In Between (5 page)

“Mail them where? Who to?”

“Let's check on everyone and then go sit under a tree and I'll tell you the rest of my story.”

A few minutes later they sat in the grass under an oak tree in the side yard. The gun was on the grass between them. “When I found out the whole story about my father's accident and the insurance, I started planning,” Lori said. “I knew I was going after Ben, but I also knew that when I made my move he'd know I did it. I was afraid he'd gun me down if he possibly could, or have someone do it for him. I needed a place to hide, so I created a second identity. It took months, but I found an isolated house to buy, paid cash, and I got various identification cards. I opened a checking account and put all utilities and other recurring bills on autopay. There's enough money in my checking account to pay them for ten years or more. My new personality wouldn't hold up if a real investigation ever happened, but why would it? People don't ask too many questions if you pay cash, don't hold wild parties, or make noise some other way. Besides, I wasn't doing anything illegal. I met a couple of my neighbors and let them believe I was a traveling consultant and needed a retreat now and then, and made it clear that I wanted privacy. They think I'm with a man at the retreat. I've been going there at least two weekends each month. Lori Earle flies to San Francisco and Bernadette rents a car and drives to her retreat. That's why I didn't apply for the job with Ben until two years ago. I wasn't ready until then. I'm going to mail all that blackmail material to my alter ego.”

Sam swallowed hard. “Wow!” he said softly. “So the stuff will be there, but how will anyone ever know they're safe?”

“They'll know when I send that material back to various owners.”

“And you've figured out how to do that?”

She nodded. “But the next thing we have to do is get those envelopes up to our room and let me address them, and then get them down to the mailbox. That's going to get tricky with so many people traipsing about.”

A woman came around the corner of the house and sat on a bench a few feet away from them. She lighted a cigarette.

“Mrs. Morehead, the cook,” Lori said. “God, I hope she doesn't spot that.” She motioned toward the gun.

“Like you said, it's going to be tricky.” He put his leg over the gun, which didn't help since his leg passed through it.

Mrs. Morehead never even glanced in their direction. After she wandered away, Sam snatched up the gun, trotted to the high stone wall and threw the gun over it.

“Lori,” he said, dropping down to the grass by her again, “if Ben dies, does that mean the Voice will appear and collect us? You know, we take the next step. Or,” he said in a lower voice, “are we way out of sequence? You're twenty-eight years old, and I'm thirty. We both would normally have another thirty, forty, even fifty years to go. Barring another joint accident, of course. How likely would that have been? We didn't even know each other until this. How many people will have to die before it's our turn? What if we're in-between for decades?”

She looked stricken, aghast. “Here, or in quarantine for fifty years? That infinite terminal for fifty years!”

For the next several hours, they flitted back and forth, checking on everyone's whereabouts, on the progress the computer expert was making, on the cook, and Arthur, but there was never a good chance to retrieve the wastebasket with the envelopes until nearly six o'clock.

“They're having appetizers,” Lori reported then. “Let's do it now. Arthur's in the kitchen eating. We'll have to hurry.”

She kept an eye on the group, again in the party room, sitting at a table spread with appetizers. Sam went to the screening room, picked up the wastebasket, and after a cautious scrutiny of the corridor, made a dash for the stairs. He raced to the bedroom and called to Lori to join him. She was there instantly. Then, with the door closed, she addressed the envelopes.

“We can use the balcony,” he said. “Me below, you toss the stuff down and we hide it until the coast is clear to the mailbox.”

She nodded and finished the last of the envelopes, all addressed, stamped, ready for USPS to do its job.

They had to wait, however. When Sam stepped out, he saw Darla heading toward her room. He followed and watched her go straight to the underwear drawer and feel about in it. After a second or two, she began to throw things onto the floor. She did the same with the other drawers, and then sat down on the side of the bed. She was pale, breathing hard. A flush began to suffuse her face, and a furious expression compressed her lips and narrowed her eyes. She cursed and walked from the room stiffly.

When Sam told Lori, she said, “Oh God! What if they start a search? Darla can pretend to have lost something else and they could be all over the place searching. We have to get this stuff out now.”

