Free The Face-Changers by Thomas Perry

was beginning to suspect mat he was seeing a new phase of things. He had always felt – no, hoped –
    that what Jane had done with the first part of her life was an instance of youthful optimism and high spirits taken to an extreme. But what if it was more than that? What if it was an expression not only of what she thought was right, but of who she was and had reason to believe her female ancestors had been, going back to Sky Woman? Jake was familiar with the idea that marriage reformed people – more in second-hand testimony than with his own eyes. But those stories were always that some guy stuck to his promise to stop doing something he knew damned well from the beginning was wrong. Jake couldn’t think of an instance where a woman had saved her marriage by sticking to a promise to stop doing what she believed was right – not consistently and in a sustained way.
    “What do you see?” Her voice startled him, and he turned to see her in the doorway.
    “Nothing I couldn’t have seen a week ago, if I had looked.”
    “Good.”
    “Why are you doing this?”
    She stood absolutely still. He could see the silhouette of her thin, too small body, her long black hair combed back and tied in a tight pony tail, and it occurred to him that he had not seen her wear it that way since she had gotten married. She spoke quietly. “Carey asked me to.”
    Jake’s mind seemed to him to choke for a second, then to start again, like an engine that needed to be taken out and run at high speed to burn off the deposits. “Why?” he said.
    “Because if I hide him for a while, then we think the police will find that he’s innocent. If we let him wait in jail, we think the police will find him dead in his cell.” She looked at him as though she were waiting in case something else needed to be said, but Jake couldn’t imagine what it could be. She turned and disappeared in the direction of the staircase. Jake stared out at the empty street he had been staring at for seventy years. Carey was an educated man and a skilled surgeon, and that was why the whole world had agreed to put “Doctor” in front of his name. But he seemed to have taken a look at this situation and missed the important part.
    Carey McKinnon had – by a series of circumstances that, when you analyzed them, came down to luck – been given a beautiful young woman who had the intellect, the courage, and the determination to do virtually anything, but who for reasons that were probably more biological than logical had decided to be his wife. What Dr. Carey McKinnon had seen fit to ask her for was that she go back on the promise he had extracted from her to stop putting herself in danger. Whoever this Dr.
    Dahlman was, Jake found himself silently praying that he was worth it – not to society, or some other word for a bunch of strangers, but to Carey McKinnon.

     

 
Chapter 5
     
     
    Carey McKinnon tried to think the way his wife would, and found it impossible. His brain wasn’t as quick as Jane’s was, and he had no experience at her kind of deception. He was reduced to trying to remember what she had told him to do. He had a difficult time bringing it all back.
    Since she had left him he had been concentrating on the specific tasks that he had needed to perform to get Dahlman through the surgery. It had been one of the most nerve-racking procedures he had ever done: trying to be sure that he left no bits of metal or bone in the shoulder, that he sutured the torn muscular tissue and vessels properly without injuring tendons or nerves – so that one of the finest surgeons alive could heal and continue to perform surgery on other people. Every second, while his hands had been working, he had been aware that those eyes were open and staring into the overhead mirror: the eyes of his old teacher, evaluating, scrutinizing every move his fingers made.
    Now he had to be certain that no policeman or reporter could ask him any questions. Certain parts of the job were