Chapter 35
“Do they seriously think a twenty-year-old kid from Belarus is the killer?” Declan asked.
“I don’t believe it either,” said Jo. “But I’ve been known to be wrong.”
“You’ve met this young man from Belarus,” Ingrid said to Jo. “What were your impressions?”
Jo considered the question. She must seem hopelessly naive to these people, who were accustomed to navigating in a world where the truth was malleable, where a seemingly innocent twenty-year-old boy like Andrei was capable of plunging a stiletto into a woman’s eye.
“I really don’t know anymore,” she said.
Ingrid looked at the others. “Well, that’s an honest answer.”
“When I first interviewed him, he seemed completely harmless. And lonely. His housemate seemed to be his only friend, but I think she was more like a mother figure than anything else. He never came up on my radar as a suspect.”
“Either he’s innocent,” said Ben, “or he’s very, very good at playing the part.”
“He’s only twenty.”
“His documents could be fiction. Maybe he’s really twenty-five or thirty. And he’s a good actor.” Ben paused, seeing Jo’s expression. “You’re skeptical.”
“I’m not sure anymore. Not now, since he’s vanished. He doesn’t answer his phone, and no one knows where he is.”
“What about the housemate? The one you said was like a mother to him?”
“The hotel manager gave me Hannah Murray’s address and phone number. I’ve been calling her, but she doesn’t answer her phone.”
The kitchen went silent.
“Now that raises questions,” said Ben. “Is she alive and well?”
“Why wouldn’t she be?” said Jo.
“Andrei needs a place to hide, right? Who would he turn to? She’s the one friend he made in Purity. And she has no idea who Andrei really is.”
“Wait,” said Maggie, frowning. “Her name is Hannah?”
“Yeah,” said Jo. “Why?”
“That’s the name of the hotel housekeeper who let me into Dr. Maslov’s room.”
There was another silence as they all mulled over this detail.
Jo shook her head. “How does that fit into this?”
“I’m not sure,” said Maggie. “But now we really need to find her.”
“According to the Cod Cove manager, her current mailing address is just a PO box in Portland, Maine,” said Jo.
“The FBI’s probably looking into that right now.
But I checked her license plate, and I found an older address, the one she used to register her car three years ago.
It’s in Amesbury, Massachusetts. Maybe one of her old neighbors down there knows how to find her. ”
“I’m ready for a road trip,” said Ingrid.
“Not you, Ingrid,” said Lloyd. “You’re the target.”
“A moving target is harder to hit. I’m starting to feel cooped up here, like one of Maggie’s chickens.”
“My chickens are free range,” Maggie said.
“Which is what I’d like to be.”
“No, this farm is a secure location,” said Lloyd. “You need to stay here, with Maggie and me.” He turned to Rodrigo. “You tell her.”
Rodrigo smiled. “I don’t think I can tell Ingrid anything.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, she listens to you. If you have any feelings for her, tell her she can’t go.”
Jo looked back and forth at Lloyd and Rodrigo, puzzled by what Lloyd had said.
If you have any feelings for her. Had she missed something?
She focused on Rodrigo, and imagined him as a young man, dark eyed and dashing.
Then she looked at Ingrid and pictured them as they must have appeared in their prime.
It wasn’t hard to imagine sparks flying between these two.
“Ingrid is perfectly capable of making her own decisions,” Rodrigo said calmly, “but I have to agree with Lloyd. She should stay here. I will too.”
“Thank you,” said Lloyd.
“Then it’s Ben and me,” said Declan. “If we leave now, we can get to Amesbury before dark.”
“Hannah’s never met you,” said Jo. “If two armed guys show up on her doorstep, she might freak out. I should be the one to talk to her.”
“Then we’ll be your backup,” said Ben. His chair scraped the floor as he rose to his feet. “Let’s take my SUV. I’m driving.”
“So what’s the story with Ingrid and this guy Rodrigo?
” Jo asked from the back seat as they drove south toward the New Hampshire border.
Neither Ben nor Declan immediately answered the question, and as the silence stretched on, she wondered if they’d heard her.
Wondered if maybe she should politely broach the subject of hearing aids.
