Jane Queller woke in a cold sweat. She had been crying in her sleep again. Her nose was raw. Her body ached. She started shaking uncontrollably. Panic made her heart shiver inside of her chest. In the semi-darkness, she thought she was back in Berlin, then in the Oslo hotel room, then she realized that she was in her childhood bedroom inside the Presidio Heights house. Pink wallpaper. Satin pink duvet and pillows. More pink in the rug, on the couch, the desk chair. Posters and stuffed animals and dolls.
Her mother had decorated the room because Jane did not have time to do it herself. From the age of six, almost every waking moment of Jane’s life had been spent in front of the piano. Tinkering. Practicing. Playing. Learning. Performing. Touring. Judging. Failing. Recovering. Coaxing. Succeeding. Mastering.
In the early days, Martin would stand behind Jane while she played, his eyes following the notes, his hands on her shoulders, gently pressing when she made a mistake. Pechenikov had requested Martin abandon his post as a condition of taking on Jane as a student, but the tension of Martin’s presence had shadowed her career. Her life. Her triumphs. Her failures. Whether she was in Tokyo or Sydney or New York, or even during her three months of isolation in Berlin, Jane could always feel an invisible Martin hovering behind her.
Jane shivered again. She glanced behind her, as if Martin might be there. She sat up and pressed her back against the headboard. She pulled the sheets around her.
What had they done?
Nick would argue that they hadn’t done anything. Laura Juneau was the one who’d pulled the trigger. The woman had been visibly at peace with the decision. She could’ve walked away at any time. That she had murdered Martin, then herself, was an act of bravery, and also an act that she had committed alone.
But for the first time in the six years that Jane had known Nicholas Harp, she found herself incapable of believing him.
They had all put Laura on that stage with Martin—Jane, Andrew, Nick, the other cells in the other cities. By Nick’s design, they were each a cog in a decentralized machine. A mysterious man on the inside had helped Chicago infiltrate the company that produced the red dye packs that were supposed to be inside the brown paper bag. New York had worked with the document forger in Toronto. San Francisco had paid for airline tickets, hotel rooms, taxi rides and meals. Like Martin’s shadow behind Jane, they had all stood invisible behind Laura Juneau as she pulled the revolver from her purse and twice squeezed the trigger.
Was this crazy?
Were they all insane?
Every morning for the last eighteen months Jane had found herself waking up with doubt on her mind. Her emotions would violently swing like the clapper inside a bell. One moment, she would think that they were acting like lunatics—running drills, practicing escapes and learning how to use weapons. Wasn’t that ridiculous? Why did Jane have to learn hand-to-hand combat? Why did she need to memorize safe house locations and understand diagrams of false panels and secret compartments? They were just a handful of people, all of them under the age of thirty, believing that they had the wherewithal, the power, to pull off extraordinary acts of opposition.
Wasn’t that the very definition of delusional?
But then the next moment, Nick would start speaking and Jane would be convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that everything they were doing made perfect sense.
Jane put her head in her hands.
She had helped a woman murder her own father. She had planned for his death. She had known it was going to happen and said nothing.
Oslo had taken away the ridiculousness. The skepticism. Everything was real now. All of it was happening.
Jane was losing her mind.
“There you are.” Nick came into the room with a mug in one hand and a newspaper in the other. He was wearing his boxer shorts and nothing else. “Drink all of this.”
Jane took the mug. Hot tea and bourbon. The last time she’d had a drink was with Laura Juneau in the bar. Jane’s heart had been pounding then as it pounded now. Laura had called Jane a chameleon. And she had been right. The woman had no idea that Jane was part of the group. They had talked like strangers, then intimates, then Laura was gone.
You are a magnificent person, she had told Jane before leaving. You are magnificent because you are so uniquely you.
“More G-men just pulled up.” Nick was at the window looking down on the motorcourt. “I’m guessing FBI by the shitty car.” He flashed Jane a crooked grin, as if the presence of more feds on top of the CIA, NSA, Interpol, Revenue Agents and Secret Service men they’d already spoken to was a trifle. “You be Bonnie and I’ll be Clyde.”
Jane gulped the tea. She barely tasted the hot liquid as it scorched into her stomach. Martin had been murdered five days ago. His funeral was tomorrow. Nick seemed to be feeding off the stress, almost giddy during the interviews that more and more felt like interrogations. Jane wanted to scream at him that this was real, that they had murdered someone, that what they were planning next could land them all in prison for the rest of their lives—or worse.
