to Robinson.
“Do it.”
“God, Eddie. I swear. It’s just me.” Tears peeped from under her eyelids.
“Yes. I’m in Jamaica. Montego Bay. I’ll call you again.”
Janice swung at Wells, her fist glancing off his chest.
“You shouldn’t have made me say that.”
Wells was all out of compassion. Her husband was about the most miserable human being alive. She’d just had to lie on her dead son’s grave. He was sorry for her. But that didn’t mean he was responsible for her.
“You wanted him? We’ll catch him now. Between the trace and what he told you, we’ll have enough. If he reaches out again, let me know.”
She shrank against the couch. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Please don’t go.”
Wells walked out. He wanted to find a fight, make someone bleed. Instead he got into his Subaru and peeled away, promising himself that Keith Edward Robinson would regret sending those postcards.
SEVEN HOURS AND FIVE hundred thirty miles later, Wells turned off I-91 at Boltonville, Vermont. He had sped through the night
Long ago, in Afghanistan, Wells had converted to Islam. But his faith came and went, pulling away just when he thought he’d mastered it. Of course, no one could master faith. God always hovered around the next curve, the next, the next. The quest to find Him had to be its own reward. Wells understood that much, if nothing more. But tonight the search felt lonelier than ever. He hadn’t seen another vehicle for more than half an hour. As though he were the last man alive.
He swung right onto Route 302, drove through a little town called Wells River — no relation. Past a shuttered gas station and an empty general store and over a low bridge into New Hampshire. Then Woodsville, a metropolis by the standards of the North Country, with a hospital and a bank and a thousand people clustered in steep-sided wooden houses against the winters. Wells gunned the engine to leave the town behind.
A few miles on, he swung right, southeast on Route 112, the Kancamagus Highway, impassible in the winter. He was exhausted and driving too fast now, through old forests of fir and pine, the Subaru a blur in the night, sticking low to the road. The next curve, and the next. Wells felt his eyelids slipping. In the dark now, in the night, he began to murmur through pursed lips the
Anne lived in a farmhouse at the edge of town, run-down and sweet, with maple plank floors and an iron stove in the kitchen. Wells was helping her restore it, painting, sanding the floors, even putting in new sinks — a job that had almost gone disastrously wrong. The place needed new wiring and a new roof, and she couldn’t afford the fixes on a cop’s pay. Wells’s salary had piled up during his years undercover. He wasn’t sure whether he should offer to pay, if he’d be presuming too much.
He slipped the Subaru into the garage beside the house and padded into the kitchen through the unlocked back door. Tonka, his dog, a German shepherd mutt, trotted up to greet him, her big tail wagging wildly. She put her paws on him, buried her head in his chest. He’d bought jerky at the gas station, and he fed it to her strip by strip.
“John?”
Anne’s bedroom was upstairs. She slept sideways across the bed, stretched like a cat under a down comforter. He slipped under the blankets and hugged her warm, sleepy body and kissed her slowly.
“Flannel pajamas. Sexy.” He tried to reach under them, but she twisted away. “You stink of the road. Brush your teeth and come back. I’m not going anywhere.”
And she wasn’t.
An hour later, she lay beside him, touching the scar on his upper arm, a knuckle-sized knot from a bullet he’d taken long before. She rolled the dead flesh between her fingers like a marble. “Does it ache?”
“No.”
She pinched it. “Does it now?”
“I thought we were supposed to be relaxing.”
“You never struck me as the cuddling type.”
He closed his eyes, and she rubbed his face, tracing slow circles over his cheeks. In seconds he fell into a doze, imagining an endless narrow highway. But he woke to find her hand sliding down his stomach.
“Really? Again?”
“If you can handle it.”
“Easy for you to say. I do all the work and you get all the credit.”
“Is that so?” She lifted her hand, tweaked the tip of his nose.
Wells turned sideways so they were face-to-face. “Maybe not always.”
Again she dropped her arm. He was eight inches taller than she was, and she had to scoot halfway under the blanket to follow her hand. “I’m looking for something.” Her hand was on his stomach now.
“You found it.”
“That’s your belly button.”
He leaned down, and their mouths met.
“There it is.” She paused. “You’re worn out. But I can fix that.”
“We’ll see. Maybe… Yes. Yes, you can.”
LATER SHE NESTLED AGAINST him, her breathing soft and steady.
“You’ve got a mission coming. An operation. Whatever you call it.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I saw it when you came in. In your shoulders. Want to tell me?”
“It’s old business.” He waited. “Are you mad I can’t tell you?”
“John. Please. Do you want me to say I am, so you have an excuse to leave? You don’t need an excuse.”
He was silent. Then, finally: “I’m sorry.”
“It’s like you want to reinvent yourself but you know there’s no point in trying, because you know that you can only be who you already are.”
“Isn’t that the same for everyone?”
“Most of us have some give. You’re cut from rock.”
“Let’s go to sleep.”
“You want to spend your life with me here, you will. If not, you won’t. Just don’t ask me to fall in love with you while you’re deciding. I have to protect myself, too.”
He closed his eyes. He felt that somehow she was accusing him, though he wasn’t sure of what. Anyway, everything she said was true.
He slept heavily and without dreams. When he woke, she was gone. She worked the afternoon shift. He padded downstairs to find that she’d left coffee and a tray of freshly baked biscuits. He always wound up with women kinder than he deserved.
Wells drank the coffee as he considered his next move. He was guessing that Robinson dealt drugs small- time. He’d be handy to the local dealers. As a white face, he’d be less likely to frighten tourists who wanted to score.
Wells wondered how long Robinson had been playing this game, and why. Maybe he’d drunk or smoked though his cash and was supporting his habits by dealing. Maybe he had the insane idea that if he put together a big enough nut, he could get back to the United States. Maybe he was hoping to relive the thrills he’d had as a mole. Even he might not know the answer. Guys who listed pros and cons on a yellow pad didn’t wind up as double agents.
Now that Robinson had given up his best defense, his invisibility, Wells figured that finding him shouldn’t be too difficult. Montego Bay was only so large. Still, Wells wanted backup for the mission, a face that Robinson wouldn’t recognize. He thumbed through his phone, found Gaffan’s number.