She’d been relegated to the rear of Ben’s SUV, like a child stuck behind her parents, and for miles she’d been staring at the backs of their heads, feeling like just a tagalong, not a real member of the team. “Hello?” she said.
Finally, Declan turned to look at her. “We’re not entirely sure what the story is.”
“You really don’t know?”
“It’s Ingrid’s private business. We don’t ask. She doesn’t tell.”
“But I thought you were friends.”
“Which is why we don’t ask,” said Ben.
“Is this some sort of secret? It seemed pretty obvious to me that something happened between them.”
There was another silence. Once again, she was forced to stare at the backs of their heads. These men had been trained to resist interrogation, and she was clearly not going to get them to talk unless they wanted to.
“It must be painful for Lloyd,” she said. “That man Rodrigo, he’s a fine-looking fellow.”
No response.
“Well, he is. A really hot ticket. If he were fifty years younger, I might consider—”
“Fifty years?” Ben snapped. “How old do you think we are?”
“Excuse me. Forty years younger.”
“Try thirty!”
“Okay, whatever. But I’m guessing they were a thing back in the day. Weren’t they? Was he also a NOC?”
“They worked together in France,” said Declan.
“And Ingrid was a hot ticket too,” added Ben. “You may find it hard to believe, Jo, but we were all hot tickets back then.”
“Alas, time marches on,” sighed Declan.
She heard the wistful note in his voice.
Looking at Ben’s shaved scalp, at Declan’s black and silver hair, she thought about the memories contained in those heads, the secrets that would never be revealed.
When Jo had first met the members of the Martini Club, all she’d seen were their wrinkles and gray hair.
She’d found it hard to imagine them in their prime, to look beyond the benign retirees they pretended to be and see them as they really were: people you did not want to cross.
“Try calling the woman again,” said Ben.
Jo dialed Hannah Murray’s cell phone. The call again went straight to voicemail. “She’s still not answering.”
“I don’t like this,” said Ben.
Neither did Jo.
It was after five o’clock when they finally crossed the New Hampshire border into Massachusetts.
Ben’s GPS sent them through the town of Amesbury and then west, into a gentle landscape of farms and woodland, where the trees were still cloaked in autumnal reds and golds, the last burst of color before winter stripped them bare.
The route took them down smaller and smaller roads, until they reached a gravel driveway that cut into the woods and curved out of sight beyond the trees.
A heavy-duty chain, secured by metal posts, stretched across the entrance, barring any vehicles.
“That’s industrial strength,” Ben noted, looking at the chain. “I wonder who they’re trying to keep out.”
“Maybe they’ve had break-ins,” said Jo. “There aren’t any nearby neighbors to keep an eye on the property.”
Ben pushed open his door. “Looks like we have to walk from here.”
After the long drive, Jo was glad to climb out of the back seat and stretch her legs.
She arched her back, looked up at the leaves quivering on the branches above.
Except for the chirp of the last of the season’s crickets, it was quiet here.
So quiet. The perfect place to disappear to. Is this where you’re hiding, Andrei?
Ben led the way as they squeezed around the posts and continued up the driveway, their shoes crunching across gravel.
The road was not well maintained, and saplings had sprung up along the edges, the advance scouts of an arboreal invasion.
Three years ago, this was the address Hannah Murray had used when she registered her car, but judging by the weedy overgrowth on the road, no one had been here for months.
Jo imagined herself walking alone on this deserted road with nightfall approaching and the woods so silent that every step she took seemed like a deafening clatter of gravel.
She was glad the men were with her, glad to have a weapon on her hip.
Through the trees, she glimpsed the house: a low-slung ranch with an attached garage.
Under a covered shed was a cord of firewood, stacked and ready for the colder months ahead.
In the front yard, Jo paused and looked up at a massive satellite dish mounted on the rooftop. “Someone really likes their Netflix,” she said.
Ben and Declan regarded the satellite dish, then they glanced at each other.
“Smile,” said Declan quietly. “We’re on Candid Camera.”
“What?”
“Don’t look up, Jo,” said Ben. “This house has a multichannel security system. They already know we’re here, so let’s not rattle them more than we have to. Just play the clueless cop and ring the bell.”
“Me?” said Jo.
“A woman is less likely to alarm them.”
