Salem's Cipher Page 10

  Through one of the latticed windows, she spotted Bel emerging from the back of the Plummer House. Guy was with her. Salem’s heartbeat picked up. She was almost out of time.

  She redoubled her efforts. She refused to let herself think about what it meant if they didn’t find anything, if they’d completely misread her mom’s message, if the seconds were ticking away on her and Gracie’s lives.

  Salem had to locate something.

  Nervously, she glanced out the window, her hands busy. Bel and Guy had stopped. They appeared to be arguing.

  They both glanced toward one-room church.

  They resumed walking toward it, Guy in the lead. Bel put her arm out to slow him. He shook it off.

  Salem’s breathing grew shallow. She had the last four inches of the beam to search. Guy would not be pleased to see her up here. She tapped frantically.

  She thought she heard something, finally, something different than she’d heard in the hundreds of square inches she’d already tapped. Her breathing was too loud. She tried to compose herself.

  She tapped again, on the far side of the beam, the section facing the pulpit.

  The results were inconclusive.

  She was sure Guy was almost upon her. There wasn’t time, but she had to get a better angle. She jumped off her stool and pulled it four inches toward the front of the church. She risked a peek outside.

  Guy and Bel were 25 feet away and closing in.

  She leapt back on the stool. She tapped, finding the hollow spot again immediately. This section looked like it used to be a dove-tailed woodworking joint that had been sawed and capped. Pressing her fingers into the sweet spot, she felt the softness of the wood.

  Even though every inch of her fought it, yelled at her to run, she closed her eyes so she could better hear the wood.

  She tapped, knocking as lightly as a fairy.

  A drawer released.

  She yelped. There it was!

  The front door of the church whipped open. Sunlight rained in, outlining Guy’s massive shape.

  There was no time for delicacy. Salem shoved her hand in the drawer. She felt paper. She tugged it out, as gently as she could, and curled it into her pocket.

  She bumped the drawer closed.

  She hopped off the stool

  It was too late. Guy was furious.

  “Get. Out.”

  “Not a problem,” she said, slipping past him. Bel fell in beside her. A quick nod from Salem told Bel all she needed to know. Bel grinned triumphantly and they hurried toward Plummer Hall, ignoring the back door in favor of a side path that would guarantee they wouldn’t face any more museum employees. They were giggling as they scurried away from Guy, their heads together.

  They were teenagers all over again.

  The laughter lasted until they broke out onto Essex Street.

  An uncannily beautiful man was exiting a white sedan. His light brown hair was loose, long, and moved like Medusa’s snakes in the chill fall wind. His build was slight, androgynous, his walk almost feminine as he strode toward Plummer Hall.

  He paused, turned, glanced toward both women.

  Clouds skidded over the sun, casting Essex Street in abrupt shadows. The atmosphere was lit like a supercharged black-and-white photograph, explosive and static.

  Salem’s eyes connected with his.

  She didn’t know him, but he clearly recognized her.

  The calculating expression in his eyes, the peculiar, delicate putty of his face, the bulge in his jacket—they all filled her with terror beyond words.

  Bel saw the same thing she did.

  Both women froze in place, a primal beat pounding their blood.

  And then they took off running through the pen-and-ink air.

  26

  Russell Senate Office Building

  Washington, DC

  “You’re really going through with this?”

  Gina Hayes rubbed her face. Senate Majority Leader James McCoy had asked her this question a dozen times in the past year. As he sat across from her in her DC office, it was clear that what had started out as a joke between old friends had evolved into something else. He was worried.

  The two of them had been born into opposite parties, but James McCoy was an old-school Republican: a fiscal conservative who happened to believe that small government, strong schools, safe streets, and healthy citizens was the best way to govern. He’d always kept his vote out of people’s bedrooms, doctor’s offices, and churches, and he never played favorites, even after forty-five years in the Senate. He was a dying breed, if there had ever been more than one of him. Hayes had learned more from the man about ethics and conduct than from anyone, her father included.

