by Harlan Coben
She frowned. I thought that she was frowning at what I said, but I could see that wasn't it. Mackenzie was standing on top of the sliding board. "Mackenzie, that's dangerous."
"I do it all the time," the girl retorted.
"I don't care what you do all the time. Please sit down and slide."
She sat down. She didn't slide.
"The bank robbery?" I asked.
Shanta shook her head--again this action was not directed at what I had said, but at the stubborn girl at the top of the sliding board. "Have you heard anything about the rash of bank robberies in the New York area?"
I recalled a few articles I'd read. "The banks get hit at night when they're closed. The media calls the robbers the Invisibles or something."
"Right."
"What does Natalie have to do with them?"
"Her name came up in connection with one of the robberies--specifically the one on Canal Street in downtown Manhattan two weeks ago. It had been considered to be safer than Fort Knox. The thieves got twelve thousand in cash and busted open four hundred safety-deposit boxes."
"Twelve thousand doesn't sound like a ton."
"It's not. Despite what you see in the movies, banks don't store millions of dollars in vaults. But those safety-deposit boxes could be worth a fortune. That's where these guys are cleaning up. When my grandmother died, my mother put her four-carat diamond ring in a safety-deposit box to give me one day. That ring is probably worth forty grand alone. Who knows how much stuff is there? The insurance claim for one of their earlier robberies was three-point-seven million. Of course people lie. All of a sudden some expensive family heirloom happened to be in the box. But you see my point."
I saw her point. I didn't much care about it. "And Natalie's name came up with respect to this Canal Street robbery."
"Yes."
"How?"
"In a very, very small way." Shanta put her index finger and thumb half an inch apart to indicate how small. "Almost meaningless, really. It wouldn't be anything to care about on its own."
"But you do care."
"Now I do, yes."
"Why?"
"Because so much of what's surrounding your true love makes no sense anymore."
I couldn't argue with that.
"So what do you make of that?" she asked.
"Make of what? I don't know what to say here. I don't even know where Natalie is, much less how she might be connected in a very, very small way to a bank robbery."
"That's my point. I didn't think it mattered either, until I started looking up the other name you mentioned. Todd Sanderson."
"I didn't ask you to look him up."
"Yeah, but I did anyway. Got two hits on him too. Naturally the big hit surrounded the fact that he was murdered a week ago."
"Wait, Todd is also linked to this same bank robbery?"
"Yes. Did you ever read Oscar Wilde?"
I made a face. "Yes."
"He has a wonderful quote: 'To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.'"
"From The Importance of Being Earnest," I said because I am an academic and can't help myself.
"Right. One of the people you asked about comes up in a bank robbery? That's nothing to get excited about. But two? That's not a coincidence."
And, I thought, a week or so after the bank robbery, Todd Sanderson was murdered.
"So was Todd's connection to the bank robbery also very, very small?" I asked.
"No. It was just small, I'd say."
"What was it?"
"Mackenzie!"
I turned toward the scream and saw a woman who looked a bit too much like Shanta Newlin for my taste. Same height, same relative weight, same hairstyle. The woman had her eyes wide open as though a plane had suddenly crashed in the backyard. I followed her gaze. Mackenzie was back standing on the slide.
Shanta was mortified. "I'm so sorry, Candace. I told her to sit down."
"You told her?" Candace repeated incredulously.
"I'm sorry. I was watching her. I was just talking to a friend."
"And that's an excuse?"
Mackenzie, with a smile that said, My work is done here, sat, slid down the slide, and ran toward Candace. "Hi, Mommy."
Mommy. No surprise there.
"Let me show you out," Shanta tried.
"We're already out," Candace said. "We can just go around the front."
"Wait, Mackenzie drew the nicest picture. It's inside. I bet she'll want to take it home."
Candace and Mackenzie were already heading toward the front of the house. "I have hundreds of my daughter's drawings," Candace called back. "Keep it."