Instead, she whispered, “I’m scared, Nicky.”
“Darling.” He was on the bed, holding her, before she could ask. His lips were at her ear. “You’ll be okay. Trust me. I’ve been through a hell of a lot worse than this. It makes you stronger. It reminds you why we’re doing this.”
Jane closed her eyes as she tried to absorb his words. She had lost the point of doing this. Why was she grieving her father? For so many years, she’d truly believed that any love she’d had for Martin had been beaten out of her. So why was Jane so racked with guilt? Why did it hurt every time she remembered that Martin was gone?
“Stop.” Nick could always tell when she was troubled. He told her, “Think of something else. Something good.”
Jane shook her head. She did not have Nick’s talent of compartmentalization. She couldn’t even close her eyes without seeing Martin’s head exploding. He’d been shot in the temple. Brain and tissue and bone had splattered Friedrich Richter like mud from a car wheel. Then Laura had pulled the trigger again and the top of her head had sprayed up into the ceiling.
I’m sorry, Jane had mouthed to the woman seconds before.
Had Laura even known why Jane was apologizing?
“Come on,” Nick said, giving Jane a squeeze on the shoulder to bring her back to the present. “Do you remember the first time I met you?”
Jane shook her head again, but only to try to clear the violent images from her mind. The gun. The explosions. The splatter and spray.
“Come on, Jinx,” Nick coaxed. “Have you forgotten about the first time we met? It’ll be six years in December. Did you know that?”
Jane wiped her nose. Of course she knew. The moment she first saw Nick was etched into every fiber of her being: Andrew and Nick home from college, pushing and shoving each other like schoolboys in the front hall. Jane had stormed out of the parlor to complain about the racket. Nick had smiled at her, and she’d felt her heart fill like a hot-air balloon that threatened to float out of her chest.
“Jinx?”
She knew that he wouldn’t give up unless she played along, so she played along, saying, “You barely noticed me.”
“You were barely legal.”
“I was seventeen.” She hated when he treated her like she was a child. Like Andrew, he was only three years her senior. “And you ignored me the entire weekend because you and Andy were chasing after those trashy girls from North Beach.”
He laughed. “You would’ve never given me a chance if I’d fallen all over myself like the other fools.”
There were no other fools. No one had ever fallen all over themselves for Jane. Men had looked at her with either awe or boredom, as if she was a doll inside of a glass case. Nick was the first of Andrew’s friends who had seen her as a woman.
He stroked back her hair. His mouth went to her ear. He always whispered when he told her the important things. “I didn’t ignore you the entire weekend.”
Jane could not stop her heart from doing the floaty thing again. Even now in this horrible moment, she could still remember the thrill of Nick surprising her in the kitchen. She was reading a magazine when he’d wandered in. Jane had said something flinty to make him go away, and he’d kissed her, wordlessly, before backing out of the room and closing the door.
Nick said, “I was practically an orphan when I met you. I didn’t have anybody. I was completely alone. And then I had you.” His hand held the back of her neck. He was suddenly serious. “Tell me you’re still with me. I have to know.”
“Of course.” He’d done this in Oslo, then again on the plane home, then their first night back in San Francisco. He seemed terrified that the three months they’d spent apart had somehow weakened her resolve. “I’m with you, Nick. Always.”
He searched her eyes for a sign, some indication that she was lying to him the way that everyone else had in his life.
“I am yours,” she repeated, firmly. “Every part of me is yours.”
“Good girl.” His smile was hesitant. He had been hurt by so many people before.
Jane wanted to hold him, but he hated when she got clingy. Instead, she tilted up her face so that he would kiss her. Nick obliged, and for the first time in days, Jane could breathe again.
“My darling,” he whispered into her ear. His hands slid under her camisole. His mouth moved to her breasts. Jane was finally able to wrap her arms around him. She didn’t want sex, but she knew telling him no again would hurt his feelings. What she craved most was the after. When he held her. When he told her that he loved her. When he made her feel like everything was going to be okay.
That would be the moment to tell him.
As Nick laid her back on the bed, Jane felt all the words she had silently practiced over the last month rush to her lips—I’m sorry, terrified, ecstatic, overjoyed, anxious, panicky, elated, so scared that you’ll leave me because—
I’m pregnant.
