Salem's Cipher Read online

  71

  Sacramento, California

  The car changed speeds, waking Salem. She jerked into an upright position, nerves jittering like they always did when memories of her dad’s last days sneaked past her barricades. Her mother had started her with a therapist after Daniel’s suicide. The woman was kind. She told Salem it wasn’t her fault. She also told her that the full memory of that day at the lake would come back to her someday.

  Salem hoped not.

  She stretched the sleep out of her joints and glanced around. The backseat of the Honda reflected the forty-six hours they’d been on the road—bags of sunflower kernels, empty water bottles, maps. The car’s interior smelled swampy.

  Ernest hadn’t returned to the Road King Motel until the next dawn, but he’d acquired a Honda Civic, two iPhones—one a 4 and the other a 5S—car chargers for each, over $2,000 in small bills, and a .380 Colt Automatic that delighted Bel. Ernest’s face had hung as he displayed his loot. It hurt Salem to see him ashamed of his work, to know that he had to steal for them.

  They’d left immediately, following the sun that first day. They’d driven directly west, cutting a shaky diagonal across the country, following 1-90 until it became I-80 in northern Ohio. East Coast fall morphed to Midwest winter turned to Southwest canyons. They stopped only for food, gas, and the bathroom, alternating drivers between the three adults. They held to the speed limit, as Ernest was the only one in possession of his driver’s license. At least, Salem hoped he had one.

  Salem and Bel had filled him in on the Dickinson letter while Ernest drove.

  “If we can get our hands on that treasure,” he’d said, “we could use it to buy off the Hermitage, maybe save your … mom.” He didn’t direct the word at either Salem or Bel.

  “It would definitely be more useful than the leadership docket.” Bel used the meat of her hand to wipe condensation off her window. “That’s got to be nearly two hundred years old. All those people will be long dead.”

  Ernest ran his hand over his face, the other hand on the wheel. Salem wondered when he’d last slept. She, Bel, and Mercy had at least gotten catnaps. “I wish it worked that way,” he said. “Underground leadership is usually passed down through the family. If your mom was a leader, you would be too. When the Hermitage finds out about a connection, or thinks they’ve discovered one, they destroy all the women in the family.”

  Whenever Salem thought of the ridiculous scope of this—she and Bel on the run from the FBI and a serial killer, hidden messages from Emily Dickinson, shadowy organizations wiping out women, an impending assassination—she thought back to Grace’s apartment, and the blood, which had been as real as her legs.

  Salem felt, surprisingly, a fire begin to burn in her belly. Fear alchemizing to anger. “I’ve been thinking about the lightning bolt Emily refers to, the thing that can take down the Hermitage. It must be some sort of paperwork, something that would expose their origins, or the murders committed in its name back in Jackson’s time. It would be too ancient now to destroy them, probably, but it could slow them down.”

  “That sounds like a plan,” Ernest said.

  “Hey, can I ask you something?” An unclosed loop had been niggling at Salem since she’d met Ernest.

  “Yup.”

  “How’d you know what room we’d be in at the Hawthorne?”

  He kept his eyes on the road. “Like I said, I followed you. Man, you two looked scared.”

  Bel shot him the stink eye, and he held up a hand. “I don’t blame you. That guy following you for sure works for the Hermitage. You were so busy looking for him that you didn’t see me. I was right behind you when the Hawthorne front desk guy told you your room number. All that was left was figuring out a way to get you to let me in.”

  Salem stuck the end of a curl in her mouth and chewed. “And Dr. Keller is in the Underground?”

  Ernest adjusted his sunglasses. “Yep. I never know who’s who until they call me. They phone when they need someone in Massachusetts, like when your mom came, and they give me a code word before they fill me in.”

  She rubbed her neck. Her body hadn’t grown accustomed to sleeping in a car so much as resigned itself to the tweaking coil of mobile slumber. The four of them had fallen into a quiet camaraderie. Salem used some of their cash to buy Mercy a coloring book and sharp, perfect crayons—no doll yet, but she’d buy the child one soon, as soon as they stopped somewhere other than a gas station—and a bag of M&Ms. When they were in the backseat together, Salem taught her math and gave her a smooth bright candy for each question she answered correctly.

