“I’m trying to talk you into not leaving Boston.”
“Because Anthony’s
“No, because Boston needs you. Because you’re the smartest ME I’ve ever worked with. And because …” Jane sighed. “I’d friggin’ miss you, Maura.”
The last remnants of the birch log collapsed, sending up a puff of glowing ashes. That, and the steady patter of rain, were the only sounds in the room. Maura sat very still, so still that Jane wondered whether Maura had registered what she’d just said. Whether it made any difference at all to her. Then Maura looked at her, eyes bright with tears, and Jane knew that her words might make all the difference in the world.
“I’ll take that under consideration,” Maura said.
“Yeah, you do that.” Jane glanced again at her watch. “I should get going.”
“Do you really need to leave today?”
“I want to dig deeper into the Ward and Yablonski cases, which means dealing with multiple jurisdictions, multiple agencies. And I’ll be doing it mostly on my own, since Crowe doesn’t want to waste any manpower on it.”
“Detective Crowe has a pathetic lack of imagination.”
“You noticed that, too?” Jane stood. “I’ll be checking in every day, to make sure Teddy’s okay. You call me if there are any problems.”
“Relax, Jane. This is the safest place he could be.”
Jane thought about the gated road, the isolation. The thirty thousand acres of wooded wilderness. And she thought of the ever-alert guardians who watched over it all, the Mephisto Society. What safer place to hide a threatened child than with people who knew how dangerous the world could be?
“I’m satisfied with what I’ve seen,” she said. “I’ll see you back in Boston.”
On her way out of the castle, Jane stopped to check on Teddy one last time. He was sitting in class, and she didn’t disturb him, just watched from the doorway as Lily Saul, with swoops and slashes, demonstrated the advantages of the Spanish sword used by the Roman legions. Teddy looked enthralled, body angled forward as though to spring out of his chair and join the battle. Lily caught sight of Jane and gave a nod, a look that said:
That was all Jane needed to see.
Outside, she scurried through the rain to her car, tossed her overnight bag into the backseat, and slid in behind the wheel. Swiping water from her face, she reached in her pocket for the four-digit security code she’d need to exit the gate.
But as she pulled out of the courtyard and drove under the archway, something in the distance caught her eye, something in the woods. A man standing among the trees. He was so far away that she could not make out his face, only his shape. His clothes were the same mottled gray-brown as the tree trunks around him.
The road brought her in that direction, and as she drew closer she kept her eye on the man, wondering why he stood so still. Then a curve in the road briefly cut off her view, and when the clump of trees came back into sight, she saw no one standing there. It was just the stump of a dead oak, its bark mottled with lichen and pocked with woodpecker holes.
She stopped at the side of the road and rolled down her window. Saw leaves dripping with rain, branches bobbing in the wind. But there was no watcher in the woods, just that lifeless tree stump, masquerading as a menace.
Yet her uneasiness remained as she passed through the gate and drove south through forest and then farmland. Perhaps it was the unrelenting rain and the dark clouds hanging low on the horizon. Perhaps it was the lonely road, with its abandoned houses with sagging porches and boarded-over windows. This place felt like the end of the world, and she might be the last human alive.
Her ringing cell phone shattered that illusion. I’m back in civilization again, she thought as she rooted around in her purse for the phone. Reception was weak, barely enough to carry on a conversation, but she could make out Frost’s fragmented voice.
“Your last email … spoke to Hillsborough PD …”
“Hillsborough? Is this about Will Yablonski’s aunt and uncle?”
“… says it’s weird … wants to discuss …”
“Frost? Frost?”
Suddenly his voice popped out loud and clear. The miracle of a good cell signal at last. “He has no idea what it all means.”
“You spoke to the Hillsborough cop?”
“Yeah. A Detective David G. Wyman. He said the case struck him as weird from the beginning. I told him about Claire Ward, and his attention
“Can you meet me in New Hampshire?” asked Jane.
There was a pause; then his voice dropped. “No way. Crowe wants us focused on finding Andres Zapata. I’m on stakeout tonight. The housekeeper’s apartment.”
“Crowe’s still going with robbery as the motive?”
“On paper Zapata looks good. Burglary priors in Colombia. He had access, opportunity. And his fingerprints are on the kitchen door.”
“But this is bugging me, Frost. These three kids.”
“Look, we’re not expecting you here till tomorrow. You’ve got time to make a little detour.”
She’d planned to be home tonight for dinner with Gabriel, and a good-night kiss for Regina. Now it seemed she was headed to New Hampshire. “Don’t say a word to Crowe.”
“Wasn’t planning to.”
“One more thing. Run a VICAP search on unsolved family massacres. Specifically the same year the Wards, the Yablonskis, and the Clocks were killed.”
“What do you think we’re dealing with?”
“I don’t know.” She stared ahead at the rain-slicked road. “But whatever it is, it’s starting to scare me.”
SIXTEEN
BY THE TIME JANE PULLED INTO THE DRIVEWAY, THE RAIN HAD STOPPED, but clouds hung on, gray and oppressive, and the trees continued to drip moisture. No other vehicles were in sight. She stepped out of her car and approached the remains of what had once been the farmhouse of Will’s aunt and uncle, Lynn and Brian Temple. A dozen yards away the barn stood untouched, but the residence was now nothing more than a pile of charred timbers. Standing alone by the ruins, the sound of water dripping all around her, she could almost smell the stench of smoke still rising from the ashes.
Tires crunched across gravel, and she turned to see a dark blue SUV pull to a stop behind her Subaru. The man who stepped out was wearing a yellow rain slicker, which hung like a four-man tent on his hefty frame. Everything about him seemed large, from his bald head to his meaty hands, and although she was not afraid of him, in this isolated spot she was acutely aware of his physical advantage over her.
“Detective Wyman?” she called out.
He strode toward her, boots splashing through puddles. “And you must be Detective Rizzoli. How was your drive down from Maine?”
“Wet. Thanks for meeting me.” She looked at the ruins. “This is what you wanted me to see?”
“I thought we should meet here first, while there’s still daylight. So you could take a look around.”
For a moment they stood together, regarding the destroyed house in silence. In the field beyond it, a deer wandered into view and stared at them, unafraid. It was not yet acquainted with the crack of a rifle, the punch of a bullet.
“They seemed like decent citizens,” Detective Wyman said. “Quiet. Kept the property in good order. Never