“Hello?”
They both sat back up. Jane gripped the sheets around her neck.
“You guys awake?” Andrew knocked on the door before peering into the room. “Everyone decent?”
“Never,” Nick said. He still held one of her breasts underneath the sheet. Jane tried to pull away, but Nick snaked his arm around her waist so that she could not. He stroked the small of her back, his eyes on Andrew.
Nick said, “Two more agents pulled into the front drive.”
“I saw.” Andrew wiped his nose with his sleeve. He was still fighting off the cold from Norway. He told Nick what Jane dared not. “Don’t be aggressive with them, Nicky. Please.”
They all looked at each other. Nick’s hand stroked lower down Jane’s back. She felt a flush of heat work its way up her neck and into her face. She hated when he did this sort of thing in front of Andrew.
Nick said, “I feel like we should be touching the sides of our noses like they did in The Sting.”
“This is real life.” Andrew’s tone was strident. They were all terrified that the house was bugged. The last few days had been like tiptoeing around the sharp end of a needle. “Our father has been murdered. A woman has been kidnapped. You need to take this seriously.”
“I’ll at least take it cleanly.” Nick bit Jane’s shoulder before marching into the bathroom.
Jane pulled the sheets tighter around her neck. She stared at the closed bathroom door. She wanted to go after him, to beg him to listen to Andrew, but she had always lacked the ability to tell Nick that he was wrong about anything.
Andrew said, “Jane—”
She motioned for him to turn around so she could get dressed.
He obliged, saying, “Mother was asking for you.”
Jane rolled on a pair of pantyhose. The waist felt tight when she stood. “Was that Ellis-Anne you were on the phone with this morning?”
Andrew did not answer. The subject of his ex-girlfriend was somehow off limits now.
Still, she tried, “You were together for two years. She’s just—”
“Jane,” Andrew repeated, his voice low. He’d been trying to talk to her about Martin since they got home, but Jane was too afraid that speaking to him would open something inside of her that could not be closed.
She told him, “You should go to the doctor.” Her fingers fumbled with the tiny pearl buttons on her blouse. She yanked a pair of slacks off the hanger.
“I feel—” His head slowly moved from side to side. “I feel like something is missing inside of me. Like an organ has been taken away. Is that strange?”
Jane tried to zip up the side of her slacks. Her fingers felt clumsy. She had to wipe the sweat off her hands. The pants were tight. Everything was tight because she was pregnant and they had killed their father and they were probably going to kill more people by the time this was over.
“Andy, I can’t—” her words were cut off by a sob.
I can’t talk to you. I can’t listen to you. I can’t be around you because you’re going to say what I’ve been thinking and it will end up tearing us to shreds.
How had Laura Juneau done it?
Not the physical act—Jane had been there, she had witnessed every single detail of the actual murder and suicide—but how had Laura flipped that switch inside of herself that turned her into a cold-blooded killer? How could the kind, interesting woman whom Jane had smoked with in the conference center bar be the same woman who had taken a gun from her purse and murdered a man, then herself?
Jane kept coming back to the expression of absolute serenity on Laura Juneau’s face. It was the slight smile on the woman’s lips that had given her away. Clearly, Laura had been totally at peace with her actions. There was no hesitation. Not a moment of second thought or doubt. When Laura’s hand had reached into her purse to find the revolver, she might as well have been looking for a pack of chewing gum.
“Jinx?” Andrew had turned back around. There were tears in his eyes, which made Jane cry even harder. “Let me help with this.”
She watched him tug up the zipper on the side of her slacks. His breath had a sickly smell. His skin looked clammy. She said, “You’ve lost weight.”
“Here it is.” He playfully pinched the new roll of fat ringing her waist. “Nick said we’ll get through this, right? And Nick’s always right, isn’t he?”
They smiled, but neither one of them laughed out loud, because they didn’t know whether or not Nick was listening on the other side of the door.
“We should try to pull ourselves together.” Jane found some tissue. She handed it to Andrew, then took some for herself. They both blew their noses. Andrew coughed. The rattle in his chest was like marbles clicking together.
She put her hand to his forehead. “You need to go to the doctor.”
He shrugged, asking, “When?”
