Salem's Cipher Read online

  She got to her feet and took another step on the crumbling ledge, focusing on the doorway ahead and the slippery shelf beneath her feet, poising to jump. She could do this. She had to do this.

  Her legs threatened to collapse beneath her, but somehow she forced them to flex. Her left foot slid out from under. She fell heavily to one knee, saving herself from going over the narrow lip of rock by her grip on the cable. But when she tried to pull herself back to her feet, her knees wouldn’t cooperate. She hadn’t the strength to get herself off the ledge.

  She was so close, yet she was going to fail.

  Movement through the doorway in the rock snagged her eye. A woman was dressed in a white cooking frock and matching cap. One of the caterers, perhaps? She held a glass vial and was dropping liquid into the teacups.

  Salem opened her mouth to yell for help.

  She stopped.

  She’d seen those eyes in Massachusetts, outside the First Church and then in the face of the woman wearing the black blazer inside the Hawthorne Hotel lobby. The same snake eyes had gazed at her from the face of the man who’d grabbed her outside the Dolores Mission, rested in the face of the beautiful man who’d held a knife at her neck at Beale’s vault.

  They all belonged to the same person.

  This person, this creature, could change the shape of his face.

  And he intended to poison Senator Gina Hayes.

  The man glanced up as if he heard Salem’s realization. His hand shot into the vest of his catering uniform. He pulled out a knife.

  Of course. A weapon that would not raise alarms if transported by a caterer.

  You could sneak in anywhere in a caterer’s outfit.

  Anger gave Salem the strength she needed to launch herself to her feet and through the doorway, toward him.

  She was inside the catering tent, on firm footing, but still her legs were jelly. The fake caterer strode toward her with deadly intent, knife in hand. But Salem’s sudden appearance drew the attention of several men in suits, who were also rushing toward her. Was that Agent Stone?

  Time suspended itself.

  Through the opening of the tent twenty feet in front of her, Salem spotted Senator Gina Hayes, her back straight and strong. If Salem yelled, she could get the Senator’s attention. She opened her mouth, but only a croak came out.

  On the other side of Hayes, facing Salem’s direction, in the very front row, Bel stared up at the senator, her face tight underneath her disguise.

  Security ran toward Hayes, intent on pulling her offstage into the safety of the tent. Before they could reach her, a shot screamed out, the sound echoing off the stone, even as Bel leapt in front of Hayes.

  More gunshots cried in the sunshine as Bel fell to the ground, her limbs folding in on themselves like a broken doll’s.

  The last thing Salem saw before she was buried beneath the suits of men was a perfect rose blossoming on Bel’s back.

  100

  Alcatraz

  Clancy Johnson’s heart was beating hard enough to shred his wrists.

  He was backup, the third man. With any luck, he should have been able to walk away from this. Since when does the third stringer get in the game?

  Christ on a cracker. He ran shaking hands through his hair. The smell of gunpowder coated his nostrils. One ear was ringing from the shots.

  Hayes was supposed to drink the poison. She takes the tea, she drinks it, she feels like shit, she’s dead in a week.

  Done.

  Except Jason never came out with the tea. In fact, the opposite had happened. The Secret Service went into the tent. Not the best way for this to go down, but they still had the number-two guy. Cue Geppetto, whose job was to shoot Hayes between the eyes if, for any reason, she appeared as though she was not going to give her speech.

  Mess but effective. In fact, one of the most popular methods of assassination.

  Isabel Odegaard jumping in front of Geppetto’s bullet was not part of the plan.

  Clancy’d watched her body swallow the hot metal, and goddamn, just like that, he was called in. The goddamned Super Bowl of assassination and they’d called in the third string.

  He took aim at Hayes, but it was too late. Odegaard’s sacrifice had cost him a clear shot.

  He could still take out Geppetto, as ordered. He was surprised how many bullets it took to get the man to lie still.

  The Hermitage would not like this.

  Ever a practical man, Clancy began to plan how to spin this clusterfuck so he could walk away.

