Hadley & Grace(27)

She picks up the backpack, and she and Mattie walk toward the car.

As the woman passes them, she lifts her raisin-skinned face to Grace’s and says, “I hope you get there in time.”

Grace has no idea what she’s talking about and frankly doesn’t care, her focus entirely on hightailing it out of there.





22





MARK


“Tell me you’re joking?” Mark says as he pulls his shirt from his skin, the cotton soaked through with sweat.

It’s one of those weeks where the humidity chokes you, each breath so cloying it’s like inhaling mold into your lungs. Though he has lived in DC almost two years, he still thinks of it as his temporary home, like he is a foreign organism surviving in an unsuitable environment. The weather is always either too hot or too cold, and always too wet. Boston has weather, but it has a more clear opinion of it—fall, winter, spring, summer—all of it crisp, clear, and breathtaking.

“Sorry, boss,” Fitz says.

Mark closes his eyes and clamps his mouth around the expletives that threaten to escape. In front of him, Shelly holds on to the wall of the pool. Around her, half a dozen other six-and seven-year-olds cling to the edge as well, all of them watching the swim instructor, who is teaching them how to blow bubbles underwater.

If Mark were a cartoon character, steam would be blowing from his ears. “You’re telling me that two women, one on crutches, who are traveling with an infant and two kids, first managed to evade two highly trained FBI operatives at a hospital, which has a thousand security cameras, and have now slipped past the entire Barstow police force, along with half the agents from the LA field office?”

“We missed them by minutes,” Fitz says.

“And you have no idea where they went?”

“There’s video of them driving past the McDonald’s, where they left the old lady’s car in the parking lot, but nothing after that. Agents are canvassing the area but so far have come up empty. No one’s seen them. The roadblock on the 40 is solid: no way to see it coming and no place to hide. The highway patrol’s checked every car for the past three hours, and nothing.”

Mark feels like his head is going to explode. “So, you’re saying they just disappeared? Into thin air?”

Wisely, Fitz remains silent.

After three long breaths, Mark sighs and says, “What’s the connection between them? Between Herrick and Torelli?”

“It’s strange, boss. There doesn’t seem to be one. From what I can tell, the women barely know each other. I looked at their phone records and even looked at the old tapes. Torelli hardly ever went to the office, and Herrick hardly ever left it.”

“What’s the sister say?”

“She hasn’t returned my calls. She’s in Belize on her honeymoon. I contacted the local police, and they’re sending a couple officers to her hotel to talk to her.”

“And Herrick’s husband?”

“I feel bad for the guy. He didn’t even know his wife had left, and the news really hit him hard. He kept going on about how it was all his fault. I guess he has a bit of a gambling problem, and last week he lost their rent money betting on the Marlins.”

“The Marlins?”

“Yeah, I know, right? Guy’s obviously not real bright.”

Mark closes his eyes. So, Herrick’s motive for leaving and ripping off her boss is clear. Her idiot husband bet on the Marlins, a team his softball team could beat this year, leaving Herrick and her baby high and dry.

Torelli left for the same reason most women leave: Frank Torelli is a grade A jerk. Mark’s been watching him for almost a year, and the whole time he’s wondered how a guy like that has ended up with a wife like Hadley Torelli.

But why team up? It makes no sense, and something about the way the whole thing went down doesn’t add up. Torelli showed up first, and Herrick arrived an hour later. Torelli parked in the back and Herrick in the front. Herrick left her kid in the car. Torelli left hers somewhere else.

Maybe Torelli ran into trouble. She couldn’t open the safe, so she called Herrick and made a deal. There’s no record of any calls between the two, but they could have used burners, which would mean it was planned.

And somewhere along the way, Torelli was hurt. So maybe that’s why she called Grace. The plan was for Torelli to bring the money to Grace, but Torelli sprained her ankle and couldn’t drive. Perhaps a hostage situation—Herrick holding Torelli’s kids hostage?

Okay, so if that’s the case, then why stick together? Torelli and her kids were chasing after Herrick in the hospital parking lot, and Herrick looked like she wanted nothing to do with them.

So what’s the connection?

Mark pinches the bridge of his nose.

“The note was kind of nice, don’t you think?” Fitz says, breaking the silence.

“The note?”

“The note they left for the lady whose car they borrowed. It was kind of nice.”

Again Mark clamps his jaw shut. Shelly grins at him from the pool, and he gives her a gritted grin back, along with a thumbs-up. The note was not nice. It was infuriating. These two women have turned into an incredible thorn in his side. Not only have they hijacked his case and embarrassed half the agents west of the Grand Canyon, but they actually took the time to tape a very sweet thank-you note to the steering wheel of the old lady’s car.