The bathroom door opened. Nick came out, naked, toweling his hair dry. “What’d I miss?”
Andrew offered, “I’ll go downstairs before Jasper comes looking for us.”
“You go, too,” Nick told Jane. “Wear the boots. They’re more intimidating.”
Jane found a pair of black socks in the drawer. She slipped them on over her pantyhose. She held up a few pairs of boots before Nick nodded that she’d found the right ones. She was leaning over to do up the buckles when she felt Nick pressing behind her. He talked to Andrew as his hands rubbed her lower back. “Jane’s right. You should make time to go to the doctor. We can’t have you sick for the—the funeral.”
Jane felt bile slide up her throat as she finished buckling her riding boots. She didn’t know if it was the awful morning sickness or the fear. From the beginning, Nick had been playing these unnecessary verbal games. Jane knew he got a thrill out of picturing an FBI agent sitting in a surveillance van down the street, hanging on his every word.
He put his mouth to her ear again. “Knock them out, my darling.”
She nodded, telling Andrew, “Ready.”
Nick slapped her ass as she left the room. Jane felt the same deep flush of embarrassment from before. It was pointless to ask him to stop because begging only made him worse.
Andrew let Jane precede him down the front stairs. She worked to cool the heat in her face. She knew that Nick had grown up unloved, that it was important to him that people understood he belonged, but she hated when he treated her like a hunting trophy.
“Okay?” Andrew asked.
Jane realized she’d put her hand to her stomach. She had not told Andrew or anyone else about the baby. At first, she’d persuaded herself that it was because she wanted Nick to be the first to know, but as the weeks had passed, she’d realized that she was terrified that he would not want the baby and she would have to explain to everyone why she was no longer pregnant.
Next time, he’d told her the last time. We’ll keep it next time.
“Miss Queller?” a man was waiting for them in the front hallway. He had his wallet open to a gold shield. “I’m Agent Barlow with the FBI. This is Agent Danberry.”
Danberry was standing inside the parlor with his hands clasped behind his back. He looked like a lesser version of Barlow: less hair, less confidence, less teeth, even, because he appeared to be missing an upper cuspid. He had been talking to Jasper, who was dressed in his Air Force Reserve uniform. Medals and colorful bars lined her brother’s chest. Jasper was twelve years older than Jane, the over-protective brother who had always been her anchor. He had attended her concerts and asked about her schoolwork and taken her to the prom when no one else would. Jane had always seen him as a miniature adult, a heroic figure who played with his toy soldiers and read military history books but could reliably be depended upon to scare the hell out of any boy who dared hurt her feelings or to give her cash so she could buy lipstick.
“Miss Queller?” Agent Barlow repeated.
“I’m sorry,” Jane apologized, taking a tissue from the box on the coffee table.
Barlow seemed chastened. “My condolences on your loss.”
Jane wiped her eyes as she looked in the mirror behind the couch. Her skin felt raw. Her eyes were swollen. Her nose was bright red. She had been crying for almost five days straight.
“Take your time,” Barlow offered, but he seemed anxious to begin.
Jane blew her nose as quietly as she could.
Nick had made them practice their statements for hours, but nothing could prepare Jane for the stress of being interviewed. The first time, she had sobbed uncontrollably, panicked that she would say the wrong thing. In subsequent interviews, Jane had realized that the tears were a godsend, because crying was what was expected of her. Andrew, too, seemed to have figured out a strategy. When a tough question was put to him, he would sniff and wipe his eyes and turn his head away while he considered his answer.
It was Nick who made them nervous—not just Jane and Andrew, but anyone who happened to be in the room. He seemed to get a perverse pleasure from taunting the agents, going right up to the line, then inventing an innocent explanation that pulled them back from the brink.
Watching him with the Secret Service agents yesterday, Jane had wondered if he was suicidal.
“Jinx?” Jasper said.
They were all waiting for her to sit down. She perched on the edge of the couch. Andrew sat beside her. Barlow sat on the couch opposite with his hands on his knees. Only Jasper and Danberry remained standing, one to pace and the other, seemingly, to inspect the room. Instead of asking a question, Danberry opened an onyx box on one of the bookshelves and peered inside.
Across from her, Barlow took a notebook out of his breast pocket and thumbed through the pages. His eyes moved back and forth as he silently read through the notes.
