‘I know. You gave it to me when the police arrived.’
‘Did you look at it?’
She shook her head. ‘There wasn’t time. I stuffed it in my shirt like you told me to, and I gave it back to you once we’d left the building. Why? Did I damage it? If I did, I’m sorry. I kind
Payne interrupted her. ‘Megan, relax. You didn’t damage the letter. Then again, even if you had destroyed it, we wouldn’t have the right to complain.’
She looked confused. ‘Why not?’
Jones handed the envelope to her. ‘Because it was addressed to you.’
Megan blinked a few times, then focused on the centre of the manila envelope. Shockingly, she saw her name and mailing address, penned in fancy calligraphy. ‘Is this a joke?’
Payne stared at her from across the desk. ‘Do we look like we’re joking?’
‘No, but…’
‘But, what?’ Jones demanded. ‘Isn’t that the envelope I gave you?’
‘I think so, but I can’t explain this.’
Jones grunted. ‘That’s too bad because we can’t explain it, either.’
A few days earlier, Payne would have considered himself a great judge of character, but after the whole ordeal with Ashley, he was slightly less confident in his ability to detect a con artist. However, based on the bewilderment on Megan’s face, he was pretty damn certain she was being honest with them. She
‘Let me ask you something else,’ Payne said. ‘When you first knocked on Ashley’s door, you said you were expecting some kind of package. What were you expecting?’
‘I wasn’t expecting anything.’
Payne leaned back in his chair, annoyed. ‘See, I find that hard to believe. You asked me about the package several times. It had to be important to you.’
She shook her head. ‘I asked because I was curious. Not because it was important.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
Megan pulled out her cell phone. ‘May I show you something?’
Payne and Jones nodded their heads.
She touched a button and started scrolling through her messages. ‘When I was in New Orleans, I worked from sunup to sundown, so my phone was never with me. But on one of the nights — Wednesday, I think — I got a strange text message. Here, take a look at this.’
She handed the phone to Jones, who studied the screen, trying to make sense of the cryptic message. Unlike the mysterious letter, the entire text had been written in English.
Protect it with your life.
Death shall visit those untrue.
Blood of his first wife.
44
‘I consider myself an educated man,’ he said to Megan, ‘so when I read poetry I tend to ask myself certain things. For instance, what was the central theme of the piece? Why did the writer choose this particular rhyming scheme? Occasionally, I even like to speculate on which schools of thought influenced the poet’s word choice.’
Payne glanced at Jones, trying to figure out where he was going with his line of questioning. He knew damn well that Jones didn’t read poetry — apart from the lyrics of his favourite rap songs.
‘That being said,’ Jones continued, ‘do you know what question popped into my mind while I read your text message?’
He leaned closer. ‘Why the fuck didn’t you show us this last night?’
‘Excuse me?’ she blurted.
Payne cleared his throat. ‘Language.’
Jones raised his hands defensively. ‘Sorry for being so crass, but vulgarity isn’t nearly as offensive as gunfire. I mean, curse words sting and all, but bullets freakin’ kill!’
Payne cleared his throat even louder.
‘What?’ Jones snapped. ‘I said freakin’, not fuckin’.’
‘I know you did, but calm down.’
‘Calm down? Why should I calm down? Personally I think you should be more upset!’
‘And what good would that do?’
‘What good?’ Jones asked incredulously. ‘Maybe it would help her understand that she shouldn’t keep intelligence from us. That keeping us in the dark is a good way to get us killed.’
Megan had heard enough. She wasn’t the type of person who was going to let two people argue about her while she was in the room — especially since she didn’t feel she had done anything wrong. ‘Wait a second! Do you mean like not telling me about the translation of the letter? I’m not stupid, you know. I heard you guys whispering about you everything if you’re not going to tell me everything?’
Jones glared at her for a few uncomfortable seconds. As much as he hated to admit it, she had a valid point. They had been keeping things from her. Important things. Of course, that’s the way it had been for them during their military careers. Information was compartmentalized. Everything was on a need-to-know basis. And since Payne and Jones were at the top of the MANIAC pyramid, they got to pick and choose when intelligence was passed to their men. Unfortunately, now that they were in the real world, they occasionally struggled with the concept of give and take. Sometimes information had to be shared for trust to be earned.
‘Listen,’ Jones said, suddenly not as loud or angry as a moment before, ‘I can understand your point of view, but you have to understand mine. When it comes to safety, there are no secrets. If you get a text message or a phone call that mentions death or threatens anyone in any way, you tell us ASAP. In return, we’ll do our best to keep everyone safe.’
Megan nodded in agreement. That sounded like a fair deal to her. ‘In hindsight, you’re right. I
‘Well, now you know.’
She nodded and stuck out her hand towards Jones. ‘Still friends?’
He smiled and gave her a fist bump. ‘Still friends.’
For Payne, it was a major struggle not to tease Jones. He had never seen one of his rants cut so short. Normally, Jones spouted on and on until he eventually ran out of steam, but she had managed to disarm him with a well-timed rebuttal and a few kind words. To Payne, it was like watching a woman use the Jedi mind trick. Only better. Because this wasn’t fiction.
