"You really are quite the comedienne tonight, aren't you?"

Ruth smiled and dropped into the recliner.

"It's been nice to laugh for a change," Spencer said quietly. In fact, their fun earlier seemed to have changed the whole atmosphere here in the trailer. All three of them were more relaxed; it was almost like their living together was just ordinary.

"Yeah, Megan and I haven't laughed much lately either."

"So who's Jessie?" she asked without a hint of reproach. "Or should I ask who's Megan? And who's Karen?"

Ruth sighed heavily. She realized when they were in the bathroom that she had called her daughter by the wrong name in that brief moment of danger. Her first instinct was to deflect the question with simple lie, but it wasn't forthcoming. Her next thought was to just put the subject off-limits. She owed Spencer Rollins no explanations at all. But instead, she found herself wanting to open up, wanting to explain things so that Spencer could understand why she'd been so insistent about not wanting her here.

"Megan and Karen Oliver were two little girls that died a couple of years ago in a boating accident. Their grandfather had opened savings accounts for them at my bank, and Jessie and I needed new identities when we left. I was able to get their social security numbers from the accounts."

"Your husband must be some kind of beast if you have to run away and change your names."

Ruth nodded without looking up. "He never could deal with Jessie not being Little Miss Perfect all the time. He didn't have much patience for kids."

"So you left to get away from him."

"We're divorced. But he got primary custody."

"Wha? You're kidding!"

"I wish. He told a bunch of lies at our hearing. He said that I left Jessie home by herself; that I would sometimes go days without changing her or feeding her. He put on this big act and the judge bought it hook, line, and sinker. He didn't want her. He never wanted her. He just wanted to make sure I didn't get her."

"So you kidnapped her?"

Again, Ruth nodded, tears filling her eyes.

"She hated living there. She would scream her head off every time she had to go back. And then a couple of months ago I started finding bruises on her arms and legs. She always said she fell. I just wasn't going to let that happen to her anymore."

Now it all made sense why Ruth had taken her in without calling the police. Spencer reached out and laid a comforting hand on her shoulder. "I'd have done the same thing. I think anybody would."

"Well, I guess now you can see why I was sort of...."

"Yeah, I can see that my being here complicates things for you," Spencer said seriously. "I'll get out as soon as I can, Karen. Or should I call you something else?"

"My name's Ruth. But I need to move on from that. Jessie and I both do, so it'd be best if you could just call us Karen and Megan."

"Sure, whatever you want." Spencer was suddenly struck by the irony of their respective circumstances. "You know, it's amazing when you think about it, that both of us are hiding out, and that we ended up together."

Ruth shook her head and chuckled. "Yeah, like either of us didn't already have enough excitement in our lives."

"I know I really do complicate things for you, Ruth, but if I'd ended up in anyone else's car that night, I'd probably be dead by now. I really do owe you, and if there's anything I can do when this is over to help you and your daughter, I will."

"I don't think there's anything anybody can do," Ruth said, obviously discouraged. "I guess I need to get on to bed. I have a lot to do tomorrow, and Jessie will probably have me up at the crack of dawn to go see the puppies."

"Go on and take the bed. I'll be okay out here." She gestured toward the couch. "Besides, I'll be sleeping in tomorrow, on account of I'm so lazy."

CHAPTER 15.

SPENCER WOKE BEFORE dawn, her mind racing with the bits and pieces of information she had about what had gone down on Friday night. Getting out of this mess called for a careful plan, and she approached that like she did her programming tasks. First, she needed to step back and get the big picture. No matter what the circumstances now, where did she want to end up?

That was easy. She wanted to see Henry's killers brought to justice. She wanted to stop whatever it was that was going on at Margadon that made Henry's life expendable. And she wanted her own life back.

Rummaging through the kitchen drawers, she found a drawing tablet and a few crayons, selecting the blue one because its point was the sharpest. At the top of the page, she wrote Henry's name; beneath that, she scribbled fragments of the things he'd said: somebody fucked with it it's calling a different global it's backing out the cytokines skimming the books hidden field The programmer stared at the words for a long time, trying to imagine each of the steps her partner had taken to find the problem. His call hadn't come until almost midnight, so it must have been an arduous process. But following the trail had gotten him killed.

With that thought, Spencer added one more note: already called James That was why Henry was dead, because he had called James. So that meant that James knew about the changes in the program, and therefore, he knew what the program was doing. But he couldn't have done this on his own; he would have needed another programmer, since his own skills were rudimentary at best. Come to think of it, James had never struck her as being the brightest bulb in the pack anyway, so it was likely that he was just along for the ride by virtue of his position as controller. If they were skimming the books, like Henry had said, they needed someone like James to cover the gaps in inventory. But there had to be others involved; someone in production and probably even their supplier.

What didn't make sense at all was why the FBI "Will you get me some juice, please?"

Preoccupied with her analysis, Spencer was astonished to see the pajama-clad child standing before her clutching her doll. She had no idea how long the little girl had been standing there.

"Well, good morning!" Dropping her papers, she got up and went to the kitchen. "You want some cereal too?"

Jessie shook her head. "Toast and jelly."

"Toast and jelly," she repeated. "That sounds good. Maybe I'll have some too."

Minutes later, they were sharing breakfast when Ruth stumbled down the hall.

"Is there coffee?"

"Yes, there is. It was made by the Lazy Lady."

That got a giggle out of Jessie, and a smile from her mom.

"What kinds of things do you have to do today?" Spencer asked casually.