Jane looked at Andrew, then Jasper, who shrugged.
This was new. The other agents had started with small talk, asked about the house, the decorations. It was Andrew who usually gave them the rundown. The parlor, like the rest of the house, was a gothic-beaux-arts mishmash, with spindly furniture and velvet wallpaper between the dark mahogany panels. The twin chandeliers had belonged to some ancient Queller who’d worked with Mr. Tiffany on the design. The coffee table was from sequoias felled by her mother’s side of the family. A grown man could stand comfortably inside the fireplace. Rumor had it that the rug was gotten off a Japanese family who’d been sent to an internment camp during the war.
Andrew shifted on the couch. Jasper resumed pacing.
Barlow turned a page in his notebook. The noise was like sandpaper in the silence. Danberry had tilted his head to the side so he could read the titles on the spines of books.
Jane had to do something with her hands. She found a pack of cigarettes on the coffee table. Andrew struck a match for her. He was staying only partially still beside her. He kept randomly tapping his foot. Jane wondered how it would look if she reached over to still his leg. Or if she asked Barlow to please begin. Or if she screamed as loud as she could until everyone left and she could go back upstairs and find Nick.
This was a manipulation tactic, obviously. Barlow and Danberry were ramping up everyone’s nerves so that they would make stupid mistakes.
Silently, Jane went through the questions that all the other agents had asked.
Have you ever met the real Alexandra Maplecroft? What did Laura Juneau say to you at the conference? Why didn’t you know she was an imposter? Where do you think the real Dr. Alexandra Maplecroft is?
Kidnapped.
The answer to the last question was common knowledge. The ransom note had been printed on the front page of yesterday’s San Francisco Chronicle—
We have Dr. Alexandra Maplecroft, a tool of the fascist regime . . .
“Miss Queller?” Barlow was finally looking up from his notebook. “I’m just going to sum up what we already know from the other interviews you’ve given.”
Jane could barely manage a nod. Her body had gone rigid with tension. Something was different about these two men. With their wrinkled suits and stained ties and missing teeth and bad haircuts, they looked like TV parodies of G-men, but they would not be here if they were second or third string.
“Here we go,” Barlow said. “You’d never met Laura Juneau before the conference. You might’ve recognized her name from before, when her husband killed their children, because the story was in the newspapers. You were in Berlin to fill in for a friend at a studio for two months. You—”
“Three,” Jasper corrected.
“Right, three months. Thank you, Major Queller.” Barlow kept his focus on Jane as he continued, “You’ve never met Dr. Alexandra Maplecroft before and you’ve only heard her name in relation to your father, because she was a rival who—”
“No,” Jasper said. “In order to be rivals, you have to be equals. Maplecroft was a nuisance.”
“Thank you again, Major.” Barlow clearly wanted Jasper to shut up, but instead, he continued, “Miss Queller, first, I’d like to talk about your discussion with Mrs. Juneau at the bar.”
Jane blinked, and she could see the delighted look on Laura’s face when she recognized Jane tapping out “Love Me Two Times” on the bar top.
Barlow asked, “Did you approach Mrs. Juneau or did she approach you?”
Jane’s throat felt so tight that she had to cough before she could speak. “I did. I was on the piano, playing the piano, when she walked in. I assumed she was American because of—”
“The way she was dressed,” Barlow finished. “You wanted to speak to an American after being in Germany for so long.”
Jane felt a sick kind of dizziness. Why had he finished the sentence for her? Was he trying to prove that he’d talked to the other agents, that they’d all compared notes, or was he just trying to get her to move along?
Or, most terrifying of all, had Nick made them practice too much? Were their word choices, their gestures, their comments, so rehearsed that they’d managed to throw up flags?
Jane parted her lips. She tried to pull air into her lungs.
Barlow asked, “What did you and Mrs. Juneau talk about?”
Jane felt a pressing weight on her chest. The room suddenly felt stifling. She put the cigarette in the ashtray, worked to line it up in the groove. Her hand was trembling again. She didn’t know what to do, so she told them the truth. “She’d seen me play a few years back. We talked about the performance. And about music in general.”
“So, Bach, Beethoven, Mozart?” Barlow seemed to be plucking names from thin air. “Chopin? Chacopsky?”
Tchaikovsky, Jane almost corrected, but she caught herself at the last moment because—was it a trick? Had she told another agent something else?