They gathered up the envelopes, ran to Darla's room and to the balcony. Sam vanished and reappeared below. She tossed the envelopes down, closed the balcony door and the drapes over it, then joined Sam. Hurriedly they gathered up the envelopes, ran to the nearest bush and thrust the envelopes into the greenery.

Before they had a chance to discuss their next move, the computer expert appeared with Arthur on their way to retrieve the nerd's car. Arthur watched until the car reached the gate, it opened, and the car rolled out of sight. Arthur returned inside the house with Lori and Sam at his heels.

They could hear Ben bellowing before the door opened, and the roar was ear-splitting as they approached the party room. Ben was cursing Sam, cursing Wannamaker, the computer expert, the world and everything and everyone in it.

“No play,” Sam said in an undertone to Lori. He was grinning. She grinned back at him.

“Let's get that stuff in the mail while they're all occupied,” she said.

They returned to the shrubbery where they had hidden the envelopes, gathered them up and made their way to the gate. The mailbox was situated outside the ironwork the gate was anchored to, with the slot for outgoing mail accessible to those within the estate properly, the retrieval door accessible to the mail carrier on the outside. The guardhouse was across the driveway, and the guard was watching a ball game.

“Here goes,” Sam said, walking to the mailbox with the envelopes. The guard continued to watch television, and Sam continued to have a working hand, a working body. He opened the mail slot and deposited the envelopes, then hurried back to Lori's side.

“Done,” she cried. “We did it!”

“I still don't see how that's going to help,” he said. To his surprise Lori turned and flung her arms about him, held him tightly.

“Close your eyes,” she said. “Hold me.”

He closed his eyes and held her.

“Look!” she cried. “Just look!” She unwrapped her arms around him and backed away.

They were in a room with knotty pine paneling, a couple of easy chairs before a fireplace with wood ready to burn, a sofa with a brightly colored blanket draped over it. There were bookshelves with books, a television, a desk, pictures on the walls…

“My retreat,” Lori said.

“But how…?”

“I began to think about the Voice,” she said. “Everything else was implanted except the instructions that we couldn't leave the property. Remember? That was spoken, not implanted, as if she had forgotten, or had been interrupted before she got to it. I didn't know if it would work, but if it hadn't worked, at least we'd both have a hug. Welcome to Bernadette Lowry's house, Sam. There's my computer on the desk and your stories and novel are on my hard drive. I left a back door open on your computer so if you want to restore that stuff after your sister gets it, I can do that.” She spun around, flinging out her hands. “My room. Yours, the guest room, is over there, kitchen, bathroom. If you want to go back to the mansion, go. I won't go with you. If the Voice wants to collect me, she'll have to find me first. I'm not going to spend fifty years in quarantine if I can help it.” She ran to a closed door, saying, “I'm going to change my clothes. There's beer in the fridge. See you in a few minutes.”

Sam stared at her, stared at the room they were in, and slowly walked toward the kitchen.

He had never wanted a beer more in his life.

Lori's voice floated out from her bedroom. “We'll have to borrow a neighbor's car to get stuff to a mailbox. I think at about three in the morning might be a safe time.”

Borrow? She meant steal. Steal someone's car. He shook his head. They had to go back. The person behind the Voice, the entity, official, whatever she was, would find them. There could be a penalty, punishment, something.

“I thought I might be in hiding for a long time, so I stocked up on beer, wine, food in the freezer,” Lori called out. “A lot of ice cream. Not that we'll need it, but for taste, something to do. Barbecues or something.”

When and if Ben died, they might just go on to the next step, not remain in quarantine, not continue in this in-between phase. Or it might be fifty years. What kind of punishment? He thought of his mother. Fire and brimstone?

“There's a hiking trail down to the ocean. Great beach, but the water's freezing.”

He opened a door to outside and drew in a long breath of fir-scented air. A forest, a hint of ocean air, cool and refreshing, long, slanting rays of evening sunshine filled with dancing dust motes, a bird call… He heard Lori's door open and close and turned to tell her they had to go back.

