Salem's Cipher Read online

  Salem did, distantly, and then with greater focus. There’d been a heavy rain, and it had washed the streets with that bright green smell like the inside of a grass blade. They’d gotten as far as the slide when Salem heard the noise.

  “It was a baby duck, trapped in a cistern.” Bel put her hands on her hips. “I know you remember. And I wanted to get somebody, but you said we didn’t have time. You pulled off your jacket, grabbed one sleeve and made me hold the other end so you could save that duckling.”

  The pit had been as dark as a grave. They’d only known a duckling was down there from its frantic cheeps. Maybe it’s trying to steer clear of the alligators and clowns that’re also down there, Salem remembered thinking. But she’d gone down, gripping the elastic end of that jacket so tightly that even now, almost two decades later, she could call up that feeling of her hand bones crushing together.

  “That’s right,” Bel said, kissing her forehead. “You’ve got a superhero in there. And both our moms need her now, so come on.”

  “Yeah.” Salem bit her lip and stepped into line.

  “Hey.” Bel lightly punched Salem’s arm. “How about we make a deal?”

  “What?”

  Bel’s eyes were sad, but there was a twinkle to them. “If we get through this, you and me, next time you see that Connor dude, you flush him like the turd he is.” She held out her pointer finger and pinkie for Salem to match in their ritual gesture. “Deal?”

  The gesture was automatic. Salem touched her matching fingers to Bel’s. “Deal.”

  But she couldn’t match Bel’s smile, as faint as it was, because an icy dread had taken up residence between her heart and stomach. She and Bel wouldn’t be coming back to Minnesota, not ever. She was sure of it.

  Tuesday

  November 1

  19

  Salem, Massachusetts

  Jason’s layover had been brief. It hadn’t gone exactly as he’d wanted, but it was done. Now he was back on track in Massachusetts. The drive straight north from Logan International took more than its estimated half an hour due to thick traffic. The coast was to his right. He couldn’t see it, but the kick of saltwater washed in through his open windows.

  When he pulled into Salem, the traffic worsened as the roads tightened and curved. Cape Cods and bungalows loomed over the four lanes of road, nearly tipping on top of him. The deeper into the center of town he drove, the more regal the architecture became. He motored past Easter egg-colored Victorian homes and Greek Revivals and Italianates. The streets narrowed even further as he neared the ocean, the roadsides crowded with reclaimed housing for captains and sailors, small, salt air–cured woodframe houses jammed into one another, seagulls flapping overhead.

  The fall had been unusually warm on the East Coast. Late summer bloomed everywhere.

  He knew flowers. Loved them. Could recognize most by sight. His mother had taught him all about them. North American Flowers was the only book she owned, as a matter of fact, and when she was feeling particularly sad or lonely, she’d call him over, tug him on her lap, and turn the pages.

  “I’ll have a garden like this someday.”

  Not we’ll. Never we’ll.

  Hydrangeas, dahlias, cherry-colored poppies, lavender as tall as a boy, black-eyed Susans. His mom would love it here.

  She would never discover that, though, because he wasn’t going to let her out.

  He patted his blades. He considered himself a sculptor, his knives a chisel revealing the truth under a person’s skin. Tonight, after he’d delivered the daughters’ heads along with a list of the remaining Underground leaders to the Hermitage Foundation, after he basked in the admiration of the greatest men in the world, he would sharpen his knives. It would be his reward.

  His cell phone spoke up, informing him that 316 Essex Street was on his right.

  Indeed it was.

  He leaned forward so he could take in the magnificence of the entire building.

  If he was a religious man, the Salem First Church would be the type of building he’d feel right at home worshiping in. It was Gothic Revival, constructed of granite so gray and foreboding that it repelled the cool morning sunshine. The building resembled a castle barbican more than anything, with a tall, square, fortifying tower at the center and two shorter walls on each side, their tops lined with teeth-like ramparts capable of hiding medieval archers.

