Salem's Cipher Read online

  Clancy had witnessed the same thing Stone had, but Clancy didn’t appear alarmed. Rather, he looked like a man who’d ordered the steak and been brought chicken instead and was willing to make the best of it.

  Stone had discovered early in their pairing that Clancy was clandestine, his backstop deeper than Stone could dig, which is why Stone didn’t always share ops with him. He assumed Clancy returned the favor. It was unusual for Clancy to sit by on something so aggressively public, however. Clancy had been letting the woman in a black blazer advance on Wiley, and she would have gotten her if not for Stone’s intervention. The woman had since disappeared like a ghoul.

  As Stone watched Wiley and Odegaard scurry out of the hotel, he wondered if Clancy had gone hard. Stone let Clancy grab him.

  “What in the hell are you doing here?” Clancy’s face was red. He clutched Stone’s lapel, twisting it, his free hand fisted at his side as if itching to throw a punch.

  Stone’s brows drew in and his jaw tightened. It’s not what he’d driven here expecting, but maybe it was time to work this shit out. Rather than remove his partner’s hand, he gave Clancy thirty seconds to consider how badly he didn’t want to throw down with younger, taller Stone.

  It took a minute.

  Clancy unclenched Stone’s lapel and swore, stalking toward the parking lot entrance. “You should have notified me of your location,” he muttered over his shoulder.

  Stone followed, pissed by Clancy’s rage. “We agreed to meet here, remember?”

  Clancy grunted and walked away.

  Stone followed him outside. Clancy strode straight toward an illegally parked sedan.

  Stone walked to the driver’s side door, blocking Clancy. “Keys?” It was a low blow, but Clancy should be grateful Stone was working his anger out with words. That’s not how he’d learned to play growing up in Detroit.

  “How’d you get to the hotel?” Clancy snarled.

  “Cab.”

  Clancy slapped the roof of his rental and tossed Stone the keys before sliding into the passenger seat, avoiding eye contact. “We’re tailing the girls, right?”

  “Best plan.” Stone slid in and started the car. He didn’t know how all the murder victims were connected, or how that extended to Wiley and Odegaard, but he intended to save their lives. That’s why he’d slipped the tracker in Wiley’s pocket back in the lobby.

  He could still smell Salem from where their clothes had touched—something spicy and clean like cinnamon, and under that, a raw animal fear. For a moment, he wondered how long Clancy had been hiding in the lobby. He ultimately dismissed the thought. Worrying about another man’s motives was a sure way to drive yourself crazy in this business.

  All you could complete was your own mission.

  37

  Salem, Massachusetts

  “It was the same guy from the Art Institute in Minneapolis.” Bel was chewing on the inside of her cheek. “I don’t know what he was doing at the Institute or in the freaking Hawthorne lobby in Salem, Massachusetts, but it was him both times, I promise. Chubby Ed ­Harris–looking guy.”

  “Forget Ed Harris,” Salem said. “Who was the snake-eyed woman?”

  The cab was currying them to the Enterprise Rental on Canal Street. The cabbie had assured them she was driving as fast as she could. It didn’t stop Salem from wanting to strap jet packs to the roof and rocket them across town.

  “I wish I knew. Maybe we’re being followed by a brother and sister? That would explain why they have the same eyes.” Bel touched the outline of her handgun. She’d assured Salem that she could carry the piece across state lines as long as she kept proof of her law enforcement status handy. Salem didn’t like guns, but she was happy to make an exception in Bel’s case. Their situation had gone from upside-down to deadly.

  Salem started her fingernail-rubbing routine. “Maybe we’re just being paranoid? I’ve read about heightened stress causing delusions.”

  “Paranoia might be all that keeps us alive here.”

  Salem flinched. “If what Ernest said was true, it didn’t work for our moms. At least for one of them.”

  “I won’t believe that without proof.”

  But they both settled into the heavy blackness of the possibility. It had the ring of truth, as did every word Ernest Mayfair had uttered. It was simply too large to process all at once, though Salem had tried to fit those words into the slots that would elicit the correct emotions. Conspiracy. Hermitage. Underground. Death.

