In the Night Room

—Oh no, Willy said. I was right, and you want to talk me out of getting married. This is so unsupportive of you. Can’t you be happy for me?

—I wish I could, Tom said. Look, people who write detective books, even ones for boys, learn how to get all kinds of information. Because I was worried about you, I did some research into Mitchell Faber and the Baltic Group. What I found out distressed me, and I have to at least discuss it with you.

—You’re a snoop. You went prying around into corners and you found some dirt. Very noble of you.

—Willy, please shut up and listen to me. Let’s begin with the wedding, okay? Don’t you want to spend more time deciding what to wear? And what about the flowers, the food, the music? Where was this hypothetical wedding going to take place, anyhow?

Mitchell had arranged for a private ceremony on the grounds of a magnificent estate, like a country house, a Brideshead kind of place, called Blackwoods, she thought, somewhere up around New Paltz, or maybe Woodstock, but in the mountains, anyhow. If it rained, the ceremony would be held in the library, which was supposed to be gorgeous.

Tom informed Willy that she was talking about a gigantic Baltic Group property called Nightwood, stuck up in the mountains halfway between Woodstock and New Paltz. It was used for top-secret, hush-hush conferences. Cigars, single-malt whiskeys, business suits.

—So the problem is what, exactly?

Well, this wasn’t the sort of place usually used for weddings, that was all. But wedding invitations usually got sent out right about this time—what about hers? And had Mitchell obtained the marriage license and hired the clergyman, or the judge, or whatever? She didn’t know, she didn’t care, she was a passive partner in her own wedding!

She couldn’t think of anything better, Willy said. Who wanted to worry about table settings and flowers and invitations anyhow? She was going to show up at her wedding and get married. Besides, the only person she was inviting was Tom. Why get bent out of shape over details Mitchell could handle better than any wedding planner ever born? Passivity was underrated.

—So Mitchell makes it possible for you to avoid thinking much about this wedding you’re about to have.

If he wanted to see it that way, sure, he should go right ahead. Mitchell made it possible for her to concentrate on her work.

—Is your work going well?

Well, no. It wasn’t going at all, unfortunately. Kind of a settling-in period. Getting used to the new house, adjusting to the idea of being married again, that sort of thing.

—Sometimes I get the feeling, Tom said, that I’ll be lucky to see you again after the happy day.

Willy shook her head in vehement denial. How could Tom say that?

—What does this boyfriend of yours do for a living?

—Mitchell works for the Baltic Group.

—And what does the Baltic Group do? Was Willy up on their happy little empire?

They make money all over the world, that was what they did. How should she know? What was she, a financial journalist?

—Are you aware that you sound a little defensive?

All right, all right. She was smiling at him. Tom Hartland had the gift of telling her the truth in a way that improved her mood. Which meant he was a gift. For a moment Willy wondered if she should not marry someone like Tom Hartland instead. Being married to Tom would be fun, apart, of course, from the absence of sex. But maybe they could improvise something. Whoops, I’m out of wine already!

As Willy ordered a second glass for herself, Tom explained what he knew about the Baltic Group: a vast, multifarious development company with headquarters in Switzerland, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Washington, D.C., and the Bahamas. Tied to governments all over the world and staffed by ex-ministers, ex-senators, ex-generals, retired statesmen. Its banking division propped up dictatorships in half a dozen countries. When big overseas contracts were to be awarded, Baltic accepted most of them as if by sacred right.

Okay, he didn’t like them. We already knew this. But what, she wanted to know, did he actually make of them?

—Maybe I’m a paranoid left-wing conspiracy junkie, but companies like that are my definition of evil. They interfere with politics wherever they want to gain advantage, they buy cooperation, they ruin the environment, they get up to dirty deals all over the world. You should consider, Willy, that your first husband might have been murdered because of his connection to Baltic.

For a second, Willy heard the ghostly wail of her daughter’s voice. The loss of her husband and daughter swarmed over her, and she began to shake. —Thanks very much, she said. This is hardly news. Whose side are you on, anyhow?

—I’m on your side, but I am concerned about you. No, hold on, don’t get all worked up, Willy.

So what did he want to tell her about Mitchell? It was the reason they were there, he might as well get it out.

—Nobody wants to see you drift into a marriage with a man who isn’t right for you. And that is what you seem to be doing, at least to me. Because, forgive me for what I’m about to say, but you don’t really know this man very well, and even worse, what he represents is absolutely counter to your values.

My values?

—Your boyfriend was in Special Forces before being taken on by the CIA, and when he blotted his copybook there, the Baltic Group was more than willing to snap him up. Are you hearing me? Mitchell Faber did something so bad that he had to be drummed out of the CIA. They’re really not talking about whatever he did, but it was something special, that’s for sure. Like a massacre, Willy, and I’m not exaggerating. To be buried so deep, it had to be something like that. Now he’s a kind of mercenary, except he has only one client and he gets paid really well.

Was he actually saying that Mitchell was responsible for the deaths of her husband and daughter? Was that what he was trying to tell her?

—Maybe indirectly, yes.

Now, to her horror, Tom’s life opened before her as a series of broad, sunlit avenues, while hers looked to be spiraling down into a cave, a cell, a speck.

She became aware that Tom had stopped talking. He was looking at her through narrowed eyes, and beneath his well-mannered blond hair his forehead looked corrugated.

—Willy, did you hear any of what I just said?

Everything important, yes.

—Because when you start telling me things about your daughter, I know you need professional assistance.

Willy shot to her feet in a flutter of limbs and other people’s scarves and jackets. It was time to get back, she had things to do on the estate, and the roads would be terrible. Could she call Tom for advice, or for help . . . ?

—I want you to call, he said. Willy?

She was already maneuvering through the crowd between the bar and the tables.

Then it was if she had fallen asleep the instant she entered Giles Coverley’s car, for without transition she went from running through a downpour toward the open back seat to the recognition that she was standing beneath an umbrella held by Rocky Santolini, as he pointed, in the torrential rain battering down on Hendersonia, to a messy obscurity of branches and limbs where the gable over Mitchell’s office window should have been. Beneath his own, double-sized, plaid umbrella, Giles was staring up at the same place, swearing with an astonishing eloquence. The Dellray men stood huddled at the front of the garage. Unprotected from the deluge, Roman Richard was yelling at Vincent Santolini. With his soaked clothing and streaming hair, he looked like a manatee. Willy thought she was going to faint, then that she would scream. She wanted to scream: screaming would make what was happening to her everyone else’s problem instead of hers. She flattened her hands over her mouth.

—We told you this could happen, Rocky said. He thought her horror had been caused by damage to her house.

Roman Richard swung his body sideways, extended an arm, and bellowed something at Rocky.

—I can’t deal with that guy. This is the deal. Out of respect for your husband, we could go up to that room,