  The top center of the tower housed quatrefoil windows on all four sides. Below that but only on the front, enormous intersecting tracery windows were embedded and then echoed in the shorter section of the building on each side below the battlements.

  Jason parked across the street and walked toward the front entrance. Cascading rose bushes along the wrought iron fence softened the appearance somewhat. Red roses had always been his favorite. Their color, their delicate nature, the sweet saltiness of their smell reminded him of the taste of a woman’s lips.

  He let the magnificence of it all wash over him. He wanted to always remember this moment, the cusp of laying hands on the Underground’s leadership docket. Every detail must be stored exactly. Running his hands over the sheath just inside his jacket, he smiled.

  “Excuse me, can I help you?”

  The smile still lighting his face, Jason turned toward the voice.

  It was a man out walking his English bulldog. He visibly relaxed when his eyes connected with Jason’s because Jason had donned his Everyman face: white, clean, unremarkable, safe. A face you’d want to offer a bank loan to, or apologize to if you accidentally pulled him over for speeding.

  “I’m from out of town,” Jason said, pivoting from truth to lie with the grace of a dance. “My parents were married in this church.”

  The man mirrored Jason’s smile, though his bulldog was making a high-pitched growl, its hackles pointing toward the sun. “The building is beautiful, isn’t it? One of the oldest congregations in the United States. Are you going inside?”

  Jason shrugged. “Maybe. Didn’t want to bother anyone.” He widened his grin.

  The man wanted to help, almost couldn’t stop himself. “The office doesn’t open until ten, so normally you’d have a half an hour wait, but I saw Samantha go in there just before you pulled up.” He pointed toward a walkway leading past the enormous face of the church. “Ignore the big red door. The actual offices are around back.”

  “Appreciate it.” Jason sauntered toward the path.

  He didn’t like that someone had spoken to him. It made him feel small. Tiny cracks and pops echoed in the courtyard as he lengthened and widened his nose, returning to his natural face with the relief of a man removing his tie at the end of a workday.

  He passed a huge old house, likely the reverend’s home, and walked toward a more modest addition to the church, one with a distinct 1970s feel, twice again as long as the original church and laid perpendicular across the back of it. The whole works would resemble a fat-tailed L from the sky. The door of the addition announced the hours. Indeed, the office wasn’t scheduled to open for another half an hour, as the dog walker had reported.

  Jason tried the door.

  It was unlocked.

  He stepped through it and onto a wheelchair ramp. The interior was underwater quiet in that way that only churches can be. He walked up the ramp, the scent of frankincense surrounding him. He loved the smell, burned it himself all the time. Reminded him how important he was to the Hermitage Foundation.

  If he was honest with himself, and he always was, he wasn’t ever going to take to religion, not any of the three versions the Hermitage had offered him when they pulled him off the streets of New Orleans. He liked the idea of it, but he knew better. Sleeping in alleys and letting men with beery breath fondle him for money taught him all he needed to know about whether or not there was a God.

  While he’d never buy into the hopefulness of religion, he respected the o
rderliness of it, and he particularly appreciated the power enjoyed by the leaders. It was the Rabbi, Moshe Haimovich, high up in the Hermitage leadership, who’d ferreted him and the other kids out of the New Orleans building where they’d been squatting. It wasn’t a home so much as four walls and a ceiling, empty since the hurricane. And the kids weren’t so much friends as wary travelers sharing a shelter.

  It had been funny to see a rabbi in the Lower Nine. Odder still to hear him promise clean clothes and a warm bed. Jason hadn’t believed a word he’d said, but he was hungry, and he itched, and he figured he could slice the little Jew if he asked for anything Jason wasn’t interested in giving. Four other kids came with, including Geppetto, the only person Jason had ever been afraid of.

  Moshe had been telling the truth. He cleaned them up, helped them obtain their GEDs, and then put them through college, and if they showed a special aptitude, he taught them about the Hermitage Foundation. Jason’d been proud that of the thirty-two kids who’d entered the same time as him, only he and Geppetto had been inducted into the Hermitage Foundation. Rabbi Moshe and Archbishop Christoph del Monte became his personal contacts, and along with Carl Barnaby, they’d guided Jason to his purpose.