  She cleared her throat. “I think it was a mistake not to talk to Agent Stone back in Minneapolis. Or here. My mom said not to trust anyone, but we have to trust someone.”

  Bel shrugged. “No looking back, only forward. Besides, I don’t like that Stone showed up in Salem, and that he was in the lobby the same time as the snake-eyed woman and Ed Harris. There’s no good reason for the FBI to be following us.”

  “Are you thinking about what Ernest said about the Hermitage having a plant in the FBI?”

  Bel ran her hand over her face. “I’m thinking about your mom’s warning. I intend to beware. We both should.”

  Salem hugged herself and glanced out the window at the bayside city sliding past. One two three breathe. They would look forward, not back. They would talk about things as if both Grace and Bel’s mom were both alive, because the alternative would hurt too much. One two three breathe. Wherever the messages took them, they would follow, because her mother had set them on this trail. One two three breathe.

  “He looked pissed,” Bel mused.

  “Who?”

  “The Ed Harris guy. But not at us. At Agent Stone.”

  “Think they know each other?”

  “Stone for sure has a partner. Could be him. But right before the Ed Harris guy looked pissed to see Stone, he looked surprised to see him. Just for a split second.”

  Salem rubbed her eyes. Blinked. Her vision was blurry. When was the last time she’d slept? Two days ago? Three? She took a whiff of her armpit. Definitely past due for a shower. She envied Bel’s rapidly drying silken hair.

  The cab stopped abruptly in front of a strip mall, the force of the sudden halt banging Salem into the seat back.

  The driver clicked a button on her meter. “Here you are.”

  Salem handed her a ten, told her to keep the change, and squeaked out with her and Bel’s duffels in hand, rubbing her shoulder where it had hit the seat. She slammed the door and glanced around. Bel did the same. They stood in front of a Jackson Hewitt Tax Service. A Family Dollar was around the north corner, occupying most of the strip mall. On the south side, a white garage with shredded paint leaned against a graffiti-stained warehouse.

  The setting sun turned the sky a dull red.

  Besides one car parked in the strip mall lot, the neighborhood was deserted. Salem knocked on the cab door. “Hey, I don’t see—”

  But the cab sped off. Salem had to hop to keep from having her toes run over. “Dangit!”

  “Over here,” Bel said, jogging north. “The Enterprise is right around the corner, tucked behind the—”

  Her words were cut off as a shadow separated itself from the bushes and stalked toward her.

  38

  Salem, Massachusetts

  Bel leapt forward, grabbed the assailant’s wrist, and twisted it as she ducked under in a move that reminded Salem of square dancing. They’d learned the basics in a middle school gym class, except in Bel’s current version, she kept moving underneath and behind, twisting the man’s arm to the point where Salem could hear the sinew protesting, at which point Bel shoved the sharp side of her foot into the back of his knee, pushed in and down, and used her weight to pin him long enough to yank her Glock out of its holster and press it deep into his temple.

  “Don’t!” A girl no more than seven, all jutting bones and greasy hair, jumped from the shadows and pushed
Bel, oblivious to the gun and the danger. “Don’t be mean to my brother!” She beat Bel with her tiny fists.

  “Ernest?” Salem asked, recognizing the lanky man in Bel’s grip. “Bel, let him go.”

  “Not until he tells us what he’s doing here. And get the kid offa me.” A car motored by slowly, the driver certainly wondering at the tableau of Bel overpowering 6'7" Ernest while being pummeled by a little girl.

  Salem reached toward the child, but the girl moved to the other side of Bel, just out of Salem’s reach.

  “Don’t hurt her!” Ernest’s voice was tight with panic, his flesh white from the pain of Bel’s hold. He jerked his head toward the girl, whose face was streaked with tears and dirt. “I think they’re after her.” She was still pounding Bel but hadn’t the strength to do damage. “Mercy, stop it.”

  The girl paused, stepping around front so she was face to face with Bel. Her eyes were wide, scared, their lashes impossibly long. “Will you let him go?”

