Janeal concentrated on the van that carried Katie, pondering the idea that she was chasing herself.
What a silly idea. A lunatic idea. But she indulged in it a moment, allowed herself to feel intrigue rather than repulsion and fear. What laws of the universe had to have been violated for such a split to take place? What were the long-term consequences of such coexistence?
Janeal had not been joking with Alan when she said this world did not need two of her in it. And if Katie really was Janeal, it was to be expected that this whole public-servant act was merely part of a larger scheme to gain the upper hand in the world.
Katie would be competition. For more than Robert.
Lunatic or not, Janeal believed she must approach Katie in this way, as competition, from here forward.
She was slightly concerned that Lucille might see her in the rearview mirror, so she hung back as far as she dared, keeping two or three cars between them as the van headed into Taos. This strategy worked until they arrived in the small mountain town and Lucille turned off the main highway into the residential areas.
She let the van move ahead as far as she dared through the forested properties, which were large and buffered from each other by generous acreage marked off by split-rail fences and narrow gravel drives. Whenever Lucille made a turn, Janeal accelerated through the corners, worried she might lose her at another turn before the Kia caught up.
She almost did lose them once, at the end, when Janeal took a corner onto an empty street. She swore under her breath, afraid to have come this far without another way to find out where Lucille was going. She raced to each cross street, hoping for a glimpse of the van. Janeal was rewarded a half mile later, when she spotted the burly vehicle pulling into a long driveway. The van rounded a bend, to the front of the house, Janeal presumed.
After a few seconds of deliberation, Janeal directed the Kia past the gravel driveway at a crawl. She spotted the van, parked near the front door of a small log cabin. They must have gone inside. Outside the fence, a mailbox told her the house number. She made note of the street, took a U-turn another quarter mile down the lane, and mentally mapped her way back to the highway.
At a gas station perched at the edge of the busy road, Janeal pulled off and took out her cell phone. She scrolled through her list of calls received until she found the number she was looking for, then dialed out.
A woman answered. “Who is this?”
“Janeal Mikkado.”
“Why are you calling?”
“Where is Sanso?”
“As if I would give that information to you.”
“Callista, I made you a promise that I intend to keep.”
“He’s with me now, so I release you from your worthless promise.”
“But he still has a promise to keep for me.”
“I don’t care.”
“When he’s of sound enough mind to care himself, we’ll be right back where we started.”
Callista did not reply to that.
“He told you about Katie Morgon?” Janeal asked.
“He finds that funny. The humor practically killed him.” She said it slightly off of the mouthpiece, as if talking to him. Janeal pictured a shadowy, unsanitary dive and some rough-jawed bartender stitching up Sanso’s gunshot wound with whiskey and an upholstery needle. It would serve him right.
“Katie has left Hope House,” Janeal said. The line was still live, and Callista still mute, so she continued, “Tell Sanso I expect him to finish what he started. I have an address.”
“Give it to me.”
“First, I need you to get me a hotel room in Taos. I want you to reserve it in your name, because Robert will have his friends looking for me. How far are you and Sanso from Taos?”
“A couple hours.”
“Hours?”
“We couldn’t exactly patch him up in Santa Fe, now, could we?”
“When will he be ready to go?”
“When he says he is.”
“Make a decision, Callista. I need to know when you’re going to be here.”
The woman sighed. “Give us until tomorrow night.”
Tomorrow night? Janeal would have to come up with a plan to get Robert out of Katie’s company by then. They’d be joined at the hip otherwise.
An idea came to her.
“Fine. Make my reservation for two nights. Call me when you have it booked.”
Janeal hung up and considered that she needed to move the Kia off the main drag. She might have to ditch it completely, as it wouldn’t take long for the Hope House staff to notice it missing and Robert to connect its disappearance to her.
She was contemplating the best way to do this without stranding herself when her phone rang. She checked the ID, having let numerous calls go to voice mail during the last couple days, and didn’t recognize the number. She didn’t answer. Seconds after it went to her voice mail, the phone rang again. Same number.
This pattern repeated itself two more times. She would have shut off the phone if she wasn’t awaiting Callista’s call. As it was, whoever couldn’t live without the sound of her voice would block Callista from coming through at all. The fifth time the number rang in, Janeal lost her patience.
“Who is this?” she snapped.
“Robert Lukin.”
Janeal swallowed, having expected anyone but him. She calculated what posture he expected her to take in this conversation. Without knowing precisely what Robert knew, she was lost.