  He didn’t care anymore about being rich. He just wanted another day above ground.

  101

  3 E 70th St, New York

  Ring.

  Carl Barnaby glanced from his computer screen to the phone.

  Ring.

  His European counterpart was calling.

  Surely the man was looking at the same live Alcatraz broadcast as Barnaby. A very-much-alive Senator Gina Hayes was being helicoptered away, along with the body of an unidentified woman who had taken a bullet for the senator. There was one confirmed casualty, the shooter, initial reports suggesting he was taken down by an FBI agent. Another woman was in custody inside the catering tent, her role in the shooting unclear.

  Indeed.

  A world-class shit show from all angles.

  Ring.

  Barnaby silenced the incoming call and pressed the intercom button. “Abhay?”

  The background noise on the other end nearly overpowered Abhay’s voice—men yelling, computer keys clacking, paper shredding. “We are watching it too, sir.”

  “Initiate Pink Washing. Now.”

  He stood up from his $200,000 custom-made Parnian desk and strolled to pour three fingers of A.H. Hirsch Reserve bourbon into a Baccarat tumbler. He dropped in a single ice cube. The Hermitage Foundation’s files were all backed up, of course. The chances of the FBI obtaining a warrant were slim to none. If they beat those odds, they’d discover nothing on the headquarter computers, no trace of wrongdoing, if they even discovered the comm center two floors below.

  The Hermitage would lose nothing but time.

  Barnaby could live with that. He was playing the long game, his brain already working angles to get at Senator Hayes, who would almost certainly be President Hayes this time tomorrow. The Hermitage may lose millions in the interim. People might look at what Hayes accomplished and get ideas of their own. Barnaby had already seen a shift during her campaign, women pushing back against restrictions they’d always accepted as fact.

  Yet, the Hermitage would survive.

  They had for two millennia, in one form another.

  Barnaby rattled the ice in his glass and chuckled. Survive? Hell, they’d thrive. Making silk purses from sows’ ears was Barnaby’s specialty.

  It was how he’d made his fortune.

  He inhaled the rich caramel of the liquor and took a swallow, letting the golden heat slide down his throat. Reaching for a remote, he clicked on music. Classical. Stravinsky. He closed his eyes and swayed, picturing his grandson. Tomorrow, he’d take the boy to the park.

  An irritating reflection pulled him out of his reverie. Red and blue lights flashed outside his expansive window overlooking Central Park. It was a rare but not unheard of sight in this tony neighborhood. When they passed, they always passed quickly.

  Not this time.

  In fact, they were accumulating, their sirens screaming.

  The pounding on the door came next.

  A greasy unease settled in Barnaby’s stomach.

  He set down his glass.

  When his butler ran into his office moments later, the sweat had begun to pool along Barnaby’s low back, accumulating on a ridge of fat disguised by his well-tailored suits.

  Yet his face remained smooth. Silk purses from sows’ ears.

 
; “Mr. Barnaby … ”

  The butler didn’t have time to finish his sentence. The lead FBI agent, at least that’s who Barnaby assumed she was, pushed past him, three of New York’s finest at her heels.

  “We have a warrant to search the premises, Mr. Barnaby.”

  “May I ask what you’re looking for?” His voice was cool.

  She strode forward and flashed the paperwork. “A cell where you held a kidnapped and tortured woman, and approximately $60 million worth of pre–Civil War gold and jewels, if you can believe it.”

  Was she smirking?

  She tucked the warrant back inside her coat, the movement exposing her gun for the smallest moment. “You won’t mind that we brought a specialist to run your elevator or a forensics team to sweep the cell, will you? Our victim gave us very clear instructions on where to look and what we should expect to find.”

  Barnaby’s sweat pool gave way.

  Liquid coursed between his cheeks and down his legs.

  Monday

  November 21

  102

  San Francisco

  Salem’s chair was pulled tight to the hospital bed, her hand clasped round Bel’s, her head resting on the blanket. She’d been in this position, more or less, for two weeks, stealing sleep, choking down hospital food when the nurses insisted, showering in Bel’s bathroom when her own stink became too much.