Andrew coughed again. He picked up the cigarette that Jane had left smoldering in the ashtray.
Barlow prompted, “Miss Queller?”
Jane found the tissues and blew her nose. She willed the panic back down.
Stick to the truth, Nick had coached them. Just make sure it’s not the whole truth.
“Well . . .” Jane tried not to rush her words. “We spoke about Edvard Grieg, because he’s Norwegian. A-ha, the pop music group, also Norwegian. Martha Argerich, from Argentina. I’m not sure why she came up, but she did.”
“Did you see Juneau go into the bathroom?” Barlow studied Jane closely as she shook her head. “Were you in the bathroom at any point before the shooting?”
“It was a long conference. I’m sure I was.” Jane was aware that her voice was shaking. Was that a good thing? Did it make her story sound more believable? She looked at Danberry. He’d been circling the room like a shark. Why wasn’t he asking any questions?
Barlow said, “There was tape residue behind one of the toilet tanks. We think the gun was hidden there.”
“Fantastic,” Jasper said. “Then you’ll have fingerprints. Case closed.”
“They wore gloves.” Barlow asked Jane, “So, what we’ve been told is, before the murder, you’d heard about Laura and Robert Juneau. What about Maplecroft?”
“Juneau and Maplecroft in the front parlor,” Nick bellowed, choosing this moment to make his appearance. “Good God, they sound like characters from the Canadian version of Clue. Which one had the candlestick?”
Everyone had turned to look at Nick standing in the entryway. He had somehow managed to take all of the air out of the room. Jane had seen him do this countless times before. He could bring the tone up or down like a deejay turning the knob on a record player.
“Mr. Harp,” Barlow said. “Nice that you can join us.”
“My pleasure.” Nick walked into the room with a self-satisfied grin on his face. Jane kept her eyes on Barlow, who was taking in Nick’s fine features. The agent’s expression was neutral, but she could feel his distaste. Nick’s good looks and charm either worked for him or against him. There was never any in between.
“Now, gentlemen.” Nick put a proprietary arm behind Jane as he wedged himself between Jane and Andrew on the couch. “I’m assuming you’ve already been told that none of us knew either Maplecroft or Juneau before Martin was murdered?” His fingers combed through the back of Jane’s hair. “Poor girl has been broken up about it. I don’t see how anyone could have that many tears inside of them.”
Barlow held Nick’s gaze for just a moment before turning to Andrew, asking, “Why weren’t you and Mr. Harp on the same flight out of San Francisco?”
“Nick left a day ahead of me.” Andrew took out his handkerchief and wiped his nose. “He had business in New York, I believe.”
“What kind of business?”
Andrew looked puzzled, because Barlow wasn’t asking Nick these questions.
“Major Queller.” Barlow made a point of turning his head toward Jasper. “How is it that your family knows Mr. Harp?”
“Nick’s been with us for years.” Jasper’s tone was even, which was surprising because he had never cared for Nick. “We’ve taken him on vacations, spent holidays together. That sort of thing.”
Andrew added, “His family lives on the East Coast. Nick was sort of orphaned out here. Mother and Father welcomed him as one of the family.”
Barlow asked, “He was sent out here at the age of fifteen, wasn’t he?” He waited, but no one spoke. “Got into some trouble with the police back home? Mother shipped him across the country to live with his granny?”
“Nick told us all about it.” Andrew glanced nervously at Nick. “It was a tough road, but he still managed to get into Stanford.”
“Right.” Barlow looked back at his notes. They were doing the silent thing again.
Nick affected indifference. He brushed imaginary lint from his trousers. He gave Jane a quick wink. Only she could feel the tension inside his body. His arm behind her shoulders had gone taut. She could feel his fingers digging into her skin.
Was he mad at her? Should she be defending him? Should she tell the agents that Nick was a good man, that he’d managed to pull himself up from the gutter, that they had no right to treat him this way because he was—
Losing.
Nick didn’t see it now, but he had lost the game the minute he’d walked into the room. He had been making fun of the government agents for days, railing against their stupidity, bragging about his own cleverness. He had not realized that they were just as capable of putting on an act as he was.
Jane took a stuttered breath. She had started to cry again. Nothing was more terrifying than watching him try to punch his way out of a tight spot.
