by Thomas Perry
"Honey," said Sharon. "I'm sorry to interrupt you, but don't tell me what happened. In fact, this is a problem."
"What's a problem?"
"This call. Making phone calls to people you knew before you left. Didn't she say anything about that?"
"Well, sure. But she called me once, and I thought you'd want to know what happened to me."
"I did, and I do. But this is one of the small things that can get you into trouble. If someone is watching me, they'll now have your number and can get your location. If they've got the right equipment they're recording the call, and may be able to trace it. When you run, you have to give up some important, valuable things. One of them is talking to relatives and friends."
"You're telling me never to call you again?"
"I'm telling you not to do things she tells you are dangerous. She's taken you out of your old life and into a new one. That life will be hard to get used to, but sooner than you think, you'll be comfortable. Pretty soon you'll be too busy and preoccupied with being a mother to waste much time on anything else. I want you to know that I'll be thinking about you often, and I'll feel happy because I know you'll be happy—if not tonight, then in a few months. We'll still be just as close, even if we can't talk to each other. We're on the same side, and want the same things for each other. You've always been one of my favorite people, and that will never change. But look ahead now, not back."
"Oh, my God," said Christine, and she realized she was crying. "I'll miss you."
"And I'll miss you."
"We'd better get off now, huh?"
"Yes. If we don't talk very long it's harder for them. Good luck."
"Good luck to you."
They both hung up, and Christine lay back down on the couch. She cried for a long time, but then she awoke, still on the couch, and it was four A.M. For a few seconds, as she was making her way to her bed, undressing as she went, she wondered if the telephone call might have been a dream.
20
Christine drove past the FedEx Kinko's store a half dozen times every week on her way to buy groceries or rent movies or go to the pharmacy. She had not noticed it the first few times she passed it, but then one day she parked nearby and walked past. She saw the glass-enclosed room with its two rows of glowing computer screens. After that day, the computers lived in her memory, the nonsensical images of screen savers bouncing across their lighted screens.
A few weeks after she had spoken to Sharon she happened to be in the pharmacy waiting for her prescription prenatal vitamins. She shopped for things she didn't really need, like makeup and a new hairbrush, but she was thinking about the computers again. She missed the Internet. She had liked to start her day by going online. She would check the San Diego weather and traffic, read her e-mail, find out which movies had been released, soothe herself with some dumb celebrity gossip, and, if she had time and nobody was looking, read her horoscope.
When she had everything at the counter she paid in cash and went out the front entrance and walked along the sidewalk staring in the windows of the stores. She had often window-shopped when she had still lived in San Diego, but now she looked in windows for other reasons. She was fascinated with her own reflection in the big plate-glass surfaces. Since she had been in Minneapolis she had begun to look really, unambiguously pregnant, and if she stayed a few feet away from the glass she could see herself from head to foot from the side, walking along.
The reflections also gave her a way to keep her face turned away from the people driving along the street or walking nearby and still see them. Today as she walked she thought about the computers again. Sharon Curtis had been really critical of her for calling her on the telephone, but a few weeks had passed, and nothing had happened. If somebody had been able to trace calls to Sharon or had a list of phone numbers for people who had called her, then Steve Demming and his friends would have been here long ago. And the Internet was even safer. It was almost completely anonymous.
She walked into the FedEx Kinko's store, past the rows of copying machines, and up to the counter. There was a boy there about her own age, and his name tag said he was Mark, a "coworker," which she guessed was probably about as low in the hierarchy as he could get. She said, "I'd like to use a computer. How do I do that? Do you rent them by the minute or something?"
Soon she was in a quiet, private corner staring at a screen, just as she had been doing since she was a little girl. It made her happy to feel the click of the mouse and hear the clatter of keys again as she typed in her screen name and password. She waited for her mailbox to open, then drew in a breath. There were 287 new messages for her. She glanced at the hour and minute on the lower-right side of her screen. This was going to take some time. Christine went down the list deleting the notifications of sales, the ads, the offers for things she might have wanted a few months ago. Then she began to count the ones that had been sent from Richard's e-mail address.
There were two or three for each day since she'd left San Diego, and they all had subjects like "I miss you," or "Please write," or "Where did you go?" They all seemed to be different, and most of them had attachments.
Christine considered whether it was wise to open any e-mails from Richard. If he had been standing in front of her, she would never have listened to anything he wanted to say to her. But there was something safe and familiar about e-mail. He couldn't reach out and grab her through the screen. If she read his e-mails, he wouldn't know where she was. All he could ever know was that they had been received by a server at some building that belonged to the Internet provider's company, and that could be anywhere in the world.
Her hand shook a little as she clicked on the first of the e-mails from Richard. The screen said, "Do you know who sent you this e-mail?" Then there was the usual lengthy warning that began, "You are about to display an e-mail containing a picture or file attachment. If you don't know who sent you this e-mail..." At the bottom it said, "Do you wish to view this e-mail? Yes/No." She chose Yes and watched the blue line fill up the download box.