  “It’d look a little silly to back out now, wouldn’t it, Jim?” She attempted a smile. “You know what the media would say about that.”

  He held up his hands, spreading them apart to unfurl an invisible banner. “Gina Hayes Runs Back to the Kitchen, Encourages Other Women to Follow.”

  Her smile was genuine this time. “Something like that. You didn’t drop by today to talk me out of running, did you?”

  “Drop by today? I’ve been trying to track you down for a week. Matthew finally caved and told me you’d be in your office for a few hours. You spend too much time campaigning, Gina, and not enough doing the actual job you were elected to do.”

  She sat forward in her seat, her smile erased. This was a familiar and favorite debate of theirs. “I agree. If you’d sign off on my bipartisan campaign finance reform bill, politicians would have more time for the real work they were elected to do.”

  He waved her away, not up for the game. “You know that dog has no teeth. Not as long as that scandalous Citizens United stands.”

  She leaned back, nodding, her eyes sharp. “I could change things. If elected, I would.”

  Any good cheer dropped off him like a coat. He suddenly looked all his seventy-four years, scalp pink and speckled through his thin hair, hands quavering with the slightest tremble. There’d been talk that he would retire this year. She wondered if it was true.

  “Here’s why I stopped by, Gina. People are saying that you’ve met with the Israelis.”

  She made a mental note to tighten her inner circle. “You know the Israelis have a rule to never meet with candidates, only elected officials.”

  “Even when those candidates are sitting senators and likely future presidents of the United States of America?” The tremble in his hand increased. How long had he had that?

  “I’m worried about you,” he continued. “And that’s honest to God why I’m here. This isn’t going to end well, and your father would say the same thing if he were still alive. No one knows better than this old horse how dark politics can get, especially at the top. You have no idea how many forces you’re working against.”

  He coughed, the sound dry and red. “The truth is I want the other guy to win—I’m too old to change parties—but I want it fair and square. At least back off and let the Afghanistan mineral rights bill pass.”

  Hayes stood. She loved Jim McCoy, but she was too busy to humor his fears. “I appreciate your concern, Jim. You know I do. But it’s misplaced. And you know I can’t back off of Afghanistan. I’m not willing to risk our troops to line the pockets of a few already-rich.” She helped him to stand. “Now, do you want to go with me to my press conference or not? We’d give the world a treat by appearing together.”

  In lieu of an answer, he hugged her, grabbed his cane, and limped out through the back door and past her Secret Service detail without another word.

  His silence frightened Gina Hayes more than anything he could have said.

  27

  Salem, Massachusetts

  Salem and Bel found themselves on Brown Street, huffing from exertion. There was light pedestrian traffic, not enough to
conceal them. Salem glanced over her shoulder. The man was still following them, a hundred or so yards behind, the look on his face beyond intense. It reminded her of the cyborg in Terminator 2: Judgment Day. The thought was so ridiculous, every second of the last thirty-six hours so unbelievably ludicrous, that she laughed.

  It was a horrible sound.

  Bel whipped to look at her. “We have to hide.”

  Salem hysteria-giggled a little more, then slapped her hand over her mouth. “In there?”

  At the end of the block, in a triangle at the intersection of Brown and Washington, a bronze Puritan statue stood on an enormous rock. Behind the rock, a huge Gothic revival church rose into the sky. It resembled an old castle with battlements, its lanced windows set with red glass. The sign below the central window declared it the Salem Witch Museum.

  Underneath the sign, a line of people snaked out the door and around the block, a tour bus behind them. It was the only visible crowd in either direction.

  “Yup.” Bel grabbed Salem and shoved her toward the crowd. “In there.”

