When the bags were packed, when they had their coats on, Laura repeatedly called Pepper. The cat wouldn’t respond to her, and a quick tour of the house didn’t turn it up anywhere. Pepper was hiding, being difficult, as any self-respecting cat would have been in those circumstances.
‘Leave it,’ Earl whispered. ‘Someone can stop by to feed it tomorrow.’
They went through the laundry room into the garage. They didn’t switch off any lights behind them, because that might have signaled their intentions. Earl put the suitcases in the trunk of Laura’s blue Honda.
She didn’t need to ask why they were taking her car instead of his. His was parked outside, at the curb, and if those FBI agents across the street saw Laura and Melanie heading for it, they’d want to know where they were going and why; they might even prevent them from leaving.
Of course, their hurried flight might be a mistake because the FBI might want nothing more than to help. Or it might not. In either case, their best hope was to trust only in Earl Benton.
He put Melanie in the backseat and fastened the belt across her lap.
From the front seat, Laura glanced back and was startled by her daughter’s appearance. In the closed garage, illuminated only by the car’s ceiling light, the girl’s gaunt face was fleshed out by shadows; the harsh lines and sharp bones were softened by the moon-pale glow. For the first time, Laura realized how very pretty her little girl would be when she had gained some weight. She would be utterly and miraculously transformed by a few pounds and by peace of mind, both of which would come with time. Abruptly, Laura was able to see the potential within the battered clay, the familiar within the alien, the beauty within the grayness. Time, like a painter’s brush, would layer other experiences and emotions over Melanie’s now-bright agony, and when the paint of days and weeks and years had become sufficiently thick to all but conceal the horror of her ordeal with her father, she would no longer be a skeletal, angular, strange creature with death-pale skin and wounded eyes; she would, in fact, be quite lovely. That realization made Laura’s breath catch, and it renewed her hope.
More important, the kind light and caressing shadows allowed her to perceive much of herself in her daughter, and that perception had an even more profound effect on her. Intellectually, she had known that Melanie resembled her — evidence of her genes was clear in the child’s haunted face, in spite of the abuse that had pulled it into a tortured mask — but until now she had not quite related to that likeness on a deep emotional level. Seeing herself in her daughter, she had a more intense awareness that her child’s suffering was her own suffering, that her child’s future was her own future, and that she could have no happiness until Melanie was happy too. Whereas the realization of the girl’s underlying beauty had renewed Laura’s hope, this second insight renewed her determination to find the truth and to beat their enemies even if the whole damned world was aligned against them.
Earl got behind the wheel. He looked over at Laura and said, ‘It’s going to get a little wild for the next few minutes.’
‘It’s already gotten wild,’ she said, buckling her seat belt.
‘I’ve had a driving course that teaches avoidance of terrorists and kidnappers, so I’m not being as reckless as it’s going to seem.’
‘Recklessness won’t bother me in the least,’ she said. ‘Not after seeing that wind-thing smash its way into my kitchen. Besides, I’ve always thought it would be a lot of fun to drive like James Bond.’
He smiled at her. ‘You’ve got grit.’
As he started the engine, she picked up the automatic garage-door opener that lay on the console tray between the seats.
He said, ‘Now.’
Laura pressed the button on the remote-control device, and the garage door started to swing up. Before the door had lifted all the way, Earl threw the car into reverse and backed under it with only an inch to spare, moving fast.