by Lisa Gardner
“Interested in what?”
“Hiring you. That’s how it works, right? Your age, where you live, your world . . .” I gesture to the burning trash can. “This is what you’re about. There’s no way you and Conrad crossed paths—”
“Conrad?”
“The guy whose house you burned down.”
“Who?”
“Exactly. You didn’t care about him or his wife or their unborn baby. You cared about the fire. You were there for the burn, and how much better that someone paid you to do it?”
He frowns for the first time. As if finally seeing the trap. I don’t give him a chance, though. I toss another bottle of vegetable oil in his direction and, of course, he has to catch it. Of course he has to throw it on the blaze.
“I’m not a cop,” I say now. “But I saw a bunch of them pulled up in front of your house. Bet they’re ripping apart your room now. Finding the uniform, the ‘pest control’ cans. Then, wow, you’re going to have some explaining to do.”
But I made a misstep because immediately Rocket shrugs, then returns pointedly to staring at the fire. The uniform, I realize, was probably soaked in gasoline and used to start this blaze, because what kind of self-respecting arsonist wouldn’t burn up the evidence?
“I want to hire you. One grand.”
He frowns, staring at the flames. I find one of the last pinecones, toss it in. Red. We both nod in fascination.
“Five,” he says. “Cash.”
“Don’t got it on me.”
“I’ll tell you where to leave it. You drop off half, with the address. Afterwards, other half.”
“Trusting of you.”
He finally stares at me. In his dark eyes all I can see are the dancing flames. “I like to burn things. All kinds of things. No one messes with that.”
Good point. “It has to be discreet. You come up with the pest-control uniform, or did your last client provide it?”
“What do you care?”
“Has to be discreet,” I repeat, voice steady.
He shrugs. “Depends on what I’m burning. Abandoned is easy access. Residential work, yeah, you can provide the props. Or, I’ve figured out what works over the years. Whatever.”
So maybe his client had provided the pest uniform, or maybe Rocket is that clever. He certainly loves fire, and anyone who loves his job is bound to get better and better at it.
I still don’t think this kid knew Conrad Carter or Jacob Ness. He was strictly the hired help. But he’s also our first link to whoever it was who shot Conrad and then felt compelled to further cover his tracks by totally eradicating the house. My next step is clear:
“Give me the address to the drop site,” I say. “I’ll get you the money.”
“Tomorrow,” he says. “Already got plans for tonight.”
“Which are?”
“Right behind you.”
I don’t turn my head. Rookie move, especially as I’ve been tracking my shadow for the past ten minutes. Instead, I plant my feet wide for better balance, whirl my entire torso, and whip the plastic bag with its remaining two bottles of vegetable oil at my attacker’s head. Solid thwack as I connect.
The form, face hidden in the shadows of another hoodie, staggers back, grabs his head, clearly dazed. I dance forward three steps. I kick to the side of his knee, then snap the heel of my hand straight into his nose. He goes down, clutching his face, moaning.
I step back. I don’t need to do anything more, prove anything more. I turn to Rocket. “I’m not a fucking cop. Now, give me the address.”
Rocket appears stunned. Exactly where I want him.
From my pocket, I pull the burn phone I always carry on me. “Text now.”
I’m not surprised when he produces a matching prepaid cell. His fingers fly across the surface. Buzz as the address is delivered.
I smile. “Pleasure doing business with you.”
Then I toss my bag with the two remaining bottles of oil straight into the burning barrel.
Another roar and sizzle. When I walk away, Rocket is still staring at the flames, his friend moaning behind him.
* * *
—
D.D. PICKS ME up four blocks later. I don’t ask where she’s been or how she found me. She has her skills, I have mine.
“Well,” she demands.
“Hired firebug, definitely. Didn’t even respond to Conrad Carter’s name, and frankly, too much of a burn freak to have pulled this off without help. Canvass the Carters’ neighborhood again, except this time ask about pest control. That’s how he did it. Uniform, or what’s left of it, is at the bottom of that burn barrel. If you look around, the pressurized spray canisters he used have to be around somewhere.”
“Who hired him?”
“He wasn’t that forthcoming. But”—I hold up my phone—“I have the address where I’m supposed to leave money for my future transaction. I’m guessing it’s the same drop spot as Rocket used last time, given he appears to be a creature of habit.”
“We can pull videos of the area from Tuesday night, Wednesday morning,” D.D. fills in thoughtfully.
“Which should give you the client, caught on candid camera.”
“Nicely done,” D.D. informs me.
I just smile.
CHAPTER 25
EVIE
MY MOM MAKES SOME KIND of French stew for dinner. Filled with lentils and greens and all sorts of things perfect for a growing baby, she informs me. Never mind that with every comment she makes me feel more and more like a broodmare.
I set the table. Three martinis in, my mother shouldn’t be handling breakables. And it’s only six P.M.
I need to get out of here, I think again. But how? Whom to call? Mr. Delaney? A teacher I sometimes sit with at lunch? I never realized how small my world is until now. How in keeping everyone out, I’d also shut myself in.
A knock on the side door. I’m so grateful for the interruption, I nearly knock over my chair standing up. “I’ll get it!” I announce.