  The Hermitage Foundation was his life.

  And finally, he’d be able to pay them back for all they’d done. He wouldn’t let them down. Heart pumping pleasantly, he raised his voice. “Hello?” It echoed back to him. He stroked the knife sheath in his jacket again, for comfort.

  A gray-haired woman peeked out of an office up the ramp and to his left. “Welcome!” Her eyes lit brighter when she spotted him. He was accustomed to that. His natural face was handsome, preternaturally so. “What can I do for you?”

  She didn’t even mention that she wasn’t open yet. He appreciated that immediately. Some women liked to shame a guy. He could tell this one was different. “Sorry to bother you. My parents got married here?” He considered smiling and thought better of it. No need to waste a gesture when she was already in hand. “They’ve both passed. I was hoping for some reflective time in the church. It sounds silly, doesn’t it?”

  She clutched her hands over her heart. “Of course not. Follow me.”

  She led him through the modern addition, sharing some of the First Church’s history on the way. At the end of the hall, past the cabinets featuring teapots and assorted church artifacts, they entered the original foyer. It was huge, groaning with authority.

  They stopped in front of an enormous, carved wood door.

  “The First Church is right through here.” She stepped away.

  When he didn’t say anything, she returned to her office.

  He dragged open the door.

  20

  Salem, Massachusetts

  “Know anything about the town?” Bel asked. “I’ve only heard of the Witch Trials.”

  Salem saw the cabbie roll his eyes in the rearview mirror, but she didn’t care. Something had shifted in her since she’d stepped on the plane. She’d heard it, a small sound like the crack of a robin’s egg inside her chest, followed by the tiniest thrumming. She wasn’t sure if she’d broken something or started to fix it, but she didn’t feel as scared as she’d thought she would leaving the state. In fact, a fire had started burning in her, a desire so powerful that it was imprinted on each of her cells: she wanted a relationship with her mom.

  She’d never wanted that before, at least not that she’d admit. And not a proximity relationship, but an honest, true one, where they opened to each other, where Salem could be accepted no matter what she did. And she’d do the same for Vida, her mother, the woman she’d placed on a pedestal so high that she forgot how to walk alongside her. Now that her mom had disappeared, Salem wanted nothing more than to hold her close.

  Still, she’d started a game with herself on the plane and continued it through to the taxi ride. The rules were simple: on each inhale, she’d count to three, and again on each exhale. If she forgot, she’d have to touch her thumbs to each of her four fingers. Then she could restart the breathing exercise.

  If Bel noticed, she didn’t comment.

  She began the pinkie-to-pointer finger routine. “They weren’t trials, so much as mass hysteria at the highest levels.” She rifled through her mental notes, finding an island of safety in the sea of facts. “Happened around 1629, 1630. Twenty people were executed, mostly women, based on sketchy evidence and supposed eyewitness testimonial. Five more died in prison.”

  Pointer to thumb and back again. “Based on what I researched, it was a perfect storm of small-town politics, Puritanism gone berserk, and women who weren’t allowed outlets for their creativity or brains. Oh, with a dash of racism. One of the first accused women, Tituba, was a Native American or African or Caribbean slave, depending on what you read.”

  “And you read everything, didn’t you?” Bel said. “I was watching you on the plane, you know. You should have slept.”

  “If you were watching me, that means you didn’t sleep, either.”

  “Yeah.” Bel rubbed her face. “Too much on my mind, you know?”

  Salem knew.

  Bel leaned back in the seat, her eyes closed. “You know what I’m gonna do when we get our moms back?”

  The question shot straight to Salem’s heart. They’d avoided talking about their mothers in any specific sense, and Salem liked it that way. She thought Bel, who’d acted on her game since the second the police had called, felt the same. But Salem realized that Bel was used to dealing with other people’s crises. She didn’t have Salem’s boots-on-the-ground, personal tragedy management experience. She might be crumbling behind the scenes. The thought humbled Salem.