  Bel had bought an “I heart Iowa” t-shirt on the way through the state and had worn it since, her hair in a twist on top of her head, her face makeup free. Ernest mostly kept to himself, making sure everyone selected their gas station foods before paying for everything, including his beloved ranch sunflower seeds with a side of Dr Pepper. Bel was progressively thawing toward him, though, Salem could see it. Bel was taking Ernest under her wing, punching his arm playfully, even opening up a little bit about her job as a police officer.

  That made Salem happy.

  The last time Salem had been awake, before the catnap featuring her dad, the Honda had been crossing from Nevada into the forests of eastern California. Mercy was buckled in the backseat next to her, staring out the window. Salem tucked a lose chunk of the girl’s hair behind her ear and leaned toward the front. “Where are we?”

  Bel glanced at her in the rearview mirror. “Sacramento, sleepyhead. An hour and a half east of San Francisco. We need gas, and I’ve had to pee for two hours.”

  The gas station they were pulling into was an ugly plug of cement off the highway next to an industrial park. They’d stuck to no-name stops the entire trip, not really agreeing to it beforehand, just all three of them independently deciding to keep as low a profile as possible. Bel pulled up to the nearest pump.

  The sun was just rising. Salem stepped outside into air that was California-cool, an earthier chill than they’d felt on the East Coast. She waited until Mercy came around the side of the car, grabbed her hand, and walked toward the gray building. Ernest began to wash the windshield. Bel sped past to reach the bathroom first. They had a routine.

  Mercy ran to the carrel of magazines just inside the gas station door. She turned it. It made a creaking sound. Salem peeked through the glass partition dividing the cash register from the rest of the dusty store. She smiled at the man behind the counter. He was watching TV and didn’t acknowledge her.

  Salem let Mercy pick out a word find book, cheese crackers, and an orange juice.

  “Hey, Mercy, do you think we can get through today eating only orange food?”

  Mercy screwed up her face, so Salem tickled her to elicit a giggle. She grabbed a cheese stick and some cashews for herself. They walked to the front counter and set their bounty on it. Still, the man ignored them. Salem raised her hand to knock on the glass when she spotted her own face on his television set.

  It was her senior photo.

  Her hair was bigger, and she wore cat’s eye makeup, but it was unmistakably her.

  “ … for the planned assassination of Senator Gina Hayes. Both women are believed armed and dangerous and on the run. You are asked to call the authorities if you have any information on them. Do not attempt to … ”

  Salem was backing away from the partition, her hand still in the air, the knock unfinished.

  “Salem?” Mercy asked. “You didn’t pay. I want my word book.”

  The man finally turned. His eyes were tired and rheumy behind the glass. He didn’t recognize her immediately, but then Bel appeared at Salem’s side, smiling. “Not the worst bathroom I’ve ever seen,” she said brightly.

  The man’s glance flicked from his TV, which now displayed Salem’s senior and Isabel’s police academy photos side by side, and back to the women.
r />   “Salem?” Bel asked. “You okay?”

  Salem shook her head, but no words came out. Quicksand was welling up from the floor, sucking her down. She grabbed Bel with one hand and Mercy with the other and backed toward the door.

  “Salem!” Mercy pouted. “I want my book!”

  The man reached for the phone.

  “Go!” Salem yelled.

  72

  San Francisco

  Switching out the Civic for a Toyota RAV4 cost them an hour, but they had no choice. A quick search with their phones showed their cross-country run was one of the top trending stories, right next to a rap star getting married, Senator Hayes’s next speaking appearance, and the recovering economy. As they pulled into San Francisco, every glance from a passing driver felt like it lingered too long. It made Salem itchy. She wanted to locate Beale’s keytext and get the hell out of this city.

  She’d never traveled to San Francisco before, of course. Even in her stressed state, she had to admire how pretty it was as they descended I-80. They drove up almost-­vertical hills, the clanging of street car bells filtering in their open car windows, and then the clack clack clack of the trolleys and the sounds of gears grinding.

  Ernest followed the GPS instructions up 19th Street toward Mission Dolores Park.