There was a picture of Richard, and when he moved she gave a little gasp. It was a video. He was standing in his office at work, in front of his computer. He must have plugged in a Webcam. He said, "Hi, Chris. It's me all right. I know this isn't something you would think I'd do. I just figured that maybe if you could see me face-to-face again and hear my voice whenever you wanted, you might remember how happy we were when we were together. I know things must have gotten too intense for you, and you just have to get away for a while. I can understand that, and I don't blame you. But while you're away, I hope you know that I'll be thinking about you every day and every night." She moved the cursor to the red box in the upper-right corner and clicked the white X to close the e-mail. Then she opened the next one.
This time he had put the Webcam on the computer in the bedroom at home, and he was sitting at the desk in one of the T-shirts she had bought him to sleep in a month before she left. It was the blue one, and she tried to remember whether she had ever told him that was the color that looked best on him. Part of her hoped that she had, and he had been listening to her and remembered, then chose it to please her. But why did she hope that? She detested him.
He said, "Hi, Chris. I hope it's you who's watching this, but of course I have no way of knowing. I'm sorry if that sounds kind of gloomy. I'm just tired and depressed tonight, I guess. Since you've been gone I've tried to keep myself busy working as much as I can." He gave a sad smile. "Because of that I've been making a hell of a lot of money, but that's not much of a consolation, because I don't have anybody to spend it on. The time when it really gets to me is always at night like this. I suppose it's partly because I'm tired at the end of these frantic, crazy days. Night is the first time when I can't keep moving and talking to people and staying occupied. I'm alone here in the empty house, and I can't avoid thinking about you and about every stupid thing I ever did or said in front of you. I keep going over and over everything and telling myself what I should h
ave done instead." He stared at the camera with the dark, injured gaze he had often used on her. "I apologize, Chris. No excuses. I'm sorry for all of it. I'm not sure what day it was when you decided I couldn't be salvaged, but I know you must have been thinking about leaving for a long time before you did. I just wish that during that period when you were planning and arranging to leave, I had said or done something good that made you change your mind. Well, I've probably said more than you want to hear already. I love you, and I still will tomorrow. Close your eyes." It was what he used to say just before they went to sleep when they were together and he wasn't angry at her. He reached toward the camera and the video ended.
She looked at her reflection in the dark screen, and she could see her puffy, sad face with tears glistening on her cheeks. She told herself it was just the familiarity that she was missing so badly. That was all. She was alone in a strange city where the trees looked big and leafy and threw shadows that made everything seem dark. The houses were tall and close together and old, and the streets were too narrow. The people looked and sounded different, and the air always seemed thick with moisture so it was almost hard to breathe. Anything that was familiar seemed inviting to her now.
Christine felt sorry for Richard, especially now that he seemed to know that he had lost something he couldn't replace. He seemed surprised at everything that had happened, and unsure about what to do. He couldn't admit that he wasn't going to have her anymore. And he was such a man. He never talked about anything just to get it out, to have it said. He never talked about any problem at all unless he was working on a way to solve it. Even if every solution he thought of was stupid and unworkable, there he was, working away on it. He was so sad to watch.
Richard's mind was operating the way it always had in business. No deal? What can I offer you to make the deal more attractive to you? Do you want me to suffer? Here's how much I've suffered so far. Is it enough? Okay, then how about if I learn from my mistakes? Still no deal, huh? Well then, I'm at a loss. You tell me what it would cost me. I'm very interested in closing on this—I'd like to do it today if I can—and I'm not giving up unless it's just impossible. Not even then, in fact. I'm giving you all my attention. Here, see how many e-mails I've sent.
Christine moved up the list to recent e-mails and selected one sent this week. Richard had apparently bought a digital video camera, because there never had been a computer in the spare bedroom, and the quality of the picture was much better this time. The room was easily recognizable because she could see the window that overlooked the deep end of the pool beside the waterfall with the big fake boulders.
The room had been repainted a pale yellow. The regular bed and dresser and chair were gone. Everything had been replaced. She could see the crib was a Bellini that she had admired in the Mall of America, but considered too expensive for her. There was a big, low dresser with a padded changing area and railings on top. He had bought a rocking chair. There were built-in shelves now that held receiving blankets, stuffed animals, books, and a baby monitor.
Richard said, "Hi. I was keeping this room as a surprise, but it occurred to me that now that the baby isn't all that far off, I should probably show it to you. I realized that maybe you wanted to come home, but you would be afraid we wouldn't have a nice place all ready for the baby, so you might wait. I didn't know a whole lot about the subject, but I went to a couple of nice baby stores and started asking what we were likely to need." He stepped aside so she could see the furniture and supplies. Every piece was the most expensive, the best. She could see on the floor there were also a stroller and a car seat. He opened one of the drawers and lifted a stack of folded baby clothes, then held a couple of outfits up and made them dance for the camera. The clothes were perfect, and they seemed to be in a range of sizes. Since he didn't know if the baby was a boy or a girl, everything was in yellow, orange, green, or beige. She didn't wait for the rest of what he would say, just made the video go black and went on to the one he had posted yesterday.