  In this moment, she wasn’t so much sleeping as mourning with her eyes closed.

  She felt it before she saw it.

  Movement.

  Her head shot up. “Bellie?”

  Bel blinked. She tipped her head to the left, facing a wall of flowers and balloons. She creaked it to the right. More balloons, flowers, and stuffed animals stacked to the ceiling.

  “Hey.” Bel’s voice was hoarse. “Where am I?”

  Hot, salty tears coursed down Salem’s face. She pushed back Bel’s short hair, her hands trembling. “San Francisco General. You, my friend, have just woken up from a coma.”

  Bel lifted an arm, studied it as if it were a log, dropped it. She did the same with the other, both of them stuck with needles and tubes. She paused. The room was still. She finally spoke. “My legs don’t work.”

  Salem had prepared for this conversation every waking moment for the last two weeks. Now that the time was finally here, all she could do was wrap her arms around Bel and cry with her.

  A nurse entered the room, clipboard in hand. Her mouth was open to speak when she saw Bel awake. “Oh my god.” She rushed out.

  Bel released Salem and let her eyes fall closed. “Tell me what I’ve missed. What happened to the Hermitage?”

  Salem kept a firm grip on Bel’s hand. “Carl Barnaby, the CEO, was arrested two weeks ago. You sure you want to hear all this?”

  Bel opened her eyes long enough to glare.

  It was the most beautiful thing Salem had ever seen. “The FBI went to Mom’s hospital room in Virginia before we got to Alcatraz. She told them that she’d been kept in the Hermitage headquarters. It was enough to obtain a search warrant. The agents who went in located the cell she’d been kept in. It had been scoured clean with bleach, but the agent in charge found a single hair clinging to a wall. DNA testing verified it was Mom’s. And thanks to some code-breaking help from Lu’s staff, they also discovered a hidden room containing $74 million worth of gold and jewels.”

  Salem swiped at her hair. “Agent Stone got the treaty to Hayes, who was elected in a landslide the day after Alcatraz. Hayes had the treaty carbon-dated and verified, and fed the story to the media. My favorite headline came from the New York Times: ‘Hermitage Foundation Built on Trail of Tears.’

  “Between the bad press from the treaty, the evidence of kidnapping, and the stolen treasure, people couldn’t distance themselves fast enough from the Hermitage Foundation. Politicians, religious leaders, Fortune 500 CEOs, investors.”

  Bel’s lip quirked. Her color was coming back. “How is your mom?”

  Salem swallowed. Vida still wore bandages and bruises, but most of her wounds had healed, at least the visible ones. Salem had hugged her mom tight when she arrived at the San Francisco hospital via a side trip to Minneapolis a week after Bel had been admitted. Salem was happy her mom was alive, but she was also aware that the distance between them had settled into something permanent.

  At the end of the day, it wasn’t even due to the sense of betrayal Salem felt because Vida, Daniel, and Gracie had secretly trained her and Bel for this world.

  It was because her mother had let her believe that her father had killed himself.

  After they’d ended the hug at the San Francisco hospital, Vida had handed Salem a book of Emily Dickinson’s poems. “I got it from home.”

  Home. Salem wondered what that even meant anymore. She had stared at the book. An envelope was sticking out of it, marking the poem “Tell all the truth but tell it slant.” Inside the envelope was a handwritten note from Daniel Wiley.

  Dearest Salem,

  I’m writing this note because I fear the Hermitage has discovered my betrayal and will not let me live much longer. Grace and Vida won’t stop your training or their work—they can’t, there’s too much at stake—but our hope is that they can protect you and Isabel from knowing about and subsequently being called into the web. If

  you’re reading this, that means that they couldn’t. I love you more than the moon and earth, Bits. Everything I did, I did for you. You’re stronger than you know.

