When she was checking out, a woman behind her said, “Well, finally I get to see you. Sheriff Gaffney told me all about you, what a pretty girl you are, how there was this big fellow there at Jacob Marley’s house who really wasn’t your cousin. He didn’t buy that one for a minute. You really lied to him, didn’t you, and he couldn’t do anything about it. But now everyone knows who you are.”
“But I don’t know who you are, ma’am.”
“I’m Mrs. Ella, his chief assistant.”
It was the Mrs. Ella who’d kept her from getting hysterical when she’d called the sheriff’s office to report the skeleton falling out of the wall in the basement by telling her about all her dogs, every last one of them. Mrs. Ella, who also shopped at Sherry’s Lingerie Boutique. She was a big woman, muscular, with a corded neck and a mustache shadowing her upper lip.
“You’re a liar, Ms. Powell. No, you’re Ms. Matlock. You made up that name when you came here.”
“I had to lie. So nice to speak to you, ma’am.”
“Ha, I’ll just bet. Why are you back here?”
Becca smiled. “I’m a tourist now, ma’am. I’m going to go out on a lobster boat.” And she hefted her two grocery bags and left Food Fort.
“The sheriff will want to speak to you,” Mrs. Ella yelled after her. “It’s a pity he had to drive to Augusta on O-fficial Business.”
She heard Mrs. Ella say behind her, “She’s back here to do more bad things, you mark my words, Mrs. Peterson. Here she was all nice and hysterical when she found Melissa Katzen’s skeleton in her basement wall, but it was all a lie. If the skeleton hadn’t been so old, I would have bet she’d done it.”
Becca turned slowly in the half-open door, her arms aching with the heavy bags, and said, “Melissa Katzen was murdered, ma’am, and not by me. That isn’t a lie. Does anyone know anything yet?”
“No,” called out Mrs. Peterson, the cashier, who had bright red dyed hair. “We’re not even one hundred percent sure that it is Melissa Katzen. The DNA tests haven’t come back yet. It takes weeks, Sheriff Gaffney said.”
“No, I’m the one who told you that,” Mrs. Ella said. “Sheriff Gaffney doesn’t keep track of DNA sorts of stuff, I do. As for you, Ms. Matlock, I’m going to tell the sheriff that you’re here again just as soon as I can raise him on his cell phone, which he usually doesn’t carry because he hates technology.”
When Becca got back to the car, the notes in Krimakov’s handwriting were gone. She hoped the sheriff wouldn’t get to her anytime soon. She hoped that her little trip to Food Fort wouldn’t backfire. Surely Krimakov knew she was here now, surely.
Riptide, she thought as she got into the Toyota, her haven once upon a time, with its Food Fort on Poison Oak Circle and Goose’s Hardware on West Hemlock. She drove slowly along Poison Ivy Lane, then turned onto Foxglove Avenue, down two blocks to her street, Belladonna Drive. She turned yet again on Gum Shoe Lane, drove past Tyler’s house, then turned back onto Belladonna Drive to Jacob Marley’s house. It was getting a bit cooler, thank God, even though the sun was still high in the summer sky. Maine gave you the earliest sunrise and latest sunset.
She was still wearing the light-blue cotton sundress that Sherlock had brought back to New York with her, and she wished she had a sweater. Fear seemed to leach the heat right out of her.
The house was cooler. She made iced tea, put together a tuna salad sandwich, and sat out on the wide veranda, watching night slowly fall. She wondered if anyone would slip into Jacob Marley’s house. The wristband was one-way.
Odd, but she didn’t think about Krimakov. She thought about Adam, his face now clear in her mind.
He’d snuck up on her, just as, she supposed, she’d snuck up on him. She smiled. He was a good man, sexy as hell, which she wouldn’t tell him just yet, and he had a streak of honor a mile wide. Even when she’d bitten his hand and cursed him, wanted to kick him into the dirt, she’d known that honor of his was real and wouldn’t ever change to suit the circumstance.
And Adam knew her father a lot better than she did. And he’d never said a word. What did that say about this mile-wide honor of his? She’d have to think about that.
She took the last bite of her sandwich and wadded up the napkin. It was nearly dark now. Surely Krimakov would do something soon. Her Coonan was in the pocket of her sundress. She hadn’t told anyone about the gun, but she suspected that Adam knew she had it. He’d kept his mouth shut, a smart move, or else she might have bitten him again.
She hadn’t seen a soul, at least not a soul who was here especially for her. It would be soon, she felt it. Krimakov was close. Everyone else was close, too. She wasn’t alone in this. And she thought of Sam and of Krimakov’s note.
She waited and looked up at the sliver of moon in the dark sky. She prayed that Sheriff Gaffney had decided not to come see her tonight. Finally, she walked into the house, shut and locked the front door. She closed and locked all the windows. She didn’t want to go upstairs to the bedroom where he’d hidden in her closet and stuck a needle in her arm.
She was on the stairs when the phone rang. Her fingers clutched at the oak railing so tightly they turned white. The phone rang again. It had to be Krimakov.
It was. She pushed the small button on the wristband and pressed her wrist close to the phone receiver.
“Hello, Rebecca. It’s your boyfriend.” His voice was playful, filled with crazy fun. It scared her to death. “Hey, I hope I didn’t hurt you too badly when I threw you out of the car in New York?” His voice was still mischievous, but now he’d pitched it lower, maybe even put a handkerchief over the mouthpiece. She wondered if her father would recognize his voice after twenty years.
“No, you didn’t hurt me too badly, but you already know that, don’t you? You killed four people in NYU Hospital to get to me and my father, but we weren’t there. You failed, you murdering butcher. Where the hell is Sam? Don’t you dare hurt that little boy.”
“Why not? He’s worth nothing except that he did get you here for me. I’ll just bet the CIA director got ahold of you really fast. Now you’re here and you’re alone, I see. You followed my instructions. Hard to believe they let you come here all by yourself, all unprotected.”
“I ran away. I’m waiting for you, you bastard. Come here and bring Sam.”
“Now, now, there’s no rush, is there?”
He was playing with her, nothing new in that. She drew a deep breath, tried to be calm. “I don’t understand why you didn’t want my father to come with me. It’s him you want to kill, isn’t that right?”
“Your father is a very bad man, Rebecca, very bad, indeed. You have no idea what he’s done, how many innocent people he’s destroyed.”
“I know that he shot your wife by accident a long time ago, and that you swore to get revenge. All the rest of it, it’s a fabrication of your own crazy mind. I don’t think anyone has killed more people than you have. Listen to me, please. Why not just stop it all now? My father was devastated when he accidentally shot your wife. He told me you had brought her with you, faking a vacation when you were really there to assassinate that visiting German industrialist. Why did you use your wife like that?”
“You know nothing about it. Shut up.”
“Why won’t you tell me? Did you really believe that she wouldn’t be in any danger if you took her with you?”
“I told you to shut up, Rebecca. Hearing you talk about that wonderful woman dirties her memory. You’re from his seed, and that makes you as filthy as he is.”
“All right, fine. I’m filthy. Now, why didn’t you want my father to come here with me? Don’t you still want to kill him?”
“I will, never fear. How and when I do it is up to me, isn’t it, Rebecca? Everything is always up to me.”