  Bel pushed through the milling tourists, earning her and Salem a barrage of angry stares. Salem was reminded of the Red Hot Chili Peppers concert Bel had dragged her to during her senior year of high school. Bel was already graduated, living in Chicago. She dressed edgy in ripped jeans and a cropped leather jacket. Salem had felt like a thumb in the mom jeans and t-shirt that had dominated her wardrobe. Somehow, Bel had threaded them from the nosebleed seats almost to the stage. Those fans, while furious at Salem and Bel’s passing, had seemed more easy-going than the crowd outside the Salem Witch Museum.

  “Hey, line’s back there!” It was a dad, three crabby kids under seven in tow. The people around him picked up the grumbling.

  “Sorry!” Bel called over her shoulder.

  Salem made the mistake of glancing behind her. The man from the white sedan was closing in, just on the other side of the statue. Something odd was happening to his face. Salem shook her head, and the twitch in his cheeks was gone. It must have been a trick of the light.

  Bel yanked her inside.

  In what must have been the original church’s foyer, an older man with a crewcut sold tickets behind a desk on the left. To their right, a tall wooden organizer was stacked with Local Attractions pamphlets.

  “Hey, get to the back of the line!” This time it was an elderly woman.

  “Sorry.” It was Salem’s turn to apologize.

  Bel marched forward, head down, toward the closed doors just ahead.

  “You can’t go in there!” the man behind the counter yelled. “They’re about to start the presentation.”

  Salem wanted to stop so badly, to at least pay to go in, but she’d spotted the top of the head of the man who was following them at the back of the crowd. She had no choice. She followed Bel through the pneumatic doors, into the presentation.

  The doors swung closed behind them.

  They fell into a darkness so complete, Salem couldn’t see her own hands. They were trapped.

  28

  Nine Years Old

  Enormous, enchanted puffs of snow are falling outside the living room window. The soft crystals dance dreamily toward the ground, a sylphic balance of size and lightness. It’s the first snowfall of the year, and Salem and Bel are dying to bundle up, run outside, and build a fort, or a snowman, or play no-touch-me with the falling flakes.

  “You’re not paying attention,” the instructor says. Vida, Grace, and Daniel have pushed aside the living room furniture so that Sensei Pederson can teach them judo in the center of the living room.

  “No,” Bel says. “I’m not.”

  Twelve years old and standing up to a stranger. Salem almost yells, she wants to be like Bel so bad. It’s not just Bel’s courage, or the way she picks up the judo like she was born to it while Salem flails around like a grounded bird. It’s not even how TV-show-pretty Bel is.

  Well, maybe that is it.

  Salem sighs. She’ll never be Bel, but at least she gets to be her best friend.

  She couldn’t wait to giggle with Bel about this later. Who in their right mind brings a private judo instructor to their house on a snowy Saturday night? Vida had said it’d be fun, that she and Grace had thought of it on a whim. They were always thinking of stuff like that—agility courses, first-aid training, dragging Bel and Salem to community ed knot tying courses or immersion Spanish workshops at the local high school after hours. This is the first time they’d brought it into the house, though.

  “How’s this?” Daniel offers, glancing at Bel, who stands hands-on-hips like a tiny soldier. “You two give Sensei Pederson your attention for the next hour—I mean your whole focus—and then I’ll take you both sledding.”

  Salem is sure her dad is the only one of the three adults who remembers what it’s like to have fun. She glances at Bel, trying not to smile. Bel has taught her that you never take the first deal presented, but dang, that’s a sweet offer on the table.

  Bel tosses her golden ponytail over her shoulder. “Ice cream on the way back?”

  “Isabel Odegaard!” Grace admonishes.

  But Daniel laughs. “You betcha.”

  Salem grins. She can’t believe it. Bel got them ice cream. In the winter!

  She promises herself that some day, she’ll be as bold as Bel.

  Some day.

  29

  Salem, Massachusetts

  The room they’d entered smelled like canned soup. It held an encompassing blackness that crawled over Salem’s skin with the weight of dead fingers. To their left, up high, a stage lamp flicked on, bathing a hunched gargoyle in a sick yellow light. The grotesque creature was maybe six feet tall, perched on a second level of the main room. Below it, in the dead center floor of the room, a massive red circle lit up.