Shanta watched them both disappear into the front yard. Her normal military posture was gone. "What the hell am I doing, Jake?"
"Trying," I said. "Living."
She shook her head. "This will never work."
"Do you love him?"
"Yes."
"It'll work. It'll just be messy."
"How did you get to be so wise?"
"I was educated at Lanford College," I said, "and I watch a lot of daytime talk shows."
Shanta turned and looked back toward the swing set. "Todd Sanderson had a safety-deposit box at the Canal Street bank," she said. "He was one of the victims of the robbery. That's all. On the surface of it, he's pretty meaningless too."
"But a week later, he gets murdered," I said.
"Yes."
"Wait, does the FBI think he has something to do with the robberies?"
"I'm not privy to the full investigation."
"But?"
"I didn't see how it could be connected--the bank robbery in Manhattan and his murder down in Palmetto Bluff."
"But now?"
"Well, your Natalie's name came up too."
"In a very, very small way."
"Yes."
"How small?"
"After a robbery like this, the FBI does an inventory of everything. I mean, everything. So when the safety-deposit boxes are blown up, most people have all kinds of important papers in them. Stocks and bonds, powers of attorney, deeds to homes, all that. A lot of that ended up on the floor, of course. Why would a thief want any paperwork? So the FBI goes through all that and catalogs it. So, for example, one guy was holding his brother's car deed. The brother's name goes on the list."
I was trying to keep up with what she was saying. "So let me see if I follow. Natalie's name was on one of those documents from the safety-deposit box?"
"Yes."
"But she didn't have a box of her own there?"
"No. It was found in a box belonging to Todd Sanderson."
"So what was it? What's the document?"
Shanta turned and met my eye. "Her last will and testament."
Chapter 32
The FBI, Shanta said, wanted to know what I knew about all of this. I told her the truth: I knew nothing. I asked Shanta what the will and testament said. It was pretty simple: All of her assets should be split equally between her mother and sister. She had also left a request to be cremated, and interestingly enough, she wanted her ashes to be spread in the woods overlooking the quad at Lanford College.
I thought about the will and testament. I thought about where it had been found. The answer wasn't yet in my grasp, but it felt as though I were circling right above it.
As I started to leave, Shanta asked, "Are you sure you don't have any thoughts about this?"
"I'm sure," I said.
But I thought now that maybe I did. I just didn't want to share them with Shanta or the FBI. I trusted her as far as I could trust anyone who had openly told me that her first allegiance was to law enforcement. To tell her about Fresh Start, for example, would be catastrophic. But more to the point--and this was key--Natalie had not trusted law enforcement.
Why?
It was something I had never really considered before. Natalie could have trusted the cops and testified and gone into witness protection or something like
that. But she didn't. Why? What did she know that prevented her from doing that? And if she didn't trust the cops, why on earth should I?
Once again I took out my cell phone and tried Malcolm Hume's number in Florida. Once again there was no answer. Enough. I hurried over to Clark House. Mrs. Dinsmore was just settling into her desk. She looked up at me over the half-moon reading glasses. "You're not supposed to be here."
I didn't bother defending or cracking wise. I told her about trying to reach Malcolm Hume.
"He's not in Vero Beach," she said.
"Do you know where he is?"
"I do."
"Could you tell me?"
She took her time shuffling papers and sliding a paperclip into place. "He's staying at his cabin off Lake Canet."
I had been invited once many years ago for a fishing trip, but I didn't go. I hate fishing. I didn't get it, but then again I was never one for ease-back, Zen-type activities. I have trouble turning myself off. I'd rather read than relax. I'd rather keep the mind engaged. But I remembered that the property had been in Mrs. Hume's family for generations. He joked that he liked to feel like an interloper, that it made it more like a vacation spot.
Or like a spot perfect for hiding.
"I didn't know he still owned a place up here," I said.
"He comes up a few times a year. He enjoys the seclusion."
"I didn't know."
"He doesn't tell anyone."