"I have to get my car registered, and get a new driver's license. Do you want me to pick up anything while I'm out?"

Anyone listening might have thought they'd been married fifteen years.

"Yeah, can you bring me a notebook of some sort? I borrowed a few pages from Megan's tablet. I hope that was okay."

"Of course."

"And maybe you could find me something a little more...adult to write with?" She held up the crayon she'd been using.

"You mean like markers or maybe a paintbrush?" Ruth teased. "I have a pen in my purse you're welcome to use. Anything else?"

"Gee, I was thinking more like a computer." Even that wouldn't help, though. What she needed to figure all of this out was access to her own terminal at Margadon, and that lay within an impenetrable firewall.

"Are we getting a computer, Mommy?" Jessie asked with excitement. First a puppy, now this!

"No! She's being silly. We can't afford a computer."

Spencer leapt off the couch and began pacing. "All I need is access to a computer. Henry sent it to the server. I'm sure of it."

"What are you talking about?"

Now excited, she explained. "Henry and I used to do a few jobs on the side, you know, contracting with small companies to write code. But we couldn't park that kind of stuff at Margadon, so we bought a server and set it up in Vienna. When we wanted to work on Margadon stuff at night or over the weekend, we'd send it to the server so we could both have access. I bet Henry sent what he found to the server."

"So how can you find out?"

"I need a computer with a modem."

"Well, we don't have either one. Even if we had a computer, I don't have a phone."

"We need some kind of Internet cafe."

"What about a library? Don't they have terminals?"

Spencer nodded. "Yeah, but they're public buildings. They might have some kind of surveillance. I could get caught. But worse than that is that they'll find the server and go after it. Then all of the evidence would be gone."

"Okay, listen. I need to get going on this car stuff. I have no idea how long we're going to be gone, but if you figure out how we can get to a computer, we'll go when I get back."

"Can I stay here with Spencer?"

"No, honey. You have to come with me."

"Why?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Duh! Both of you. Viv doesn't know Spencer is here, and she knows I wouldn't go off and leave you by yourself."

"Oh," the others said together.

"...so I told him like, I'm not gonna do that, and he goes, well why not, and I go, I'm just not, so then he goes...oh, shit! Not again! Melanie, I gotta go. There's a cop behind me and he's pulling me over. Bye!"

Sixteen-year-old Carly Porr had been driving less than two months, and this was the third occasion on which she'd been stopped. The first time, she'd gotten a stern warning about rolling through a stop sign. The second was for a series of vehicle safety violations: one headlight and both brake lights in the old Plymouth were out, the tires were nearly bald, and one of the windshield wipers flopped aimlessly in the rain. For all that, she'd gotten ticketed, but it convinced her father to buy her something a little more road-worthy.

That's how she came to be driving the brand new Saturn; at least it was new to Carly. They'd picked it up from her dad's friend Dick Huggins in Farmington on Sunday.

"License and registration, please," the uniformed officer demanded.

"What'd I do this time?" She dug out her license and the bill of sale. The registration hadn't arrived in the mail yet.

"Step out of the car, please."

"What'd I do?" she practically shouted. Some of her friends had warned her about cops who stopped women for no reason, just to bribe them into having sex so they wouldn't get a ticket.

Ignoring her question, the officer studied the bill of sale, matching the vehicle identification number from the brass strip affixed to the dash beneath the windshield. It was definitely the car they were looking for, the one that had belonged to Ruth Ferguson.

"Miss Porr, I'm going to have to ask you to come with me."

Oh my god! Shaking with fear, she pulled out her cell phone. "I'm not going anywhere till I call my daddy."

"Is your father Harold Porr, the owner of this car?"

"He is."

"Then he's going to have to come to the station, too, I'm afraid."

Oh, shit! She must have really done something awful this time. While the officer double-checked her license and bill of sale, Carly peeked at the grill to see if she had a bicycle or something stuck there.

The cranky four-year-old stormed into the trailer and went straight to her bedroom and slammed her door.

"There is no need to slam this door, young lady," Ruth said sternly as she followed her daughter into the room. "I know you're tired and that you didn't have a good time. I didn't have a good time either, but you heard me promise Spencer that I'd take her somewhere when we got finished."

Spencer felt guilty to learn that she was the cause of the child's consternation.

"Can I go see the puppies?"

"It's 'may I' and I don't think so, because I'm not very happy with the way you're acting right now."

The pouting child responded with a mumbled apology.

"I think you need to sit in here a while and think about how you've acted. Maybe if you took a little nap, you would feel like being nicer."

Jessie kicked off her shoes and curled up on her bed. Ruth watched her settle down, the teary green eyes a sure sign of remorse. She walked over and gave her a soft kiss on the forehead. "I love you, sweetheart."

Spencer sat on the couch, looking sheepish at having witnessed such a personal moment between mother and child. Ruth plopped tiredly in the recliner.

"You're wicked," the tall woman teased softly, bringing an easy smile to her new friend's flustered face.

"That was my toughest Mommy act," she laughed.

"Well, it had me peeing in my pants."

"Stop."

"I'm not kidding. Remind me never to cross you."

"You're so funny." Ruth shook her head, still chuckling. "So Karen Michelle Oliver is now licensed to drive in the state of Virginia, and her car has brand new plates on the front and the back."

"Congratulations. How'd you pull that off?"

"I bought the car two weeks ago for cash from a private seller. I asked him to write me a receipt and I filled in my name. And I told them at the DMV that I'd never had a license before; that I was always afraid to drive. They tested me and that was that."

"Pretty slick."