The Escape Artist

by Diane Chamberlain

  In his bedroom, he reached for the phone, cradling the receiver in his hand for a moment. He wanted to call her again, but he feared disturbing her if she'd somehow managed to fall asleep.

  On his night table, he saw the note she'd had him write earlier that evening. He saw no point in taping it to his bathroom mirror now that he'd already added the record to his list for the following day, but she had been so insistent about it. So he hung up the phone, read the note through once again, then walked into his bathroom to tape her words to the mirror.

  –4–

  It was still dark when Susanna got Tyler dressed in the morning. The little boy babbled for a few minutes when she first lifted him out of the crib, then seemed to decide she'd made a mistake about the time and went back to sleep as she changed him from his pajamas to his overalls and tied his blue tennis shoes onto his feet.

  The first bus didn't leave for Denver until 5:50. She hadn't slept all night, but she'd forced herself to lie still in bed anyway, planning her morning over and over in her head. Now, as she dressed Tyler and poured juice into his bottle and slipped the thousand dollars into the pocket of her jeans, she knew the routine as if she'd done it ten times already.

  She slowed down only long enough to groan at her image in the mirror. She looked like an auburn-haired, pale-eyed scarecrow, and she quickly pulled brown mascara from her medicine cabinet and applied it to her eyelashes.

  She'd cut her hair to chin length and given herself bangs. She would never find a job as a hair stylist, that much was certain. She'd put the lopped off hair and the empty dye bottle and its package into a garbage bag she planned to take with her. She didn't want to leave any clues behind.

  She glanced at Tyler's crib as she finished dressing. It would have to be replaced, along with the high chair and—what else? The car seat and—don't think about it. She couldn't afford to get overwhelmed right now.

  She gathered the duffel bag, the diaper bag, her purse, her son, and their lightweight jackets and, without a backward glance, left the apartment. In the foyer downstairs, she set up the stroller and lowered her sleeping son into it. Poor Ty. Just as well he was asleep, though.

  She took a minute to put his jacket on him, then slipped into her own. It would be easier to wear them than to carry them. She shoved the diaper bag under the seat of the stroller and opened the foyer door.

  It was cooler outside than she'd expected and she was glad she'd brought their jackets as she walked the four blocks to the nearest bus stop. There were five other people there, four men and a woman, all of them dressed for work. She should have thought of that. She stood out in her jeans and denim jacket, pushing a baby. People smiled at the two of them, and she smiled back and looked away, wishing she were invisible. The first leg of her trip would be entirely too traceable. But what choice did she have?

  The bus arrived and she lifted Tyler into her arms, collapsing the stroller with one practiced movement. She was glad she had vetoed any thought of bringing more with her than she already had. Between the stroller, her two bulky bags, and the baby, she had more than enough to manage.

  She was last to board, and the driver, a small, gray-haired man who looked too frail to be driving something as big as a bus, did a double take as she climbed up the steps with her cargo.

  "Going to Denver?" he asked, as though she'd made an error.

  "That's right." She smiled at him with such confidence that she was surprised to see her hand shake when she handed him the fare.

  She walked toward the rear of the bus. The fewer boarding passengers who walked past her, the better. With the duffel bag and diaper bag, she and Tyler were packed tightly into their seats, but the trip to Denver would only be an hour, and she was grateful that the baby seemed content to sleep in her arms.

  She wished she could sleep as well, but she was as alert as she'd ever been in her life. Her fellow travelers seemed uninterested in her, and for that she was grateful. Some of them read and others appeared to be trying to work. A few nodded off, their heads bobbing against the windowpanes.

  She was doing the right thing. From the moment she'd thought of leaving Boulder with Tyler, she hadn't wavered in her decision. The next few days would be rough, filled with the unknown and uncertainty, but she would get through them and then she and Tyler would be together and they'd be okay. She wouldn't let herself think about the possibility of being caught, and the only other thing that could derail her determination would be thoughts of Linc, and so she made a conscious effort to keep them at bay as well. She closed her eyes as the bus turned briefly toward the foothills in case she might be able to see Linc's house in the distance.