"He tells you."
"Well," Mrs. Dinsmore said, as though that were the most obvious thing in the world. "He doesn't like company there. He needs to be alone so he can write and fish in peace and quiet."
"Yeah," I said. "Escape that hectic, jam-packed life at the gated community in Vero Beach."
"Funny."
"Thanks."
"You're on paid leave," she said. "So maybe you should, uh, leave."
"Mrs. Dinsmore?"
She looked up at me.
"You know all of the stuff I've been asking about lately?"
"You mean like murdered students and missing professors?"
"Yes."
"What about it?"
"I need you to give me the address of the lake house. I need to talk to Professor Hume in private."
Chapter 33
The life of a college professor, especially one who lives on a small campus, is pretty contained. You stay in the surreal world of so-called higher learning. You are comfortable there. You have very little reason to leave it. I owned a car, but probably drove it no more than once a week. I walked to all my classes. I walked into the town of Lanford to visit my favorite shops, haunts, cinema, restaurants, what have you. I worked out at the school's state-of-the-art weight room. It was an isolated world, not just for the students but also for those who have made such places our livelihood.
You tend to live in a snow globe of liberal-arts academia.
It alters your mind frame, of course, but on a purely physical level, I had probably done more traveling in the week-plus since seeing Todd Sanderson's obituary than I had done in the previous six years combined. That may be an exaggeration, but not much of one. The violent altercations, combined with the stiffness of sitting for hours in these car and plane rides, were sapping my energy. I'd been flying high on adrenaline, of course, but as I had learned the hard way, that resource was not unlimited.
As I turned off Route 202 and started climbing toward the rural area along the Massachusetts-New Hampshire border, my back started to seize up. I stopped at Lee's Hot Dog Stand to stretch a bit. A sign in the front promoted their fried haddock sandwich. I went instead with a hot dog, cheese fries, and a Coke. It all tasted wonderful, and for a second, heading up to this remote cabin, I thought about the notion of a last meal. That couldn't be a healthy mind frame. I ate ravenously, bought and downed another hot dog, and got back in the car. I felt strangely renewed.
I drove past Otter River State Forest. I was only about ten minutes from Malcolm Hume's house. I didn't have his cell phone number--I don't even know if he had one--but I wouldn't have called it anyway. I wanted to just show up and see what was what. I didn't want to give Professor Hume time to prepare. I wanted answers, and I suspected my old mentor had them.
I didn't really need to know it all. I knew enough. I only needed to be sure that Natalie was safe, that she understood some very bad people were back on her trail, and if possible, I wanted to see if I could run away and be with her. Yes, I had heard about Fresh Start's rules and oaths and all that, but the heart doesn't know from rules and oaths.
There had to be a way.
I almost missed the small sign for Attal Drive. I made a left onto the dirt road and started up the mountain. When I reached the top, Lake Canet was laid out below me, still as a mirror. People toss around the word pristine, but that word was taken to a new level of purity when I saw the water. I stopped the car and got out. The air had that kind of freshness that lets you know even one breath could nourish the lungs. The silence and stillness were almost devastating. I knew that if I called out, my shout would echo, would keep echoing, would never fully dissipate. The shout would live in these woods, growing dimmer and dimmer but never dying, joining the other past sounds that somehow still echoed into that low hum of the great outdoors.
I looked for a house on the lake. There was none. I could see two docks. There were canoes tied to both of them. Nothing else. I got back in my car and drove to the left. The dirt road was not as well paved here. The car bounced on the rough terrain, testing the shocks and finding them wanting. I was glad I took the insurance out on the rental, which was a bizarre thing to think about at a time like this, but the mind goes where it goes. I remembered Professor Hume had owned a four-by-four pickup truck, not exactly standard liberal-arts driving fare. Now I knew why.
Up ahead I saw two pickup trucks parked side by side. I pulled my car behind them and got out. I couldn't help but notice that there were several sets of tire tracks in the dirt. Either Malcolm had gone back and forth repeatedly or he had company.
