The gate swung open in front of me. I reached the road and turned left, trying to picture the way the property was laid out in relation to the surrounding terrain. I didn't imagine she'd head into the Los Padres National Forest. The mountain was too steep and too inhospitable. It was possible, of course, that in the last eighteen years, Claire Maddison had become an expert at living in the wild. Maybe she planned to make a new home for herself among the scrub oaks and chaparral, feasting on wild berries, sucking moisture from cactus pads. More likely, she'd simply crossed the few acres of undeveloped land that lay between the Maleks' and the road. Bader had purchased everything within range, so it was possible she was still trudging across acreage he owned.

I tried to think what she'd do once she hit the main artery. She could choose left or right, setting out in either direction on foot. She could have hidden a bicycle somewhere in the brush. She might depend on her ability to thumb a ride. Maybe she'd called a taxicab and had it waiting when she emerged on the road. Again, I dismissed that option because I didn't really think she'd take the risk. She wouldn't want to have anyone who could identify or describe her later. She might have purchased another vehicle and parked on a side street, gassed up and ready to be driven away. I tried to remember what I knew of her and realized just how little it was. She was approaching forty. She was overweight. She made no effort to enhance her personal appearance. Given cultural standards, she'd made herself invisible. Ours is a society in which slimness and beauty are equated with status, where youth and charm are rewarded and remembered with admiration. Let a woman be drab or slightly overweight and the collective eye slides right by, forgetting afterward. Claire Maddison had achieved the ultimate disguise because, aside from the physical, she'd adopted the persona of the servant class. Who knows what conversations she'd been privy to straightening the bed pillows, changing the sheets. She'd run the household, served canapés, and freshened the drinks while the lords and ladies of the house had talked on and on, oblivious to her presence because she wasn't one of them. For Claire, it had been perfect. Their dismissal of her would have fueled her bitterness and hardened her determination to take revenge. Why should this family, largely made up of fakes, enjoy the privileges of money while she had nothing? Because of them, she'd been cheated of her family, her medical career. She'd been robbed, violated, and abused, and for this she blamed Guy.