“Mr. Queller.” Barlow looked up at Andrew. “Did Mr. Harp mention to you that he attended one of Dr. Maplecroft’s lectures?”
Andrew shot Jane a frightened look that mirrored her own feelings: What should they say? What did Nick want?
“I can answer that one,” Nick offered. “If you’d like me to?”
“Why not?” Barlow sat back on the couch.
Behind him, Danberry opened and closed another box.
Nick made them wait.
He reached for the cigarette in the ashtray. He inhaled audibly, then blew out a stream of smoke. He tapped off some ash. He lined the cigarette up with the groove in the marble ashtray. He leaned back against the couch. His arm went behind Jane.
Finally, he looked up, pretending to be surprised that they were all waiting on him. “Oh, you want my answer now?”
Danberry crossed his arms.
Jane swallowed back a flood of bile that rushed up her throat.
Nick asked Barlow, “Do you have a record of my attendance at this lecture?”
“According to her assistant, Dr. Maplecroft didn’t believe in keeping attendance.”
“Pity.”
“We’ll be talking to other students this week.”
“That must be quite an undertaking,” Nick said. “How many kids are at Berkeley now? Thirty, forty thousand?”
Barlow gave a heavy sigh. He opened his notebook again. He resumed the game, directing his words toward Andrew. “At the conference, when Mr. Harp approached Laura Juneau, who was at that time posing as Dr. Maplecroft, Mr. Harp mentioned attending one of Dr. Maplecroft’s lectures. The police officer and the girl working the check-in table both heard him say the same thing.”
Andrew said, “I wasn’t there for that part of the conversation, but I’m sure Nick can—”
“Are you aware that Mr. Harp has a drug conviction?”
Nick snapped, “Are you aware that Mr. Queller does?”
“Christ,” Jasper muttered.
“Just making sure they have the facts,” Nick said. “It’s a felony to lie to an FBI agent. Isn’t that correct, Mr. Danberry?”
Danberry kept silent, but Jane could tell he’d picked up on the fact that Nick had not been here when the agents had introduced themselves. Jane could’ve told him that he was likely listening at the top of the stairs. She had learned the hard way that Nick was a stealthy eavesdropper.
Andrew volunteered, “Two years ago, I was convicted for possession of cocaine. I performed community service in exchange for my record being expunged.”
Nick added, “That kind of thing doesn’t stay a secret in times like these, does it?”
Barlow quipped, “It does not.”
Jane tried not to wince as Nick ran his fingers roughly through her hair. He told Barlow, “I met Laura Juneau in the KLM lounge at Schiphol. We were both en route to Oslo. She approached me. She asked if the seat next to me was taken. I said no. She introduced herself as Dr. Alexandra Maplecroft. She said she recognized me from one of her lectures, which could be true, but honestly, gentlemen, I was stoned out of my mind during most of my classes, so I’m hardly a reliable witness.”
“Hardly,” Barlow echoed.
Danberry still said nothing. He’d made it to the Bösendorfer Imperial Concert Grand on the other side of the room. Jane tried not to bristle when he soundlessly glided his fingers over the extra bass keys.
Barlow said, “So, Mr. Harp, as far as you can recall, you met Dr. Maplecroft for the first time at the Amsterdam airport, then you met her for the second time in Oslo?”
“That’s right,” Nick agreed. Jane could have cried with relief when he returned to the script. “In order to be polite, I pretended to recognize the woman whom I thought was Dr. Maplecroft. Then I saw her again at the conference and again pretended in order to be polite.” His shoulder went up in a shrug. “I think the operative word here is ‘pretend,’ gentlemen. She pretended to know me. I pretended to know her. Only one of us had darker intentions.”
Barlow made a mark in his notepad.
Andrew picked up his part. “At the conference, Nick introduced me to the Juneau woman as Dr. Maplecroft. I recognized the name, if not the face. There aren’t many photographs of Maplecroft in circulation, as I’m sure you’ve realized now that you’re searching for her. I believe I said something to the fake Maplecroft about being on Father’s panel. She didn’t have a badge, so I asked if there was a problem with the check-in.” He shrugged the exact same way that Nick had shrugged. “That was the extent of my interaction with the woman. The next time I saw her, she was murdering my father.”
Jane flinched. She couldn’t help it.
Barlow said, “That’s a very tidy explanation.”