‘Hey, DJ,’ Payne said, ‘do you feel like working your magic?’
‘With what?’
Payne handed Megan’s phone to Jones. ‘The message was sent to her on Wednesday night from a restricted number. Can you access her account and find out who sent it?’
‘I can, but I’ll have to do it in the other room.
Payne nodded. ‘That’s fine. I think I can handle things from here.’
‘Scream if you need me,’ Jones said as he walked through the door.
Megan glanced over her shoulder to make sure he couldn’t hear what she was about to say. ‘Well, that was interesting.’
Payne leaned back in his chair, impressed. ‘I have to admit, you showed a lot of moxie. Not only did you stand up to him, but you managed to calm him down.’
She smiled slyly. ‘What can I say? I have a gift.’
‘What gift is that?’
‘The ability to soothe the savage beast.’
‘Well, I—’
She cut him off. ‘Choose your next words wisely. If you say anything about a beast in your pants that needs soothing, I’m leaving and never coming back.’
Payne laughed. ‘Although I’m flattered that you’re thinking about my pants, I was actually going to say your gift probably comes in handy at work.’
As hostess at one of the fanciest restaurants in Philadelphia, Megan was often forced to deal with angry clientele — everyone from the snobby
He shook his head. ‘Actually, I haven’t.’
She playfully slammed her fist on the desk. ‘That’s because I handled them.’
Payne grinned at her, trying to remember the last time he had felt so comfortable with a woman in such a short amount of time. ‘As much as I’d like to hear all the details, let’s focus on the text message for a moment.’
She nodded. ‘Whatever you need, just ask.’
‘Out of curiosity, what di
d you do when you received the message?’
‘I did what most people would do: I tried to figure out who sent it. Unfortunately, as you know, it came from a restricted number. And when I replied to it, my text got bounced back.’
‘Then what?’ Payne asked.
‘I tried to make sense of the riddle.’
Payne, who had written the poem in his notebook, read it aloud. ‘Your fortune waits for you. Protect it with your life. Death shall visit those untrue. Blood of his first wife.’
‘Strange, huh?’
‘In what way? Please tell me there’s a big cheque in that envelope.’
‘Actually,’ Payne explained, ‘I was talking about Ashley. She came to Pittsburgh, claiming the letter had been sent to her, and she was killed because of her deceit.’
Megan opened her mouth to argue how preposterous that was, then realized Payne was right: Death had visited Ashley for that very reason. Suddenly, a chill went down her spine. ‘Jon, that is so creepy. Look at my arms. They’re covered in goose bumps.’
‘If you think that’s creepy, hand me your envelope. Since it was addressed to you, I think it’s time I told you what the letter said.’
Payne carefully removed the mysterious letter and laid it on the desk. As he did, she walked around to his side and stared at the ancient languages, trying to understand why it had been sent to her.
‘Is this my fortune?’ she asked.
Payne shook his head. ‘If the letter is as old as we think it is, it’s probably valuable, but I doubt it’s worth a fortune.’
‘Oh well, it’s probably for the best. Most rich people are assholes.’
She patted him on the back. ‘Relax, big guy. I said, most.’
‘Anyway,’ he said as he flipped his notebook to the verse he had copied down during Petr Ulster’s lecture, ‘the main reason we came to Philly to investigate Ashley’s death was because of the cryptic message of the poem. She didn’t know it, but it talks about Philadelphia.’
He set the notebook on the desk and allowed Megan to read the modern translation.
From the city of brothers,
A lover from the lost line.
A filly with no mother,
Chosen for her place in time.
Payne focused on Megan’s face as she read the poem, hoping to see how she reacted to the letter that had been intended for her. Would she be surprised? Or confused? Or maybe some other emotion that would allow him to learn more about her?
He watched her lips as they moved silently, slowly sounding out the words as she tried to decipher their meaning. In the middle of the message, she paused, as if she’d noticed something that no
‘Who wrote this?’ she demanded, her voice filled with concern.
‘Why? What’s wrong?’
‘Who wrote the letter, Jon?’
Payne shrugged. ‘We don’t know who wrote it. Why? What’s bothering you?’
‘The letter,’ she said as she sank into Payne’s chair. ‘I know who it’s describing.’
He stared at her and noticed the blood had drained from her pale face. ‘Who?’
Megan glanced up at him. ‘The letter is about me.’
45
‘Not to doubt you,’ he said, ‘but what makes you so sure?’
She didn’t speak. She simply pointed to the third line, tapping it repeatedly.
Payne put his hand on her shoulder. He could feel the tension building in her neck and back. ‘A filly with no mother? That’s what has you so shaken?’
He thought back to their late-night conversation at the hotel. They had talked about losing their parents at such an early age and how tough it had been on them. If he remembered correctly, a mugger had killed her mom when Megan was only ten.
‘Trust me when I tell you this,’ he said, ‘I know exactly what you’re going through. I do. Not a single day has passed since the death of my Nothing.’
