trays had not been replenished or cleared.

  Going directly into the kitchen felt to her like the wrong thing to do. Somebody could be just inside the door waiting. She altered her course slightly, and moved past the accordion divider that separated the wide cafeteria entrance from the decorated and specially lighted area where the benefit was being held. The wall helped preserve the soft, unreal atmosphere of the party.

  Jane held the napkin with the knife in it close to the skirt of her gown and took a step into the hall. She turned toward the outer door that led to the kitchen. There were two men in dark suits standing on both sides of the kitchen door with their backs to the wall. They were strangers, and she had not seen either of them inside the
party. They didn't seem to be aware of her, so she looked away, but held them in the corner of her eye as she drifted in their direction. There was something odd about the way they held themselves, as though they were holding their breath, waiting. Were they going to harm somebody coming out of the kitchen?

  The floor beneath her seemed to bump upward as though the whole building were taking a breath. Then came the noise, a deep, deafening thud, and as it tore the air the force of the explosion blew Jane off her feet and across the hall into the smooth marble wall where the names of past donors were carved.

  2

  Sky Woman was contented, living above the clouds with her husband, whom she loved with a fierce, steady passion. There was no time then, because there was no change, and so she was always the same slender young woman who lived in the firmament. She was the one who witnessed the first change ever to occur, because it happened to her. She wanted to get at the roots of a big tree and prepare them as food for her tall, strong husband. She asked him to push over the tree for her, but when he did, the roots came up and tore a hole at Sky Woman's feet, and she fell.

  As she dropped from the sky she felt the wind streaming through her long black hair and heard the fluttering of the fringe on her deerskin skirt. She was falling toward the vast and ageless ocean of dark water far below. She knew that this must be dying, and that she would never again see or touch the husband she loved so much.

  It took time for her to fall so far, and the animals, who had acute senses, could see her from below. The birds felt sorry for her, so they flew upward to meet her. They placed their soft, feathery bodies beneath her, and spread their wings to slow her fall into a long, gentle glide to the dark water.

  JANE WHITEFIELD FOUGHT the darkness. She struggled to hold in her mind the possibility of waking, and then to make her way toward it. She felt the pain where her body was in contact with the hard, cold terrazzo floor. She opened her eyes to the sight of the overhead lights flickering and then steadying to a sickly yellow glow as the hospital's generators came on. She could hear the voices of confused people, some moaning and others calling to each other. "Marie! Are you all right?" "Lie still." "Mark? Where are you?"