So why hadn’t Laura told that to the cops? Why had she acted so guilty? And where the hell had Hoodie come from? What about the storage unit?
Every time Andy thought something made sense, the world went sideways again.
Andy started to reach for her drink.
Mike had left his phone on the bar.
She had seen his passcode. Six 3s.
The bartender was watching television. The pool players were arguing about a shot. The long hallway was still empty. She would hear the door when Mike came out of the bathroom. She had heard it when he went in.
Andy picked up the phone. She dialed in the 3s. The home screen had a photo of a cat behind it, and weirdly, she thought a man who had his cat on his phone could not be that bad. Andy tapped Safari. She pulled up the Belle Isle Review. The front page had the new photo of Laura at the party, the one she’d seen on CNN. Gordon was not cropped out this time. Andy scanned the story, which was basically the same one that had been there the day before.
She scrolled down for other news. She was more relieved than startled when she saw the headline:
BODY FOUND UNDER YAMACRAW BRIDGE
Andy skimmed the details. Head injury. No ID. Jeans and a black hoodie. Dolphin tattoo on his hip. Found by fishermen. No foul play suspected. Police asking people to come forward with information.
She heard the bathroom door open. Andy closed the browser page. She tapped back to the home screen. She clicked the phone off and had it back on the bar by the time Mike appeared in the hallway.
Andy sipped the vodka.
Unidentified body?
Head injury?
No foul play?
Mike groaned as he sat back on the stool. “Had to lift about sixteen thousand pounds of boulders today.”
Andy murmured in sympathy, but the new story was her focus now. The Yamacraw Bridge spanned the Tugaloo River. How had Hoodie’s body gotten there? Laura couldn’t have taken him herself. Even without the police watching, she only had one good arm and one good leg.
What the hell was going on?
“Hello?” Mike was rapping his knuckles on the bar again, this time for Andy’s attention. “Past my bedtime. I gotta big job to start tomorrow. Want me to walk you to your car?”
Andy didn’t think it was a good idea to stay in the bar alone. She looked around for the bartender.
“He’ll put it on my tab.” Mike tucked his phone into his pocket. He indicated Andy should go ahead of him. He kept his distance until she got to the door, then he reached ahead to hold it open.
Outside, the heat was only slightly less awful than before. Andy would take another shower before she went to bed. Maybe she would crank down the a/c and climb into the sleeping bag. Or maybe she would climb into the Reliant because wasn’t it still weird that she had met Mike here, of all places? And that he was telling her things that she wanted to hear? And that he had walked her out of the bar, which meant he would know where she was going next?
Knepper Knippers. There was lawn equipment in the back of the truck—a weedeater, a leaf blower, some rakes and a shovel. Streaks of dirt and grass were on the side panels. Mike had been in the bar when she got there, not the other way around. His truck was clearly used for lawncare purposes. He had a driver’s license with his name on it. He had a tab at the bar, for the love of God. Either he was a clairvoyant psychopath or Andy was losing her mind.
He patted the truck. “This is me.”
She said, “I like the grasshopper.”
“You’re beautiful.”
Andy was taken off guard.
He laughed. “That was weird, right? I just met you. I mean, really met you. And we flirted with each other in a bar and it was nice but it’s still kind of strange that we’re both here at the same time, right?”
“You keep saying things that I’m thinking in my head, but you say them like they’re normal instead of something I should be worried about.” Andy wanted to clap her hands over her mouth. She had not meant to say any of that out loud. “I should go.”
“All right.”
She didn’t go. Why had he called her beautiful?
“You’ve got—” he reached to pick something out of her hair. A piece of fuzz from the cheap motel towel.
Andy wrapped her hand around his, because apparently, Hand-fetish Andy was also a hell of a lot bolder than normal Andy.
“You really are so damn beautiful.” He said it like he was in awe. Like he meant it.
