TWENTY-ONE
Why would Ian charter a fishing boat?
‘When did this happen?’ I ask, my mouth so dry it feels like the words are being formed around cotton balls. ‘I mean, when did he talk to Chip about the boat?’
‘Two days ago.’
‘So he was going fishing?’
Will shrugs. ‘Don’t think so. He chartered Chip’s motorboat.’
I am trying to wrap my head around this. ‘Was Chip going to take him out?’
‘No, guess he was going alone.’
My throat becomes constricted, and I cannot speak. He chartered the boat two days ago. Did he think that I would have already done the job for him and he could escape the island without me knowing? Of course he did. He was going to leave me here for Carmine and whoever else might be coming after me. I shouldn’t be surprised.
I find my voice. ‘Does Chip trust people that much, to let them take his boat out by themselves?’
Will chuckles. ‘Frank made him feel like a real horse’s ass for agreeing to it, but the guy paid him extra. A lot extra. In cash.’ He starts wiping down the counter, and I know I’m being dismissed. I have gotten as much out of him that I’m going to get.
‘I really appreciate this, Will,’ I say, and he gives me a short nod. I take the coffee cup, find a crumpled dollar bill in my pocket and toss it on the counter, wishing I could leave more, but I don’t have any more.
I head outside and give the Beemer a glance, but it’s not going to tell me anything. Frank Cooper is doing his job, and now I have mine to do.
I realize I have nowhere to put the coffee, so I take a sip before tossing it in the trashcan next to the door. I climb onto the moped and start it up. I have nowhere to go, though. I can’t go back to my house, and I don’t want to risk Steve’s anymore. I am hoping that this helmet is disguising me enough, although I’m not a hundred percent sure.
I take off down the road and soon I’m heading to Old Harbor. I follow the road past the dock, the National Hotel and around the corner. Without realizing it, I find myself in front of the Sunswept Spa. I stop the moped in front, trying to figure out my next move, but I linger too long. The door swings open and Jeanine comes out, scurrying toward me. I can’t leave now.
She pulls me into a long hug, and for a moment I allow myself to sink into her, the strawberry scent of her shampoo familiar and comforting. But then I pull away.
‘Are you OK?’ Jeanine asks, the concern lacing her tone. She reaches over and holds my upper arm, as if knowing I need the touch of a friend.
I manage a small smile. ‘I’ve been better.’
‘I saw you from the window.’ She frowns at the moped. ‘I’ve never seen you on one of these before.’
I give her a sheepish look. ‘My bike’s gone. I needed something to get around on, and Pete let me use it.’
She eyes the backpack in the basket. The laptop is peeking out from the corner where I have not zipped it shut.
‘I stopped over at Mike Burns’s earlier.’
I don’t have to explain further. It’s clear from her expression that she knows about Mike’s unofficial business, which tells me that it’s the worst-kept secret on the island.
I glance at the spa building and it gives me an idea. ‘You wouldn’t have a place I could hang out in for a little while, would you? Do you have wireless?’
She gives me a funny look, but it is gone quickly. ‘Sure, I guess so. I’ve got a room in the back.’
She indicates I should follow her, her long skirt swishing as we walk. As I step through the doorway, she cups her hand under my elbow, as though I need the support.
Perhaps I do.
Jeanine leads me down a dark hallway into a room that has an extra massage bed on one side and a washer and dryer on the other. Shelves next to the dryer are filled with white, fluffy towels, bathrobes and white sheets used on the massage tables. A tall shelving unit filled with a massive number of bottles is against the third wall. I peer closely at the bottles, thinking of my smashed jars, and see they are massage oils.
Jeanine chuckles. ‘I’m a little bit of an oil hoarder.’ She clears off a small table that seems to be used for folding the towels and sheets and pulls over a step stool that’s high enough to use as a chair. ‘I hope this is OK,’ she says apologetically.
‘It’s fine. Really.’ She has no idea that once I begin my work, I will not even notice my surroundings. ‘Jeanine, has anyone been around asking about me? I mean, a stranger?’
She frowns, and I see the answer in her face before she says anything. ‘No. Who would be asking about you?’
While it would be easy for Carmine to go into a gallery or to ask about my bike tours, it would be more difficult for him to come to a spa and start asking questions. But there is no guarantee that he is not watching the spa, waiting for Jeanine to leave for the day and follow her.
‘You haven’t seen anyone hanging around outside, have you? A tall man, salt-and-pepper hair, in an overcoat?’
‘No.’ She is puzzled by my questions. ‘Who is he?’
‘Just someone who’s been asking about me. If you see him, tell me, and then go tell Frank Cooper.’
She chews on her lip for a few seconds. ‘So we’re not talking about Zeke Chapman?’
I shake my head, unable to look her in the eye.
‘Nicole, I’m worried about you.’
‘I’ll be OK.’
‘What is it you need? Can I be any help?’
Her kindness brings a tear to my eye. I blink it away quickly. ‘No, this is help enough. But please don’t tell anyone I’m here, OK?’