  She didn't get off the bus until it reached its last stop—the bus terminal in Denver. Her plan was to take one of the first buses heading out of town, no matter where it was going, as long as it was far away. She wanted to go someplace where she knew no one and no one would think of looking for her. She would let fate make the major decisions for her.

  There was an 8:10 bus headed for St. Louis, Missouri. Missouri might have been on another planet for all she knew. She wasn't certain she could even find St. Louis on a map, and that made it very appealing.

  She bought a ticket for ninety-eight dollars, glad to see that Tyler could ride for free, but a little shocked to hear that the bus would arrive in St. Louis at 4:50 the following morning. It was going to be a long trip, and she and Tyler would be dumped out into a strange city practically in the middle of the night.

  She used the terminal bathroom, carting all her paraphernalia with her, then settled onto one of the plastic seats to wait for her bus.

  The garbage bag was stuffed in her duffel bag and she pulled it out. She sorted through her wallet, removing anything with the name "Susanna Miller" on it. Her driver's license, her checks, her check cashing card from the grocery store, her credit card with its small, never-to-be-paid-off balance. Everything had her name on it. She threw them all into the garbage bag, along with a picture of Linc that she didn't allow herself to look at before dropping it in. She carried the garbage bag over to the nearest trash can, pushed it through the swinging door in the lid, then returned to her seat.

  The people waiting in the bus terminal looked tired. They read newspapers and sipped coffee from cardboard cups. Some of them stared at her, smiles flitting briefly across their sleepy faces as they noticed the baby. It was hard to be inconspicuous when you were carrying around the world's most adorable kid. She practiced looking unworried, yawning as though she were thoroughly relaxed.

  There was a candy machine across the aisle from her, and she caught a glimpse of her reflection in its shiny plastic window. She looked away quickly. Her stupid hair. She should have waited to dye it. If they traced her to the bus, they would know that she had dyed and cut her hair. She should have bought a wig for that leg of the trip.

  A woman sat a few seats away from her, knitting, a small gray square of yarn taking shape between her hands. She caught Susanna's eye and smiled.

  "He's precious," she said, nodding at Tyler. "What's his name?"

  "Cody," she answered quickly. That had been Linc's suggestion for the baby's name. She'd selected Tyler in the eleventh hour.

  The bus to St. Louis was finally ready for boarding, and Susanna was relieved to see that she and Tyler would, at least initially, have two seats to themselves. She wanted space around her. She closed her eyes, but as she started to doze off, she was jerked awake by a half-dream. She'd pictured the bus making a stop in a town she didn't recognize. Two policemen got on board and stomped down the length of the bus to her seat. One of them grabbed her roughly by the shoulder while the other wrested her son from her arms.

  Susanna shook her head to wake herself completely and hugged Tyler tight enough to make him whimper. No one was even looking for her, she told herself. At least not yet.

  She was afraid to close her eyes again for fear of falling asleep. If the police did try to board the bus, she needed to be ready for them. Altho
ugh, what exactly could she do? What could she say?

  I'm Kimberly Stratton, she practiced. This is my little boy, Cody. He's eleven months old. Hard to fudge on that one. Anyone who knew kids would be able to guess Tyler's age.

  I was born on August 16. My father is a—famous artist and my mother's a professional dancer. She nearly laughed. Why not? They could be anything she liked. But no. She should make them unremarkable. My father is an orthodontist and my mother works in his office. Or maybe it should be the other way around. My mother is an orthodontist and my father helps out in her office. She laughed out loud, then immediately sobered, and pressed her lips to the top of her baby's head.

  "Tyler," she whispered, "what are we doing?"

  When Tyler finally woke up for real, he was filled with his usual morning energy and she wondered how she would ever be able to contain him on this long trip. She gave him his bottle, which he looked at in annoyance as if wondering how she could have forgotten he'd graduated to his tippy cup weeks ago. But the bottle had seemed easier for her to manage on a trip, and after a moment's hesitation, Tyler took to it hungrily. Then Susanna broke a banana into chunks and watched her son gum them to a pulp, his four little front teeth flashing as he chewed.

