by Louise Penny
“Have a good visit,” Anne said.
“Sure thing.” David straightened and sauntered to his rental car. “Holt’s place is close?”
“About six miles south. It’s a small complex on the left, all townhomes. Crow Creek Village. He’s number eight.”
“Has he taken to North Carolina?”
“You can ask him,” she said, smiling pleasantly. Would this conversation never end?
He nodded. “Good to see you . . . Anne.”
Anne watched until David’s car was out of sight. Then she allowed herself to relax. She pulled her cell phone from her purse and tapped a number on speed dial.
“Anne,” Holt said. “I was—”
“David Angola is here,” she said. “He was waiting for me when I came out of the school.”
Holt was silent for a moment. “Why?”
“He says they asked him to leave the camp while the books are being audited. Money’s missing. He’s on his way to see you.”
“Okay.” Holt didn’t sound especially alarmed or excited.
They hung up simultaneously.
Anne wondered if Holt was worried about this unexpected visit. Or maybe he was simply happy his former boss was in town.
Maybe he’d even known David was coming, but Anne thought not. I’ve fallen into bad habits. I felt secure. I quit questioning things I should have questioned. Anne was more shaken than she wanted to admit to herself when she entertained the thought that Holt might have been playing a long game.
The short drive home was anything but pleasant.
Anne’s home was on an attractive cul-de-sac surrounded by a thin circle of woodland. She’d never had a house before, and she’d looked at many places before she’d picked this two-story red brick with white trim. It was somewhat beyond her salary, but Anne let it be understood that the insurance payout from her husband’s death had formed the down payment.
Anne noted with satisfaction that the yard crew had come in her absence. The flower beds had been readied for winter. She’d tried working outside—it seemed so domestic, so in character for her new persona—but it had bored her profoundly.
Sooner or later the surrounding area would all be developed. But for now the woods baffled the sound from the nearby state road. The little neighborhood was both peaceful and cordial. None of the homeowners were out in their front yards, though at the end of the cul-de-sac a couple of teenage boys were shooting hoops on their driveway.
The grinding noise of the garage door opening seemed very loud. Anne eased in, parking neatly in half of the space. She’d begun leaving the other side open for Holt’s truck.
There was a movement in the corner of her eye. Anne’s head whipped around. Someone had slipped in with the car and run to the front of the garage, quick as a cat. The intruder was a small, hard woman in her forties with harshly dyed black hair.
Anne thought of pinning the woman to the garage wall. But the intruder was smart enough to stand off to the side, out of the path of the car, and also out of the reach of a flung-open door.
This was Anne’s day for encountering dangerous people.
The woman pantomimed rolling down a window, and Anne pressed the button.
“Hello, Cassie,” Anne said. “What a surprise.”
“Lower the garage door. Turn the engine off. Get out slowly. We’re going inside to talk.”
There was a gun in Anne’s center console, but by the time she’d extracted it, Cassie would have shot her. At least the knife was still in Anne’s pocket.
“Hurry up!” Cassie was impatient.
Anne pressed the button to lower the garage door. Following Cassie’s repeated instructions, she put the car in park and turned it off. She could not throw her knife at the best angle to wound Cassie. There was no point delaying; she opened the car door and stood.
“It’s been a long time.” Cassie looked rough. Anne’s former subordinate had never worn makeup, and she certainly hadn’t gotten that dye job in any salon.
“Not long enough,” Cassie said. She pushed her hood completely off her head. Dark hoodie, dark sweatpants. Completely forgettable.
“If you don’t want to talk to me, why are you here? Why the ambush?”
“We need to have a conversation. I figured you’d shoot first and ask questions later,” Cassie said. “All things considered.”
“Considering you threw me under the bus?”
When Senator Miriam Epperson’s daughter had died in the mountain-survival test, Cassie had laid the blame directly on Anne’s shoulders. At the time Anne had thought that strategy was understandable, even reasonable. It didn’t matter that Cassie had been the one who’d kept telling Dorcas Epperson to suck it up when the girl claimed she was ill. Anne clearly understood that the buck would stop with her, because she was in charge of Camp East. There was no need for both of them to go down.