  Scrubby acacia and palm trees skirted the perimeter of the park, and beyond those, white and gray buildings ringed the field of green like castle battlements. Dolores Park was an oasis in San Francisco’s center, the bay a straight shot behind it.

  “You two stay inside the car,” Bel commanded Mercy and Ernest. “Be ready to drive away if we come running.”

  “There it is!” Mercy pointed through the two front seats. “I see a bell!”

  Salem spotted it, too, a pewter-colored ornament at the entrance to the park, a rolling expanse of grass falling away behind and to each side of it. The bell was suspended in a white cement U, the whole structure no more than 10 feet high top to bottom. They’d be able to peer inside the bell without stepping on their tiptoes.

  Salem’s itching morphed into a humming. “It can’t really be that easy, can it?”

  “It’s about time something is.” Bel glided out of the car as soon as it stopped. Salem followed her, the warm sunshine working its way through her greasy curls to massage her scalp. The ocean smelled different here than in Massachusetts, more lake than sea, at least from where Salem was standing. The park was already filling up. It was a sunny Saturday morning with a predicted high of 66 degrees. Frisbee, soccer, dog walking.

  Salem had learned her lesson back at the Amherst police department: walk like you know what you’re doing.

  “Take my picture!” She tossed a smile in her voice and stepped onto the white stand of the U. She peeked inside the bell. Smooth metal. She ran her hand around the interior, just to be sure, but it was solid. She gonged it with her hand. The low ting garnered a stare from a couple walking past. Salem pulled her hair over her face and pretended to pose for Isabel and waited for the man and the woman to pass.

  When the couple was no longer looking their way, Salem ran her hand over the cool exterior of the metal bell, feeling for any abnormality. Was that guy with the Frisbee staring at them funny? She kept working, sweat sliding down her spine. The bell seemed solid. She turned her attention to the wood that held it, which was slatted and old-looking. Potentially, it could be disguising any number of secret messages.

  Was the Frisbee man taking out his cell phone while ogling her and Bel?

  Salem ignored the fear-thump of her heartbeat and stepped off the stand so she could get a better look at the whole unit.

  The man with the Frisbee and the phone was most definitely staring at them. He called over a friend and pointed at her and Bel. Salem’s heartbeat moved to her throat.

  She turned to Bel.

  “I see it,” Bel said. “Hurry.”

  Salem nodded and faced the bell again, the commemorative plaque at her feet. She scanned it and choked when she got to the last line: Plaza and monument presented to the City of San Francisco by Lic. Gustavo Diaz Ordaz, president of the United Mexican States, September 16th, 1966.

  “No.” The word came out low and long, air leaving a tire.

  Bel stepped to her side, her voice worried. “What is it?”

  “This bell.” Salem pointed her chin toward it. Her dad had taught her better than this, and yet she’d fallen for the oldest trick in the book: seeing what she wanted to see rather than what was really there. She should have researched more, but it had all fallen into place so neatly that she hadn’t questioned this location for the SF Dolores Bell.

  “This is a replica crafted in the 1960s. No way could Thomas J. Beale have hidden anything here.”

  Salem’s blood had been replaced with powder.

  The man who’d been watching them had dropped his Frisbee, finished his phone call, and was walking toward them with his friend, his expression grim. Salem and Bel speed-walked back to the car, heads down, and told Ernest to hustle off and not look back.

  73

  Chinatown, San Francisco

  San Francisco’s Chinatown was the first in North America. When the twenty-four-square-block enclave was established in 1848, it was the only place the Guangdong immigrants were allowed to live. Founded on the fruit of laborers, spiced with world-famous madams and disciplined, bloodthirsty tongs, the stew remained to this day an exotic microcosm of tea shops, pagoda roofs, temples, shops selling cheap jade and fans, butchers who threw nothing away, and a vibe almost like sorcery.

  Salem felt more at home here than she ever had anywhere.

  It was disorienting. It was also exhilarating, with so much going on that it became its own soothing white noise. Salem marveled at how far she’d come, not only geographically but in terms of being comfortable in her own skin. She was no longer afraid of crowds. She’d discovered there were much scarier monsters demanding her attention.

