Her lips turned into an uneasy smile, although her eyes remained flat and accusatory, pretending to believe him but not quite. He reached past her and pulled back the curtain, pocketing his wallet as he waved into the room. “After you.”
She stepped out of the closet, and he followed, reaching out to palm the last coat. Nothing.
If MacDonald was carrying an extra phone, he had it on him.
Hal settled into the chair beside Telly and scanned the room. There was still no sign of Spencer MacDonald.
“He’s behind that wall,” Telly said, reading his mind. “Can’t see him from here.”
Hal shifted his bar chair so he’d see when MacDonald walked by. Then he lifted the menu and tried to decide what to eat.
The two men ordered twenty-five-dollar hamburgers and a fifteen-dollar order of truffle fries to split. They ate in near silence. Telly watched a couple of women at the far end of the bar while Hal kept an eye on the wall where MacDonald was.
“You can’t approach him,” Telly said again as Hal chewed another bite of burger. He had to admit it was pretty good. Texas knew its beef.
“You mentioned that,” Hal said, reaching for more of the truffle fries. He liked regular fries better.
He was eating slowly. No way was he going to finish his meal before MacDonald did. He had just taken another bite of burger—three bucks’ worth, maybe—when Spencer MacDonald emerged from behind the wall, heading across the restaurant. Beside him was an elderly woman, her hand on his arm. For a moment, Hal wondered if it was a relative, but then he saw the stones on her necklace, the rock on her left hand. More likely a client.
Hal set his napkin beside his plate. “I’ve got to use the bathroom.” He didn’t wait for a response from Telly. Instead, Hal strode across the room, aimed directly for Spencer MacDonald. Telly called something out to him, but Hal didn’t hear and didn’t turn back.
MacDonald might have heard Telly. At that moment, MacDonald turned his head. Hal was maybe three feet away. MacDonald flinched, his shoulders drawing up around his ears. His feet tripped over themselves as he backed away, looking like he might knock his dinner companion over to escape Hal’s path. “What—”
Hal grinned his biggest, dopiest grin and grabbed MacDonald’s elbow, playing it up. All around them, conversation slowed and quieted, and heads turned. Hal jerked MacDonald toward him, smiling all the while, and clasped his right hand. “Goddamn, man. It is great to see you.”
MacDonald’s mouth dropped open, incapable of speech.
“How are you enjoying Dallas? Beautiful, ain’t it?”
MacDonald’s eyes narrowed.
But Hal pumped MacDonald’s hand, resisting the urge to clamp down on the fingers like a vise and break them. As he let go, he brushed his arm across MacDonald’s blazer. Against his forearm, he felt the lump of a phone in MacDonald’s breast pocket. One phone.
“What are you doing?” MacDonald hissed, reaching into his pocket to pull out the phone.
Hal brushed his hands across MacDonald’s shoulders. “I love this jacket, man.” He turned to the old woman. “He looks sharp, doesn’t he? I mean, wow, right?” He whistled.
The woman shuffled away, trembling slightly as her mouth stitched itself into a distasteful scowl.
Hal swiped his palms across the bottom of MacDonald’s blazer, pretending to straighten it. Feeling the pockets in the process. Empty. “You are looking very sharp.” Hal was still grinning.
“Let go of me,” MacDonald snapped, raising his phone toward Hal.
Hal grinned into the camera, certain he was being recorded. He gave MacDonald a light slap on the shoulder, all smiles, and nodded at the old woman. “I just wanted to say hello,” Hal said as he squeezed between MacDonald and the woman, allowing his hand to graze past the backside of MacDonald’s pants. One pocket had contents. The right side. His wallet, surely. Nothing else. No second phone.
Without another word, Hal glided away and strode toward the bathroom.
Inside, he checked that he was alone and drew slow, even breaths, struggling to release his rage. His hands twitched with the need to strike something. Instead, he washed them thoroughly, using too much soap, then patted water on his face. After a few minutes, he exited the bathroom and returned to the main dining room. There was no sign of MacDonald or his dinner guest. As Hal walked back to the bar, he pulled out his phone.