Understanding Cassie’s motivation did not mean Anne had forgotten.
“It was my chance to take charge,” Cassie said. “Let’s go in the house. Get out your keys, then zip your purse.”
“So why aren’t you at the farm on this fine day? Snow training will begin in a few weeks,” Anne said. She unlocked the back door and punched in the alarm code. She walked into the kitchen slowly, her hands held out from her side.
From behind her Cassie said, “Have you seen David Angola lately?”
Anne had expected that question. She kept walking across the kitchen and into the living room. She bypassed the couch and went to the armchair, her normal seat. She turned to face Cassie. “I’d be more surprised to see David than I am to see you, but I’d be happier. He’s still running Farm West?”
“He was,” Cassie said. She was savagely angry. “We’re both on probation until . . . never mind. I figured he’d head here, since you’re such a favorite of his. I just found out Greg is here too. He was always David’s man, to the bone.”
“Surely that’s a melodramatic way to look at it?” And inaccurate. Holt was his own man. At least Anne had believed so.
Now she was leaving margin for error.
“I don’t know why both of you are living new lives here,” Cassie said. “In the same town. In North Carolina, for God’s sake. No two people have ever been placed together.”
“Most people get dead,” Anne said. “The point of being here is that my location is secret.”
“It took some doing to find out,” Cassie said. “But by the usual means, I discovered it.” She smiled, very unpleasantly.
“Coercion? Torture? Sex?” Anne added the last option deliberately. Cassie didn’t answer, but she smiled in a smug way. Sex it was.
That’s a leak that needs to be plugged, Anne noted. She should have taken care of it the first time someone from her past had shown up in her house and tried to kill her. At the time Anne had dismissed it as a one-off, a past enemy with super tracking ability and a lot of funds. Now she knew there was someone who was talking. A weak person, but one who had access to records . . .
“Gary Pomeroy in tech support,” Anne said, making an informed guess. Cassie’s eyes flickered. Bingo.
“Doesn’t make any difference, does it?” Cassie now stood in front of the couch, still on guard, a careful distance away. She gestured with the gun. “Strip. Throw each garment over to me.”
Anne was angry, though it didn’t show on her face. No one can tell me to strip in my own house, she thought. But what she said was, “What are we going to talk about?” She stepped out of her pumps and unzipped her pants.
“Where Angola hid the money,” Cassie said.
“You’ll have to tell me what you’re talking about,” Anne said. “I’m totally out of the loop.” Anne’s jacket came off (her knife in its pocket), then her blouse. When she was down to her bra and underpants, she turned in a circle to prove there was nothing concealed under them. “So, what money?”
Her eyes fixed on Anne, Cassie ran the fingers of her left hand over every garment, tossing the jacket be
hind the couch when she felt the knife. “Someone in accounting sent up a flare,” she said. “After that, the accountants settled in. Like flies on a carcass.” Cassie waved her gun toward an easy chair. After Anne sat, she tossed Anne’s pants and blouse back within her reach. While Anne got dressed, keeping her movements slow and steady, Cassie sat on the couch, still too wary and too far away for a successful attack.
“Both camps got audited?” Anne said, buttoning up her blouse.
“Yes, the whole program. Our accounts got frozen. Everyone was buzzing. Bottom line, in the past few years over half a million dollars vanished.”
Anne was surprised at the modesty of the amount. It wasn’t cheap to run clandestine training facilities staffed with expert instructors, much less to keep a fully staffed and equipped infirmary. “The money was missing from the budget? Or from the enemy fund?”
“The fund.” Both farms contributed to a common pool of money confiscated—or stolen outright—from criminals of all sorts, or from people simply deemed enemies. The existence of this fund was known only to the upper managers and to Oversight . . . and because it couldn’t be helped, a high-clearance branch of the tech team responsible for data handling also had access to the figures.
