CHAPTER 22

When Daniel and Jane returned from the studio, they discovered Rhea had driven herself to her weekly rummy party at Lynnie’s Pub despite the doctor (and Jane) saying she shouldn’t drive or drink. Steve was in the garage. From the sound of it, Daniel imagined he was he was doing more damage than repairs to Jane’s Jeep. The sound also told Daniel Steve wasn’t likely to interrupt them. They could be alone for these last few hours before Daniel drove her to the station. He hadn’t explained to his family that she’d be leaving, so it was just as well no one was around to ask questions.

Outside the sky darkened into evening. Daniel delayed turning on the lights. Without light, the hard edges in the front room of Rhea’s house were more distinct. The furniture looked like marble withstanding the weathering of centuries, the surfing trophies like sentries to a family dynasty, the three-hundred-pound swordfish his father had caught in Tahiti an imperious symbol of man’s physical triumph over the sea. The most recent family photo, taken after a morning surf at Waimea, showed the five of them lined up flexing their left biceps, measuring whose was the largest.

And in the middle of all these archetypes of the only kind of strength his family understood, Jane sat at the piano, a silhouette in the middle of the bay window, as the jagged clifftops turned from grey to brown in the tepid dusk outside. She picked out fractured James Horner melodies. It was the most at peace he’d ever seen her. He liked to think he had given her that peace.

Daniel tended to think of his mother’s house as a barnacle defiantly attached to the cliff face, determined to be the last house standing when land became ocean. But Jane’s music made the house feel demure. It reminded him of what had attracted him to her in New York, a different kind of strength. One that didn’t need to prove itself by showy feats of athleticism or a stubborn bottom line. If she would just let me help her, we could be together. Once the Vanguard was arrested he would be able to give her everything; he would be whole again.

While Jane played piano, he checked his phone for news updates. Nothing new had been reported. Daniel skimmed gossip articles about the FBI’s possible dead informant. He read an email from his agent saying she’d received a contract for him to sign from Ronan Barrow’s production company. There were three all caps texts from Riley telling Daniel to ask Steve if he’d picked Poppy up from school.

Daniel texted Steve. He smiled to himself as the hammering in the garage stopped. A few seconds later Daniel received a text from Steve saying to tell Riley he had not picked up Poppy because of course he’d been at a fucking meeting. The hammering resumed. Daniel texted Riley that Poppy was not with Steve.

Jane had stopped playing. He got up from the couch to show her the texts from his ridiculous family, but stopped short of the piano when he saw she’d become distracted by a pair of headlights far up the road casting ghoulish dancing figures on the cliffs.

“Maybe it’s Riley,” she said.

The car was a sedan with tinted windows. It pulled into the circular drive at the front of the house.

“They’ve found me.”

Daniel thought he’d misheard. “They?”

She swung off the piano bench and came to him, stood on her toes to reach up and kiss him, a lingering, reluctant kiss. It felt like an ending. “I love you,” she said. “It probably won’t count later but you have to believe it’s true.”

Her kiss made him dizzy. He mistook the gravity in her voice for romance.

“This week with you has been the best week of my life.”

“Mine too.”

Two guys in cheap suits got out of the sedan and walked across the lawn to the front door rather than follow the path.

“Do one last thing for me?”

“Sure,” he laughed, “but only if you tell me what’s going on. You’re all over the place.”

“Stall them for a few minutes so I have time to get out.”

“What?”

The doorbell was ringing. Jane stepped past him and sprinted down the hallway to the stairs. “Stall them,” she called.

Daniel was suddenly thirsty. He heard Jane’s footsteps in Rhea’s room above his head. The hammering in the garage had stopped. He hoped Steve wasn’t on his way up to witness a scene that Daniel sensed was not going to end well. He went to the kitchen for water. Then he walked back to the front of the house, into the entryway, and opened the front door.

“Evening.”

The two men held up badges. “I’m Special Investigator Martens.”

“Special Deputy Investigator Sao.”

