But the fact that her family was this close, just beyond her reach, made her know she couldn’t pull back now. She hadn’t seen them in over a year. Suddenly Kate wasn’t sure what to do. She didn’t know if there were agents inside. If their phones were bugged. Maybe she should wait for them at the squash club? Maybe she should turn around and do this another day?
“What do you want to do, miss?” the driver asked, pointing toward the meter now.
“I’m sorry. I’m not sure.”
Finally she took out her cell phone. Her fingers were trembling a little, sweaty, and she felt like she was back in her shell, grabbing hold of the oars at the start of an important race. Nervously, she punched in the number the girl had given her at the squash club. It started ringing. Her stomach was knotted. Any second she expected voices to start shouting and lights to go on.
It was Emily who picked up. “Hullo.”
Kate could barely contain herself. “I was just wondering what you might say to an all-expense-paid dream date with Stephan Jenkins of Third Eye Blind?”
There was a pause. “Kate?”
“Yeah, Em …” Kate felt her eyes well up. “It is. It’s me, baby.…”
Suddenly she heard Emily break out screaming, “It’s Kate! It’s Kate!” It was like she was tearing up the stairs through the house. “Mom, Just, Kate’s on the phone! How did you find this number? I can’t believe you’re calling here! What are you, totally crazy?”
Kate laughed, giddy. “I don’t know.… Maybe I am.”
She heard voices in the background. Her mother and Justin surrounding the phone. Em didn’t want to give it up. “God, it’s been so long.… There’s so much I have to tell you, Kate. Where are you?” Emily asked.
Kate stared at the house. For a second she had to dig deeply to find her voice.
“I’m right outside.”
Kate told the cabbie to turn off his lights and wait, which, assuming he was no more than an unwitting player in some tearful family reunion, he grudgingly agreed to do.
Then, couched in darkness, she ducked down a pathway her mother told her about that ran past the cedar-and-glass house. It was a local lane down to the lake, with a short pier at the end.
Kate realized she couldn’t exactly ring the bell at the front door and let them all leap into her arms the way she’d always pictured. Not with these WITSEC watchdogs creeping around. For all she knew, there was some kind of manhunt going on. And at this point she wasn’t quite sure if they were there to protect her family from a hit or if they were waiting for her father or her to appear. Anyway, these guys were about the last people she was inclined to trust right now.
She wasn’t turning back.
A white picket fence led along the property, separating the two lots with a line of dense hedges and pines. Lights were visible from inside the neighboring house. Kate could see a woman in the kitchen wearing a striped, Adidas-style warm-up top, feeding two young kids at the island.
All of a sudden, Kate felt movement on the other side of the fence.
Footsteps crunching on the gravel driveway. The unexpected sound of a car door opening, and a light flashing on. Kate’s heart came to a dead stop. She crouched as low as she could beneath the hedge line.
Her family’s house had one of those freestanding garages, set back from the house. There was a car there, and someone stepping out of it. She heard the crackle of a radio above her, only a few feet away. “Kim here … I’m just going around to check out the front.”
Kate stiffened.
She pressed herself deeper against the hedges, clinging to a branch for support. Until the branch began to give way.
Kate held there, motionless. For a second she was sure she was about to keel over. I might as well sound a goddamned alarm. She sucked in her breath as tightly as she could, trying to work through how she would explain herself with the lights on and the guns drawn if she was caught sneaking around someone’s property.
After a while she heard the sound of the radio again, the footsteps receding up the drive. “Kim, again, I’m coming back to the house.…”
Kate’s whole body seemed to exhale in a spasm of relief. At the sound of the screen door closing, she started to scurry in a tight tuck toward the backyard. She found a gate and quietly unlatched it. The yard was large. She could make out a pool and a trampoline. Even a half-pipe for in-line skates. A goddamn amusement park. The picket fence continued along to the lake.
Now the coast was clear. Kate scurried low along the fence to the end where the property sloped down to the lake. She squeezed through an opening in the brush and was able to yank aside a wire mesh backing on the fence and pull herself through.
Now she faced the rear of her parents’ yard.
The house was lit up. Floods in the tall trees faced the water. On a screened-in back porch with some Adirondack chairs, Kate spotted an agent with a radio, leaning against the wall.
She also saw the boathouse her mother had told her about, and at its base a short pier.
Her heart was pounding. How was she going to get there? The man in back would see her running. Surely he would hear any sudden noise. The boathouse was at least twenty yards away.
Kate crawled down the pitch line to the edge of the lake, grasping at clumps of weeds and grasses, sliding down the short embankment onto the shore. She pulled herself along the edge, her sneakers sinking into the soggy soil. So far, so good. She was only a few yards away. She didn’t know where anyone was. Only that it was dark and that she was crazy for doing this.
Finally she made her way to the base of the pier. It was only about ten feet long, with a small powerboat moored alongside. Kate got her jeans wet maneuvering around the side, but she continued, grabbing on to a branch and pulling herself up to the boathouse, where she was concealed. The only light came from the spotlights in the trees. She’d made it. The agent on the porch had barely moved.
The door that led inside was ajar. She cracked it wider and entered the boathouse. There was an exposed bulb on the ceiling, turned off. She didn’t dare turn it on. She tripped over an oar in the dark, but it didn’t fall. There was a rowboat on a stand, orange life preservers stacked neatly on a shelf. Other than that, it was just dark, creepy, and musty. Cicadas buzzed.
Now she just had to wait.
Kate stepped quietly across the shed to a small window that looked out at the house. The guy was still sitting there.
Suddenly she felt a hand on her shoulder.
Kate almost jumped out of her skin, turning.
With great relief she stared into the joyous face of her mother.
“Oh, Jesus, Mom …” Kate gasped, latching onto her mother’s shoulders. They took a look at each other, then melted uncontrollably into each other’s arms.
“Kate …”Sharon squeezed her tightly, pressing her hair. “Oh, God, I can’t believe it’s you.”
Kate couldn’t help it. She just started to sob.
It was seeing her mother’s face, at last, at the end of this impossible, nerve-racking journey. Everything simply gave out. Emily and Justin crept from the