My mom appears mildly annoyed. I notice she’s not eating her stew, just pushing lentils around in the bowl. This is what happens, I think, when you spend your afternoon filling up on vodka.
I head for the door. Sergeant D. D. Warren stands on the other side. She flashes her badge. Next to her is a younger woman in an oversized down coat and a gray hoodie. She looks like she’d be more comfortable on the mean streets of any major city than hanging out at an impeccably decorated Colonial in Cambridge.
I let them in.
“Evie Carter, Flora Dane. Flora, Evie.” D.D. makes the introductions. I shake hands with the woman, who looks like she could benefit from my mother’s stew even more than I. Her face is vaguely familiar but I can’t place it. Someone who knew Conrad? Or one of his half a dozen aliases?
I feel the first trickle of unease.
In for a penny, in for a pound. I lead them to the table and introduce my mother.
In response, my mother scowls, reaches an unsteady hand for her martini. “Really, Sergeant, couldn’t this wait? It’s dinnertime, and meals are very important for a woman in Evie’s condition.”
Yep, nothing but a broodmare.
The Flora woman eyes me with renewed interest.
“Please have some stew,” I mutter. Please save me from this meal.
“Actually, we have a few things to discuss. Perhaps we could move into the front?” D.D. suggests. Works for me.
“I’ll do dishes,” I inform my mother because, again, she shouldn’t be touching plastic plates, let alone Waterford crystal.
She only scowls, pushes more lentils around her bowl. She’s depressed, I think. About our conversation earlier? The news her husband didn’t kill himself? Or is this simply what midday martinis do to you? I’ve never known how to talk to my mom. I certainly don’t have
any answers now.
I direct D.D. and Flora to the side sitting room, with its greenery-swathed mantel and professionally decorated Christmas tree. My mom likes to have a theme for each tree. This one is Hark the Herald Angels Sing, meaning there is a lot of gold and, yes, a lot of angels.
As for actual sitting space, the room has a silk-covered love seat in stripes of pale green and pink. We all stare at it. It looks like something out of a dollhouse. The pile of matching throw pillows doesn’t help.
I have to get out of this house.
“Can I take your coats?” I ask belatedly, because the sofa barely looks capable of holding two women, let alone their heavy winter coats. D.D. shrugs, unbuttons her long black wool coat. I notice the other woman follows more reluctantly. She’s been taking in the room. Assessing. Again, the pinprick of unease. What is she doing here?
I don’t know what to do with the coats. Walking to the coat closet in the main foyer will expose me to the reporters across the street. This is the problem with a nighttime siege—the house is nothing but a glowing fishbowl, putting both my mom and me on display. No doubt why D.D. used the side entrance. And why we’re not seated near any windows now.
Finally, I pile the coats on the back of a wingback chair. I should sit, but I don’t want to. In fact, I suddenly don’t want to hear what they have to say.
“How are you feeling?” D.D. asks quietly.
“Like a bird in a gilded cage.”
“Your mother brought you clothes for your arraignment.” The woman speaks. She glances around the room. “I get it now.”
“You were at my arraignment? Why? Who are you?” My tone is sharp.
“My name is Flora Dane—”
“She already told me your damn name!”
The woman regards me evenly. “It doesn’t ring any bells for you?”
“Why would it? I’ve never met you before in my life. Now, what the hell is this all about—” I break off. My eyes widen. The sense of déjà vu, that I’d seen this woman before. Flora Dane. Six years ago.
Oh my God, I know who she is. And I no longer feel a tinge of unease. I want to vomit. Hurl my mother’s good-for-the-baby stew all over this fine silk-covered furniture. Because I’m sure I don’t want to hear what she’s going to say next.
“Sit,” D.D. is murmuring in my ear, her hands on my shoulders. “Just like that. Head between your knees. Deep breaths. In, out, exhale all the way. Now deep in, hold, hold, hold, exhale. Two more times. You got this.”
When I finally stop hyperventilating, I’m collapsed in the wingback chair with the coats. Both D.D. and Flora are now kneeling on the floor in front of me.
“What did he do? Those fake IDs, all his secrets. What did Conrad do?” I stare straight at Flora Dane.
“Don’t you know?” D.D. asks me. “You’re the one who shot up the computer.”
“I had to.”
“Why?”
“Protect the legacy.” I’m not crying. I sound like a rote imitation of my mother, which is worse.
“You wanted to protect Conrad.” D.D. eyes me. “The father of your child. From what, Evie? From what?”
“I don’t know.” That’s the truth. He had secrets, I knew. And at least in my family, secrets can only cause pain. But that doesn’t mean I know what his secret was.
Both women are eyeing me. I take a deep, shuddering breath, soldier on: “Have either of you been in a relationship with someone who travels a lot?”
They shake their heads.
“I loved Conrad. When we bought our house together, of course we each had to adapt. He snored. Left his shoes in the middle of the floor. Would enter a room chattering away, even when it was clear I was grading papers and needed to think. But you get used to those things.