Oh sure. Put me in front, she thought, but she couldn’t argue with Ben’s logic.
She took a breath and climbed the porch steps.
She imagined the homeowner crouched behind that door, rifle at the ready, prepared to blast away any trespassers.
The men were right behind her, but she was the one who’d catch the first bullet.
She paused in front of the door. It was oak, solid.
No windows on either side of it, just a single peephole.
She rang the bell. Waited a moment, rang it again. Finally, she knocked on the door.
No sound came from inside the house.
She looked back at the men. “Doesn’t seem like anyone’s home.”
“Leave it to us,” said Ben. “Stay here.”
She didn’t like the sound of that, but the men had already headed in opposite directions, both of them circling toward the rear of the house. “Guys?” she called out.
Ben had told her to stay on the porch, but after a moment, she couldn’t wait there any longer. She went down the steps and paused, undecided which man to follow. “Guys?”
She heard the faint tinkle of breaking glass. Oh no, they didn’t. Did they?
The front door swung open. She spun around to see Declan standing on the porch. He waved her in. “It’s okay.”
“You broke in?”
“I didn’t. Ben did.”
“I can’t believe this!”
“No one’s home. It’s fine.”
“It’s not fine! We don’t have a warrant! I’m going to get canned for this.”
Declan tossed her a pair of latex gloves. “Not if you don’t get caught.”
“Where did you get these?”
“Never leave home without them.”
He walked back into the house.
“Oh, what the hell,” she muttered, and followed him inside.
Heavy drapes covered every window, and it was like walking into a cave, shut off from the outside world.
Even the kitchen windows were covered, not with the traditional lacy or sheer kitchen curtains designed to let in sunlight.
No, these were heavy-duty blinds, meant to block out the light. Or curious eyes.
“Someone obviously doesn’t want people looking in,” said Declan. He flipped a wall switch, and fluorescent lamps flickered on overhead.
“This feels all wrong,” said Jo.
“Was it the satellite dish or the multiple cameras that tipped you off?”
“It’s just—it’s not like anyone actually lives here.” She went to the refrigerator and pulled open the door. Inside she saw jars of condiments—relish, mustard, ketchup—but nothing perishable. No vegetables, no eggs, no meat. “It looks like no one does live here.”
“But Hannah’s car was registered to this address?” asked Declan.
“Yeah, three years ago. Now she’s living in Portland.”
“She has a PO box in Portland. But where is she?” said Declan, and he walked out of the kitchen.
She followed him down the hall, lit by fluorescent ceiling lights.
Not the sort of lighting she’d ever choose for her home, but lights that reminded her of high school hallways, cold and glaring.
At the end of the hall, Ben was standing in an open doorway, and Jo did not like the grin on his face.
She liked even less the chunks of wood lying at his feet.
“It was faster than picking the lock,” he said, with a shrug.
She stared at the ruined doorframe. “This just gets worse and worse.”
“In this case, the end definitely justifies the means,” said Ben. “Take a look.”
Jo walked into the room and stopped, stunned by what she saw.
This was no spare bedroom or home office; it looked like an electronics warehouse filled with computers and camera equipment and a bank of monitors.
A thick cable snaked up the wall toward the ceiling.
That satellite dish she’d seen mounted on the rooftop wasn’t for streaming Netflix or HBO; it was for another purpose entirely: communications.
Ben went to the bank of monitors, where he could see the CCTV feeds from the outdoor cameras. “I’ll have to bleach these recordings. Wouldn’t want these ending up as evidence against us.”
“You can actually do that?”
Ben gave her a look. Right, she thought. Stupid question.
“Ben,” said Declan.
The tone of his voice, so quiet, so still, instantly drew their attention. He was standing in front of a wall-to-wall cabinet, its doors now wide open to reveal a massive armory. Jo stared at the array of rifles and scopes and tripods.
And stilettos. A row of them, suspended by wires like precious jewels in a museum case.
Declan said, “Tell us again about Hannah Murray. What do you know about her?”
Jo swallowed hard. Said, softly: “Not enough.”
He looked at her. “I think it’s time to hand this over, don’t you?”
Jo pulled out her cell phone and called Agent Minnihan.