“Can I ask what this is about?”

The Vanguard. His toes—the ones he still had and the ones he’d lost—tingled with anticipation that was also a warning. They’d caught the Vanguard. They’d found a recording of his trial that for some reason had never gone live.

“We need to speak to Jane Dalton.”

Daniel’s thoughts screeched to a stop. He heard the words without absorbing them.

“We believe she’s in possession of a cell phone belonging to a woman whose death we’re investigating.”

The dead informant, Daniel realized. Can the world be that small?

“I think you’ve got the wrong—” Behind him there was a small thud as Jane dropped her duffle bag on the entryway tile.

“What do you mean she’s dead?” Jane held out the phone Daniel had assumed was hers. “That’s not possible.”

“May we come in?” asked Martens even as his partner stepped over the threshold and motioned Daniel aside.

They followed Jane into the living room where she felt her way to the sofa. Daniel joined her. He knew she was upset, but her distress felt distant as he tried to sort through what was happening. For a few seconds the only sound in the house was Jane dry heaving sobs that didn’t materialize into tears. Both detectives watched her as though she was the only other person in the room.

They aren’t here for me, thought Daniel.

“We’d like to talk about the fight,” said Sao.

He listened with limited attention as Jane described an argument she’d had with the dead woman—a woman who had apparently been Jane’s best friend—an argument that had culminated with Jane throwing a phone at her friend, which seemed impossible. The listening side of his mind wondered what else he didn’t know about Jane, but it was overshadowed by more urgent interest in information. As soon as there was a break in Jane’s story, he asked,

“Have you found out anything new about the Vanguard? Did she give you any files? Trial archives?”

“We can’t discuss the details of the investigation,” said Martens.

They returned to the phone conversation. Sao’s voice as he posed pointed questions about why Jane had kept her friend’s phone was accusatory. Daniel was aware he should be trying to defend Jane. But she felt so far away.

I could tell them, he thought. Just roll up my pants and show them. They would talk to me then.

“Without her phone, the victim couldn’t call for help,” said Sao.

“Her name is Alma,” whispered Jane. “Her name was … Alma.”

Detective Sao set a folder on the coffee table.

Daniel’s pulse leapt in his veins, making him lightheaded. There were answers in that folder. If he could just be patient, hold himself together.

“The morning of her death she emailed our tip line claiming to be dating a member of the terrorist group the Vanguard. You understand, we receive many of these calls from hysterical women—”

“She wasn’t hysterical,” said Jane.

“The report was elevated when she was discovered dead that evening.” Sao dramatically flipped open the folder and there, blown up in eight by twelve was what looked like the still frame from a horror film: a wide shot of a bedroom, black around the corners where the camera flash hadn’t reached, green shag carpet, a bleeding woman tied to a chair with a mass of black hair obscuring her face. Jane looked at it, her expression blank. She pushed it aside to look at the next one, the next. She stared at each with an intensity that made Daniel’s leg twitch. It felt like Jane knew something she wasn’t saying.

Martens pulled a Werther’s candy from his pocket and struggled with arthritic fingers to unwrap it. The noise crinkled too loudly in Daniel’s ears. He glared at the detective. She’s going to tell us something. Don’t distract her.

“Alma also claimed her coworker just happened to be her boyfriend’s sister,” said Sao. “This turned out to be the only claim that we could verify. You did very well covering your tracks, but we did eventually find you.”

Another folder flipped dramatically open. Daniel stared. The pictures in this new folder were all of Jane. Some were taken when she was a child, most looked like they were from the same time he had met her. Several were pictures of Jane with a man who looked like the FBI’s description of the Vanguard soldier Mirt.

Not possible.

“Jane Dalton, formerly Rachel Schaben. Married name Rachel Carter,” Sao pronounced the names like a judge pronouncing a sentence. “You have three brothers, one of whom, Thomas Michael Schaben, seems to match Alma’s description.”

