in an irritable tone, and instantly won her well-traveled daughter’s sympathy.
“Did you file a claim?” was the first thing Lynn had thought of. “You know-in case it doesn’t turn up. The things you bought at the auction-”
“Those I have,” Jane had said, holding up her tote bag. “And I took care of everything in Charlotte. By the way, where’s Tracy?”
“She’s at Dad’s. And could you please drop me by there, on your way home? That’s why we haven’t been home all day. Good thing we thought about checking the messages, huh? We’ve been trying to reach you at the hotel all weekend. Dad wants us to go skiing with him. We’re driving up tonight. He’s got the resort booked for the whole week, isn’t that cool? He got this great deal at the resort, because it’s the end of the season, you know? That’s always the best time to go-either that or really early. He said I could bring Kevin, and Tracy could bring anybody she wanted, but it was such short notice Kevin couldn’t get off work, and Tracy couldn’t find anybody that could go either, so it’s just us. And Dad and Pamela, of course.”
“Who’s Pamela?”
“Dad’s new girlfriend. She’s pretty cool. She’s only a couple years older than me, I think.”
“Than
Much too tired to fight David on this ski-trip notion of his, not that she would probably have done so anyway. It wasn’t that she never stood up to her ex-husband; she’d just learned to pick her battles carefully.
And so, it was without further argument that Jane made the detour into Raleigh to drop off Lynn and her baggage at her father’s tree-shaded two-story brick house on its elegant, old-money street. Though maybe there was a little bit of selfishness in her lack of resistance, as well. It wouldn’t be such a bad thing, she thought, to have a week by herself to decompress. Recover her equilibrium. Reestablish contact with reality.
And there was that other matter, too. The one she’d been trying so hard not to think about.
She pulled into her own graveled driveway just in time to watch the sun drop into a lake of molten gold.
No dogs came running to greet her as she drove her station wagon into the carport; no cat came to wind, complaining, around her ankles when she unlocked her door. Since dogs and cats did not tend to mix well with the local indigent wildlife, it had long ago been put to a family vote whether to opt for pets or for bird and squirrel feeders, and salt licks for the deer that came at twilight and dawn, and cracked corn for the mallard ducklings that hatched in the sheltered coves in the spring, and the Canadian geese that grazed and made messes on the sweep of grass that ran from the rear deck down to the water’s edge. The vote had been unanimous, although there had been times when the girls, particularly Tracy, had been sorely tempted by the frequent kitten-and-puppy giveaways in front of the Winn Dixie.
The house seemed unnaturally quiet, its rooms filled with an aura of expectancy, as if they waited in hushed suspense for the return of laughter and running footsteps and the blare of MTV. This is what it will be like soon, thought Jane. From now on.
From the kitchen windows she watched cardinals and chickadees and goldfinches peck at the overflowing feeders, pleased to see that Tracy had remembered to fill them before she left, as she’d been told to do.
Carrying her tote bag into the living room, she placed it on the couch and withdrew the painting. Eagerly, she tore off the wrappings. She carried the painting over to the nice little spinet piano she’d bought with part of her divorce-settlement money, and moving aside the metronome and her parents’ framed wedding portrait, placed the picture on top of the piano, leaning it against the wall. Then she took a step back.
She sighed. “Perfect.” As she’d known it would be.
The living room was part of the original cinderblock summer cottage, the walls paneled in a highly varnished and outdated knotty pine. She’d always intended to remodel someday, and modernize with sheetrock and wallpaper, but now she wasn’t so sure. For some reason, the painting’s vivid colors brought out the warmth in the old wood walls, so that they seemed to be lit by candle- and firelight.
Which, far from cheering, only made the house seem more empty.
Unable to bear it another minute. Jane pressed a disk of Strauss waltzes into the CD player and turned the volume up high. Throwing wide the French doors, she went out onto the deck and down the stairs, leaving the doors open even though the evening chill was settling in. Across the sparse winter lawn she went, running a little on the downhill slope, clattering along the board pier and onto the landing. There she stopped, hugging herself against the cold and her quickened breathing, to watch the salmon sunset fade to bronze, and then to softest mauve.