Andy leaned her head into his hand. His palm was rough against her cheek. The neon lights from the bar caught the umber in his eyes. She wanted to melt into him. It felt so damn good to be looked at, to be touched, by somebody. By this body. By this weird, attractive man.
And then he kissed her.
Mike was tentative at first but then her fingers were in his hair and the kissing got deeper and suddenly all of Andy’s nerves went collectively insane. Her feet left the ground. He backed her into the truck, pressed hard against her. His mouth was on her neck, her breasts. Every single inch of Andy’s body wanted him. She had never been so overcome with lust. She reached down to stroke him with her hand, and—
“Keychain,” he said.
He was laughing, so Andy laughed, too. She’d felt up the keychain in his front pocket.
Her feet went back to the ground. They were both breathing hard.
She leaned in to kiss him again, but Mike turned away.
He said, “I’m sorry.”
Oh, God.
“I’m just—” His voice was rough. “I—”
Andy wanted to disappear into the ether. “I should—”
He pressed his fingers to her mouth to stop her. “You really are so beautiful. All I could think about in there was kissing you.” His thumb traced across her lips. He looked like he was going to kiss her again, but he took a step back and tucked his hand into his pocket instead. “I’m really attracted to you. I mean, obviously, I’m attracted to you, but—”
“Please don’t.”
“I need to say this,” he told her, because his feelings were the most important thing right now. “I’m not that guy. You know, the one who picks up women in bars and takes them to the parking lot and—”
“I wasn’t going to,” Andy said, but that was a lie because she’d been about to. “I didn’t—”
“Could you—”
Andy waited.
Mike didn’t finish his sentence. He just shrugged and said, “I should go.”
She kept waiting for more because she was stupid.
“Anyway.” He pulled his keys out of his pocket and looped the keychain around his fingers. And then he laughed.
Please don’t make a joke about me giving your keychain a handjob.
He said, “I could—I mean, I should walk you to—”
Andy left. Her face was on fire as she crossed the road. He was watching her leave again the same way he had watched her leave outside of the hospital. “Idiot, idiot, idiot,” Andy whispered, then, “What the fuck? What the fuck?”
She felt disgusted with herself as she climbed the stairs to the motel. Mike’s truck was pulling onto the road. He was looking up at her as she walked across the balcony. Andy wished for a bazooka to blow him away. Or a gun to kill herself with. She had never hooked up with a stranger. Not even in college. What the hell was wrong with her? Why was she making such stupid decisions? She was a criminal on the run. No one could be trusted. So what if Mike had an Alabama driver’s license? Laura had one from Ontario, for fucksakes. She had a fake car. Mike could have a fake truck. The sign with the grasshopper was magnetized, not permanently stuck on. The bartender could’ve been friendly with Mike because bartenders are always friendly with their customers.
Andy jammed the key in the lock and threw open the door to her room. She was so upset that she barely noted the suitcase and sleeping bag were where she’d left them.
She sat on the bed, head in her hands, and tried not to burst into tears.
But he had called her beautiful. And he was right about being excited. Unless somehow between opening the front door of the bar and walking to his truck he’d shoved a can of Coke down his pants.
“Christ!”
That stupid keychain.
Andy stood up. She had to pace. She had to go through every single fucking stupid thing she had done. Kissed him too deeply? Too much saliva? Not enough tongue? Maybe her breasts were too small. Or, God, no—
She smelled her bra, which carried the scent of the disgusting hotel soap.
Did guys care about that kind of thing?
Andy covered her eyes with her hands. She sank back to the bed.
The memory of her fingers stroking that stupid keychain in his pocket made her cheeks radiate with heat. He had probably been insulted. Or maybe he hadn’t wanted to take advantage of someone who was so painfully inept. What kind of idiot thought a rabbit’s foot keychain was a man’s penis?
But what kind of grown-ass man kept a giant rabbit’s foot in his pocket?
That guy.
What the hell did that even mean—that guy?