“Who?” she said lamely.
“Is this Jane Johnson?” he asked.
Go with the flow. “Yes.”
“But you’re Janice Regan.”
Janeal groaned inwardly. “I’m sorry. Do I know you?”
“You knew me once, but I can’t say I know you anymore. Janeal Mikkado.”
Janeal’s breath left her. She almost hung up the phone but sensed he would only call back.
“I don’t know what you’re—”
“Don’t you dare pretend not to know what I mean. Lying to your best friends about who you are is exactly the kind of thing you’d do after fifteen years of practice. You’re Janeal all right. You’re Janeal to the nth degree.”
She couldn’t see any way out except via a road she had navigated many, many times over her life since leaving the kumpanía: the road that put her in control of the conversation.
“I’m sorry, Robert.”
“For what? For pretending? For bringing Sanso to Katie’s door and almost getting her killed? For slinking away while your family went up in flames and letting us think you were dead ?”
Janeal closed her eyes. “You didn’t know Katie was alive either.”
“Katie has a pretty good excuse. What’s yours?”
“Sanso took me, Robert. He killed my father and took me and threatened to kill Katie if I didn’t come with him. He . . . he shot Dad and tied Katie to a chair and set the building on fire. I didn’t have a choice.”
“We always have a choice.”
Her anger flared. “Well what would you have done?”
Robert dropped the volume of his voice slightly. “You tell me.”
“He promised,” Janeal said. “Sanso promised to let her go, but I . . . I never saw her. Callista told me Katie burned to death.”
“No one thought she survived.”
“I died too, Robert. I thought I had lost everything.” She strained her voice as much as possible. “Including you. Seeing you yesterday . . .”
“How long were you with Sanso?” he asked.
“Two years. I was his prisoner.” Would he believe her?
“How’d you get out?”
She imagined him in this mode with some of the drug dealers he had brought down. It irked her that he might place her in the same category of people who needed a full inquisition.
“Very long story.”
Neither of them said anything for a moment.
“Did Katie tell you how she got out?” Janeal asked through conjured tears.
“She doesn’t like to talk about that night much.” This information gave Janeal some relief. At least Robert’s anger didn’t stem from some revelation of her guilt in everything. She wondered if Robert had questioned Katie’s identity in the way she did.
Of course not. Why would he, if she didn’t talk about that night much? Maybe she didn’t talk about herself much.
Talk about herself. Janeal almost laughed at that.
Maybe she really was going nuts.
“I’m sure you don’t like to talk about it either.” She was intentionally open-ended, believing that he would tell her as much or as little as he wanted.
He said nothing.
“But you escaped okay,” she prodded.
“Define okay.”
“Robert, this is so hard for me. I wish I had known. I would have done anything. For you, for Katie . . .”
“You could have found me if you wanted to.”
Was it an accusation? Janeal blinked and opted for defensiveness.
“How? How could I have done that, with the DEA practically setting you up in a witness protection program? Sanso has eyes . . . everywhere. If I had gone back to New Mexico, he would have followed me, found me . . .”
“So instead you changed your name and took a high-profile job in New York City, where you’d be in the public eye.”
“Why are you so angry with me?”
“Maybe because I’m just now discovering that you walked away without looking back. I can’t imagine it was that hard for you. You never wanted to stay in that camp anyway—”
“What else could I have done?”
“Wasn’t it the perfect opportunity for you to get out into the big world, have some sugar daddy to pave your way?”
“Robert.”
He took a deep breath. “When did you find out about Katie and me?”
“When you arrested Sanso. I contacted Brian Hoffer about doing a story—” She caught herself. If Brian had explained anything about the story to Robert, she might have tipped her hand.
She filled her cheeks with air and then let it go.
He didn’t seem to notice. “He told me you called the story off,” Robert said.
“When I realized who we were talking about, I did. To put you and Katie in the spotlight like that—Sanso already had his eyes on you, and then he escaped.”
Her lies were spinning out more easily than she anticipated.
“So why didn’t you come? Why didn’t you call the house, tell Katie everything, get us together? You went to a lot of trouble with that getup of yours. Why?”
“I had a flight booked when the news about Sanso’s escape broke. It wasn’t too hard to guess that he’d go searching for you right away. And if I showed up looking like Janeal . . .”
“Did he know you as Jane?”
“No. But my appearance hadn’t changed much. I lost some weight, gained a few lines on my face.”
