Nine Lives(42)

When he reached the outskirts of Port Clyde, Fischer slowed down so that he could look at all the cars in the driveways. He drove toward the lighthouse again, wanting to get a look at it when the fog wasn’t so thick. He parked and got out of the car. He was amazed how many islands were visible, some not too far from the shore. The water was speckled with lobster buoys, catching the remaining light in the day. He wanted to stay for a while, just take it all in, but got back in his car and drove into the center of the village, looking for any side streets he hadn’t tried yet. The first left heading northwest from the general store was Horse Point Road, and he turned down it. The road rose slightly to provide expansive views of the harbor, and several of the quaint shingled cottages had signs out front, advertising themselves as rental properties.

About three-quarters of a mile down the road Fischer spotted a white Camry parked in front of a two-story gray house with blue trim. He slowed, just long enough to confirm that the license plate was correct, that it was Jessica Winslow’s car.

He’d found her.

A small surge of excitement coursed through him, prickling the back of his neck. But as he scanned the house before turning back to the road, he caught a glimpse of a figure in a first-floor window, looking out toward him.

He’d been spotted, as well.

Horse Point Road was a dead end, and he turned around slowly. He considered for a brief moment pulling into the driveway of the house that Jessica Winslow was hiding in, busting down the front door, and taking her in the house, but it would be foolish on so many levels. She was an FBI agent and would almost certainly have a gun. And even if he got the drop on her there would be no way he could make her death painless, and that was one of the instructions from his client.

He drove back down the road, not turning his head to look at either the car or the cottage. Maybe there was a chance that she simply thought he’d come down a dead-end road by accident.





11





WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 4:22 P.M.


Jessica Winslow was on the phone with her father when she spotted the gray Chevy Equinox slow down in front of her house. Inside the car, the man—although she supposed it could have been a woman—turned his head to look at her car. He wore a baseball cap but that was all that she could see.

Her road was a dead end so she told her dad she’d call him right back, and raced upstairs to the guest bedroom, grabbing the pair of fancy binoculars that she’d spotted on the top of a bookshelf earlier. She went to the master bedroom, put a desk chair in front of one of the two front-facing windows, and adjusted the focus on the binoculars. She only had to wait about thirty seconds before the car, not slowing down this time, cruised past the house. She got a good look at the license plate, but it was smeared with mud, and all she could make out was the number 3 and maybe an L.

The fact that the plate number was obscured, intentionally, meant that she’d been found. A combination of fear and triumph surged through her. He was so close. And how had he managed it? She assumed that she’d been followed from Albany, or possibly her phone conversation with Gwen had been tapped, although how that was possible she had no idea. And if she had been followed here, then it must have been a multi-car job. She hadn’t spotted anything.

She did wonder if the person in the car was the architect behind the list, or merely some employee. Maybe someone sent to kill her, or maybe someone just sent to find her. Her whole body hummed with what felt like electricity, and she went and got her handgun—the Glock 27—just to have it near her.

She was trying to decide what to do next when she remembered that she needed to call her father back, if only because she had told him that she would. When she’d asked him about Arthur Kruse there’d been a long silence, followed by his asking if Arthur was someone he should know.

“No, Dad,” Jessica had said. “I was just curious if you knew him. He’s someone you would have known many years ago.”

Another pause. Then, he said, “I keep wondering where I left my car.”

That had been the last thing he’d said before Jessica quickly told him she’d call him back. She didn’t really need to; he wouldn’t remember the phone conversation. But because she’d said she would, she called him anyway.

“Hi, Dad, it’s Jessica calling you back. Your daughter.”

“I know you’re my daughter.”

“I just thought I’d say a proper goodbye since we got cut off abruptly before.”

“That’s a good thing,” he said, and he sounded as though he had a little cold.

“What’s a good thing?”

“A proper goodbye! No one really says them anymore.”

She laughed. “No, they don’t, do they? Okay, Dad, I’m off. I love you.”

“Were you the one asking me about little Artie Kruse?”

Jessica, who’d still been sitting on the chair in her bedroom, stood up. “Yeah, that was me.”

“He was a little fascist, that much I know.”

“When did you know him, Dad?”

“Well, I don’t know how well I really knew him ever, but I stayed at his parents’ house up at Squam Lake one summer.”

“Oh, yeah, I heard that.”

“And I wanted him to talk about it, to talk about what we’d done. But he wouldn’t. He pretended it had never happened.”