Hidden (Nicole Jones #1)(57)

‘All of this has to be a mistake, Nicole. Can I do anything to help?’

Despite what she is learning about me, I am touched that she still feels loyal to our friendship. ‘You already did. I borrowed some yoga pants, a T-shirt and a sweater. I hope it’s OK.’

‘It’s fine. You should have taken more. It’s not a problem. I just want you to be OK.’

Tears well in my eyes, and I fight to keep them at bay. ‘I’m OK, really I am.’ Am I? I have to believe I am, or I will fall apart.

‘You should call Frank Cooper. You know, about him.’ She means Ian.

‘I will,’ I say, crossing my fingers as I speak. ‘But can you promise that you won’t say anything? I mean, this is something I have to do.’

A slight hesitation, then, ‘I won’t. But how about if you tell Steve and me where you are, and we’ll come to you? We can bring lunch.’

‘I need to be alone right now. I have to figure out what’s going on. Is that OK?’ I ask her out of friendship only. It must be OK, because there is no other way.

‘Yes.’ But I can tell that she doesn’t want it to be.

‘I’ll call you later. Thanks for everything.’ I hang up before she can say anything more, the same way I did with Steve. I have spent years with Jeanine and Steve, treasuring their friendship, and now I am lying even more than before.

I turn back to the laptop and log in to the VPN. There is one thing I need to do before I buy my train tickets. I go to the bank website. It is really too easy, even now, even fifteen years later. I click on ‘forgot username’ and am taken to a page where I am prompted to put in my credit card number and an email address. On an alternate screen, within minutes I have a free email account. I put that into the prompt. Moments later, I have an email confirming who I am and am directed to a page to set up a new password.

And then I am in. All I needed was the credit card number.

Amelie Renaud has only charged little more than fifty U.S. dollars on her account. Her payments are due on the ninth of the month, which means she is in the middle of the credit card cycle. This is what I was looking for. No one checks his credit card balance until his payment is due. She won’t even know what’s going on the card right now.

But the bank will. And the bank will know that Amelie Renaud is in France, not the United States, and they could flag her account. I find the page where I can report that I will be leaving the country and the card should not be flagged if foreign charges are made. This takes about five minutes.

From there, I go to the Amtrak website and make my reservations from Boston to Washington, leaving day after tomorrow.

My hands are shaking as I hit the payment button, not because I am using Amelie’s credit card but because this is final. I sit for a few minutes, staring at the screen, until it grows dark and the laptop goes to sleep. I take off my glasses and wipe my eyes before I climb off the bed and go downstairs to ask if I can use the printer. It’s not a problem, so I print out the train ticket and bring it back upstairs, folding it carefully and putting it in the front pocket of the backpack.

The backpack. I will need a bigger bag. Something sturdier. I have a gym bag in my house, but it’s not big enough. I don’t own luggage because I don’t go anywhere. I know where I can find something suitable. The shop next to Veronica’s gallery sells duffel bags. Some say Block Island on them, but others are plain. I will need a plain one.

My head is spinning with everything I am doing and everything I need to do. I lie down on the bed and close my eyes. Just for a few minutes, I tell myself, just to regroup a little.

There is a knock at the door. It startles me awake. I glance at my watch and see that I have been sleeping for four hours and it is after lunch. I push down the irritation with myself as I get up on one elbow.

‘Yes?’ I call.

‘You’ve got a visitor.’ The owner’s voice is muffled. It doesn’t really sound like her, but it could just be that she’s talking through the door.

I get up slowly and cross the room. ‘Excuse me?’

‘You have a visitor.’ Yes, it’s her. I recognize her voice now.

I reach for the doorknob and turn. I barely have the door open when he pushes inside.





TWENTY-NINE


‘Steve?’

He comes in and shuts the door behind him. He is carrying a big brown bag that smells remarkably like onion rings. He holds it up. ‘I brought you something to eat.’

‘How did you know where I was?’ I am definitely confused.

‘I stopped back over at the spa after I did a tour. Jeanine told me you called her. I checked her caller ID when she went out to be with a client. I recognized the number. I know all the B and B numbers on the island.’

I feel stupid. Of course he has to know all the numbers of all the bed and breakfasts, hotels, condos, every tourist accommodation on the island. It is his job.

‘Reggie has been following me around like a dog, but he got distracted.’ He is over at the little desk in the corner, opening up the bag he’s brought.

‘Distracted how?’

‘They found him. That guy. Carmine.’ He takes out napkins and makes little placemats out of them before putting the cheeseburgers and onion rings on them. I see now that he has a second bag, and he takes out a couple of Del’s lemonades.