Telly stared at him wide-eyed.
Hal punched his contacts list and dialed MacDonald’s number that he’d gotten from the file. A moment later, the familiar voice answered.
“Great to see you, Spencer,” Hal said.
“I don’t know what you think you’re doing,” Spencer MacDonald hissed. “But you can’t assault me in public and get away with it.”
Hal lowered his voice, the sharp edge finally bared. “I think you’re confused, Spencer.”
“I am not,” MacDonald snapped.
“But you are. Believe me, you’ll know it when I assault you.” Hal ended the call and set the phone on the bar. Some of the guests glanced in his direction, and the two women at the far end of the bar sat huddled across their table, clearly talking about him. Hal turned back to his plate and reached for a handful of truffle fries, shoving them into his mouth. He decided he hated truffle fries.
“You want to tell me what that was about?” Telly asked.
Hal swallowed. “I was checking to see if he had a burner phone on him,” Hal said. “But he only had one phone, and it was his regular line. No burner.”
He turned back to face the bar, the adrenaline draining out of him as frustration mounted again.
He told himself he’d rattled MacDonald. That had to count for something. If only it made him feel better.
17
Monday, 8:45 p.m. CST
Spencer was not a man who did public confrontation. After the interaction with Harris in the restaurant, Spencer had attended to his octogenarian client, helping her find her coat and ushering her out of the restaurant.
She had moved at a glacial pace, which had made him feel antsy and slightly sick to his stomach. In hindsight, he was grateful for how slow she was. He’d been richly rewarded for those extra minutes.
The restaurant manager had seen the interaction with Harris and had come outside to make sure they were all right. The owner, too, emerged from the kitchen, and then a senior attorney with the DA’s office who had been dining with his wife and daughter joined them. All eyes were on his client, but it was Spencer’s hand the men shook.
“Did you know that man?” They asked his client about Harris.
“No,” she replied, her hand pressed to her bosom as though ready to swoon.
When they asked him, Spencer didn’t mention the interview with Hal earlier in the day. “I think he’s a police officer from California somewhere. The other guy is local. FBI, maybe.”
The men spoke among themselves, the assistant district attorney promising to make phone calls. And then Spencer put his client in her Town Car with her driver and sent her on her way.
Spencer parked himself in his rental car and waited. Staring into the dark night, Spencer dreamed of all the ways he could drive Hal Harris insane.
There were so many.
He felt suddenly more alive than he had since his visit to Mistress Keres.
Torture was a game at which he was particularly good. Not physical torture. That always struck him as rather banal. Plus, Hal Harris was a beast. Bodily harm would be too expected. A goon like Harris had probably been in his share of fights. Men that size always brought out the Neanderthal in other, smaller men. As though beating up a man like Harris would prove something.
Not Spencer. But he did want to hurt him. Oh, so much.
The interaction with Harris inside the restaurant had rattled him. After his mother’s service that morning, inside his father’s church, the effect had been magnified. He was suddenly thrown back to the days after Bella first left him—raw and unsure. He was not himself
.
Nineteen months had passed since he’d been released from prison. Every day since that one, he had climbed steadily toward this next step. Every step was an ascent, and he was so close.
But then Bryce Scala had appeared at his door with those letters and a plan to throw his mother a memorial service. Did Scala know how Spencer had killed her? Could he possibly have proof, proof that he would bring to the police, and some Neanderthal like Harris would show up to put him back in prison? It was almost as if God was punishing him. Or that was what Spencer would have thought if he believed in God.
He did believe in Hell, though. And he was certain his father was there, watching over his shoulder as he let Scala into his living room, laughing at this latest twist in his son’s fate. Imagining his father’s thin-lipped smile, the right side of his mouth twisted upward in a sort of snarl, filled him with rage.
He had felt so much rage that he’d felt unable to guide himself through the most basic of tasks—dressing, meals. He was supposed to go to the office, but he was too raw, too close to breaking.
