Free The Face-Changers by Thomas Perry Page B

been blocked off.
    She took the stepladder to one of them, pushed two sections apart, removed the small metal box hidden inside, and set it on the top step of the ladder. She took out a handful of cards and folded papers and shuffled through them.
    In the past two years the only fake identification papers she had obtained were in matched sets, with her picture on one and Carey’s on the other. There were some very good ones in the collection, as well as a few that wouldn’t be ripe for some time. A good identity needed signs of a long history, with a real birth certificate and Social Security card, a couple of renewals on the licenses, visa stamps on the passports, and small but regular charges on each of the credit cards going back a couple of years.
    Jane went past the recent identities, the ones she had made for a couple on the run. They were a part of her dowry that Carey didn’t know about, and that she hoped he would never need to see. When she had retired from being a guide, she had known that people who were running would still come to her for a while, and there would still be people whose business it was to chase them. Some of the chasers might have heard of Jane or seen a little of her work, and would like the chance to get her into a small, quiet place somewhere and ask her questions until she died.
    She found four identities for men who had birth dates in the 1930s, took four sets of cards she had made for herself, and then reached deeper into the heating duct to take out ten thousand dollars in cash. She put the box back into the heating duct, joined the two halves again, and carried the stepladder to the other end of the cellar to leave it with the tools and paintbrushes.
    When she returned to her room she found Jake sitting on the bed watching television. He looked up when she entered.
    “There was just another news bulletin, but they didn’t say anything about him being gone. They don’t seem to know.”
    “Good,” said Jane. “Do you think you have any clothes that you don’t care if you ever see again?”
    “Yes. All of them. I’ll go put some in a suitcase.”
    “Nothing bright-colored, nothing new. You may not have noticed, but men over retirement age seem to have a lot of clothes of an earlier vintage.”
    “Yep,” he said. “We’re all timing it to wear them out at the moment of death so everything comes out even.” When Jake returned to the house with the suitcase, Jane had Dahlman sitting up on the living room couch and she was just finishing putting new gauze and adhesive tape on his shoulder and back.
    Jake opened the suitcase so she could look into it. “Nothing to get him a lot of invitations, but nothing with blood on it, either.”
    Jane quickly fingered through the suitcase. “These are perfect. Thanks.” She pulled out a plain tan shirt, slipped it onto Dahlman, and buttoned it quickly. She had taken the necktie off him by loosening the loop, so now she slipped it over his head again and tightened it, then helped him to his feet. “We’d better get going.”
    Jake followed her into the kitchen and watched her turning off lights and checking windows. “I’d like to go with you.” Jane shook her head. “Sorry. One geezer per trip.”
    “He’s weak. You can’t drag him around and watch your back at the same time.”
    “I said no,” she said. “If you’re so eager to take one more unnecessary risk, I’ll accommodate you. Give me a spare key to your car. Call a cab tomorrow morning to take you to the airport. After he lets you off at the terminal and disappears, stroll over to the short-term lot, find your car, and drive it home.”
    “That’s it?”
    “No,” she said. “Make sure this place is clean when we leave. Wipe off anything Dahlman could have touched. And when you think of it, tell Carey I love him.”

     
     

Chapter 6
     
     
    Jane walked into the airline terminal and saw the clock on the wall. It was ten-fifteen already. The first flight out would