I wasn't sure what to make of that.
When I looked up the hill and saw the small cottage with the dark windows, I could feel my eyes start to well up.
There was no soft morning glow this time. There was no pinkness from the start of a new day. The sun was setting behind it, casting long shadows, turning what had appeared empty and abandoned into something more black and menacing.
It was the cottage from Natalie's painting.
I started up the hill toward the front door. There was something dream-like about this trek, something almost Alice in Wonderlandish, as though I were leaving the real world and entering Natalie's painting. I reached the door. There was no bell to press. When I knocked, the sound ripped through the stillness like a gunshot.
I waited, but I heard no returning sound.
I knocked again. Still nothing. I debated my next move. I could walk down to the lake and see if Malcolm was on it, but that stillness I had witnessed earlier seemed to indicate that no one was down there. There was also the matter of all those tire tracks.
I put my hand on the knob. It turned. Not only was the door left unlocked, there was, I could see now, no actual lock on it--no hole in either the knob or the door to place a key. I pushed the door open and stepped inside. The room was dark. I flicked on the lights.
No one.
"Professor Hume?"
Once I'd graduated, he had insisted that I call him Malcolm. I never could.
I checked the kitchen. It was empty. There was only one bedroom. I headed toward it, tiptoeing for some odd reason across the floor.
When I stepped into the bedroom, my heart dropped like a stone.
Oh no . . .
Malcolm Hume was on the bed, lying on his back, dried foam on his face. His mouth was half open, his face twisted in a final, frozen scream of agony.
My knees buckled. I used the wall to support me. Memories rushed at me, nearly knocking me over: the first class I took with him freshma
n year (Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau), the first time I met with him in that office I now called my own (we discussed depictions of law and violence in literature), the hours working on my thesis (subject: The Rule of Law), the way he bear-hugged me the day I graduated, with tears in his eyes.
A voice behind me said, "You couldn't leave it alone."
I spun around to see Jed pointing a gun at me.
"I didn't do this," I said.
"I know. He did it to himself." Jed stared at me. "Cyanide."
I remembered Benedict's pillbox now. All the members of Fresh Start, he said, carried one.
"We told you to leave it alone."
I shook my head, trying to keep it together, trying to tell the side of me that just wanted to collapse and grieve that there'd be time for that later. "This whole thing started before I got involved. I didn't know a damn thing about any of this until I saw Todd Sanderson's obituary."
Jed suddenly looked exhausted. "It doesn't matter. We asked you to stop in a million different ways. You wouldn't. It doesn't make a difference if you're guilty or innocent. You know about us. We took an oath."
"To kill me."
"In this case, yes." Jed looked again toward the bed. "If Malcolm was committed enough to do this to himself, shouldn't I be committed enough to kill you?"
But he didn't fire. Jed no longer relished shooting me. I could see that now. He had when he thought I'd been the one to kill Todd, but the idea of killing me just to keep me quiet was weighing on him. He looked back down at the body in the end.
"Malcolm loved you," Jed said. "He loved you like a son. He wouldn't want . . ." His voice just drifted off. The gun dropped to his side.
I took a tentative step toward him. "Jed?"
He turned to me.
"I think I know how Maxwell Minor's men found Todd in the first place."
"How?"
"I need to ask you something first," I said. "Did Fresh Start begin with Todd Sanderson or Malcolm Hume or, well, you?"
"What does that have to do with anything?"
"Just . . . trust me for a second, okay?"
"Fresh Start began with Todd," Jed said. "His father was accused of a heinous crime."
"Pedophilia," I said.
"Yes."
"His father ended up killing himself over it," I said.
"You can't imagine what that did to Todd. I was his college roommate and best friend. I watched him fall apart. He railed against the unfairness of it all. If only his father could have moved away, we wondered. But of course, even if he had, that kind of accusation follows you. You can never escape it."