Daniel tried to look at Jane to confirm how absolutely ludicrous it was to suggest she was related to a member of the Vanguard even as he realized he also hoped it was true. She knows something.

Jane continued to study the crime scene pictures as though she hadn’t heard. She had focused on a macro shot of the dead woman’s neck. The skin had been cut away along the collarbone making a red line like a necklace. The skin had been pulled back.

“Was she branded?” asked Daniel.

“As I said, we can’t discuss—”

“Was she branded?” Daniel tried not to look like he was struggling as he demanded Martens answer him. Martens sucked on his candy. He faded in and out of focus as Daniel’s nervous system ran wild. The candy clicked against his teeth and then finally stopped. “No. She wasn’t branded.”

Not like me, thought Daniel. There aren’t any like me.

Darkness encroached on the edge of his vision. He pushed it back.

“Tell us about Thomas,” Sao said to Jane.

“I haven’t talked to him in years.”

A rush of disappointment so powerful Daniel felt sick. He pushed it back. Concentrate. Why didn’t she say her brother was in the Vanguard when she found out about the brand?

She doesn’t trust me. Thought I’ d tell the Feds. They think she’s an accomplice.

“How many years?” asked Sao.

“Since college. He used to call me during college. He didn’t like that I’d left home because he and I were always together. He didn’t get along with our older brothers.” Jane was struggling to make eye contact with Sao. She kept looking back at the picture of the woman’s neck. A black void threatened to overwhelm Daniel’s vision. She knows something.

Martens leaned forward, causing Daniel to lean back too quickly. The room spun. “What’s so interesting about this one?” He tapped the picture.

“This kind of cut, along the base of the neck, would be the way you flay the skin off an animal,” said Jane.

“Excuse me?” Sao was incredulous.

This isn’t the information I need. Daniel wanted to tell her to talk faster, get to the point. Her pain only distantly registered in his perception. It was too complicated to parse out—the best friend, the brother, secrets—Did she know I’ d been attacked?

The same day we met.

“Tommy’s a hunter. It’s the only thing that interests him besides baseball. He showed me once how to flay a deer. This was one of the first steps.”

I was attacked the same day we met.

“Jane,” Martens had significantly softened his voice, “we need to know everything you know about the Vanguard.”

Daniel’s warning signals intensified. He tried to shake them off. He didn’t want it to be true. It didn’t seem possible for it to be true. And yet, if she had answers. If she could fill in his missing pieces …

What if she hasn’t been hiding from a husband?

The room began to tilt and spin like the gyroscope on a crashing airplane. And then all was still. Daniel heard nothing. He saw nothing. The darkness smelled like mildewed cinderblocks. His body ached from being in one position too long. He was so thirsty.

This is the end, he thought. But he did not know why he thought that, or what signals had prompted such a thought. This is the end.

He heard a phone ringing and thought, It must be her brother’s phone. He’s here with me in New York. He wants to kill me. Why?

The darkness faded. Slowly, Daniel’s vision returned. He was in the living room of his mother’s house. There were two mugs of coffee and two glasses of water on the coffee table. The mugs weren’t steaming. Both the detectives seemed more relaxed. Jane was a taut statue perched on the edge of the couch beside him.

The ringing phone was in the purse beside Jane’s duffle bag in the entryway. He wondered how much time he had lost. How long had the phone had been ringing? She didn’t seem to hear the ringing, so Daniel went to get it. He needed an excuse to move, shake out his tense nerves, reorient himself. He hadn’t lost time in years. Steve will think I’m regressing. He won’t want me on the movie. Neither Jane nor the detectives paid attention to him. They didn’t seem to have noticed that he’d blanked out. For how long?

In the hallway, he leaned against the wall to stabilize himself as he knelt to retrieve the phone. Jane was talking about growing up in a conservative family, the things that were said, and the things left unsaid. “I knew Tommy had tendencies that my mother was trying to control, but it wasn’t something out in the open. I left as soon as I could.”

“Because of your brother?” asked Sao.

“Because I wanted a fuller understanding of the world.”