The helicopter deposited Hawk, along with FBI Agent Aaron Campbell, in a small field sandwiched between the high school and a textile plant. They were met by a sheriff’s deputy driving a white unmarked Ford with dashboard- and rear-window lights and siren. Beside him was a composed-looking black man wearing a navy blue windbreaker and Atlanta Braves baseball cap, who got out of the car and stood waiting as they ducked their heads and plowed toward him through the dust and chaff stirred up by the chopper’s rotors.
“We’ve got you rooms at the Best Western,” the man said, after identifying himself as Agent Monroe and the driver as Deputy Schaefer. “It’s pretty much the only game in town, if you don’t count a couple bed-and-breakfasts on Main Street. We’ve got a command post set up at the fire station-by the way, you guys are representatives of rural volunteer fire departments, in town to learn about firefighting techniques and equipment.” He shot Campbell a look. “So lose the suit.”
“I’m gonna need a car,” said Hawk, muttering around the cigarette he was lighting. He hadn’t been able to smoke on the flight down and was pretty sure he wasn’t going to be able to in that deputy’s car, either. Funny how it was getting so he could tell a nonsmoker just by looking at him. “Preferably something without red lights and a siren.”
“Radio?” Monroe inquired, politely deadpan.
Hawk thought about it, then shook his head. “Just a cellular phone’ll do.”
He dropped his half-smoked cigarette to the ground and stepped on it, and they all got into the white Ford. Monroe sat in front but turned around to fill Hawk and Campbell in while Deputy Schaefer drove and mumbled unintelligibly into his radio mike.
“We’ve got surveillance in place on Vincent, both her home and the shop. She’s got a place just outside of town-we were able to get in this morning while she was at the shop unloading the stuff she bought at Arlington. It’s secluded, and there’s a field nearby big enough to land a chopper in. We’re watching that, too.”
A thought occurred to Hawk, and he said, “What about Mrs. Carlysle? You have ‘surveillance’-” a term he knew very well was just a big word for “bugs” “-on her too?”
Agent Monroe just looked at him and didn’t answer. Damned electronic toys, thought Hawk, inexplicably disturbed by the thought of Jane’s every move being scrutinized by unseen strangers. He definitely had mixed feelings about listening devices.
“According to our local sources,” Monroe continued, and was interrupted by Aaron Campbell.
“Which ate?”
Monroe grinned. “Name’s Loretta. She’s a waitress at the coffee shop next door to Vincent’s place. She says Vincent didn’t open the shop at all yesterday, and as far as she knows, never came near the place. We had a chance to go through Vincent’s home pretty thoroughly this morning and didn’t find anything, so we think we’re reasonably safe in assuming Singh’s key is still with the stuff she brought back from the auction, and is there in the shop now.”
“What makes you think she didn’t unload it somewhere on her way home from Virginia?” Campbell asked.
“I guess we don’t, for sure,” Monroe replied. “But I don’t think she did. For one thing, she couldn’t have known for sure she’d be successful in getting the merchandise, so I don’t see how she could have held her own auction and put together a deal in advance. It makes a lot more sense for her to put the word out she’s in possession, then go home and wait for the offers to come in. As long as we’re all hot on the trail of her red herring, she knows she’s got time. That’s assuming,” Monroe added, with a glance at Hawk, “she and Mrs. Carlysle aren’t in this together.”
Ignoring that, Hawk said, “What happens when Vincent finds out we’re onto her and not the herring?”
Agents Monroe and Campbell looked at each other and didn’t say anything. Hawk felt his jaw clench.
He was heading across the Best Western parking lot, thinking he’d have time to stow his bag and maybe wash up and at least put on a clean shirt before heading out to Jane’s place, when a sporty red Nissan pulled up behind him and the driver tapped the horn. Recognizing the young sheriff’s deputy, Schaefer, he went around to the driver’s-side window.