Megan grabbed his hand and squeezed. Somehow she felt better knowing he cared enough about her to open up even though they had only just met. For an ex-soldier like Payne — someone who had been taught to bury his emotions in order to survive — she knew it was probably a difficult thing to do.
‘Come here,’ she said as she tugged on his arm and urged him to sit down on the corner of the desk. She wanted to look him in the face while she spoke to him. ‘I appreciate you telling me that. That had to be tough for you.’
Payne said nothing. He simply focused on her eyes, which were moist with tears.
‘Last night,’ Megan said, ‘when we talked about our parents, I didn’t tell you everything about my family history. We had just met and all, and there’s
‘What is it?’ he asked gently.
‘The parents I told you about were my adoptive parents. They took me in when I was just a newborn, so they were the only ones I ever knew. But they weren’t my biological parents.’
Payne studied her face, trying to figure out why this detail seemed so important to her — why it had knocked her off her feet and shaken her so deeply. But before he had a chance to ask, she wiped her eyes and continued her explanation.
‘When I was still a little girl, my mom decided it was time to tell me that I had been adopted. I’m not quite sure why she had chosen that particular moment — maybe she was afraid I was going to find out from someone else, and she wanted to make sure that didn’t happen. Whatever the reason, she came into my bedroom, sat down on my pink bed, and told me I was her precious little gift from heaven. Keep in mind I was only eight at the time, so I didn’t know much about adoption or childbirth, but she took her
Payne smiled warmly, appreciative that she had shared such a wonderful memory with him. Yet in the back of his mind, he couldn’t help but wonder what her story had to do with the letter. Why had the line ‘a filly with no mother’ affected her so deeply? Obviously there were thousands of adopted women from Philadelphia, and many of them had lost their adoptive parents over the years — just like Megan had — so why was she so confident the message was about her? Couldn’t it have been about any of them? Unless he had been focusing on the wrong aspect of the story. Maybe her emotional connection with the third line of the poem had nothing to do with her adoptive mother. Maybe it had something to do with her biological parents.
‘I don’t mean to pry,’ Payne said, ‘but what do you know about your birth mother?’
Megan blinked a few times, and when she did, tears ran down her cheeks. Slightly embarrassed, she brushed them away with the sleeve of her
‘That’s quite all right. Take your time. I’m not going anywhere.’
She managed a slight smile. ‘Ironically, I never even knew my birth mother, yet she’s the reason I’m crying. She’s the reason I’m so certain the poem is about me.’
‘Go on.’
‘You’ve heard of mothers dying during childbirth? Well, my birth mother has that beat. She actually died six hours and seventeen minutes before I was even born.’
Payne furrowed his brow. ‘Excuse me?’
‘Yeah,’ she said, sniffling, ‘I thought that would get your attention.’
‘Hold up. How did, um, I mean—’
Megan explained. ‘According to medical records, my birth mother was eight and a half months pregnant with me when she had a severe brain aneurysm. They rushed her to the hospital and tried to save her life, but she passed away in the emergency room. For the next six hours or so, machines kept her heart beating while they pumped her full of drugs that would help me survive a Caesarean section. Whatever they did must have worked because I came out healthy.’
‘There aren’t a lot of us, that’s for sure. That’s why I got so emotional when I saw the third line of the poem. ‘A filly with no mother’ — that has to be about me, right?’
Payne stood up and walked round the room, trying to figure out some other explanation for the quatrain. Yet the more he thought about it, the more he became convinced it was referring to Megan. It simply had to be. But why would
someone take the time to write a poem in a series of ancient languages and send it to a total stranger?
Furthermore, why were people willing to kill for it?
None of it made any sense.
46
Once the commercial hub of the city, the Grote Markt is now a traffic-free square, surrounded by picturesque buildings and small cafés with matching green awnings. Whenever the weather cooperated, Dubois would sit outside for hours at a time, conducting business by phone while his bodyguards looked for potential
Recently, tourism in the city had increased significantly thanks to the award-winning movie In Bruges, which starred Colin Farrell and Ralph Fiennes. Much of the movie had been filmed in the old city and Grote Markt, including a climactic scene at the top of the belfry. Dubois had never seen the film and never would — he preferred operas and symphonies to the silver screen — yet several filmgoers had told him the movie had presented the city in a favourable light. To Dubois, that was a blessing and a curse. He was delighted the rest of the world could see the beauty that he got to see every day, but he loathed the sudden influx of tourists.
Despite the falling temperatures and the chance of snow flurries, Dubois bundled himself in a tailored coat and made his way to the market place for an early dinner. His driver stopped the car as close to the café as possible, and Dubois waited for one of his bodyguards to open his door. A few minutes later, he was sitting in a window seat, staring at the neo-Gothic provincial court on the northern side of the plaza. The building had been built on the site of the old water halls and had been reconstructed in 1878 after a fire destroyed most of the complex. Critics argued that the neo-Gothic style conflicted with the medieval architecture found in the rest of the city. Ironically, that was the reason Dubois found comfort in the building. In many ways, it reminded him of the cathedrals back in Paris, a city he loved deeply but rarely got to visit.
‘Good evening, Mr Dubois,’ the waitress said in Dutch.
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