She had not followed Jackson’s advice regarding the knife wound to her jaw. She had had it stitched, but let the scar remain. It wasn’t all that noticeable, but every time she looked in the mirror, it was a stark reminder of where she had come from, how she had gotten here. It was her most visible tie to the past, and not a pleasant one. That was the reason she would not cover it over with surgery. She wanted to be reminded of the unpleasantness, of the pain.
People she had grown up with would probably have recognized her; however, she never planned to see anyone like that here. She had resigned herself to wearing a big hat and sunglasses whenever she ventured out into public, which wasn’t very often. A lifetime of hiding from the world: that had come with her deal.
She went and sat back down on the front seat of the BMW, rubbing her hands back and forth across the padded steering wheel. She continually looked back down the road for any sign of her pursuer; however, the only sounds were her car’s engine and her own uneven breathing. Huddled in her leather jacket, she hitched up her jeans, swung her long legs inside the car, and closed the door and locked it.
She took off and for a few moments as she drove her thoughts centered on the man in the truck. He had obviously helped her. Was he just a good Samaritan who had happened along at the right time? Or was he something else, something more complex than that? She had lived with this paranoia for so long now that it was like an exterior coating of paint. All observations had to pass through its screening first, all conclusions were based in some way upon how she perceived the motivation of anyone colliding unexpectedly with her universe. It all came down to one grim fact: fear of discovery. She took one long, deep breath and wondered for the hundredth time if she had made a grievous mistake by returning to the United States.
Riggs drove his battered truck up the private road. He had kept a close eye out for the Honda on his return down the road, but the car and driver had not reappeared. Going up to the house, he figured, was the quickest way to find a telephone, and perhaps also seek an explanation of sorts for this morning’s events. Not that he deserved one, but his intervention had helped the woman and he felt that was worth something. In any event, he couldn’t exactly let it rest now. He was surprised that no one stopped him on the drive up. There was no private security, apparently. He had met with the owner’s representative in town; this was his first visit to the estate, which had been christened Wicken’s Hunt long ago. The home was one of the most beautiful in the area. It had been constructed in the early 1920s with craftsmanship that was simply nonexistent today. The Wall Street magnate who had had it built as a summer retreat had jumped off a New York skyscraper during the stock market crash of ’29. The home had passed through several hands, and had been on the market six years before being sold to the current owner. The place had required substantial renovation. Riggs had talked to some of the subcontractors employed to do that work. They had spoken with awe of the craftsmanship and beauty of the place.
Whatever moving trucks had hauled the owner’s possessions up the mountain road had apparently done so in the middle of the night, because Riggs could find no one who had seen them. No one had seen the owner, either. He had checked at the courthouse land records. The home was owned by a corporation that Riggs had never heard of. The usual channels of gossip had not yielded an answer to the mystery, although St. Anne’s-Belfield School had admitted a ten-year-old girl named Lisa Savage who had given Wicken’s Hunt as her home address. Riggs had heard that a tall young woman would occasionally drop off and pick up the child; although she had always worn sunglasses and a large hat. Most often picking up the little girl would be an elderly man who had been described to Riggs as built like a linebacker. A strange household. Riggs had several friends who worked at the school but none of them would talk about the young woman. If they knew her name, they wouldn’t say what it was.