Kat smiled. “Thanks.”
“Nice car.”
“Yeah, well, it’s not mine. It’s my boyfriend’s.”
“He must be rich.”
“I guess so.”
The girl started walking away. Kat wasn’t sure what to do here. She didn’t want to lose this lead, but cruising alongside the girl was getting creepy. The girl picked up speed. Up ahead, a school bus made the turn. The girl started to hurry toward it.
Now or never, Kat thought.
“You’re Ron Kochman’s girl, Melinda, right?”
The girl’s face lost color. Something close to panic filled her eyes. She nearly sprinted away now, jumping on the bus without so much as a wave good-bye. The bus door closed and whisked her away.
Well, well, Kat thought.
The bus disappeared down the road. Kat turned the Ferrari around so it faced the Kochman home again. She had clearly spooked the kid. If that meant anything—if she had spooked the girl because she had something to hide or if the girl’s reaction had something to do with a weird woman quasi-stalking her—it was hard to say.
Kat waited, wondering if someone else was going to emerge from the house. She took it a step further, moving the car and parking it directly in front of the Kochman home. She waited a few more minutes.
Nothing.
The hell with waiting.
She got out of the car and headed straight up the walk. She hit the doorbell once and knocked firmly for good measure. There was beaded glass on either side of the door. Kat couldn’t make anything out through it, but she could see movement.
Someone had passed by the door.
She knocked hard again and, with an internal shoulder shrug of why not, called out, “This is Detective Donovan from the New York Police Department. Could you please open the door?”
Footsteps.
Kat backed off and braced herself. She absentmindedly smoothed out her shirt and even—God, help her—patted down her hair. She saw the knob turn and the door opened.
It wasn’t Jeff.
A man Kat would estimate to be around seventy years old peered down at her. “Who are you?’
“Detective Donovan, NYPD.”
“Let me see some identification.”
Kat reached into her pocket and pulled out her badge. She flipped it open. That was usually enough, but the old man reached out and took hold of it. He examined it closely. Kat waited. He squinted and kept examining it. Kat half expected him to break out one of those jeweler’s magnifying glasses. Finally, he handed it back to her and gave her the full-on stink-eye.
“What do you want?”
He wore a brown flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbow, Wrangler jeans, and brown soft-toe work boots. He was good-looking in a weathered way, the kind of guy you imagined had spent the majority of his life working outdoors and it agreed with him. His hands were gnarly. His forearms were the kind of sinewy you get from life, not a gym.
“May I ask your name, sir?” Kat said.
“You knocked on my door, remember?”
“I do. And I’ve given you my name. I’d very much appreciate it if you’d extend me the same courtesy.”
“Appreciate my ass,” he said.
“I would, really,” Kat said, “but those jeans are a little baggy.”
His mouth twitched. “You messing with me?”
“Not as much as you’re messing with me,” Kat said.
“My name ain’t important,” he snapped. “What do you want?”
There was no reason to play around with this guy. “I’m looking for Ron Kochman,” she said.
The question didn’t seem to faze him.
“I don’t have to answer your questions,” he said.
Kat swallowed. Her voice sounded as though it were coming from someone else. “I don’t mean him any harm.”
“If that’s true,” the old man said, “then maybe you should be leaving well enough alone.”
“I need to talk to him.”
“No, Detective Donovan, I don’t think you do.”
His eyes pinned her down, and for a moment, it felt as though he knew who she was. “Where is he?”
“He’s not here. That’s all you need to know.”
“Then I’ll come back.”
“There’s nothing left for you here.”
She tried to speak, but no words came out. Finally: “Who the hell are you?”
“I’m going to close my door now. If you don’t leave, I’m going to call Jim Gamble. He’s the chief of police here. I don’t think he’ll like some NYPD cop hassling one of his residents.”
“You don’t want that attention.”
“No, but I can handle it. Good-bye, Detective.”
“What makes you think I’ll just go away?”
“Because you should know when you’re not wanted. Because you should know that the past is the past. And because I don’t think you want to cause any more destruction.”
“What destruction? What are you talking about?”
He took hold of the door. “It’s time for you to go.”
“I just need to talk to him,” Kat said. She could hear the pleading in her voice. “I don’t want to hurt anybody. Tell him that, okay? Tell him I just need to talk to him.”
The old man started to close the door on her. “I’ll be sure to pass on that message. Now get off my property.”
Chapter 31
The farm, in keeping with the Amish way of life, had no connection to the public electric grid. Titus liked that, of course. No billing, no reading meters, no outside maintenance. Whatever reason the Amish had for not using public energy sources—he had heard everything from a fear of outsiders to blocking access to television and the Internet—it worked well for this operation.
The Amish, however, do not shun electricity altogether. That seemed to be a common myth. This farm had used a windmill to provide enough electricity for their modest needs. But it wouldn’t do for Titus. He had installed a DuroMax generator that ran on propane gas. The farm’s mailbox was on the edge of the road, far from the house or any clearing. He had put in a gate so no cars could drive through. He never ordered anything, so there were no deliveries. If they needed something, he or one of his people fetched it, usually at a Sam’s Club eight miles away.
He tried to give his men time away from the farm. He and Reynaldo enjoyed the solitude. The other men got antsy. There was a strip club twelve miles from there called Starbutts, but to be on the safe side, Titus asked his men to drive the extra six miles to one called the Lumberyard (“Where Real Men Go for Wood”). They were allowed to go once every two weeks, no more. They could do what they pleased, but they could not, under any circumstances, make a scene. They always went alone.
Mobile phones and the like had no reach there, so Dmitry had set up phone and Internet services via a satellite that bounced all web activity via a VPN that originated in Bulgaria. Almost no calls ever came in, so when Titus heard his private account ring at eight in the morning, he knew something was wrong.
“Yes?”
“Wrong number.”
The caller hung up.
That was his signal. The government monitors your e-mails. That was no longer a secret. The best way to communicate via e-mail without getting anyone’s attention was to not send the e-mail. Titus had a Gmail account he kept off-line except when signaled to check it. He loaded the homepage and signed in. There were no new e-mails. He had expected that.
He hit DRAFTS and the message popped up. That was how he communicated with a contact. They both had access to the same Gmail account. When you wanted to send a message, you wrote it, but—and this was the important thing—you didn’t send it. You just saved it as a draft. Then you signed off, signaled with the call, and your recipient signed on. The recipient, in this case Titus, would then read the message in the draft folder and delete it.
Titus had four such accounts, each communicating with a different person. This one was from his contact in Switzerland:
Stop using 89787198. SAR was filed by a financial firm called Parsons, Chuback, Mitnick and Bushwell and now an NYPD detective named Katarina Donovan has followed up.