  Salem Village 1692 was written in the center of the circle. Names were scribbled in outgoing concentric circles. Salem recognized Tituba and a few other names—people who’d met ghastly fates during the Witch Trials.

  The gargoyle’s lamp switched off, and the room was again bathed in darkness as thick as grave dirt. When Salem’s eyes had a moment to adjust, she saw an exit sign at the far end of the room. Seconds later, a stage light to the right fired up. It outlined a peasant man on the gallows, a noose around his neck.

  “In 1692, Salem was a peaceful village.”

  Salem blinked. The presentation.

  The church sanctuary had been gutted to make way for this gigantic display room. Salem could just make out chairs arranged around the red circle, crammed with tourists. This is what people had been waiting in line for. If she squinted, she could spot the remaining dioramas rimming the upper edges of the hall. They would be lit up one at a time to tell the story of the Salem Witch Trials. It was kitsch at its finest.

  Outside the door immediately behind them, they heard a scuffle.

  Salem’s skin prickled. “It’s him,” she whispered. She didn’t know who he was. She knew he was following them, and that there would be nothing worse on this earth than him catching them. The terror of being chased by this predator was so primordial, so unbearably awful that Salem understood why an animal would leap off a cliff rather than let itself be caught.

  Bel pointed across the hall at the dimly-lit exit sign. Salem nodded. They wove around the chairs, trying not to draw too much attention.

  But they weren’t moving fast enough.

  The doors behind them opened. Salem stifled a yelp.

  The flooding light caused angry whispers to erupt from the viewing crowd.

  “Not again!”

  “Hey, we paid way too much for this already. Shut off the lights!”

  The crewcut worker from the front desk held open the doors. The man who had been pursuing them stood behind, silhouetted. Glancing back at him filled Salem’s gut with ice. She pushe
d Bel forward. “Hurry!”

  They stumbled through the exit door. A smaller museum lay on the other side. It featured various depictions of witches behind glass, from the Wicked Witch of the West in all her green glory to a simple midwife surrounded by herbs, and finally, a couple who reminded Salem of Renaissance Festival regulars, flowers woven in their hair, holding carved walking sticks.

  Salem and Bel ran past all of the shtick.

  “You know that hotel across the street?” Bel was out of breath.

  They found themselves inside the gift shop.

  “No.”

  A store employee stepped forward, speaking into her headset, palms facing Salem and Bel.

  “The Hawthorne Hotel.” Bel glared at the worker. The worker stepped aside, squawking angrily at whoever was on the other end of the headset. “We drove past it to get to the church. We have to slip inside and secure a hiding spot as soon as we can. How much cash do you have?”

  30

  Salem, Massachusetts

  Jason stood just inside the entryway of The Old Spot, blood pumping pleasantly. He recognized what he hadn’t seen in the photos he’d been provided: Isabel Odegaard was beautiful, breathtaking, stunning, even from a distance. She was more athletic than curvy, her strawberry-blond hair perfect against the cream of her skin.

  He felt an electric arousal, one he rarely experienced on the job. He pulled his jacket tighter around him and glanced at his watch. The women had dashed into the Hawthorne Hotel six minutes earlier. He’d wait ten more minutes for them to check into their room before going to the front desk to retrieve their room number. No desk person would hand it to him, but odds were that they would have the last check-in open on their computer screen. It was industry standard. He’d simply ask the desk person a question that would require them to turn around, and he’d peek over the desk for the room number.

  He’d done it innumerable times.

  He glanced behind him. The pub’s overhead TVs were dominated by political ads flashing various unflattering photos of Senator Gina Hayes. Do you trust her with the troops? She’s been lying since her college days—just ask her old roommate. Who will really run the country, her or her father’s cronies? The propaganda was ugly in a way that sat nicely with Jason, at least until the news showed a day-old clip of Senator Gina Hayes at an Ohio rally. She had an audience of tens of thousands. Their cheers were deafening.