  Ernest had ditched the car on Bush Street, near the famous Dragon Gate marking Chinatown’s northern entrance. The Autumn Art Fair in progress had closed off the neighborhood roads to cars.

  “There is a dragon,” Mercy said triumphantly, clambering onto one of the fierce statues guarding the green-roofed gate.

  Ernest yanked her off. “That’s a lion, not a dragon. It keeps the evil spirits away.”

  Good. We could use a lot more of that.

  They passed under the gate and dove into the current of Chinatown. Salem found herself glad just to be here. She felt like she was both anonymous and a part of something, the busy crowd moving past her and with her, salmon swimming upstream together. Every one of her senses was being stroked. Clean laundry fluttered overhead, swaying and slapping in the breeze. She smelled five-spice powder, sesame oil, caught a whiff of fried fish and rotting fruits and veggies. She heard the murmur of different dialects. When she stepped aside to let a group of kids in school uniforms pass, she almost tripped over an ancient Chinese man with a face like a riverbed. He was sitting on an upside down milk crate playing a one-stringed instrument.

  She wanted to twirl, to cover herself in Chinatown’s essence.

  Ernest had sworn he had a connection here, someone who could help them figure out why the trail had dead-ended. He promised his connection would also provide a place to lay low. Vida’s original message and the text from her phone both had said to trust no one, but they had no choice. Ernest had been true. Hopefully, his friend would be too.

  Her stomach growled loud enough to garner a glance from Bel.

  “Sounds like you have a bear in there,” Mercy giggled. “Bear cave belly.”

  Salem shot her a wan smile. None of them had eaten since last night, and it was lunchtime. She’d never seen so much amazing food all at once, but she wasn’t going to be the one to slow down the group.

  Mercy didn’t have that compunc
tion. “I’m hungry,” she declared.

  Ernest nodded absentmindedly and hung a sharp left into a yellow-fronted shop, its windows covered with spidery red lettering. Salem would not have guessed it for a restaurant, but once inside, she spotted the naked chicken carcasses hanging from the ceiling like a 1950s comedian’s set piece. The place was dingy, small, with room enough for two card tables, four chairs each, and a front counter. The smell was heaven, though—roasting garlic, smoked meat, fresh and dried herbs that spoke to her tongue and stomach directly.

  Ernest placed their order without asking them. All four sat at the table nearest the door. Shortly, the same man who’d taken Ernest’s order and then disappeared into the kitchen returned with four steaming plates and four sweating cans of some beverage Salem had never seen before.

  Ernest pointed. “Tamarind soda.” Then he dug into his food.

  Mercy did the same. Bel and Salem exchanged a glance, and followed suit.

  It was the best thing Salem had ever tasted. Slivers of delicate chicken, crunchy-soft steamed broccoli, sautéed onions and garlic, and a squash-like vegetable Salem wasn’t familiar with were all blended together in an aromatic brown sauce that tasted like home and love. A crispy pork skin crumbled over the top provided a counterbalancing texture. The rice that accompanied the meal was sticky enough to ball up and dip in the sauce, which is exactly what Salem did, following Ernest’s example. She almost moaned as she swallowed it.

  The tamarind drink took some getting used to, sweet like a raisin rather than treacly American soda, but it was ice cold and the carbonation balanced the thickness of the brown sauce perfectly.

  The food was gone in under five minutes. Salem wondered if she’d even bothered to chew, and whether it’d be rude to lick the plate. Ernest cleared the table, sparing her that embarrassment. He slipped something to the man behind the counter, and they dove back into the river of Grant Street.

  Ernest kept to the road, where the foot traffic was lighter but the noise of throngs still constant. He weaved around white tents featuring local artisans—painters, potters, candle makers. Ernest led them past a market featuring enormous glossy fish, their silver heads still intact. In a cardboard box below, tiny crabs crawled over one another to escape, the whole pile tipping backward short of the brim. Another store, narrow as a hallway, was lined with hundreds of tiny drawers, floor to ceiling. The single counter inside held large glass lab bottles stuffed with powders and leaves.