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By Root 1380 0

a strong case against Marti, citing her closeness to Zoe and her desire to protect her mother. The argument was, unfortunately, erroneous. She and Marti were not close in the least, and she doubted that Marti had even known the movie role had been handed to Ashton. But Zoe wasn’t about to deny that bond with her daughter. She relished the idea of Marti caring that much about her; it was a treasured fantasy. And although she was naturally horrified by the murder, she couldn’t help but be touched by the notion of Marti coming to her defense. Yet she knew the explanation for Ashton’s murder lay somewhere other than in Marti’s love for her mother. Besides, someone had bludgeoned Tara Ashton to death with a hammer, for heaven’s sake! Marti was not capable of that sort of violence. But no one seemed interested in looking for another suspect, and that’s where Marti’s lawyers had gone astray, in Zoe’s opinion. They should have dug deeper. Surely Tara Ashton had enemies with more reason to kill her than Marti Garson did.

Marti’s face, at the moment the jury’s verdict was read, would haunt Zoe for the rest of her life. Marti was twenty-eight, but all Zoe could see in her daughter’s huge blue eyes was the baby she’d longed for but didn’t know how to mother, the little girl she’d left in the care of nannies as she pursued her career, the teenager she’d shipped off to boarding school. No wonder Marti had eschewed the Hollywood careers that had so consumed her parents in favor of a quieter life behind a computer screen as a programmer.

The jury saw Marti’s quiet, reserved demeanor as a facade that hid anger and malice and a fierce, protective love for her mother. A love that only Zoe and Marti knew had never existed.

Zoe shifted her thoughts from the miserable trial back to Marti’s escape. Somehow, the warden would have gotten Marti out of Chowchilla, without alarms going off or anyone noticing for hours, at least. And then, because he was anxious to collect the rest of his payment, he would have driven with Marti as fast as he could from California to West Virginia, taking whatever precautions were necessary to avoid being caught. Surely he had changed cars once or twice on the road. He had to be at least as savvy as Zoe had been in this fugitive business.

In a few days, then, Marti would be here with her. Finally, they would be mother and daughter. She could make up to Marti for all the years of neglect, for all the times she had not known how to be a mother and so had chosen not to mother her at all.

They would hide out here for a year or so, until the search for Marti had lost its steam. Then they would somehow get to South America—or at least, she would make sure that Marti got there—where she could undergo plastic surgery and start a new life. Zoe didn’t care what happened to her at that point. She just needed to get Marti to safety.

She had everything ready: the compass, map and money Marti would need were hidden in the barn; the trail from the barn to the shanty was marked with scraps of blue cloth. What she wouldn’t give for one phone call with her daughter, though, just to know where Marti was now, how soon she could expect to see her! But she would have to settle for knowing that Marti was on her way, and that they would be together any day now. Any day now, she could hold her daughter in her arms.

CHAPTER NINE

Janine felt a need to see the camp in daylight, and so, early Monday morning, she and Joe drove once again into West Virginia. She was behind the wheel this time, and their plan was to drive directly up to the camp, then return slowly, stopping to talk with the waitresses, gas station attendants and store clerks they had been unable to meet with the night before. They would check any alternative routes Alison might have taken, as well. That was, if there was no report of Sophie being found by then. Their cell phones were turned on and ready for that message. Over and over again, Janine heard the words in her head: “We’ve found her! She’s fine!”

But neither of their phones rang on the drive to the camp.