IN ABOUT FIVE MINUTES ERICA comes to a quiet suburban road. Asphalt never looked so good. The kidnapping car turned right onto the dirt road, so Erica turns left, heading back. As she walks she pulls her thoughts together. Someone just sent her a message—it came through loud and clear. But who? She’s obviously getting too close for their comfort, but she still feels a thousand miles from any answers.
She comes to an enormous old colonial with an expansive front yard dotted with specimen trees and bordered by an old stone wall. All those empty rooms. Empty rooms scare her. A little farther on, a stately brick Edwardian sits on a rise. This is a tony suburb, she thinks, Concord maybe, Belmont or Lincoln, judging by how long she was in the car. She’s about to approach one of the houses when, behind her, she hears an oncoming car. Fear fear. She ducks into the woods. The car passes, it’s an SUV, going about thirty miles an hour; the driver is a woman about Erica’s age, alone in the car, well dressed.
Erica rushes back onto the road and yells, “STOP! PLEASE STOP!”
The car does stop, and the woman twists around and looks at Erica. Then she backs up and Erica runs over to her window. The woman zips it down. “Are you all right?”
Erica takes a deep breath and says, “Yes.”
“You look a little . . . Wait, aren’t you Erica Sparks?”
“I am.”
“What happened to you? Oh my goodness, you’re handcuffed. Hang on.” The woman pops open the rear door, gets out of the car, and retrieves garden clippers from the back. It takes a few tries, but she cuts off the cuffs.
Erica rubs her sore wrists. “Thank you.”
“What happened to you?” Erica hesitates, and the woman adds, with New England discretion, “If I may ask.”
“I had a little run-in with . . . It’s a long story.”
“Would you like me to take you to the police station here in Belmont?”
“What I’d really like is a lift to the Kennedy School. I’m on a panel that starts in twenty minutes.”