But then the notebook abruptly ended.
No further conclusions, no new observations, nothing.
A dead end.
Disappointed, Anna looked across at Pope again and thought she knew the reason. This had to have been the moment that Pope had entered Susan’s life. The moment she became the center of attention, the focus of his world.
And for many years, she had managed to fake it, to repress her pain and play the loving, devoted wife. When her son was born, their household was undoubtedly filled with joy — until Ben started to overshadow Susan, getting most of his father’s attention. Then old insecurities had surfaced, and coupled with the damage Jillian’s death had done to her, Susan’s illness could no longer be contained, morphing into something different now. Something deadly.
This was pure speculation on Anna’s part, of course. A semi-educated guess. But she had a strong feeling she was right.
Unfortunately, none of it brought her any closer to finding Red Cap.
Depressed, she started to close the notebook when she spotted something. Inside the back cover was a small built-in pocket, normally used to store extra paper. Protruding slightly above the fold was the edge of what looked like a photograph.
Anna pulled it out, feeling a slight kick in her gut as she looked at it.
It was a photo of the young gypsy girl, staring solemnly at the camera. She looked about seventeen, with flawless dark skin, curly black hair, and defiant, almost hypnotic eyes. A regal beauty in a long, patterned skirt, and a stark white blouse, a shawl draped over her shoulders.
Chavi.
It was Chavi.
But where, Anna wondered, had Susan gotten this? None of her writings made any reference to it.
Turning the photo over, she read the caption in the upper left hand corner: Roma Vjestica by Jonathan O’Keefe.
Just below this was a slightly smudged stamp that read:
POWELL UNIVERSITY HISTORICAL ARCHIVES-DO NOT REMOVE.
Stolen, apparently. Which meant it must have been very important to Susan.
Near the center was a question mark, scribbled in blue ink, and next to this were thirteen letters, written in Susan’s precise handwriting:
YLMXM WZAIE MXX
Another Caesar cypher.
But this time, Susan had changed the key, and it took Anna a moment to decipher the code. When she was done, it translated to:
MZALA KNOWS ALL
MZala. Was this a source that Susan had found but had never bothered to follow up on?
If so, what did he or she know?
Something about Chavi?
Red Cap?
Feeling energized, Anna got to her feet and started pulling on her clothes.
She needed to find a computer.
3 9
It took an eternity for the motel manager to come out of his office, which wasn’t a surprise at four-thirty in the morning.
Anna stood at the front desk, ringing the bell, when the door behind it finally blew open and a kid who looked as if he were still in high school stepped out, bleary-eyed. His T-shirt read: P2P RULES.
“ What?” he barked.
She showed him her creds. “I need your help.”
He squinted at her ID, then looked up at her with surprise. “You gotta be kidding me. You’re a fed?”
“That’s the rumor,” Anna said.
“Holy shit.”
Anna moved around the counter. “I don’t see a computer out here. Do you have one inside?”
“Huh?”
“A computer,” she said. “You know that little box with a keyboard and a screen?”
“Yeah, we got one, but what’s this about? We ain’t doing nothing illegal.”
“I need to use it for a while.”
“Why? You working for the RIAA or something? Think I’m downloading music?”
“I don’t care if you’re downloading Warner Brothers’ entire catalog. Just let me in.”
He eyed her defiantly. “You got a warrant?”
Anna had reached the end of her patience. “ Move,” she said, shoving him aside. She stepped through the office doorway into a cramped, untidy room with a desk, a chair, and an old, beige desktop computer that was about the size of a small car.
Christ.
A fucking dinosaur.
The kid crowded in behind her. “You got no right,” he said. “You need a warrant before you can-”
“Call your congressman,” Anna told him, then took a seat behind the computer. “Does this thing have an Internet connection?”
“Yeah, but it’s dial-up.”
“Wonderful.”
When she touched the mouse, the screen saver disappeared and the monitor came to life, showing a Web page with two drunken college girls exposing their breasts to the camera.
“Nice,” Anna said.
The kid eyed her sheepishly. “That’s the day man’s computer, not mine.”
She gestured. “Do me a favor and close the door on your way out.”
“Huh?”
“Get out,” Anna said.
The kid just stood there, staring at her until his brain finally caught up to the command. Then he turned on his heels and left, closing the door behind him.
She went to Sentinel first, the bureau’s Web interface for its automatic case-support system. But when she tried to log in to her personal work box, she discovered she’d been locked out.
Royer.
He’d probably spent the day convincing the brass that she was mentally unstable and couldn’t be trusted. The lockout would be temporary, pending an INSD investigation, but that didn’t help Anna much right now.
Next she went to the Powell University Historical Archives Web site and found their search page. Checking the caption on the back of the photograph, she typed in the name Jonathan O’Keefe.
The search engine began churning the information, then transferred her to O’Keefe’s bio page, which loaded so slowly that Anna could have taken a couple of bathroom breaks before the page filled the screen.
She hadn’t used dial-up in years and remembered why she hated it. She started reading before the page had fully loaded.
Jonathan O’Keefe was an adventurer and photography pioneer, a young genius, fluent in several languages, who had started traveling the world when he was only sixteen, camera in tow. His collection of photographs was voluminous, much of which was believed to have been lost.