  When he'd had his fill, he climbed to his feet and held onto the back of the seat to peer at the woman sitting behind them. Susanna thought of pulling him down, but it was apparent that the woman didn't mind.

  "You little show-off," the woman cooed. Susanna couldn't see her but she could hear her making kissy noises that put Tyler in one of his giggling moods. The woman played peek-a-boo with him while Susanna held onto his legs so he didn't tumble backward.

  "You are the cutest little thing," the woman said. "I'm going to take you home with me, what do you think of that?"

  After another minute or two, Susanna made Tyler sit down again. She used to enjoy the attention strangers paid to her son, but now it felt intrusive and threatening.

  Tyler was not happy about being banished to his seat. "Mamamama," he said.

  She reached into the diaper bag for his monkey, smiling to herself. Would Jim know the difference between the "mamamama" that meant "mama" and the "mamamama" that meant "monkey?" Would Peggy? She doubted it. Peggy would probably think he was calling her mama. Sorry, Peg. He's mine, not yours. She smoothed her hand over his blond hair. He settled against her, his monkey curled in one of his arms, his thumb locked into his mouth. Susanna closed her eyes and breathed in his warm scent. She couldn't get enough of it.

  Grace and Valerie had given the monkey to Tyler the day after he was born. Tyler had been too sick to leave the nursery, but Susanna told the staff that Grace and Valerie were his godparents, and the nurses let the two women join her and Linc as they sat next to the incubator watching Tyler in that early fight for life. She remembered Grace propping the monkey on the top of the incubator. The nurses were good about keeping Tyler and the monkey together, as best they could, no matter where Tyler was in the nursery.

  Grace and Valerie would take care of Linc for her. How would Linc tell them about her disappearance? Before she could stop herself, she pictured Linc waking up that morning. By now, he'd probably tried to call her. What would he think when he got no answer? Would he go over to her apartment? Would he panic, thinking she was lying there, dead from an overdose or—cut the drama.

  "The escape artist," he'd called her, because she always tried to escape from any difficult situation instead of facing it head-on. Well, she'd outdone herself this time.

  Tyler whimpered at her side. She felt the wiriness in his body and knew he was yearning to get up and climb all over her, all over the seats of the bus.

  "I'm sorry, Ty—Cody." She winced. She was a bad mother, confusing him. She hugged him close. "We'll have a few rough days here, honey," she whispered. "Then we can settle down in our new life."

  That new life had to start now, she thought. She was Kim Stratton. And she would never call her son Tyler again.

  –5–

  Peggy stood back from the door to let Nancy Curry into the house. "That's me," she said. She did feel a little as though she lived in a fairy tale these days.

  "What a great house!" Nancy gave her a hug, then leaned back to study her. "You look terrific," she said.

  "And you look like California agreed with you." She hadn't seen Nancy in a couple of years, but her old friend looked the same. Overweight by twenty pounds or so, short brown curly hair, and huge green eyes. She and Nancy had been best friends at one time, but Nancy had moved to Santa Barbara right before Peggy started seeing Jim. Peggy had been thrilled to hear that her old friend was returning to Boulder. Nancy and her husband would both be teaching at one of the middle schools.

  "This is for you and Jim and the baby." Nancy handed a wrapped gift to Peggy.

  "Thanks." Peggy took the package and ushered Nancy into the living room. The phone and doorbell had been ringing nonstop since she and Jim arrived home the evening before. People had heard about the court decision through the grapevine, and they'd been calling with congratulations and dropping gifts by. Tyler's crib was filled with so many stuffed animals that there was little room for the baby himself.

  "Wow, what a view!" Nancy said. She walked over to the windows and looked out at the mountains. Then she turned around to face Peggy, warmth in her eyes. "Oh, Peg," she said, "you deserve this."

  "Thanks," she said again. "Somebody's definitely been smiling down on me these last few years, that's for sure." She looked at her watch. It was only 12:30. Another couple of hours until Tyler arrived, and her stomach was tied in knots. "Do you have time for a cup of coffee?"

  "Sure, but do you? What time do you get the baby?"

  "Jim's working this morning and then picking him up at two."