“Except then he’d leave again. And I would sleep better without him. Appreciate being able to walk down the hall, get my work done faster. Then he’d return, and I’d have to reorient. You can’t help yourself—inevitably, you’re only in the relationship halfway, because it’s only a marriage half the time.”
D.D. and Flora wait patiently.
“It makes you look at your spouse more objectively than maybe the average married person. Analyzing things, noticing things. Like the way Conrad asked so many questions about my life, but never answered any of mine. The way he’d shut down sometimes, and I could tell something was bothering him, but he wouldn’t say what. The hours he logged in his office. A window salesman? Still working at midnight? Then locking up the door to his own study when he left?
“I . . . I began to wonder. So I started snooping, which then gave him doubts. One day I found a page of a financial statement for a Carter Conner in Conrad’s printer. At first I thought it was a mistake. But the account was from a bank in Florida, and I just . . . knew. He had a secret life. That’s why he was always on the business trips. Why he never wanted to talk about them afterward. Why he was always locking up after himself. It’s bad, isn’t it?” I stare at Flora. “Is he . . . a predator, too?”
“I met Conrad,” Flora says at last. “In a bar in the South. He was using the name Conner when he approached my kidnapper, Jacob Ness. It was clear they were expecting one another.”
“Oh.” I can’t think of anything else to say. Instead, I clutch my stomach, as if covering my unborn child’s ears, trying to block him or her from this terrible information. I’d known. Especially in the past year or so, I’d looked at my husband with a growing sense of dread.
“Conrad’s a predator?” I whisper. “But he was so excited for our baby. He seemed genuinely happy.” I don’t know what it is I’m trying to say. “Do evil people love their children, too?”
“Did you know about the lockbox of IDs?” D.D. asks.
“No. And I tore that office apart trying to figure out what he was hiding. I never saw it.”
“Conrad never talked about his trips?”
“No.”
“How often was he gone? How long did he go?”
“One or two trips a month, usually three to five days. But not just to Florida. He traveled all over New England. I saw some of his tickets. He flew to Philadelphia, Virginia, Georgia. Some of his business travel was real. But I don’t think all of it was.”
“Did Conrad watch the news a lot?” Flora spoke up. “Say, follow national cases, maybe even watch a lot of true-crime shows on TV.”
“He liked Forensic Detectives.” That sinking feeling again, except how could this get any worse?
“Why did you shoot the computer?” D.D. asks again.
“I had to.”
“Where did you find the gun?”
“On his lap. I took it. From . . . him.”
“He was holding the gun when you found him?”
“Yes.”
“What did you think, Evie, when you walked into the study and found your husband’s dead body? What was the first thought that crossed your mind?”
“That he shot himself. That all these years later, I still wasn’t enough.”
“What was on the computer, Evie? What was Conrad looking at when he died?”
“Pictures.” I squeeze my eyes shut. I don’t want to see them again. It was so much easier to forget, pretend it never happened. Maybe I am my mother, after all.
“What was on the computer?”
“Girls. Photos. Terrible photos. They look thin and horrified. Beaten. Young. Why would he be looking at something like that?” I shake my head. “He’s the father of my child. And even knowing he had secrets . . . couldn’t it have just been another woman? Maybe a gay lover? Even knowing something was wrong, even knowing I would regret digging, I never suspected what was on his computer.” My voice is hoarse, hard to hear. I finally look at them. “I loved him. How could I love a man like that?”
“What did you do next, Evie?”
“I closed up the laptop. But the police were there. Already banging at the front door. There wasn’t enough time to clear the hard drive, not properly. I couldn’t . . . He’s the father of my child,” I say again.
“Protect the legacy.” D.D. nods, as if she understands. Maybe, being the one who was here sixteen years ago, she does.
“I destroyed the laptop. Kept shooting until there were no bullets left.”
“That was some good shooting.”
I nod. “My father taught me.”
“And you’re not afraid of guns, are you, Evie, because you didn’t shoot your father?”
“I didn’t shoot my father. Or Conrad. I just . . . loved them both.” I feel it now. The horrible weight of it all. To love so much, and it still wasn’t enough. Was never enough. Seeing those images on the computer screen. Horror was not a strong enough word. It was like a knife to the heart. Not just because of what it said about him and how well he’d played me for ten years, but because of what it said about me, who’d had doubts, had known he was hiding things, and had stayed anyway.
“I knew he was a loser.” A voice spoke up. My mother, standing in the arched entranceway, where she’d clearly been eavesdropping for a while. Her words were slurred. I stare at her dully.
“I know you hated him, Mom,” I say tiredly. “I just assumed it was because he was stupid enough to want me.”
“Window salesman,” she grunts.
“Good news. Turns out he was a bit more than that.”
She has her vodka; I have my bitterness. Maybe we deserve each other.
“You should know something,” Flora says quietly.
She’s still kneeling on the floor, clearly not the type to take a seat on a silk-covered settee. It makes me feel bad, to have a woman who’s been through so much feel uncomfortable in my home. That this is that kind of place. That myself, my family, we are those kinds of people.
“When Conrad was at the bar, he tried to signal me. Using Morse code. Unfortunately, I didn’t catch on and never answered him.”
“What do you mean?”