Andy dropped her hands from her face.
She felt her mouth gape open.
The truck.
Not Mike’s grasshopper truck or the dead man’s truck, but the beat-up old Chevy she had seen parked in the Hazeltons’ driveway early this morning.
This morning—
After Andy had killed a man. After she had run down the beach looking for the dead man’s Ford because Laura had told her to.
There had been two trucks parked in the Hazeltons’ driveway, not one.
The windows had been rolled down. Andy had looked inside the cab. She had considered stealing the old Chevy instead of taking the Ford. It would’ve been easy, because the key was in the ignition. She had seen it clearly in the pre-dawn light.
It was attached to a rabbit’s foot keychain, just like the one that Mike Knepper had taken out of his pocket and looped around his fingers.
July 31, 1986
FIVE DAYS AFTER THE OSLO SHOOTING
9
Jane Queller woke in a cold sweat. She had been crying in her sleep again. Her nose was raw. Her body ached. She started shaking uncontrollably. Panic made her heart shiver inside of her chest. In the semi-darkness, she thought she was back in Berlin, then in the Oslo hotel room, then she realized that she was in her childhood bedroom inside the Presidio Heights house. Pink wallpaper. Satin pink duvet and pillows. More pink in the rug, on the couch, the desk chair. Posters and stuffed animals and dolls.
Her mother had decorated the room because Jane did not have time to do it herself. From the age of six, almost every waking moment of Jane’s life had been spent in front of the piano. Tinkering. Practicing. Playing. Learning. Performing. Touring. Judging. Failing. Recovering. Coaxing. Succeeding. Mastering.
In the early days, Martin would stand behind Jane while she played, his eyes following the notes, his hands on her shoulders, gently pressing when she made a mistake. Pechenikov had requested Martin abandon his post as a condition of taking on Jane as a student, but the tension of Martin’s presence had shadowed her career. Her life. Her triumphs. Her failures. Whether she was in Tokyo or Sydney or New York, or even during her three months of isolation in Berlin, Jane could always feel an invisible Martin hovering behind her.
Jane shivered again. She glanced behind her, as if Martin might be there. She sat up and pressed her back against the headboard. She pulled the sheets around her.
What had they done?
Nick would argue that they hadn’t done anything. Laura Juneau was the one who’d pulled the trigger. The woman had been visibly at peace with the decision. She could’ve walked away at any time. That she had murdered Martin, then herself, was an act of bravery, and also an act that she had committed alone.
But for the first time in the six years that Jane had known Nicholas Harp, she found herself incapable of believing him.
They had all put Laura on that stage with Martin—Jane, Andrew, Nick, the other cells in the other cities. By Nick’s design, they were each a cog in a decentralized machine. A mysterious man on the inside had helped Chicago infiltrate the company that produced the red dye packs that were supposed to be inside the brown paper bag. New York had worked with the document forger in Toronto. San Francisco had paid for airline tickets, hotel rooms, taxi rides and meals. Like Martin’s shadow behind Jane, they had all stood invisible behind Laura Juneau as she pulled the revolver from her purse and twice squeezed the trigger.
Was this crazy?
Were they all insane?
Every morning for the last eighteen months Jane had found herself waking up with doubt on her mind. Her emotions would violently swing like the clapper inside a bell. One moment, she would think that they were acting like lunatics—running drills, practicing escapes and learning how to use weapons. Wasn’t that ridiculous? Why did Jane have to learn hand-to-hand combat? Why did she need to memorize safe house locations and understand diagrams of false panels and secret compartments? They were just a handful of people, all of them under the age of thirty, believing that they had the wherewithal, the power, to pull off extraordinary acts of opposition.
Wasn’t that the very definition of delusional?
But then the next moment, Nick would start speaking and Jane would be convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that everything they were doing made perfect sense.
Jane put her head in her hands.