  She and Jim had talked for a long time the night before, trying to agree on who should pick up Tyler. Jim thought it should be both of them, but Peggy was adamant that Jim go alone. It wasn't going to be easy for Susanna to give Tyler up to Jim; it would be even harder for her to hand him over to Peggy. Susanna despised her, and Peggy couldn't really blame her. She hoped that someday Susanna would be able to see that the court had made the best decision for her son.

  "I've done everything I can to get ready," she said. "Now I just have to sit around here and be nervous. It would help if you'd sit with me."

  She showed Nancy the nursery while the coffee was brewing. She'd painted the room a pale yellow and added a wallpaper border of sunflowers. It cheered her every time she walked into the room.

  "This is gorgeous," Nancy said. She stroked her hand over the white crib.

  "We already had the crib and high chair and playpen and some toys, since we've had Tyler here every once in a while. He's really a good baby." Peggy felt herself tearing up. "He's been through so much and he's—a little trooper, you know? He endures whatever he has to and comes out smiling." She picked up the picture of Tyler from the white enameled dresser and handed it to Nancy. "He's about eight months there," she said.

  "Oh, he's adorable." Nancy grinned at the picture, then reached into the crib and pulled out a teddy bear. "This is one lucky little kid."

  Peggy stroked her hand over the stuffed bear. She hoped she would be able to wean Tyler from the monkey he carried with him everywhere. That monkey had been washed so many times it was more of a rag than a stuffed animal.

  Nancy looked at the picture again. "I heard he was sick when he was born," she said.

  "Yes. He was in terrible shape. Part of his aorta—the part closest to the heart—was too narrow." She had not seen Tyler then, but she'd heard about his condition from her brother. "His arms and legs were blue. He could hardly breathe, and for a while they didn't think he'd make it. He needed to have the narrow section of his aorta removed and a synthetic graft inserted. My brother—remember Ron?—did the surgery and now Tyler's fine." That her brother had saved Tyler's life seemed like a good omen to her. Her family could offer Tyler built-in medical care.
r />   "Does he need any more treatment?"

  "Just checkups. Yearly echocardiograms to make sure everything's working all right. But he should be fine. Jim's made sure that Susanna's gotten him all the medical follow-up he's needed so far."

  "Oh, I'm so glad they're giving the baby to you."

  "Me too, although I do feel badly for Jim's ex-wife." She didn't like to think about how Susanna must be feeling this morning.

  They walked back to the kitchen and Peggy poured each of them a cup of coffee. Sitting at the table, she opened the package Nancy had brought and uncovered a small, silver-topped photograph album.

  "Perfect!" she said, leaning over to give Nancy a kiss on the cheek. "Come back in a week and it will be full."

  "I plan to come back." Nancy blew on her coffee. "I want to meet this husband of yours. I've heard he's handsome as sin."

  Peggy laughed. "I'd have to agree. He's good-looking, intelligent, and a great lawyer," she said as she rested the photograph album on the table.

  Peggy was her husband's biggest admirer. Jim had grown up in a family of six children raised on a factory worker's salary, and he'd had to struggle for everything he had. He'd been student body president of his high school and won scholarships to any number of schools. He was one hundred percent self-made and proud of it.

  "Jim was at the top of our law school class," Peggy said, then added with a smile, "or maybe second to the top. We were always in competition with each other. I'm not sure which of us actually ended up in first place."

  "What does your family think of him? Are your parents still living in San Francisco?"

  "Yes, they're still there, and they're in love with him," she said. "They were here during the hearing, and they'll come back in a few weeks to spend some time with their new grandson." She wished she could add that her brother liked Jim as much as her parents did, but Ron had not yet warmed up to her new husband. She wasn't sure what the problem was, and she worried that Ron might think Jim's less than affluent background had attracted him to a woman who'd never wanted for anything. There'd been wealth in her family for generations, although her immediate family had certainly never lived ostentatiously. Her parents were philanthropists, firm believers in sharing what they had with those who had less, and that's the way she'd been raised. That's why she'd elected to work for Legal Aid instead of some posh law firm. And that's why Ron occasionally treated babies whose families could not ordinarily afford the best. But why there was this subtle, unspoken animosity between her brother and her husband, she didn't know.