Say No More

by Hank Phillippi Ryan

  But by the time she got to her office, Jane had a new plan. Fiola—Fee—wasn’t at her desk yet. Jane swiveled into her own chair, carefully placing her mammoth iced coffee where she wouldn’t knock it over with the phone cord. Dialed. Two rings.

  “Hey, Karen,” she said. “Jane Ryland at Channel 2.” She slurped a sip, quietly, as the Boston PD public affairs officer protested. “Yeah, I know, Fiola called you last night, we’re working on this together.” Which was kind of true. “I’m just following up. Great that you’re in so early, very impressive.”

  No response. So much for friendly.

  “So, anyway. Do you have the police report from last night’s accident? I know it should be public record.” Which was also kind of true. “Only the accident report, I mean. Not the investigation part. And what’s the victim’s condition? Taken to Mass General or Boston City?”

  Jane put the phone on speaker so she could flip through her snail mail and boot up her computer while Karen talked. Or more accurately, sneered. The veteran PIO was notorious for her instant denials. Why they called them public information officers Jane would never understand. They were rarely interested in making anything public.

  “Jane, you know as well as I do,” Karen Warseck said, “we’ve got nothing for you. I’m sure your colleague explained that it’s under investigation. Certainly nothing happened between last night at midnight and now. And if it did? It’s still under investigation.”

  Karen paused. “Unless there’s something you’d like to tell us?”

  Not a chance, Jane thought. Then she frowned, realizing where that question might have come from. Was that Karen’s not-so-sly way of letting Jane know she knew about her “talk” with the DA’s office? On the other hand, the cop shop and the DA’s office were notoriously contentious. Protective. Territorial. Which meant it was certainly possible that the cops didn’t know Jane was giving information—under duress as it was—to the DA. Jane certainly wasn’t about to offer that tidbit. She’d done enough of that for one lifetime.

  Ignoring the PIO’s question, Jane persisted. “Any ID on the victim?” If “nothing had changed” it meant the victim was still alive.

  “What part of ‘nothing for you’ did you not understand?”

  “Funny,” Jane said. “So we’ll follow up later?”

  “No doubt,” Karen said.

  Jane heard the click of Karen’s hang-up over the tinny speaker, then the drone of the dial tone. She poked the speaker off and sat back, shoulders sagging, trying to think. She stabbed her straw up and down in her iced coffee, now mostly ice. Heard the squeaking noise of plastic straw against plastic lid, couldn’t resist doing it again.

  “Having fun?” Fiola said. She waved a hand at Jane and the straw as she swept into the office.

  “Hey, Fee,” Jane said. She squeaked her straw one more time, just because. Fee wore all black today: skirt, silk shirt, linen jacket. It looked as if she and Jane had coordinated their news-predictable wardrobes. Jane was wearing her go-to-court pearls, though, and touching them reminded her. Today she’d be on the participant side, not the observer side. Which still ticked her off. “What’s new?”

  “I’m calling the cops about the Gormay thing.” Fee parked her black handbag on the floor, kicked off her flip-flops, and slipped on black heels.

  “I already did that,” Jane said. “Nada.”

  “Jerks. You still going to court? Did Tosca call? Or anyone else?”

  “Yes, no.” Jane tossed her junk mail, slit open the one envelope that didn’t look like it was addressed by a crazy person. Took out the white piece of paper inside. “And no calls.”

  “Anything on the news about last night’s hit-and-run? Why didn’t you turn this on?” Fee popped on their TV, kept the sound muted.

  “Huh,” Jane said. She looked at the white piece of paper. Looked at the envelope again. Her name, and Channel 2, and a postmarked-Boston stamp. “Lovely,” she said. She held up the letter, showing Fiola its three-word block-lettered message. “Look.”

  “‘Say no more’.” Fiola read the note out loud. Frowned. “All in capital letters. Is there anything on the env—”

  “No,” Jane said.

  The two sat in silence for a beat.

  “Take it to Marsh Tyson,” Fiola said. “Just so he knows.”

  “Yeah, I guess so.” Jane replaced it in the envelope. “Either it’s about the hit-and-run, or it isn’t. Or it’s about campus crime, you know? Or it isn’t. Or it’s one of the ten billion nutcase things people send to reporters every darn day.”

