I Will Find You(91)

There is a long pause. Rachel looks over to me. I try to keep my breathing even. Another second passes. Rachel can’t take it.

“I want to talk to you about a few of the photos.”

“Do you think you see this mystery boy in any of them?” he asks.

“No, I think you were right about that, Hayden.”

“Oh?”

“I don’t think Matthew is in any of the pictures. I think my nephew died five years ago. But I think someone is trying to set David up.”

“Set him up how?”

“I need your help in identifying some of the people in the photos.”

“Rachel, thousands of our employees were at the event. I’ve been overseas. I don’t really know—”

“But you can still help, right? I just need to show you the people I mean and maybe you can ask around? I’m almost at your gate. Can you just help me with this?”

“Is David with you?”

“What? No.”

“The police think you’re involved in his escape. It’s on the news.”

“He’s not with me,” she says.

“Do you know where he is?”

And now Rachel sees her opening. “Not on the phone, Hayden. I’ll be there in five minutes.”

She hangs up. We find a quiet spot to pull over and move fast. I open the back hatch door and squeeze in. There is a black plastic top to hide whatever you might store in there. I fold myself down and drop it on top of myself. I’m hidden. We call each other so I can hear all. Rachel takes the wheel.

I lay in darkness. Five minutes later, Rachel says, “I’m pulling up to the guardhouse.”

I hear muffled conversation and then I hear Rachel say her name. I don’t know what’s going on, of course. I’m in a dark hatch. I try to stay perfectly still.

Rachel says in a faux cheery voice, “Thank you!” and we start moving again.

“David, can you hear me?”

I take the phone off mute. “I’m here.”

“In about fifteen seconds I’m going to pull around the curve I told you about. You ready?”

“Yes.”

We had discussed this. The road up to the estate is lined with emerald evergreens. There is something of a blind curve, Rachel told me, where I can hop out and duck behind the trees and perhaps—perhaps—not be seen.

“Now,” she says.

The car stops. I ease out of the back, hit the ground, shut the back hatch. It takes me no more than three seconds. I keep low and roll behind an evergreen. She continues to drive. I move to the other side of the shrub. When I stand up, the view laid out before me is beyond awe-inspiring. The Payne estate is built on a cliff. In the distance, over an expanse of green, I can see the waves of the Atlantic Ocean. The lawn has gardens that must be manicured by the gods. There are shrubs shaped as animals, as people, as skyscrapers even. The fountain in the middle is a large-scale sculpture, modern, a giant head seemingly made of mirrors with water spouting from the mouth. It reminded me of the Metalmorphosis by David Cerny down in North Carolina. The mansion is up to the right. You’d expect an old opulent masterpiece, but the Paynes had gone with something white and cubist. Still, despite the modernity, I can see climbing vines and ivy along the side. To the left is what appears to be a golf course. I can only see two holes, but this is private grounds along the prime real estate of Easton Bay, so how many holes would make sense? There are two waterfalls and what looks like an infinity pool blended into the ocean.

There is no one outside. It is silent other than distant echoes of the crashing waves.

So what now?

Our plan, which we admit is piss-poor, is for me to skulk around the property and see whether I can spot…anything really. Ideally, Matthew. I know, I know, but what other plan is there? Rachel is going to talk to Hayden. Confront him even. And if none of that worked, if we couldn’t find Matthew or any clues…

I still have the gun.

I feel oddly safe. I assume, of course, that Pretty-Funny Irene has called the police. At some point, they will find traffic cameras or whatever and may be able to trace us into Newport, but we still have time. Or at least I think that we do.

I make my way up the drive, sticking close to the evergreens. When I’m close enough to see the front door, I duck down and watch. Rachel heads for the door. I’m probably fifty or sixty yards away. The estate, no surprise, is massive.

When Rachel approaches the front door, it opens.

Hayden Payne steps out.





Chapter

37



Gertrude Payne finished her laps in the indoor pool. She had been doing forty-five minutes of pool laps every day for the past thirty years. She mostly stayed here in Newport, but her mansion in Palm Beach and the ranch in Jackson Hole also had both indoor and outdoor pools. They were important to her. The exercise was great, of course. She swam slower than she used to, which was hardly a surprise at her age. When she was young, she had wanted to be a competitive swimmer, but she’d been maddeningly caught up in a time when her father still believed “girls’ sports” were a waste of time. Still, she loved the water, the quiet of it, the utter stillness in your head where the dominant sound was the steady rhythm of your own breathing.

One of her great-grandsons called it “Pixie’s little mental health break.”