21

Salem, Massachusetts

They stood outside the raggedy old church. It had looked so abandoned that they’d stopped at the main office to ask the woman working there if they were allowed to enter. She said they definitely were. Salem thought, for the millionth time, of the two codes that had brought them here.

Talk: to Keller about revenge then go home follow the trail trust no one

The heart of the first church in the new world.

“I expected it to be more posh, somehow,” Bel said, hands on hips.

Internally, Salem agreed, but this all seemed so bleak and impossible that she had to put a positive spin on it to keep from crying. “We’d be lucky to look this good when we’re four hundred years old.”

“Truth.” Bel held open the door. “After you.”

They stepped inside. The cling of moth balls and mustiness scrambled up Salem’s nose. She took a quick survey of the small space before pointing toward the ceiling. “This beam is the only part of the original building that remains, according to my research. It was the central support in the meeting house that became the First Church.” She indicated the other material inside the building, including ancient-looking pews and warped walls. “A lot of this was added later, when the church was moved.”

“So that makes that beam … ”

“The heart of the first church,” Salem said, finishing her sentence for her. “We need to check it for hidden drawers or messages.”

Bel shook her head in disbelief. “What have we gotten into? Mom and Vida disappear and leave some weird code behind, which may or may not have meant to send us to Massachusetts to feel up a four-hundred-year-old chunk of wood. The guys on my beat would love this.”

“More feeling up, less talking,” Salem said.

“You do the feeling, I’ll do the lookout.” Bel grabbed a stool and handed it to Salem. “That should get you tall enough. I wouldn’t have any idea what to look for. It’s your dad who was the mystical carpenter. All my father offered was a one-time sperm donation, remember?”

Bel hadn’t meant the words as anything but fact, Salem was sure of it. Still, they stung. “And my dad killed himself, remember?”

Bel stared at her cross-eyed. The tension of the last twenty-four hours was finally crackling, pushing them to the edge of one of their rare fights. They’d had three in their lives, by Salem’s count. The first happened when Salem was eight and Bel eleven, and Bel was convinced that Salem had purposely wrecked her Furby because she was jealous of Bel’s new friendship with a neighborhood girl. Salem had insisted that it was an accident. They didn’t speak for a whole month, then one day ran into each other on the playground (Salem suspected their mothers had something to do with that) and picked their friendship up where it had left off. The second fight occurred seven years later, when Salem told Bel she’d decided not to go to college because she’d found an online coding job she could do from home. Bel had gone ballistic, yelling at her until she wore her down.

The third clash happened more recently, just three weeks ago, when Bel brought Rachel, her new girlfriend, to Minnesota for a visit. Rachel, a petite Korean five years younger than Bel, worked the make-up counter at the Macy’s in downtown Chicago. She wouldn’t leave the house without her hair curled and her eyeliner and lipstick perfect, she texted or checked Facebook the entire visit, and she made velvet jabs at Bel’s low-maintenance look, calling the criticism “professional courtesy” before breaking into an insincere laugh.

When Bel asked Salem what she thought of Rachel, Salem had made the mistake of answering honestly.

Bel had left for Chicago the next day without saying goodbye.

Her middle-of-the-night phone call was the first time they’d talked since that incident.

This was not the time for a fourth dustup. Salem would absorb whatever was needed to keep the peace. She pushed her curls back from her face and looked Bel in the eye. “Sorry for snapping at you. Will you peek behind the pews while I look up here?” She stared at the beam. “Just in case.”

“What am I looking for?” Bel still sounded crabby.

“Anything that seems out of place.” Salem bit her tongue. Bel was wired to need the last word, and it wouldn’t cost Salem anything to give it to her.

“Like us?” But Bel did as she was told, pacing toward the front of the old church.

Salem rubbed the back of her neck before perching the stool under one of the two ends of the beam. If she stood on the three-legged chair, she was able to feel all sides of the seemingly solid chunk of wood. The truth was, she didn’t know exactly what to look for, either. If the beam contained a secret compartment, it would require some sort of trigger, but the thing looked like an unbroken chestnut girder, as dense as rock.

Still, she began to search, inch by square inch.