  “I know,” Fiola said. “But you should take it to McCusker, too.”

  Jane put the envelope on her desk. Stared at it.

  “Yeah,” she said. “But it’s got nothing identifiable. At all. Not even a zip on the postmark. So what could McCusker, or anyone, do about it?”

  JAKE BROGAN

  “What good does that do?” Jake probably shouldn’t have said that out loud, but Austin the alarm kid was driving him crazy. SafeHouse Security, this business was called. Which, as far as Jake could figure, was deceptive advertising. The SafeHouse alarm system installed at the Morgan House certainly had not kept Avery Morgan safe. It hadn’t taped any arrivals. Or departures. Hadn’t warned the police of a break-in.

  Earlier this morning, he and DeLuca had waited in the struggling air-conditioning of Judge Gallagher’s chambers for two hours—DeLuca partially turned away from him on the waiting room’s sleek gray corduroy couch, texting as if his life depended on it. Jake spent the downtime researching Adams Bay and making a list of to-dos in his notebook. Connect with the school’s dean of students, some guy named Tarrant. Contact Avery Morgan’s fellow drama adjunct, Sasha Vogelby. He googled Willow Galt, too, and ran her through Facebook, but as sometimes happened, so far nothing. She was hiding something, Jake was sure. But then, so was everyone. Didn’t mean it mattered.

  Half an hour ago they’d handed their search warrant to SafeHouse’s twenty-something receptionist, a grunge wannabe with cobalt-blue hair, who’d left them in the alarm company’s chrome and glass lobby. Now she was back, and telling them the “vice president” had instructed her to “allow” them to see the video they requested. As if the warrant gave anyone a choice.

  “Thanks so much.” DeLuca saluted her with his Dunkin’s large.

  “And leave all liquids in the lobby,” the young woman said, missing—or ignoring—his sarcasm.

  “Are you ki—” DeLuca began.

  “D,” Jake said. D was no good until his third cup. This, sadly, had only been number two.

  She buzzed them through the clicking locks of an electronically secured metal gate and led them down a corridor of closed doors to a closet-sized office with “Security” stenciled in black on the door. Windowless and hyper-chilled, the room’s low-ceilinged walls were lined with darkened TV monitors held up by metal brackets, a carbon copy of every surveillance system Jake had ever seen.

  “This is Austin,” the receptionist said. “They’re okay, Aus. Whatevs.” And closed the door behind her.

  A double-screen console took up the center of the room. Austin, a clearly beleaguered underling in wrinkled plaid shirt and random blue jeans occupying the room’s only chair, guided them through the computerized records of the Morgan House security system. Which, as they watched screen after screen, showed basically nothing but black.

  Now, after fifteen minutes of nothing, Jake couldn’t stand it. “What good does it do to have a taping system if you have to turn it on?”

  “It’s just how it works,” the kid said. “You wouldn’t want the tape running all the time. Right?”

  “Whatevs,” DeLuca muttered.

  “So it only tapes if the motion detector is set to run?”

  “Or if we get a message to start the tape,” the alarm guy said. “Remotely.”

  “So wait. The serial killer comes in, but there’s no tape of that. Then you’re supposed to say, hang on, let me start the video?�
� DeLuca stood, putting one hand on his lower back as if the effort of leaning over the screen was impossibly uncomfortable. “How much does this ‘service’ cost?”

  “How would anyone know when to ask for surveillance video?” Jake interrupted. “Until it’s too late?”

  “There’s a panic button,” the kid said.

  “It get pushed?” Jake asked. “In the last five months or so?”

  Austin clicked his silver mouse, tapped on his silver keyboard, so work-worn the letters had disappeared from the keys.

  If Avery Morgan had used the panic button, that’d certainly be in the records. Police—or someone—would have arrived, and there’d be an explanation. Which would be a lead. Which would point to a solution. A possible solution.

  “Yes,” Austin said. “I see a—”

  Jake took out his spiral notebook. “What?”

  “Oh. Heck.” The kid stopped. Leaned closer to the screen. “Sorry.”

  “That’s not good,” D said.

  Austin tapped the keyboard again.

  “Austin? What exactly did you mean by ‘heck’?” Jake asked.