Instead, he gulped a quick intake of breath. Her hair was down to her shoulders, lustrous black in soft waves. She was wearing jeans and a close fitting t-shirt, sneakers. She looked great, better than great.

“Have you decided?” she asked.

“I'm not going anywhere,” he said. “There are seven billion people on earth. Let them find us if they can.”

For a moment Lori looked shy, surprised, then she smiled. “Let's walk down to the beach. If the fog doesn't roll in we might get a nice sunset.”

It was a good trail through the woods. Where it got a little steep he took her hand and he continued to hold it when they reached the sand. As she had said, it was a good beach, small, intimate, sheltered. Gazing seaward, he could see the white wall of fog already close and moving in. He tightened his grip on her hand as the first wisps of ocean fog curled around their legs.

“If we were regular people,” he said, his voice unexpectedly hesitant and husky, “what we'd do now is hightail it back to our retreat, maybe light a fire, maybe go to bed while we wait for the house to warm up.”

“I'm feeling pretty regular,” she said, her voice low and almost as husky as his.

“What I have to do is sort all my material on Ben, seven identical sets of pictures, DVDs, audio tapes, write a note to the recipients of the stuff, put it all in the prepaid post office boxes and everything will be ready to mail. That's going to be tricky, you know. We have to pick our time when there's no one around, and that's hardly ever.”

Sam grinned at her. They were in the kitchen, having coffee and cookies for breakfast, just like regular people, he thought happily. “I want to look in on Ben sooner or later,” he said. “He must have learned that his safe was robbed by now.”

She nodded. “It's going to be a couple days before we get the blackmail stuff. And not much to do while we wait.” She picked up another cookie.

“So we play at being regular people,” he said, his happiness mounting.

It was late in the afternoon the next day when they popped in at the mansion that was strangely quiet. A new man was in the party room reading a magazine, and another new man was in the kitchen eating a sandwich. Ben was stretched out on a sofa, one leg dangling off, his eyes closed, breathing heavily, something between a snore and an asthmatic gasping for air.

“He's soused,” Sam said regarding him. “Looks like he's been drinking a lot.” There was an empty Jack Daniels bottle on the floor by the sofa, another half empty on a table near it. “I guess those guys are security. Let's have a quick look around.”

Darla's room had been ransacked, other rooms had been tossed and nothing restored. Arthur's room had been searched and he was not on the premises. It appeared that a hurried and careless search had been made of the entire mansion.

“Enough?” Lori asked.

“More than enough,” Sam said.

They flitted back to their retreat. “Way I see it happening,” Sam said, nursing a beer on the patio, “Ben went to his office and found his safe empty when he started to replace that snapshot. The security camera blocked by the pillow must have made him really sweat. No one had come or gone except the nerd and he couldn't have known about the safe. It had to have been an inside job and we know who was present. His partner, his lawyer, his security guard and his lover. And the cook in the kitchen. So he made a search for the missing envelopes and junk. Probably had Arthur search everyone and sent them all packing. Called in more security and canned Arthur, just in case, and now he's alone and hitting the booze. It looks like he landed on the slippery slope and it's downhill from here on out. Want to edit anything?”

She shook her head. “There are a couple of gossip blogs that we should keep an eye on. They always come up with the latest rumor whenever a celebrity is in doo doo.”

From various bloggers and online tabloids, they learned that Ben Carnahan was suffering from fatigue, that he'd had a stroke, that he had fallen and hit his head, that he'd had a heart attack, that Darla had shot him, or he had shot her, that his long-time attorney was retiring and planned on writing a true insider book about Carnahan, that Harrison Coolson was selling his interest in the studio and moving to Italy…

It was reported that the investigation concerning the fatal accident that had claimed the lives of two people in Ben Carnahan's Jaguar was focusing on Carnahan himself. A blogger had uncovered the story of Jacob Lieber, made the connection to Lori Lieber Earle, and speculated that perhaps Carnahan had had a motive in removing her. Two witnesses who had testified that Lieber had been drinking on the day of his death recanted, claiming that they had believed Carnahan when he made the statement, that they had repeated what they had been told. Another witness had since died, and two people had made sworn statements that Lieber had not had a drink all that afternoon.