She had helped a woman murder her own father. She had planned for his death. She had known it was going to happen and said nothing.
Oslo had taken away the ridiculousness. The skepticism. Everything was real now. All of it was happening.
Jane was losing her mind.
“There you are.” Nick came into the room with a mug in one hand and a newspaper in the other. He was wearing his boxer shorts and nothing else. “Drink all of this.”
Jane took the mug. Hot tea and bourbon. The last time she’d had a drink was with Laura Juneau in the bar. Jane’s heart had been pounding then as it pounded now. Laura had called Jane a chameleon. And she had been right. The woman had no idea that Jane was part of the group. They had talked like strangers, then intimates, then Laura was gone.
You are a magnificent person, she had told Jane before leaving. You are magnificent because you are so uniquely you.
“More G-men just pulled up.” Nick was at the window looking down on the motorcourt. “I’m guessing FBI by the shitty car.” He flashed Jane a crooked grin, as if the presence of more feds on top of the CIA, NSA, Interpol, Revenue Agents and Secret Service men they’d already spoken to was a trifle. “You be Bonnie and I’ll be Clyde.”
Jane gulped the tea. She barely tasted the hot liquid as it scorched into her stomach. Martin had been murdered five days ago. His funeral was tomorrow. Nick seemed to be feeding off the stress, almost giddy during the interviews that more and more felt like interrogations. Jane wanted to scream at him that this was real, that they had murdered someone, that what they were planning next could land them all in prison for the rest of their lives—or worse.
Instead, she whispered, “I’m scared, Nicky.”
“Darling.” He was on the bed, holding her, before she could ask. His lips were at her ear. “You’ll be okay. Trust me. I’ve been through a hell of a lot worse than this. It makes you stronger. It reminds you why we’re doing this.”
Jane closed her eyes as she tried to absorb his words. She had lost the point of doing this. Why was she grieving her father? For so many years, she’d truly believed that any love she’d had for Martin had been beaten out of her. So why w
as Jane so racked with guilt? Why did it hurt every time she remembered that Martin was gone?
“Stop.” Nick could always tell when she was troubled. He told her, “Think of something else. Something good.”
Jane shook her head. She did not have Nick’s talent of compartmentalization. She couldn’t even close her eyes without seeing Martin’s head exploding. He’d been shot in the temple. Brain and tissue and bone had splattered Friedrich Richter like mud from a car wheel. Then Laura had pulled the trigger again and the top of her head had sprayed up into the ceiling.
I’m sorry, Jane had mouthed to the woman seconds before.
Had Laura even known why Jane was apologizing?
“Come on,” Nick said, giving Jane a squeeze on the shoulder to bring her back to the present. “Do you remember the first time I met you?”
Jane shook her head again, but only to try to clear the violent images from her mind. The gun. The explosions. The splatter and spray.
“Come on, Jinx,” Nick coaxed. “Have you forgotten about the first time we met? It’ll be six years in December. Did you know that?”
Jane wiped her nose. Of course she knew. The moment she first saw Nick was etched into every fiber of her being: Andrew and Nick home from college, pushing and shoving each other like schoolboys in the front hall. Jane had stormed out of the parlor to complain about the racket. Nick had smiled at her, and she’d felt her heart fill like a hot-air balloon that threatened to float out of her chest.
“Jinx?”
She knew that he wouldn’t give up unless she played along, so she played along, saying, “You barely noticed me.”
“You were barely legal.”
“I was seventeen.” She hated when he treated her like she was a child. Like Andrew, he was only three years her senior. “And you ignored me the entire weekend because you and Andy were chasing after those trashy girls from North Beach.”
He laughed. “You would’ve never given me a chance if I’d fallen all over myself like the other fools.”
There were no other fools. No one had ever fallen all over themselves for Jane. Men had looked at her with either awe or boredom, as if she was a doll inside of a glass case. Nick was the first of Andrew’s friends who had seen her as a woman.
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