I am struck with an overwhelming urge to tell her everything, as I have told Steve, but I can’t put her at risk, too. It is bad enough Steve knows. She comes over to me and gives me a hug before heading back out, but before she leaves the room, she gives me a look that tells me she is not going to give up on finding out what this secret is that I’m not telling her.
‘I’ll come back in an hour, when I’m done with my client, OK?’ she says at the door. ‘Maybe then I can work some hot stone magic on you. You’re really out of sync.’
No kidding. The door closes, and I am alone.
Except that I’m not. Not really. I open the laptop and hope that Mike has sold me something that works the way it should. I am still leery of refurbished computers, because even though he has told me he’s only updated this, he could be lying.
I do a quick check of the system. The history has been wiped clean, as have any bookmarks or any signs that anyone else has ever used this computer. But with a few keystrokes, I could find out everything about it and about who owned it before.
I don’t feel like I have the time or the curiosity, though, right now. I type in the VPN URL and navigate my way through it and into the chat room, where Tracker has left me the message he promised. There they are. The list of account numbers. I sit and stare at them, knowing that they are the reason I am holed up in this room, hiding from everyone. The reason why I have been holed up on an island for fifteen years.
But maybe now they can set me free.
I study the numbers, looking at each one carefully, trying to see if there is any sort of pattern. Trying to see if one stands out as different from the others. But I see nothing; they are random in their purest form. It will only be after I find out to whom they belong that the lines might be drawn.
My fingers hover over the keyboard. They are trembling. Part of me is scared, but there is another part of me, that part of me that came back when I saw Ian, that is eager to get started, to prove to myself again that I can do this.
I know the bank that housed these accounts, and suddenly I am transported back. It is as though no time has passed at all, and I am on autopilot. I hunch over the laptop, my fingers flying. The bank probably closed the accounts we’d stolen from, but new ones would have been created, as long as the account owners wanted to stay with the bank. I’m sure the bank made it worth their while, to k
eep the business. These accounts, while no longer active, would still be in the system, however. Nothing is ever really lost in a computer. What’s challenging is finding out where everything might be.
The portal I used before is closed. I sit back and think, trying to remember how I would circumvent the system and find another portal. An open one. I try to think like Tracker. Soon I am navigating the code, searching for a portal I can slip behind and get inside.
I hear a knock on the door, and it opens slightly. ‘Nicole? Can I come in?’ Jeanine doesn’t wait for an answer, slips in and puts a cup of chai tea on the table next to me. The moment I heard the knock, I closed the laptop cover, and she is staring at it. ‘What are you doing? You’ve been in here two hours already.’
I haven’t paid attention, but I’m not surprised that it’s been so long. I glance at my watch. I want to see if Tracker has left another message in the chat room. Why didn’t I get two laptops from Mike? I don’t want to stop what I’ve already done.
I have no choice.
‘Jeanine, do you have a laptop I can borrow?’
She frowns, clearly confused.
‘I need two. I’ve got some stuff I need to do, and it’s hard with just one.’ I’d had four, back in the day. A couple of desktops and a couple of laptops. Some girls bought shoes; I bought computers.
‘What sort of stuff?’ Jeanine is suspicious. Her mouth has puckered into a thin line.
‘Don’t worry. I’m just trying to get some information.’
‘Is it illegal?’
‘No.’ The lie slips off my tongue easily, as have all the other lies I have told her through the years.
While she has never suspected my other lies, this one she does not believe. But she disappears through the door and, after a few minutes, comes back with a laptop that is a lot older than the one I’m using.
‘Will this do?’ she asks, an edge in her voice.
I nod, taking it from her, putting it next to the other and booting it up. ‘Thanks.’
‘I don’t want to get in trouble,’ she warns.
‘You won’t. I promise.’ I can keep this promise. No one will know what’s been done on this computer when I’m finished with it.
‘Do you want a sandwich?’
‘I’m not hungry. But thanks.’ My fingers are twitching. I have to get back to this. She notices and to her credit leaves and closes the door behind her. I don’t have much time. I can’t stay here much longer. I have already stayed too long.
I use Jeanine’s laptop to get into the chat room. I am not completely surprised to find Tracker is here. I tell him I am having trouble finding an open portal to get the account information.
Don’t worry about it, he writes. I didn’t have trouble. On either front.
My ego is crushed. I wanted so much to get in myself. I remind myself that he has not taken fifteen years off.
I’m sending you the list of account owners and their Socials. You might be interested to know that one of those names you wanted me to check is on that list.
I do a double take. Which one?
Paul Michaels. And I only found him on the FBI site in connection with the theft as a victim. Nothing else.
I sit back, trying to wrap my head around this information. He was a victim? How can that be?
Tiny?
Tracker thinks I have left.
I’m still here.
The other name? Ian Cartwright? He’s dead.
TWENTY-TWO
Dead? But that’s not right. He was in my house. In my bed. He is using a dead man’s name, that’s all. He, himself, is not dead. When I close my eyes, I can still see him over me, whispering to me.
How? I manage to write, my hands trembling as they touch the keys.
Suicide. Paris. Fifteen years ago.
A date?
June the eleventh.
A day after I left him there.
I am not sure what all of this means.
How did you find out? I ask. Was it online?
