She clutched the line with both hands, hope and panic etched in her face. The wind shifted. Abruptly, the mainsail filled, propelling the boat forward at startling speed. The rope snapped taut in Jenny’s hands, the forward motion of the boat dragging her through rough waters like a rag doll. Adam heard her scream. In seconds, she would release the line, falling back as the boat sped away, or keep swallowing water through her mouth and nose until the sensation of drowning forced her to let go.
Jerking the tiller, Adam steered into the wind. The boat slowed abruptly, forging back toward Jenny. At last, the line went slack, and Jenny began bobbing again. Tiller in one hand, Adam pulled her toward him with the rope. As she came close, he reached out, risking his own tumble into the water. The instant his hand clasped hers the boat rocked again. The fierceness of her grip was all that linked them.
With desperate haste, Adam pulled her into the boat. Still gripping the tiller, he hugged her. He felt her trembling with relief and fear.
“Strange,” she murmured after a time. “Suddenly, I was just so scared of dying.”
Adam kissed her forehead, felt cold skin and damp tendrils of hair. “Now you’re like me,” he said gently. “But it’s like I promised at Waskosims, Jen. I’ll never let anything happen to you.”
In late afternoon, they spotted Menemsha Harbor. Though warmed by the sun, Jenny still leaned against him. “I’ve never talked to anyone about my writing,” she said. “At least not like I do with you.”
“Do you know why?”
She hesitated. “I’m afraid of rejection. Both of my stories and of me. Sometimes I’m too scared to show them to anyone, especially someone I know.”
A new idea struck him, a way to encourage her. “Suppose my dad wanted to read one of your stories, Jen. Could he?”
She stared at him in wonder. “Do you think he would?”
“I could always ask.” Still watching the current, Adam considered how much this might appeal to Ben’s idea of himself. “He just might give you feedback, and he knows damn near everyone in publishing. Maybe you should come to dinner.” Pausing, he smiled at another thought. “Actually, you’ll be a welcome distraction for us all. Given that we’re close to the last boat race, and I’ve nearly caught him in the standings, Dad’s a little short with me right now.”
The wheels of the plane touched down, jolting Adam back to the present.
Eighteen
In the next three days, Adam met with his superiors, transferred money to Jason Lew through two separate bank accounts, and returned to the Vineyard. On the day following, Lew called him to report. “I got by with it,” Lew said. “I don’t think the security guys suspected me. If you’re feeling reckless, you can find out if my technical gifts survive.”
That evening, at twilight, Adam told Clarice he was going fly-fishing and drove to Dogfish Bar.
Several men were already there, spread like sentries along the surf. Spotting Matthew Thomson, Adam stopped to chat, then took his place among the others. For several hours he tried to clear his mind of tensions, focused on his casting. Only as the rest began drifting away did Adam’s thoughts turn from the water.
Shortly after midnight, he found himself alone.
Edgier now, he made himself remain for one more hour. Then he returned to the dirt patch where he had parked his truck, changed into jeans and a dark sweater, and made the forty-minute drive to Edgartown.
He parked on a residential lane two blocks from Main Street. The town was dark and quiet, the last of the drunken college kids cleared from the sidewalks. Sliding out of the truck, he walked near the shade trees lining the road.
Headlights pierced the darkness, coming toward him. Swiftly, he slipped behind the cover of a privacy hedge, kneeling on the lawn of a darkened house. Peering through its branches, he saw that the lights belonged to a patrol car from the Edgartown police. This much he had expected; what he could not know was whether the cop at the wheel would continue on his rounds.
Standing, Adam looked in both directions, then continued past more white frame houses in a circuitous route toward Main Street. Then he veered again, quietly but quickly crossing a yard before concealing himself behind a tree next to the courthouse.
Its parking lot was empty, the rear entrance lit by a single spotlight. Putting on his father’s old ski mask and gloves, he took Lew’s device from his pocket. It was no larger than a car fob, with a simple switch that would disarm the security system. Unless the device was defective-in which case arrest was the least of Adam’s worries.
He paused, envisioning the challenge ahead. A sheriff’s deputy would monitor the surveillance screen in the room near the main entrance, watching images sent by cameras in the hallway and just above the rear door. Assuming that the shriek alarm did not go off when he opened the door, any one of the cameras could reveal his presence inside the courthouse, bringing a swarm of cops and deputies. His choice was to back out or trust in Lew’s skill.
For a moment, recalling the young man he had been, Adam was paralyzed by disbelief. But since then he had learned to ignore boundaries and to mold events to his purposes. Stepping from behind the tree, he felt the coldness come over him, his heartbeat lowering, his breathing becoming deep and even. His footsteps as he crossed the parking lot were silent.
Nerveless, he pushed the button.
The first test would be the door.
Adam inhaled. The door had unlocked; so far, Lew’s bypass had worked.
Slowly, Adam edged inside. Dim light illuminated the hallway. A camera aimed down at him from the ceiling, meant to reveal his presence at once. But if the device functioned properly, the monitor would show the empty space that had existed a moment before Adam filled it. No one inside seemed to stir.
With painful slowness, Adam crept down the hallway toward the stairs to the second floor. As he reached them, he glanced into the security room and saw the broad back of a sheriff’s deputy gazing at a TV monitor, watching the door through which Adam had entered. The intruder was safely inside.
Catlike, he started up the stairs. He willed himself not to look back at the deputy who, simply by turning, would catch him. Reaching the top, he turned a corner, out of sight once more.
The second floor was quiet and still. If he got in and out without being seen, Lew had promised, no one would ever know he had been there. But Adam had more complex plans. Reaching the door of George Hanley’s office, also wired to the system, he turned the knob.
Once again, Lew’s device had disarmed the lock. Slipping inside, Adam softly closed the door.
Through the window Main Street appeared dark and silent. Using his penlight, Adam scanned the surface of Hanley’s desk.
Nothing of interest. Kneeling, he slid open the top drawer of a battered metal cabinet, then another, reading the captions on manila folders. Only in the bottom drawer did he find the file labeled
BENJAMIN BLAINE.
Taking it out, he sat at Hanley’s desk.
The sensation was strange. But for the next few minutes, Adam guessed, he was safe. The danger would come when he tried to leave.
Methodically, he spread the contents of the file in front of him. Hanley’s handwritten notes, suggesting areas of inquiry. The crime scene report. Typed notes of the initial interviews with his mother, brother, and uncle-as well as Carla Pacelli, Jenny Leigh, Nathan Wright, and Adam himself. And, near the bottom of the file, the pathologist’s report.
For the next half hour, he systematically photographed each page, blocking out all thought of detection. He had no time to read. But once he escaped, and studied them, he would know almost as much as George Hanley and Sean Mallory-and, unlike them, would know that. Especially advantaged would be Teddy’s lawyer in Boston, who would receive them in the mail from an anonymous benefactor, and who, himself innocent of the theft, would have no ethical duty to return them.