Cassie continued, “It would have been too obvious if it had only disappeared from David’s allocation. It came from the undivided fund. Oversight’s pretending they suspect David. I know they really think I did it. I’m suffering for it. Even when I’m cleared, and I will be, and get reinstated . . . they’ve halved the number of trainees for next year because of the deficit. I’ll have to let two instructors go.”
This was not a novel situation. A money crunch had happened at least two times during Anne’s tenure. “Consolidating the camps would save a lot of money,” Anne said, because that had been the rumor every time a pinch had been felt. She’d scored a direct hit, from the way Cassie’s face changed. Cassie was the younger administrator; she’d be the one to go if the camps combined.
“Not going to happen,” Cassie said.
Anne knew denial when she saw it. “What do you think I can do about this?”
“David and I are both on suspension until the money is tracked down. I’m sure David will come to see Greg. They’re thick as thieves. Maybe literally.”
“I’ve been here for three years, Holt for two,” Anne said. “It’s hard to see how either of us could be responsible.” But it’s not impossible, she thought. “What do you plan to do if you find David?”
Cassie didn’t answer. “I’ll find him. Are you telling me the truth? You haven’t seen him?”
“That’s what I said.” Why would Cassie expect Anne to tell the truth?
“What’s Greg’s new name?”
“Holt Halsey. Baseball coach.” Anne could see no need to keep the secret. She planned to make sure Cassie never told anyone.
“As soon as it’s dark we’re going to pay Coach Halsey a little visit,” Cassie said. She sat back on the couch and fell silent. But she stayed vigilant.
Anne had plenty to think about. She’d grown into her new identity. She’d become proficient in making her school the best it could be . . . though sometimes through very unconventional methods. She found it intolerable to believe she was on the brink of losing it all.
Anne was mapping out possible scenarios, imagining various contingencies, and (most important) planning an unannounced visit to Gary Pomeroy as soon as she could spare the time.
Assuming she had any left. Cassie was an emotional wreck, but she was also dangerous and capable.
It would be dark in less than an hour. Anne figured Cassie planned her move—whatever it was—for after dark. But that left an hour she’d have to spend in Cassie’s company. “Want to play cards?” Anne asked. “More to the point, do you want me to touch up your roots? Jesus, girl, go to a salon.”
“Shut up, Twyla.”
“Did you fly into Raleigh-Durham? Surely you didn’t drive all the way?” It was remotely possible Cassie had driven her personal vehicle all the way from Pennsylvania.
Cassie looked at her in stony silence.
It had been worth a try. Anne did not speak again, but she wasn’t idle. She had a lot to plan. A lot to lose. There were weapons here in her living room if she could reach them. She counted steps to each one. Each time she came up just a little short.
“That your family?” Cassie said, and Anne’s mind snapped to the present. Cassie waved her gun at the set of pictures on a narrow table against the wall. The table looked like a family heirloom, maybe passed down from the fifties.
“Yes,” Anne said.
“Your mom and dad?”
“Someone’s mom and dad.”
“Where’d they find the guy posing as your husband? He looks familiar.” Cassie was looking at a picture of Anne and her husband, standing in the fall woods, a golden retriever on a leash. His arm was around Anne’s shoulders. Both were smiling; maybe the dog was too.
“He’s in the acting pool.” Actors came in very handy in training exercises.
“Was the dog from the acting pool too?” Cassie tilted her head toward the framed picture.
“Waffle,” Anne said. “The cook’s dog.”
“How’d your husband die?”
“Skiing accident.” That had been Anne’s choice.
“Who’s the girl?”
Anne had a studio portrait of a young woman on the credenza in her office, so she’d picked an informal shot of the same woman to place in her home. The woman looked not unlike Anne, and she was wearing nurse’s scrubs and holding a plaque. (She’d been named nurse of the year.) “That’s my sister, Teresa,” Anne said. “She lives in San Diego.”