Instead, he’d headed to the home of Mistress Keres, thinking that seeing her might be enough. All those months of letting her dominate him, he’d shown supreme control over his anger, but he had known his control would not last. So he had allowed himself to let go.
It had been a lot to manage with the cleanup and body disposal. But he was a clever man, and she was not a large person. Afterward, he could think clearly again. With a calm mind, he convinced himself he could sit in that church and listen to Scala heap praise on a woman who’d never even loved her own child.
Scala had asked Spencer if he wanted to participate in the ceremony, give some sort of eulogy for his parents. “I’m afraid I’d be too emotional,” he’d told Scala, working up a frog in his throat.
Yes, he’d thought the visit to Florida was the long-awaited closure to his parents’ hold on him. He could surely handle a two-hour memorial.
Even inside his father’s church.
But he’d underestimated how that place could bring him to his knees. He was a child there—lowly and awkward and hated. Even as an adult. Even as a powerful man, he’d felt himself curl in against the very air. The smells lashed out at him like tiny barbs—wax, fire, the dust on the tapestries that hung high on the stone walls, depicting scenes of Jesus’s torment.
It was as though his father stood beside him, the man’s long pencil-like fingers pressing into Spencer’s young shoulder as he whispered about the power of Jesus’s suffering. “It is suffering that builds men,” he would say, blowing his stale breath. “Suffering that tears them down. Will you not rise to be something?”
Over and over again. The tone of his father’s voice changed over his childhood until Spencer’s defeat was as set in stone as the Ten Commandments.
And it was as though Bryce Scala knew exactly how his parents had felt about him. Scala barely mentioned Spencer in the eulogy, focusing instead on his mother’s love of God and of her God-worshipping husband.
He thought again of his mother’s letters, how she had heaped the blame on Spencer. A child. Not once did she write about the influence of his father or his use of religion to repress and control his son.
Spencer kept his gaze on the bright blue Sapphire sign above the door, waiting for Hal Harris to emerge. He touched the back of his hand to his temple, surprised to feel sweat on his skin. Starting the car engine, he turned the air on high. It was truly in the past now. Ten days from now, he would be in Thessaly, Greece, where no one would ever disturb his household again. He would have Bella. His wife. His life. He had only to finish off these investor visits and return to Greenville to empty his safe deposit box, something he’d planned to do before Scala’s visit derailed him. It didn’t matter, he reminded himself. But the fact that he had forgotten something so important made him question his fortitude. He would have to be strong until they were settled in Greece.
He rolled the car window down a few inches and let the cool night air blow in before shutting the engine off again.
In the rearview mirror, he confirmed that the Uber was parked behind him. Now it was just a waiting game. It took longer than he’d expected, but a little after nine, Hal Harris and the FBI agent stepped out of the restaurant and into the night air. Spencer gripped his phone in his right hand, aimed it out the window.
Spencer’s estimate had been almost dead-on. It took Harris about six seconds to see him. As soon as their eyes met, Spencer put his hand outside the car and patted the driver’s door to give the sign. Behind him, the Uber’s car came to life.
Without a sideways glance, Harris strode toward him. The Uber driver pulled into the street, accelerating smoothly as Harris stepped off the curb. Harris glanced at the car, hardly noticing it until it was within feet of him. The driver handled it perfectly, easing toward Hal foot by foot.
When the Uber was three or four feet away, Hal halted, turned to the driver, and raised his hands. “Hello,” he shouted at the driver.
The car continued forward at a snail’s pace.
“It’s like he doesn’t even see you,” Spencer said. “It’s like you’re the invisible man.”
Hal’s gaze focused like a laser on Spencer, who gave him a wide grin. Hal stared at Spencer as the Uber continued to ease forward. The car stopped just inches from Hal, who jumped as though he’d been hit, his expression filled with surprise and rage.
Spencer let out a loud, bark-like laugh. Being confronted by Harris inside the restaurant had startled him. Just the sheer size of the man coming at him was momentarily terrifying. He’d been overcome by a desire to run. Like a child.
