The figure was pushing through the tall brush that bordered the side of the house.
“Frank!” she called. “Outside!”
57
“Your mother and Marty Harmon hired me to find you,” Colter Shaw said to Allison Parker.
When he’d arrived at Villaine’s property, outside the small town of Greenville, Shaw hadn’t known if the Twins — as he called the pair of hired thugs from Sunny Acres — had gotten here before him. So he had parked on a side road and hiked in through the woods. He’d surveyed the house and then done a quick and silent surveillance. When it was clear there were no hostiles inside — Parker, Hannah and Frank Villaine were eating lunch — he’d walked from the side yard to the front, rung the bell, stepped back and kept his hands in plain sight.
Villaine had greeted him with a pistol. Parker had barked an astonished gasp and said, “No, no, Frank. It’s okay. I’ve met him. He recovered a reactor part that was stolen from the company.” To Hannah she added, “He’s the one I told you about.”
Now that identities had been verified, Shaw pulled out his phone. Parker eyed it warily. “Could Jon track it?”
“It’s a burner I haven’t used before. And I don’t think a Verizon or Sprint technician’ll risk going to jail for an ex-cop.”
She considered this and reluctantly nodded. Shaw called Marty Harmon.
“Colter.”
“I’m with them both.”
A sighing voice: “Oh, God. And they’re okay?”
“They are.”
“Merritt’s still at large. The police don’t have any leads. Is there anything I can do?”
“Not at this point. I can’t talk now. I just wanted to let you know. Call Ruth.”
“Of course.”
“I’ll call when we’re someplace safe.”
“Colter—” The man’s voice broke. “Thank you.” He disconnected.
Frank asked, “You’re a private eye?”
“Like that.”
“How did you find me?”
Shaw said, “Marianne Keller—”
To Frank, Parker said, “My boss’s assistant.”
“She was helping Marty’s head of security track down people you might’ve been close to in the past but Jon probably wouldn’t know. Frank’s name came up. He lived north — the direction you’d been driving. I thought it was a sixty percent chance or so you’d come here.”
Frank asked Parker, “But what’s the danger? Jon doesn’t know about me.”
“Maybe not. But he ransacked your house. Would there be anything there with Frank’s name and address?”
She closed her eyes briefly. “I don’t think so but maybe. Oh, Frank, I’m so sorry...”
Shaw continued, “We have to assume he and his two men know about it. They could be on their way here now.”
“What men?” Parker asked.
“I don’t know who they are. But the way they operated they’re probably pros, muscle. From some crew — a gang. Maybe they were hired by your husband or they owed him from when he was a cop and he called in a marker. They’re helping him find you.”
“Oh, no,” the woman whispered.
Frank: “You mean, like hitmen?”
Shaw nodded.
“Mom!” A gasp. Hannah’s eyes opened wide.
“They attacked the clerk in Sunny Acres and found your room. You left just before they got there.”
At this news Hannah looked away. She’d be thinking of her infamous selfie.
“Oh, Alli,” Frank whispered.
“The clerk?” she whispered.
“He’s okay.”
Hannah asked, “Was my dad with them? At the motel?”
“I don’t think so. They probably split up, to have a better chance of finding you.” Shaw looked at Parker. “If you’ve been offline, then you don’t know about your lawyer.”
“David?”
“He’s missing. Presumed dead. The police think Jon was trying to find your location from him.”
Tears flowed now. She covered her face with her hands. “Oh God, what a nightmare...”
There’d been enough talk. Shaw said, “We’ve been here too long. We need to leave now.”
“Where?” Parker asked.
“I know somewhere,” Frank said. “A fishing lodge on Timberwolf Lake. A friend of mine owns it. He’s out of town. There’s no connection to me, and it’s way out in the woods. Impossible to find.”
“Good,” Shaw said.
Parker said to Frank, “You come too.”
“I will. You go ahead. Let me get this place battened down. The shutters and doors. It’s break-in proof and there’s a central station alarm, if they try.” He gave Shaw the address of the lake house.
Shaw was then aware that Hannah was looking at him, her face a curious mix of defiance and caution. He smiled to put her at ease and said, “It’s Hannah, right?”
She nodded. He didn’t extend his hand. But she did and he shook the warm, dry palm.
He said, “It’s going to be okay.”
She regarded him with an expression that was eerily adult and seemed to ask, How on earth could you possibly know?
58
Placid.
The lodge that Frank Villaine had sent them to, a modest beige clapboard structure, was on a lake that, in this breezeless valley, was flat as a piece of glass. Surrounding the oblong body of water were a thousand trees, ten thousand, some clothed in vibrant color, some green, some brown, some dead and gray. The spiky skyline was inverted on the mirror surface of the water.
It would be a fine place to fish. Cold, clear, expansive.
He thought of Sonja Nilsson.
We took pike and bass mostly. Some muskie...
Shaw pulled the Winnebago to a spot behind the house and killed the engine. He climbed out. Inhaling deeply. Smelling, almost tasting, air rich with leaf and mud and water and decaying vegetation.
Parker and Hannah, in the gold Kia, arrived a moment later. She parked beside the camper. Shaw gestured for them to wait. He walked to the front door and punched in the key code Villaine had given him. The lock clicked and, hand near his weapon, he pushed the door open.
In a few minutes he’d cleared the homey three-bedroom place and walked onto the porch to join the other two. They carried their belongings inside. There wasn’t much: a shopping bag, backpacks and gym bags.
They all stepped inside and Shaw closed the door.
Hannah wasn’t feeling well; the last few miles of the road from Route 84 meandered in sharp curves. She walked to the couch, whose cushion covers featured a Native American design in red and black, and dropped onto it, her head back.
“It’ll pass,” her mother said.
“No, it won’t. I’m going to puke.” She moaned, with a touch of teenage drama.
It would pass, but there were a few more debilitating conditions than nausea. Shaw didn’t want her to feel bad, of course, but he also needed them both aware and present. No distractions. This was a good safe house. But they weren’t invisible.
Shaw walked into the kitchen and looked through the cabinets. He found what he was looking for and dumped some powdered ginger into a pan, added water and boiled the concoction for a few minutes. He strained it through a coffee filter into a mug and dumped in two generous spoonfuls of sugar, then stirred. He handed it to the girl.
She stared uncertainly. “Um, thanks. But...”
“Try it.”
The girl took a tentative sip. Then another.
Shaw left her and joined Parker, who had returned to the porch, looking out over the field. He walked to the back, collected his own backpack from the camper and returned. The lot was about seven or eight acres of grass and sedge, in which grew a few solitary oaks and hawthorns and maples. About two hundred yards from the house was a row of trees running parallel to the road that had led them here.