Cassie looked at Anne with a mixture of incredulity and distaste. She said, “At my job I can be who I am. I don’t have to fake a family. And no one underestimates me. How can you stand being here with civilians? Being less?”
“But I’m not less,” Anne said. Anne had never thought of herself as a civilian, the instructors’ term for noncombatants. Anne was still a fighter and strategist. Her regime at the school was sure, focused, and covertly ruthless; very much Anne, no matter what name she was using. She could have told Cassie about the gradual improvement in the school grade-point average, the better win-to-loss ratio of the school teams. (Except girls’ volleyball, Anne remembered; she had to do something about Melissa Horvath, the volleyball coach.)
Anne locked away her concerns with Melissa Horvath. She might not be around to correct the volleyball coach. She couldn’t discount the danger of her situation.
Cassie was obviously pleased to have her former boss at her mercy. That came as no surprise to Anne; Cassie had always wanted to be top dog (or top bitch). She’d never been good at hiding that. She’d waited for the death of Dorcas Epperson, one cold night in a marsh. Then she’d seized her opportunity.
“Did you take care of Epperson?” Anne asked. It was a new possibility, one she hadn’t considered before.
“No,” Cassie said, outraged.
Anne thought, She means it. She wanted to get rid of me, but she didn’t plan the death that brought me down. Idiot.
Anne’s cell phone rang.
“You can get it,” Cassie said after a moment. “No cry for help, or you’re dead.”
Anne nodded. Moving slowly, she rose to go to the kitchen counter. She pulled her phone from her purse. There was a gun hidden not two feet away, and this might be as close as Anne would get to a weapon. But Cassie had stood and was facing Anne, on the watch.
“Hello,” Anne said. She’d seen the caller ID; she knew who it was.
“Are we still on for tonight?” Holt’s voice was cautious.
Anne had been expecting this call since the clock had read five-thirty.
Anne was never late.
“I’m so sorry, I have to cancel,” she said evenly. “I’ve had an unexpected visitor. I don’t get to see her often, so we plan to spend the evening catching up.”
&nb
sp; After a moment’s silence, Holt said, “Okay. I’m sorry to miss our dinner.”
“Is it Holt?” Cassie mouthed.
Anne nodded.
“Tell him to come,” Cassie hissed.
“Why don’t you come over here?” Anne said obediently. “I’ve got plenty of salad and some rolls. I’d love you to meet my friend.” Anne really enjoyed Cassie’s face when she said that.
“You sure you have enough lamb?” Holt asked. Anne never ate lamb.
“I’ve got enough lamb for all of us.”
“I’ll be right over,” he said. “I’m really looking forward to it.”
“Me too,” Anne said sincerely. She ended the conversation. “He’s coming over,” she told Cassie.
“You two are on dinner terms?”
“Every now and then.” At least three nights a week, sometimes more.
“Are you bed buddies?”
“My business.”
Cassie could not control her face as well as Anne could. She reddened. Anne had a very faint memory of an instructor telling her that Cassie’d made a play for Holt when they were both at some planning session. That play had been spectacularly unsuccessful.
Even if Anne had not heard the rumor (she was surprised she remembered it, she hadn’t known Holt well at all), Cassie had clearly signaled that she had a history with him, at least in her own mind.
Since Anne had worked closely with Cassie, she’d quickly become aware that her subordinate was very touchy about her looks, doubtful of her own sex appeal. It was a point of vulnerability. Anne began to wonder if this search for David Angola had more than one layer. Interesting, but not important.
After ten minutes there was a knock at the door. When Cassie nodded, Anne answered it.
Holt was clutching a bag of groceries to his chest with his left hand. His right hand was concealed. He’d come armed.
“You’ll never guess who’s here,” Anne said, standing to one side to give him a clear shot if he wanted to take it. “You remember Cassie Boynton?”
Holt smiled and stepped inside. “I did not expect to see you, Cassie,” he said. “It’s been a long time. What are you doing in this neck of the woods?” Anne quietly shut the door behind Holt.