Hide (Detective D.D. Warren, #2)(53)

As if reading my mind, Catherine's head came up. She looked me in the eye: "Why are you here, Annabelle?"

"I don't know."

"Richard isn't your stalker. By the time you were seven, he was already sentenced to life in prison. Besides, Richard's fantasies involved physical intimidation and domination. He wasn't subtle enough for stalking."

"You were only twelve; it wasn't your fault."

She actually smiled at me. "You think I don't know that?"

"And you survived."

Now she laughed, a full throaty sound that caused several of the other diners to glance our way "You think I survived? Oh Annabelle, you are simply precious. Come now, as a seven-year-old target yourself, surely you learned something."

"I happen to be an expert kickboxer," I heard myself say stiffly. "My father took my safety very seriously—taught me self-defense, criminology one-oh-one, when to run, when to fight, and how to know the difference. I grew up with over a dozen different aliases, living in a dozen different cities. Trust me, I know how serious this is."

"Your father taught you?" Arched brow again.

"Yes."

"The academic from MIT?"

"The same."

"And how did your father know so much about criminology or self-defense?"

I shrugged. "Necessity is the mother of invention. Isn't that what they say?"

Catherine stared at me in bemusement. "Wait, wait," she said, when she could tell I was getting pissy again, "I'm not trying to mock you. I want to understand. When this all happened, your father…"

"He moved my family away We packed our suitcases in the middle of the afternoon, loaded up the car, and disappeared."

"No!"

"Yes."

"With fake names and everything?"

"Absolutely. There is no other way to be safe. Which reminds me, you're supposed to be calling me Tanya."

She waved away my alias, clearly unconcerned. "And did your father get another job with a university in Florida?"

"Couldn't. Not without a curriculum vitae, and fake driver's licenses rarely come with those kinds of attachments. He drove a taxi."

"Really? And your mother?"

I shrugged. "Once a homemaker, always a homemaker, I guess."

"But she didn't protest? She didn't try to stop him? Both of your parents did this for you?"

I was growing puzzled now "Well, of course. What else was there to do?"

Catherine sat back. She picked up her tea. Her hand had started to shake, causing the liquid to slosh. She set the china cup back down.

"My parents never spoke of what happened," she said abruptly. "One day, I vanished. Another day, I returned home. We never spoke of the time in between. It was like the twenty-eight days had been some minor blip in the space-time continuum, best left forgotten. We stayed in the same house. I returned to the same school. And my parents resumed their same old lives.

"I never forgave them for that. I never forgave them for being able to still live, still function, still breathe, when every part of me hurt so much I wanted to tear the house apart board by board. I wanted to gouge out my own eyeballs. I wanted to yell and scream so badly, I couldn't make a single sound.

[page]"I hated that house, Annabelle. I hated my parents for not saving me. I hated the block I lived on. And I hated every single child in my school who had walked home safely on October twenty-second without trying to help a stranger find a lost dog.

"And they whispered, you know. They told stories about me on the playground, shared winks and nudges in the locker room. And I never said a word because everything they whispered was true. Being a victim is a one-way ticket, Annabelle. This is who you are now, and no one will ever let you go back."

"That's not true," I protested. "Look at you—you are not weak or defenseless. When Umbrio got out of prison, you didn't just curl up in a ball. You shot him, for God's sake, and more power to you. You met the challenge. You won, Catherine.

"Not like me. I'm all training and no trial. I've spent my entire life running and I don't even know who it is I'm supposed to fear. 'Can't trust anyone,' was my father's favorite motto. 'Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you.' I don't know. Maybe my father had a point. Seems like it's always the handsome, charming husband who brutally murders his wife, the mild-mannered Boy Scout leader who's secretly a serial killer, the quiet coworker who one day opens up with an AK-47. Hell, I'm suspicious of the mailman."

"Oh, me, too," Catherine said immediately. "And utility workers, maintenance workers, and customer-service representatives. The amount of information they have at their fingertips is positively scary."

"Exactly!"

"I formed a shell company," she said matter-of-factly. "Put everything in the company's name and—badda bing, badda boom— ceased to exist on paper. It's the only way to be safe. I can have Carson look into it for you."

"Thanks, but I don't exactly have those kinds of assets…"

"Nonsense, it's about security, not money. Trust me on this one. I'll have Carson set you up. You need to think about the future, Annabelle. The real trick to security is keeping one step ahead."