  “I mean, um, that was the wrong file.” The kid kept typing. “Someone else’s records. Let me try that again.”

  “Security,” D said. “Awesome.”

  Austin shrugged, shoulders hunched, the black-and-white screens flashing and changing, code scrolling.

  “All you usually need is the yard sign,” he said. “Or a decal on the window. The bad guys see it’s SafeHoused, they stay away. It’s an Adams Bay house, anyway. They’re the owner. The college, I mean. Ask them how they like it.”

  Jake lowered his notebook. He’d assumed Avery Morgan owned the house. “Say again?”

  “Nope, no panics.” Austin tapped more keys. “In fact, far as I can see…” More tapping. “She never turned on the video. She’d have to put in her password, but she never did.”

  “What was it?” DeLuca asked. “Her password?”

  “It’s secret.”

  “She’s dead.”

  “Still secret.”

  “Listen,” DeLuca began.

  “Do you know what this warrant means, Austin?” Jake, interrupting the fencing match, pulled his copy from his jacket pocket. His phone was buzzing, and a text pinged in, but he had to ignore it for now. “It means, according to a Suffolk County Superior Court judge—wanna see it?—it means nothing is secret.”

  “Dead, not dead. The warrant don’t care,” DeLuca said.

  “Popcorn,” Austin said.

  18

  WILLOW GALT

  “I’m going for a walk.” Willow trotted down the stairs after her husband. As he’d gotten dressed for work, in the navy suit and striped tie suitable for the accounting job they’d found for him, she’d yanked on a black sleeveless knit dress and flat shoes, then packed what she needed in a woven gypsy bag she’d kept from California. She could no longer see anything unusual in Avery’s backyard—no police, no guards, not even crime scene tape. No dog, either. What had happened to the dog?

  What worried her more: What if the police were now watching their house? Or following them? She was paranoid, sure, but was it paranoia if it made sense?

  “Willow.” Tom shook his head, continued down the stairs. “If you’re not here, the police will just come back.”

  “Okay, you got me,” She smiled, trying to act natural. “But, sweetheart? I really don’t want to face them alone. Bad enough that you’re working late tonight. Maybe I’ll stay out, too. Have dinner somewhere.”

  Willow had to make Tom believe she was not only dodging the police, which was true, but also that taking a walk was her only agenda. Which wasn’t true.

  “What’s gotten into you?” Tom asked. “Did you sleep at all? Honey? You go for walks every day. You don’t have to ask permission to do anything. Why is this a big deal?”

  “Oh, Tom, what if we have to leave again?” She couldn’t hold it in. Couldn’t. She was exhausted, drained, hadn’t slept, not a minute. “What if they’ve found us? What if they killed Avery as a warning that we’re next?”

  She had to stop. Her brain was going too fast. “Or by mistake? Thinking she was me?”

  “Willow, honey. Willow. We don’t look the same as we did, you and I.” Tom put down his briefcase, gestured at her. “Look at your hair. Your eyebrows. Some mornings even I don’t recognize you.”

  She looked nothing like the old Daniella, she knew that. But they couldn’t change Dunc’s—Tom’s—cheekbones, and even his gray hair didn’t make him someone else.

  “Exactly!” She was almost crying now. “That’s how they could have made a mistake! Because we don’t look like we used to! And—”

  She stopped, mid-tirade, with yet another fear. What if the police suspected her of killing Avery? She hadn’t, of course, but how would she defend herself? It would all come out. She thought of yet another undefendable horror.

  “What if they try to blame you?” Her voice tensed to a wail. She could hear it, but couldn’t help it.

  “Me?” Tom came closer, gently smoothed her hair away from her face. “Oh, honey, don’t do this. Okay?”

  “But Roger—” She almost choked on the name, couldn’t say it, the name of the man whose fault this whole hideous thing was. The head of Untitled.

  “Roger Hayden can’t hurt us,” Tom said. As if he’d read her mind. “He’s in custody. In California. Remember?”

  “But what if Hayden helped the feds somehow? Like we did? What if now—he’s free, too? What if he found us? We ruined his life. Don’t you think he’d want to ruin ours? That’s why we’re—” She waved an arm, flailing, gesturing to everything. “Right? Right?”