  —Dad

  Reading the note knocked the wind out of Salem. Everything had been a lie—when her parents had met, how her father had died, what kind of people they were. She cried, mourning the loss of her father all over again, except this time it was his real death. She had to do it at Bel’s bedside, not sure if her best friend would ever wake up again.

  You’ll understand one day was all her mother had said before leaving to help Lu.

  “She’ll be okay, I think.” Salem wiped away the fresh tears on her cheeks.

  Bel tried to get herself on her elbows. “What happened to you on the island?”

  Salem drew a ragged breath. She’d played the scene out in her mind every day since. “Connor was there. The Hermitage had sent him to give me a sedative, I guess, and then toss me over the side. I got away from him and made my way into the back of the catering tent, where I saw that creep putting poison into teacups.”

  Salem blinked a few times to clear her vision. “I also saw you get shot.”

  “Whose bullet did I take?”

  “The fat-fingered man who dislocated your shoulder outside the mission. The same man who forced my dad to take sleeping pills and walk into a lake. His ID was a dead-end. Secret Service has knocked a lot of heads but no one will tell how he got on the island or where he got his gun. His first bullet missed its mark. You took the second one.”

  Bel’s cheek twitched.

  “You were in surgery for seven hours.” Salem’s voice was husky. “The doctors say you’re lucky to be alive.”

  “What happened to him after he got off the second bullet?”

  “Agent Clancy Johnson—the Ed Harris guy—shot him. The headlines called him a hero, second only to you in his fast-acting courage. He didn’t do any interviews, though. Agent Stone said he took an early retirement.”

  “You still haven’t told me what happened to you,” Bel said.

  Salem sighed. “I woke up here, under guard. Thanks to Agent Stone, I was reclassified from attempted assassin to victim, which meant I could talk the agents into checking the teacups. They found traces of Polonium 201 in three of them. They didn’t catch the man who put it in there.”

  Bel pulled Salem down into her arms and held her tight.

  For the first time in two weeks, Salem felt safe.

  The doctor walked in minutes later, a huge smile on his face.
“Isabel Odegaard, you’re something of a miracle.”

  A rumble like a train sounded outside. “What is that?” Bel asked, not releasing Salem.

  “Your people.” The doctor walked to the wall-mounted television set and powered it on, tuning the channel to CNN. The lead story was a crowd of people outside of a hospital. This hospital. “The world has been praying for the woman who saved the first female president of the United States of America. They’ve just been informed that you’re awake.”

  The ticker-tape banner across the bottom of the screen confirmed his words. The chanting outside turned to a roar that echoed back against itself. Bel let go of Salem’s arms but kept a hold of her hand.

  The doctor strode over to feel the lymph nodes at Bel’s neck. “You two ladies have become a media sensation with all of your skullduggery. You make quite the team.”

  Salem stroked Bel’s beautiful cheek.

  Connor’s body floated ashore later that evening, nibbles of flesh removed by the sea. Salem still couldn’t muster any feeling one way or another about that. She was sure that’d catch up with her.

  And she knew she could handle it when it did.

  With Bel at her side, she could handle anything the world served up.

  Epilogue

  Washington, DC

  “She’s amazing, right?” Matthew Clemens smiled in the direction of Gina Hayes, who stood near the entrance of the stage, speaking with two world leaders and Oprah. “Who else do you know who can run the Free World in a taupe pantsuit?”

  Salem smiled. In all the pomp of the inauguration ceremonies, Matthew seemed like the only real person she’d met. Even Gina Hayes, as welcoming as she’d been, had felt larger than life as she’d walked alongside Bel’s wheelchair, escorting Vida, Salem, and Mercy to their prime seats on the inaugural stage.

  The weeks after Bel was finally released from the San Francisco hospital had been a whirlwind of rehabilitation. Both Salem and Bel moved into Vida’s house, Salem sharing her old bedroom with Mercy and Bel taking the first-floor bedroom, with Vida moving to the second floor. Even though it was the dead of winter, volunteers traveled from all over Minnesota to build wheelchair ramps for the house, including installing a chair elevator on the stairs in case Bel needed to reach the second level.