In the end, the others assumed that his response to Hal Harris had been exactly appropriate. They’d seen him look bewildered and a bit startled, and they’d felt anger on his behalf. Harris had acted frenetic, his energy that of a man on drugs.
Hal turned back to the Uber and raised both hands. “What the hell are you doing?”
The Uber started filming Hal through the windshield, motioning to Hal as though to usher him out of the way.
Hal slapped the hood of the car.
A gasp from several patrons echoed outside the restaurant.
Spencer said nothing but also continued to film. The Uber driver stepped out of his car. Then Harris’s FBI buddy was in the street, too, trying to pull Hal away from the car. Hal strained against the FBI agent’s hold, shouting back at Spencer. “You’re not going to get away with this, MacDonald.”
Spencer laughed again, making sure the sound carried. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Absolutely no idea.”
After Harris and the agent had left, Spencer paid the Uber driver the negotiated fee. Six hundred dollars had seemed steep, but as he reviewed the footage of Harris, it was worth every cent.
Still parked on the street, he watched and rewatched the videos of Hal Harris—his own and the one the Uber driver had sent him. The anger on the man’s face barely covered the terror there. Pain.
Spencer froze the screen and studied the creases etched in the inspector’s forehead, the downward curve of his lips. The way his eyes flashed wide and his nose flared in anguish as he turned to look at Spencer. Hal Harris looked like a man on the edge.
He imagined showing the footage to Bella.
Yes. This would work very well.
Satisfied, Spencer pulled away from the curb and headed toward his hotel. Soon he would be in Denver, one step closer to Bella.
18
Tuesday, 5:20 a.m. MST
Schwartzman dreamed of water. Tall glasses of it that lined a crystal lake, a waterfall. Inside her head, she heard the gurgling sound of a brook. When she opened her eyes, her head ached, her throat lined in sand. Outside, the sky was an explosion of tiny white lights on black. Not a cloud. Forcing herself from bed, she went to the window and stared out at the darkness. Some of the stars she saw were dead now, but their light still traveled toward Earth. What would happen if she died? Where would
her light go?
A single star dropped through the night sky, scoring the sky with a thin white line. She closed her eyes and made a wish. Help me get home safely. Home. San Francisco was home. Hal was home. Never had she felt that more clearly than these past days.
She retrieved the cup from the outside ledge. In it was an inch or two of snow. It would melt into an ounce of water. Maybe. And there was no indication that it would snow again anytime soon.
You have to think of another way.
She carried the glass to the kitchen, dizzy and exhausted. Setting the glass on the table, she sank into the flimsy plastic chair, pulled the cord loose, and laid her head on her hands. Her thoughts reverted to Zhanna Doe. They’d found evidence that Doe had had an abortion, but she also had a Pfannenstiel incision scar. It looked like a C-section scar, which could imply that she’d given birth. The tricky thing about those types of scars was that they could also be from an open oophorectomy, a hysterectomy, which Doe hadn’t had, or some other low pelvic procedure. In many other countries, a midline incision, not a Pfannenstiel incision, was used for a C-section, so the scar itself was not enough to say whether Doe had had a child. Still, it made Schwartzman wonder. Was it possible that Zhanna Doe had a child who was still alive somewhere?
Closing her eyes, Schwartzman thought she’d do anything to protect her baby. What if Roy kept her here for months? It wouldn’t be long before the pregnancy showed, especially as she lost weight. If Roy did rape her, then he might believe the baby was his, at least for a while. Would being raped somehow keep the baby safe?
No. It was unthinkable. It felt like giving up, and she was not ready to give up. There had to be a way out of here before it came to that.
She swirled the cup, the snow melted enough to drink. She raised it to her lips and tipped it into her mouth as though it were a shot. The water stung her dry throat and barely wet her mouth. Holding the empty glass, she imagined the baby inside her growing desiccated.
Numbers from medical school streamed across her mind like ticker tape. An average adult was 60 percent water. A human baby was 75 percent water. Amniotic fluid 98 percent. The heart and brain 73 percent.
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