This time he was in the bedroom again. He was looking a bit sad, but not so tired as he had in the earlier videos. It was daylight. She could see soft late-afternoon light coming in through the white curtains, and she missed the room. The master suite was placed on the northern side of the house so the light there was always a bit less sharp and unforgiving than it was on the south side. As she thought about the room she missed San Diego and the Pacific, and palm trees and the flowers that grew in the garden behind the house.
Richard said, "Hi, Chris. I love you. I hope your day is good. It's five-thirty and I came home earlier than usual. I'm wondering whether you're thinking of me this afternoon. Today is the seventeenth of August, and when we're together again I'll ask you if you had a feeling today that was different. I'll tell you why. Today I was thinking about you all the time, wondering about what you like and don't like, and picking something out for you." He looked into the camera, his face as close as it could be without distortion.
"I love you, Christine. I love you more than I really knew when I had you. I've thought about you most of the time. I realized that if this is what living without you is, I don't want it." It occurred to Christine that he had come very close to repeating a song lyric. "I want my life back," he said. "Christine, I want you to marry me." He reached into his coat pocket and took out a small velvet box. He held it up toward the camera and opened it. The large solitaire diamond sparkled and flashed in the light from above the desk as he took out the ring, held it between his thumb and forefinger, and turned it around for her to see. It was spectacular.
In spite of her determination to remain unmoved, she couldn't help looking, trying to imagine what the ring would have looked like on her finger.
Richard said, "I had it sized to fit your finger. Four and a half, right? I brought in the little peridot ring you left here in your jewelry box, because I knew that it fit you."
Christine felt a sharp stab of regret. How could she have left that ring with him? It was a birthstone her father had given her before he went to jail. She felt sick. She had a strong urge to find a way to have it again. Her father would be hurt if he knew. She hit the X in the red box again, and sat with her eyes closed for a time, trying to reconcile her confusing feelings.
When she was calmer, she went back to the list of e-mails. She read a couple of little notes from friends who wondered why she hadn't answered their earlier e-mails, or had not answered her cell phone. She wrote a reply to her friend Rhonda. "I'm out of town now, and I'm trying to spend some time alone sorting out my mess of a life. I dropped everything in San Diego, and decided it was time for me to start all over again in a new place. I've always valued your friendship more than you know. I just can't be there anymore. Please think of me as your good friend always. Love, Chris." She sent a slightly altered version to her friend Emma.
Then she saw one from Alexis Donaldson. Alexis was her closest friend since junior high school. She was the one who stuck with her when she had acne and baby fat, then stayed her friend in high school when her father's legal trouble was in the newspaper, and who even kept inviting her to school events and parties after she had quit school and gone to work. The address was a new one. It looked as though Alexis must have gotten a new job and written to her from the office. Christine wrote her virtually the same cryptic e-mail as the others. She added, "You've always been my very best friend." On an impulse, Christine typed, "If you need to reach me, you can call me." And then she typed in her telephone number and clicked on Send.
21
It was morning. Richard Beale parked his black Porsche in his reserved space behind the building, walked into the office, turned on his computer, and went out to the lobby to get a cup of coffee while the computer ran through its antivirus and antispyware scans. As he walked past Marlene, the new receptionist, he nodded and smiled, and she said, "Good morning, Mr. Beale," and smiled back. He had to play Marlene a bit differently from the earlier ones because of what had happened with Christine.
He sat at the desk, turned to his computer and looked at the list of screen names, and clicked on the first one, which was in his name. There was nothing from Christine, and there was nothing from Demming, and anything else barely mattered. He was devoting his full time to finding Christine. Then he patiently changed his screen name to each of the ones he had invented. He had sent e-mails to Christine from each of them about twice a week.
Richard opened Emma Peterson's mailbox, and saw that it had received its first piece of mail. He opened the e-mail and took in a quick breath. Christine had written to Emma Peterson. He could hardly believe it. He read the long paragraph eagerly, and felt the disappointment settle on his stomach. She wasn't writing to her old friend to reveal anything about what she'd been doing or where she was. She was giving her friend the final kiss-off. When Richard found virtually the same message in the e-mail for Alexis Donaldson, he was in despair. He almost closed it before he realized that this message had something more. There was a telephone number. He plucked a pen from the cup on his desk to copy it on paper. He pulled a sheet of white paper from the printer tray.
Richard knew that there was no need to do this, because all he had to do was save the e-mail or print it, and the information would be preserved. But he had an almost superstitious fear that the electrical impulses that had brought the e-mail would be cut off unexpectedly and the precious number would disappear forever. When he had written it down, he felt a heart-thumping moment of excitement. It was as though he had closed his hand to capture and hold a wild bird.