  Bel didn’t answer.

  Ernest tried again. “I need to get out of town to protect Mercy. You two need to get out of town to save your own lives. The Hermitage Foundation sicced one of their best assassins on you, and the FBI is in Salem too. No telling whose side they’re on today. I figure you have sixty seconds before one or both locates you here.”

  Bel ground her knee into his back. He grunted.

  “Bel!” Salem said.

  “Fifty seconds.” His jaw was clenched. “No way can you get a car rented in that time. Even if you did, it’d be traceable. We can take mine.”

  “That’s as traceable as a rental,” Bel barked.

  “But it’s not tied to you two.” He glanced away from Mercy, who was twisting a soft-looking blanket in her hands. “And anyhow, it’s not mine.”

  “Stolen?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Forty seconds.”

  Bel glanced at Salem.

  “Please,” the little girl begged, turning to Salem. With her huge eyes and wringing hands, she reminded Salem of a Keane painting.

  “You don’t have to trust me,” Ernest said. “You don’t even have to like me. Just get in my car, let’s drive somewhere safe, and I can explain the rest. You know you can overpower me if you need to. You’ve done it twice.”

  Still, Bel paused.

  “Thirty seconds,” he pleaded. His upper body was trembling from the pain of Bel’s hold. “That old brown sedan over there is mine. We can still get out of this.”

  “Go. Now!” Bel holstered her gun, released him, and all four of them raced to the car.

  39

  Massachusetts

  The phone buzzed like a rattlesnake nest inside Jason’s jacket pocket. It was almost certainly Carl Barnaby calling him for an update, but if Jason didn’t check, he wasn’t technically avoiding talking with him. And there was no need to speak with Barnaby until he had something to report.

  He signaled left to stick close to the brown sedan the women and the tall man and the child had tucked themselves inside of, jabbing the window button to allow the brisk breeze to wash through the car, cleansing him of Salem Wiley’s scent. The woman was a frightened rabbit, eyes wide, shivering. If not for the FBI agent’s interference, he would have slid the knife into her gut and his hand into her pocket to retrieve the document, then stepped to the rack of brochures while Isabel (she was so beautiful up close that he called her Isabel now) rushed to Salem’s side, thinking her friend had fainted.

  He would have knelt to help Isabel, puncturing her kidney so cleanly she’d feel only a strange punch before bleeding out. And then he’d stand with a different face, making room for the bystanders rushing to assist the two women, and stroll out the front door, into his car, and fly to San Francisco to celebrate and wait.

  Sixty seconds, start to finish.

  He opened the cracked windows to their full extent, fresh air collapsing itself around the cinnamon particles still clinging to him and sweeping them out to sea. The gray trees and brown grass matched his mood, the garish shops designed to cash in on the Witch Trials annoying him. It didn’t even make him happy to see that there were no police cars in front of the First Church, either of them.

  The sedan turned left on Washington. He did the same. The women had made contact with the man and girl just ahead of his arrival at the strip mall and were fleeing to the airport or the train station. It didn’t matter to him which.

  He punched the radio. Whoever had rented the car before him had tuned it to NPR.

  “ … her husband, Charles Hayes, nearly negotiated an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal during his tenure as Secretary of State. With local DC news station WLJA posting grainy photos that appear to be Israeli Ambassador to the United States David Meridor and PLO Ambassador to the United States Yousef Ziad ar-Reefy leaving a Washington, DC, office building separately and minutes ahead of Democratic presidential candidate Gina Hayes, pundits are speculating that she intends to finish the job her husband started if elected. This means … ”

  He slammed his fist into the console, cracking the plastic. The radio squawked country music before he punched the off button. Concentrating on his pulse, he reminded himself how close he was to his goal. Ahead of him, Salem Wiley was driving, with the strange man in the passenger seat and Isabel Odegaard next to the girl in the back. Wiley surely had the master list stuffed in her front left coat pocket, the one she’d kept patting in the hotel lobby.