  Willow felt her heart race again. It got worse when she saw Tom’s face change, his forehead furrow. Because it proved he was considering what she’d said. As he should. Yes, Tom had made some mistakes, huge ones, but only at the behest—demand—of studio head Roger Hayden. And when it got too much for Tom’s conscience, he’d taken the studio’s books, the real ones as well as the duplicate ones, to his lawyer, and then to the feds. Untitled Studios collapsed, with Roger Hayden, threatening his eternal revenge, taken into custody. Soon after, the two of them, accountant and actress, were federally reborn as Tom and Willow Galt.

  Now she’d blown the whole charade. But what else could she do? Avery was a friend. Kind of. She second-guessed herself, regretting. Keeping quiet was always better. She’d remember that now, forever and ever. Never say another word.

  “Tom. What if it gets out that I’m talking to the police? What if someone takes a photo and puts it on TV? What if the police start looking into our background? What if they find out who we really are?”

  “You’re making this up. All of it.” Tom hefted his briefcase, as if to signal their “discussion” was over. “Don’t get hysterical, honey. Avery Morgan is dead. It’s sad, but she can’t be connected to us. It has nothing to do with Roger Hayden, and he can’t find us. The police will solve their case, and go away.”

  His face had softened with a curve of his eyebrows, the hint of a smile. “Honey? Of course you’re upset. Anyone would be upset.” He tucked his arm around her waist, walked her to the front door. “But don’t make it more than it is. Deal?”

  Outside, the beginnings of a summer morning—an insistent cardinal, the rustle of elm trees, a white butterfly dancing across their tiny front lawn. Together they looked left, then looked right, but they were alone. No police, no sentries, no lurking guys in pretending-to-be-civilian outfits. Willow could almost breathe.

  “See? There’s no one waiting to pounce.” Tom clicked his remote at their silver car. “Okay? You okay?”

  “I’m okay.” She waved as he backed out of their driveway. Tom was much better at this than she was. He didn’t need pills, like she sometimes did. He’d been fast asleep last night, this morning really, when she’d sneaked out of bed and locked herself in the guest bathroom. She’d balanced on the cool molded
edge of the white porcelain bathtub, turning the heavy black pages in her scrapbook.

  Contraband, certainly—beyond contraband, and into land mine. Time bomb. She’d retrieved the scrapbook from its safekeeping place under the guest room mattress. Even Tom didn’t know she had it. In the safety of the white-tiled bathroom, she’d paged through, seeing her childhood. Millie. Her California home. And the studio.

  She turned the page, knowing what was next. The photo at the Untitled annual party, the photo of her and Dunc. On the very day they’d met. This captured moment was a treasure, her treasure. She would not rip that photo to pieces. She couldn’t.

  But in the same photo, a smiling Avery Morgan. Even though Willow had never met her back then, she’d recognized Avery in the photo because she’d looked at it so many times. She’d never thought it would matter. Now it proved their real identities. Proved they’d all worked at the same California studio. Proved a past. The photo blew their cover and ruined their new lives and ended their safety.

  If the police searched their house, they’d find it.

  She could not destroy this book, not ever. She needed it, to remember Duncan and Daniella. But even the possibility of discovery meant she had to get it out of the house. Had to hide it. Somewhere safe, and, equally important, somewhere she could retrieve it when the time came.

  And, thanks to Avery, poor Avery, she knew exactly where that would be.

  EDWARD TARRANT

  He wasn’t gawking, not like some feeble-minded, tabloid-reading lowlife fascinated by death. This was purely business. Edward had every right to be at the Morgan House. He would decide how to present himself when he arrived. If he decided to arrive.

  Edward stepped up his pace as he crossed Brookline Ave and turned into the leafy boulevard that marked the edge of The Reserve. A couple of silvery airplanes on the westbound takeoff pattern from Logan left slashing contrails across the cloudless blue sky. He remembered that opening day of school in 2001, when the planes stopped, leaving Adams Bay and all of Boston in eerie silence. He remembered the days, just at spring break, after the Marathon bombing, when the streets went empty, save for jungle-camouflaged National Guard members and their menacing German shepherds. What happened to Avery Morgan wouldn’t stop air travel, or clear the streets. But it might prove equally earthshaking to his life.