  She slid her arm around Bel’s shoulders, even though the 5 inches Bel had on her made it awkward. “Get matching tattoos, all of us, saying ‘If lost, return to … ?” She’d stopped her finger ritual.

  Bel’s long lashes stayed on her cheeks, but a smile appeared. “I was going to say that we’d have your mom bake her famous chocolate chip cookies, and my mom would pop her homemade caramel corn, and we’d turn the living room at your house into a pillow fort, just like we did when we were kids. And we’d watch movies. All. Day. Long. Those terrible, smarmy old ones that mom and Vida always forced us to watch, like An Officer and a Gentleman and Dr. Zhivago.”

  Salem sighed deeply. She’d forgotten about those times the four of them would connect, back when both girls were still in high school. “I can see it. Between flicks, your mom would complain about how bad her latest boyfriend was in bed, and my mom would talk about some awful politician she was dealing with, and you and I would roll our eyes and pretend we weren’t listening but really, we’d be soaking it in. We’d inhale the whole first batch of my mom’s ‘famous chocolate chip cookies,’ so she’d have to open another tube, and Gracie would haul out the tub of vanilla ice cream she always brought, and you’d get terrible farts like you always did.”

  “Exactly,” Bel said dreamily. “And you’d burp like a sailor on shore leave, like you always did, and we’d hug our moms, and we’d make sure they knew how much we loved them.”

  Salem’s heart twisted. “Yeah. We’d make sure of that.”

  “But look at you, girl.” Bel opened her eyes and leaned forward. “You left Minneapolis and the world didn’t end. You’re breaking your chains! Going back to how you used to be.”

  “Yeah,” Salem said again. “I suppose.” She wasn’t sure what Bel meant. Her dad’s suicide had shrunk her world, but she’d always been a homebody. It wasn’t a time for arguing, though.

  The white Metro Cab whizzed by a sign informing them they were entering Salem, Massachusetts, population 42,544.

  Salem gazed out the car window, past Bel, at the blaze of fall flowers. Under normal circumstances, she’d find the town lovely, a careening mix of old and new architecture with streets as narrow as thread. She glanced at her phone. �
��Quarter to ten. That’s perfect. We can be at the front door of the First Church the second they open.” She nodded toward a building flitting past their window. “Oh, and Nathaniel Hawthorne is from here. There’s the House of Seven Gables.” The lonely widow’s walk on the top of the building made her shiver, stark black wood against the sea-colored sky.

  The cab driver repeated the First Church’s Essex Street address.

  Salem nodded. “That’s right.” Three minutes later, he pulled in front of a wrought iron fence draped with blooming roses, a suitably grand building behind it. Bel handed him her credit card a split second before Salem could. The cabbie ran the Visa, and they grabbed their bags and stepped out into the embrace of a New England fall.

  It was love at first smell for Salem: sleepy lavender, car exhaust, the twist of the sea. The ground under her lurched the tiniest bit. She wondered if she imagined it. “Do you think this is the door we go in through?” She pointed straight ahead.

  The wooden door was old, certainly, but it appeared oddly underused.

  “I know how we find out.” Bel touched the slight bulge of her holster under her jacket before walking through the wrought iron gate, past the rose bushes, and up the stone steps.

  21

  Salem, Massachusetts

  They stood outside the raggedy old church. It had looked so abandoned that they’d stopped at the main office to ask the woman working there if they were allowed to enter. She said they definitely were. Salem thought, for the millionth time, of the two codes that had brought them here.

  Talk: to Keller about revenge then go home follow the trail trust no one

  The heart of the first church in the new world.

  “I expected it to be more posh, somehow,” Bel said, hands on hips.

  Internally, Salem agreed, but this all seemed so bleak and impossible that she had to put a positive spin on it to keep from crying. “We’d be lucky to look this good when we’re four hundred years old.”