Robert’s tone softened. “That hair color is terrible.”
“It works.”
“Maybe you should have stayed in New York. Waited him out.”
“I had to at least see you. And Katie.” She tinted her words with worry. "I can’t imagine what she’s been through.”
“She’s an amazing person.” The admiration in Robert’s tone rubbed Janeal the wrong way. She couldn’t prevent the thought that Katie’s death fifteen years ago might have been the more merciful outcome for everyone.
“You’ve had some time to catch up with each other.”
“A couple days.”
“She talk about me?”
Robert hesitated. “When were you going to tell us who you were?”
“I don’t know. I couldn’t . . . When I saw what had happened to Katie, I didn’t know if I ever could.” She didn’t like the way the conversation had begun to slide.
“Not even to warn us that Sanso was on his way?”
“How could I have known? You knew that he’d escaped. What else could I have told you?”
Robert’s sigh pressed down on her. “Everything you’re saying . . . you’ve got to know that it looks like you’re in bed with Sanso. It’s so easy to believe, after everything you’ve done, that you would—”
“Oh, Robert. No. It’s not true. I’d never—”
“Where are you?”
“I had to get away. I had to think about what to do next. Do you know where Sanso is?”
“Not yet.”
“I took the Kia. Can you get Lucille to give me a day to get it back to the house?”
“That’s not my call.”
“Please. I’ll report in to you. I couldn’t stay there, and I don’t know where to go as long as Sanso is . . . unaccounted for.”
"It’s not for me to promise.”
“Please. If I mean anything to you.”
“Janeal . . .”
Oh, it felt good to hear him say her name! Her heart filled with a warmth she hadn’t felt in years. Maybe she could find her way back to the person she used to be, the person she was when he was near.
"Janeal, look. You’re on your own here. I need to take care of Katie right now. She’s my first priority.”
The warmth that had filled her turned frigid. You don’t know what you’re saying. You may think you love her, but she’s not the girl who vied for your attention back when we were kids! She stared out the windshield at a couple walking by, holding hands. How could Katie have worked her magic over him so quickly?
The phone beeped to indicate an incoming call.
"You love her,” she mumbled.
"What? I can’t hear you.”
You love me. You think you love Katie Morgon but you love me. That scarred piece of trash is me, but she’s not the one you want, Robert. If only you knew how deceived you are! I’m the real thing; she’s nothing but a conniving imposter. A deformed, lying witch who has her spell over you. She has nothing to offer you. But I do. I know what it takes. The men love me—Milan, Sanso, a dozen others who have recognized
— Janeal?”
“What?”
“You’re not going to vanish again, are you?”
“Where do I have to go, Robert?”
The phone beeped again.
“Off to some new life, new name, whatever it is.”
She pondered this. “That’s not the answer, is it? I can’t keep running.”
“Eventually your sins catch up to you.”
She bristled at his implication. Maybe because it was true.
“I’ll call you.” She hung up before he could say anything more, and checked the incoming number. Callista.
“Yes.”
“You’re at the Pueblo Vista Lodge.” The voice was Sanso’s. “Callista will text you the reservation number.”
“You’ll meet me there tomorrow night?”
“Sometime tomorrow. I’m full of surprises.” Someone close to Sanso made a remark that caused him to laugh. “My Callista thinks we should leave you to handle Katie yourself and head south.”
She was certainly capable of taking matters into her own hands, except that her life would be simpler if someone else would kill Katie. If she did it herself, Robert would never look at her again.
On the other hand, killing Katie would be like a suicide rather than murder, wouldn’t it? Now there was an interesting idea. Of course, Robert wouldn’t buy it.
“Do whatever you want.”
“I want to keep my promises.”
“Where are you?”
“Las Vegas.”
“Nevada?”
“New Mexico. A good surgeon isn’t that hard to find, my love.”
“I’m surprised you don’t keep one on your payroll.”
“Too much ego for me. These little after-hours centers are much more manageable.”
“And I’ll leave you to work your magic. How do I know you won’t stand me up?”
“The same way I know you won’t vanish into thin air.”
“You trust me?”
“No. No, not at all. I only know that you need to know Katie is dead as badly as you once needed a million dollars.”
Janeal shook her head. She would stick around long enough this time to get Robert out of harm’s way and ensure Katie died. Then Sanso would never see her again.
As for her and Robert, she could only hope he’d come around eventually. They’d have time.