It was in the FBI file. Newspapers don’t report suicides in private places.
How did he do it?
Blew his head off on a houseboat on the Seine. Police found his passport. Couple who lived on the houseboat next to his identified the body, but it sounds like it was more a generalization.
I can read between the lines. No facial identification. His face was gone.
So they didn’t check fingerprints or anything?
Sounds like they relied on the ID given and the passport. FBI made a note in the file from the theft. Story ends there.
But it doesn’t. The story begins again here, on Block Island.
I guess it’s easy for a dead man to take a dead man’s name. Who’s going to know? But did he just take Zeke’s name here, for my benefit? What name – or names – has he been using all these years?
And then something Tracker has told me hits me hard. I begin typing. The FBI made a note about Ian’s death in the file about the bank theft?
That’s right.
I sit and stare at the screen for a few minutes, trying to digest all of the information Tracker has given me. But then I have another thought, something so simple that I scare myself.
Ian was identified with his passport. The only passport he had, at least that I knew about, was the passport with the name Paul Michaels. What was he doing with a passport with his real name on it?
And why would the FBI have this in their files?
Because one of their own was killed on the same houseboat the day before.
Zeke knew who Ian was. Zeke had told me himself. He told me he could protect me as long I testified against Ian. But I was scared and not sure I could believe him. He was pushing me to tell him who Ian’s source was at the bank, but I could honestly say I knew nothing about that. Zeke didn’t believe me.
What if after Zeke was killed and I left Ian in Paris, Ian decided to get even with me? What if he went to the FBI and told them he’d help them find me, told them it was all me? What if they gave him protection, and his ‘death’ was staged?
I mentally slap myself. I am paranoid. But what if I’m right?
Still, it has taken him fifteen years to find me. Would the FBI wait that long? I don’t know enough about how witness protection works to even guess.
I see the file that Tracker has left me, and I download it. The list of names springs up on the screen, momentarily distracting me. I immediately find Paul Michaels.
My memory slips back to that day when Ian and I were in bed, brainstorming names we would get on our fake passports.
‘Are you sure you can get them?’ he asked, his arm slung around me as he nuzzled my neck.
I leaned in toward him. ‘I can do anything,’ I promised, and he smiled.
‘I’ve always wanted to be a Paul,’ he said. ‘Would you love me as a Paul?’
‘I would love you as anything.’ It was before Zeke, before the job. We knew we would need fake IDs if it all fell apart. We were getting our ducks in a row; we wanted to be prepared for anything.
‘Will they be authentic?’
I rolled away from him and pretended to pout. ‘You have no faith in my abilities.’
‘I know what I have faith in,’ he said, grabbing me and pulling me toward him. Three days later, we had the passports and the money. But we didn’t use the passports for another month.
I look back at the list of names, which takes up two screens. I wonder about the alias. I find it again and stare at it, as if it will start telling me something if I wait long enough.
Tracker is still here. I put my hands on the keys, my head racing, and begin to type.
I want current account information for Paul Michaels. Also addresses and any information we can get. I know I can do a Google search, but I need more than Google can give me. I already have a Social, but I need everything to find out who Paul Michaels is, if he is, in fact, a real person. There’s a FAQ form on the website.
Before I can say more
, Tracker’s message appears. Source code.
I am a step ahead of him for the first time, pulling up the source code for the web page on Jeanine’s computer. I scan it. Just as I suspected. A file name for the template of the form. I find what I’m looking for and substitute another code, which brings up the password file for the server.
Be careful of shadows, Tracker has typed. He knows what I am doing. He may likely be doing the same thing.
But I don’t see any sign of shadows, which is when a system is spying on itself to make sure someone isn’t getting into areas they’re not supposed to.
Problem is I now merely have a list of passwords. I need the one for the firewall. I have to get behind it, add a port that I can use to get in easily to start my search.
I’m running a search, Tracker writes, verifying that he’s gotten the same list. It’s almost as if we are one person doing this. It could take a while.
I don’t have ‘a while,’ but some things can’t be rushed. This could take an hour or three days. Or longer.
I create a new tab on my laptop and, just for my own peace of mind, do a Google search on Paul Michaels.
It seems to be a popular name, and I scan the sites, but nothing pops out at me. And then I have another thought. I type in ‘Amelie Renaud.’ That was the name on my passport, the one I used to get to Paris.
I can barely see the search results because my head begins to spin. I switch to the file that Tracker sent me. The one with the list of account owners we’d stolen from.
I scan through the list until I find it.
Amelie Renaud.
I frantically try to remember how I came up with that name, pulling memories out of my head like socks out of a drawer. Ian, after our discussion about whether I’d love him as a Paul, telling me that I remind him of an Amelie, a childhood friend. He said I should have a French last name. Renaud was good, he’d said.
I take note of the Social Security number for Amelie Renaud. It isn’t mine. Whose is it? Is there really an Amelie Renaud? Is it just a coincidence?
I toss that thought aside. There is nothing coincidental about any of this.
A light tap on the door startles me, and before I can close the laptops, Jeanine comes in. She wears a frown, her arms crossed over her chest.
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