  The Crucible would be on Alcatraz Island on Monday, November 7,

  the day before the presidential election. That gave him six days to catch the women, nab the list, and kill them.

  He wouldn’t need six days.

  Once their car stopped, he wouldn’t need six minutes.

  40

  Ten Years Old

  Daniel has joked that Bel has two switches: on or off. She never does anything halfway, which is why Salem isn’t surprised when Bel signs up for law enforcement camp the summer after she graduates from eighth grade. She’s given up looking for her dad; at least, she doesn’t talk about it anymore. Now, it’s all about arresting the bad guys.

  The week without Bel is excruciating. Salem tries helping her dad, or going to the park, or reading, but it’s not the same knowing she can’t call Bel when she wants to. When Gracie asks Salem if she wants to go with to pick up Bel at the end of the week, it’s all Salem can do not to yell her yes.

  Bel seems different on the drive back. Distant, maybe, or like she’s guarding something. When the two of them are alone in Bel’s bedroom, she spills it.

  “I kissed a girl.”

  An unpleasant heat burns in Salem’s chest. She’s seen people kiss, of course—her parents, people in movies—but she thought it wouldn’t be something she’d have to worry about until high school at least. “What was it like?”

  Bel gets a faraway smile. “Warm. Wet. I liked it.”

  Salem feels the chasm growing between them. She’s a girl, ten. She still wears a helmet when she bikes. She owns a training bra, but she doesn’t wear it because she hasn’t even got what the boys call “mosquito bites.” Bel is growing up without her. The heat moves to her eyes, and she thinks she might cry. She adjusts her shirt, its front emblazoned with a dorky Saved by the Bell iron-on. She feels fat and stupid and out of place.

  “But not as much as I liked the rope wall. Salem! I can’t wait to be a real police officer! I have to show you what I learned about climbing. Come on.”

  Bel takes her hand and tugs her outside. They take their secret path to the limestone caves by the river, and Bel teaches her all her tricks. They giggle and finish each other’s sentences and Bel flashes her gorgeous smile, and everything is right again.

  41

  Massachusetts

  Salem tried to cover herself with the warm recollection of that smile as she drove the brown Buick Century, wrapping the memory around h
erself like a sweater.

  Or a bulletproof vest.

  Ernest sat next to her, massaging his arm. Mercy rested in the seat directly behind him, looking even younger curled around her blanket, and Bel rode next to the girl, her back against the door, eyes and maybe gun trained on Ernest. Salem couldn’t tell from the driver’s seat. All she knew was that Bel had patted down Ernest before she let him in the car and she’d ordered everyone where to sit, all in the span of one of the tensest twenty seconds of Salem’s life.

  Salem blinked against the setting sun. Her eyes felt gritty enough to make pearls if she could only close them for more than a second.

  She needed to talk to stay awake. “How did you find us?”

  Ernest shrugged, then winced. “Lucky guess. Figured you’d take a cab to the nearest car rental.”

  Bel cursed from the backseat.

  Salem asked another question. “Back at the hotel, you said the Hermitage Foundation came after our moms, and now they’re after … your sister?” She glanced in the rearview mirror. The girl appeared asleep. She imagined Bel was glaring at the back of Ernest’s skull, her eyes shooting bullets into him. Salem had seen her friend agitated before, but never to this level. They both needed sleep, food, and to get their heads on straight.

  “That’s right.” Ernest fidgeted. Salem first thought his height made it difficult to get comfortable, but then she realized he was trying to check on his sister in the mirror.

  Salem craned her neck so she could glance deeper into the backseat. “I think she’s sleeping.”

  “Yeah,” Bel said from the rear. “I can hear her breathing. And now you should tell us anything you left out back at the Hawthorne, and quickly. We have somewhere we have to be.”

  Salem knew better than to say where they needed to be—Bel would be furious if she spilled their destination to Ernest. That was unfortunate, because all Salem had was a vague idea that Amherst lay about two hours away on the western side of the state, combined with an awareness that the sun set in the west. She had no idea which roads to take and was following the fading light.