“How do you think he got involved with the Vanguard?” asked Martens.

Daniel found the phone, an old school flip phone. Steve’s name blinked insistently on the greyscale display window.

Why is Steve calling her?

“So you’re saying you had no idea your brother was involved with the Vanguard?” asked Sao.

Daniel silenced the phone and carried it with him back into the living room. Jane looked at him with a question in her eyes.

“It’s just Steve,” he said. “No idea why he’d be calling you instead of me. He and Riley are fighting about Poppy. No one seems to know who was supposed to pick her up from school.”

Jane nodded, not appearing particularly interested. But when the phone began to ring again, she snatched it from him and answered it.

“Hello?”

Daniel was close enough to tell the voice on the other end was not Steve. As Jane listened, her hand reached out into air, trying to find the wall to support herself. Daniel offered her his arm.

It’s the brother. Daniel strained to hear what was being said. It was a serious voice with a high timbre, speaking deliberately. Giving instructions.

“How long have you two known each other?” asked Sao. It was the first time he had addressed Daniel since entering the house, and now, as Daniel reluctantly detached his attention from the phonecall, he felt the full force of the detective’s gaze unpeeling his skin, trying to find Daniel’s secrets.

“Eight years.”

Jane said, “I understand,” and hung up. Daniel watched as she took a deep breath. She straightened her neck and gave the detectives a sad but remarkably composed smile. “Detectives, I’m afraid something has come up that I need to deal with. Do you have any other questions for me?”

“Was that your brother?” asked Sao. His gaze was a hawk’s on the hunt, watching for her to flinch.

“It was Steve.” She looked to Daniel with the same remarkably composed expression. “He needs us to go get Poppy.”

For a moment, Daniel thought Sao would press further. But Martens stood and held out business cards, one for Jane, one for Daniel. “Please be in touch if you think of anything else that might be useful. We know he asked Alma about you, so it’s unlikely he’ll leave town without trying to find you.”

“You think he’s dangerous to me as well?” asked Jane.

“Yes,” said Martens, “you need to stop thinking of him as your little brother. Call at the first sign of trouble.”

“Thank you,” said Jane with conviction.

They walked the detectives to the door and remained there watching until the sedan pulled out of the driveway and disappeared down the road.

“How are you feeling?” she asked.

Daniel laughed. “How am I feeling?”

“I thought maybe all that about the Vanguard was setting you off again.”

“It was.” Daniel paused to assess. He was tired. Tomorrow, he would have the aches of an NFL lineman, but the attack had faded. “I think I’m okay right now.”

“I need to tell you something.”

“That wasn’t Steve on the phone?”

She nodded, not showing any surprise that he knew, not showing any surprise that he was so calm. “My husband is holding Poppy at my condo.” Her words came slowly, as though she was dragging them through an invisible filter, trying to make them seem less unbelievable. She paused as though waiting for a reaction, then added. “I guess Steve must be there too, since Seth has his phone.”

“And your brother?”

“I don’t know.”

Daniel nodded. He still felt calm. Nothing was shaking. But he was having trouble figuring out what he should say. “Is your husband also in the Vanguard?”

“Yes.” The word escaped out of her without air, against her will.

“And they were both in New York the day we met.”

Another, even quieter, ‘yes.’ She had turned away from him and was staring at the wall, braced for what he realized was the inevitable next question. Did you know? But he wasn’t ready to ask. If she had known, if maybe she had even been a part of what had happened to him—no, he couldn’t think about that yet.

“Do you think you could give me a ride to my condo?” she asked softly.

There were other questions he wanted to ask about these men who had destroyed his life. He thought it would be wise to know more before driving to meet them. But the words wouldn’t come. There was an ache in his throat, something unresolved, a conclusion his body already understood, but his mind wasn’t ready to accept.

“I’ll drive you,” he said. As they walked towards the garage stairs, he noticed that Jane picked up her duffle bag. She wasn’t planning on coming back to the house.