She didn't say a word until they were outside on the street, and then she said, "The day before I called you."
"Not from the beginning?" he asked.
Abby shook her head. "No. I didn't know until Lincoln and H. R. told me. They came to my apartment, told me that Evan was alive. When I saw him… when I saw the body in our bedroom, I thought… well, I didn't know until they told me."
"And what did you do?" he asked.
"I did what I told you people like me always do."
"You made a deal," he said.
"I did what was easiest," Abby Harmon said.
She leaned over, kissed Justin gently on the cheek, said, "Good-bye, Jay," then she disappeared into her father-in-law's waiting limo.
That afternoon, he flew up to Providence. He met with his parents, told them as much as he thought they would want to know. He thought that, somehow, they both were dealing with him differently than they'd dealt with him over the past decade or so. He didn't know if they were more respectful or just softer, but there was something about the way they spoke to him and listened that touched him. When he kissed them both good-bye-maybe the first time in thirty-five years that he'd kissed his father-he said he would see them soon. And he meant it. And he was glad to mean it.
Justin drove to Victoria LaSalle's house after that. There were other people there when he pulled up. Justin didn't know any of them and, when he was ushered into the living room, he wasn't introduced to any of them. Victoria excused herself, took Justin into a den and closed the door. She didn't say anything, just waited for him to talk. All he said was "You were married to a very good man."
He told her what he knew, sparing her any ugly details of his investigation, focusing on her husband and his role. He told her that he had died through no fault of his own. And he told her that Ronald had been trying to do the right thing. The moral thing.
Vicky waited until he was finished. She said, "Goddamn him. He was a goddamn fool and damn him to hell." Then she started to cry. Justin didn't move an inch toward her. He just waited for the crying to stop. She used her sleeve to dry her eyes. She said, "Who killed Evan Harmon?"
Justin said he didn't know.
Victoria nodded at him and went back to the living room. She didn't thank him. She didn't say anything else to him.
He showed himself out.
Justin had told Victoria LaSalle that he didn't know who killed Evan Harmon. Even though he did.
Evan was killed by a man whose job it was to kill people. Whose job it was to kill Evan. Evan had stolen from the wrong people and when he was about to get caught, he'd run for his life. But the man he was running from was good at finding people. He'd used Justin to help him find Evan, even though Justin hadn't realized it. And he could have killed Justin at the same time he killed Evan. He probably should have. But he didn't. Which is why Justin knew who'd pulled the trigger in the driveway.
Justin had told Reggie that he didn't exactly put Bruno in the friend category. He didn't know exactly what category Bruno did belong in.
This didn't exactly clarify the situation.
Two days after he'd left Vicky's house and Providence, an envelope was delivered to Justin's home in East End. Inside were a key and a hand-drawn map. There was also a note that said: You deserve a vacation. Enjoy my aunt's villa. Now I owe you one.
There was no signature.
No signature was needed.
Three days after that, Justin Westwood and Reggie Bokkenheuser were on the island of Favignana.
The villa they were staying in was actually a fairly small house, but lovely and simple. Built out of ancient tufa with stone floors and thick walls. Even in the nearly hundred-degree heat, the house was cool and perfect. There were two bedrooms, a living room, and a small kitchen on the main floor. There was also a basement that was accessible only from outside the house. It was dark and even cooler down there. Upstairs the decor was bare and plain; beige and earth colors dominated. Downstairs everything was quilted with colorful, lush fabric. There was one oddity to the house, but perhaps not so odd they decided, considering who the owner's nephew was. In the smaller bedroom of the main house, there was a wall of antique weapons: guns, knives, and swords. Justin, out of habit, checked several of the guns. He told Reggie he didn't know if they would even fire, but they were loaded. She said she didn't care. She just wanted to know if he was ready to fire, and he said he was, and they made love.
Every day for a week, Justin and Reggie made love downstairs during the day and upstairs at night. They made love as often as possible and talked about everything they could think of. They drank ice-cold beer and Sicilian red wine and ate fresh tuna and lots of pasta with tuna roe. The third night, after a bottle of chilled Sicilian rose, they made love on the very private patio. There was no one around to see them when they were outside. The house was a good seventy-five feet from the road in front, and it rested atop a cliff. There was a waist-high stone wall around the back of the patio. It was all that separated them from a three-hundred-foot plunge into the sparkling blue sea.
They were on the patio now, in the late afternoon, both of them already brown from the sun. Reggie was reading a Dean Koontz novel about a husband whose wife was kidnapped. Justin was content to lie next to her, bask in the sun, and think about the fish they might eat for dinner, his hand lightly rubbing against her bare leg. At some point she put her book down and said, "I've been thinking."
He smiled and said, "Big mistake." But then he said, "Okay, what are you thinking about?"
Reggie said, "I'm wondering if you're going to go back to the East End PD."
He stayed silent for a moment. "I don't know yet. I haven't decided."
She said, "Well, what I'm thinking is that, if you do, you never filled the opening you had from last year. You're still a person short in the department."
"I never found the right person," he told her.
"Maybe I'm the right person," she said.
He looked at her, shielding his eyes from the sun, and smiled. "You want a beer?" he said. And when she nodded, he stood up and went inside.
He was standing by the open refrigerator when he heard Reggie call his name.
"Jay?" she said. "Could you come out here?"
She sounded funny, there was the slightest quiver to her voice, and he called back, "I'll be right there. You want a glass or just the bottle?"
"Doesn't matter," she said, "but come out. I have to show you something."
"In a sec," he said. "Well, maybe two seconds."
It was actually a minute or two before he emerged, and when he did he was holding two bottles of beer in his left hand. His right hand was covered by two large white linen napkins he'd found in the kitchen. He looked over at Reggie's lounge chair, saw that it was empty. Then he looked toward the edge of the patio. She was standing in front of the brick wall. He could see the sea, deep blue and shiny, behind her. Standing next to her was a beautiful Chinese woman. The woman he'd seen near Wanda's car. The woman the FBI had been looking for. The woman who, right now, was standing next to Reggie, holding Reggie's hair pulled tight in one fist. In the other hand, the woman had a long, thin knife she was holding against Reggie's throat.
"I am Li Ling," the woman said. She let go of Reggie's hair. But the knife did not move away from her throat.
"Yes" was all Justin said.
"I have wanted to meet you," Li Ling said. "I have wanted to meet the man who killed Togo."
"You've met him," Justin told her.
"You are a good player," Ling said.
"Player?" Justin asked.
"Yes. Togo was excellent player. But you are better."
"I'm not playing," he said. "This isn't some game."
"Yes," Ling said. "It is game. I want to play with you." She nodded at Reggie. "I kill girl, as you kill Togo. Then we see who is better player."