Nick said, “Most explanations are. The ones that are complicated are the ones I’d look out for.” He smoothed out the leg of his trousers. “But you know, gentlemen, it seems to me that I’ve already told this to your compatriots. We all have, endlessly. So, I think I’ll make my exit.”
Neither agent moved to stop him.
Nick hesitated only slightly before he kissed Jane on the mouth, then crossed the room in long strides. Jane felt her heart drop when he took a left instead of a right. He wasn’t going upstairs to wait for her.
He was leaving.
The front door opened and closed. She felt the sound reverberate like a knife to her heart. She had to part her lips again to take in breath. She was torn between relief to have him gone and fear that she would never see him again.
“I’m sorry Nick is such an ass,” Jasper told Barlow. “But he does have a point. We can’t keep doing this. The answers are not going to change.”
Barlow said, “This is an active investigation. The people who orchestrated the Oslo assassination still have Dr. Maplecroft.”
“Which is a tragedy,” Jasper said. “However, there’s nothing my family can do about it.”
Barlow said, “The ransom note for Dr. Maplecroft asked for an admission of guilt from your father’s company. They blame him for Robert Juneau’s murderous spree.”
“It’s the family’s company.” Jasper had been sensitive about this since taking over last year. “The kidnappers also asked for one million dollars, which is preposterous. We can’t take responsibility for the actions of a madman. Do you know how many homes Queller Healthcare runs? Just in the Bay Area?”
“Fifteen,” Andrew answered, but only Jane heard him.
Barlow said, “The kidnappers are calling themselves the Army of the Changing World. You’ve never heard of them?”
Both Jane and Andrew shook their heads.
Across the room, Danberry closed the fallboard on the piano.
Jane felt her heart lurch. The ivory would yellow without sunlight.
Jasper picked up on her distress. He asked her, “Shouldn’t that be up?”
She shook her head. Nick would tell her to let the keys yellow. To skip practice. To stop pushing herself so hard. Martin could not punish her from the grave.
“Major Queller?” Barlow was waiting. “Have you heard of the Army of the—”
“Of course not.” Jasper edged close to losing his cool, but brought himself back quickly. “I don’t have to tell you how damaging those lies are to the company. We were meant to go public this week. We’ve got some very powerful investors who are getting very antsy about this mess. The charges the kidnappers made are ludicrous. We don’t torture sick people, for Chrissakes. This isn’t Soviet Russia.”
Danberry tried, “Major Queller—”
“My father was a good man,” Jasper insisted. “He made some controversial statements, I’ll admit, but he always had the good of the family, the good of the country, in his mind. He was a patriot. His mission in life was to serve others, and that’s what got him killed.”
“No one here is disagreeing with that.”
“Look.” Jasper moderated his tone. “Laura Juneau obviously had a screw loose. We may never know why she—”
“The why is pretty clear.” Andrew spoke quietly, but they were all listening. “Robert Juneau was kicked out of half a dozen Queller group homes. He should’ve been hospitalized, but there was no hospital to go to. You can say the system failed him, but we’re the system, Jasper. Queller is the system. Ergo—”
“Ergo, shut the hell up, Andy.” He glared at Andrew, fire in his eyes. “The company could be ruined by this idiotic bullshit. The investors could pull out completely. Do you understand that?”
“I need some air.” Jane stood up. Andrew and Barlow did the same. She felt dizzy. Her stomach flipped. She had to look down at the floor as she walked away. Her boots might as well have been crossing a spinning wheel. She wanted to go to the bathroom and throw up or cry or just sit there, alone, and try to figure out what was happening.
Where had Nick gone?
Was he mad at Jane? Had she made a mistake? Had she been silent when Nick wanted her to defend him? Would he be angry? Would he shut her out again?
Jane couldn’t be shut out again. She couldn’t take it. Not now.
Not when she was carrying his child.
Instead of going into the bathroom or stopping in the kitchen to leave a desperate message on Nick’s answering machine, she walked to the back of the house and went outside.
She stood on the patio with her eyes closed and tried to breathe. The fresh air made her feel like the band around her chest was loosening. She looked up at the cloudy sky. She could see a tiny sliver of sun behind the Golden Gate Bridge. Morning fog still laced the Marin Headlands. There was a chill in the air, but Jane didn’t want to go back inside for her sweater.
She saw signs on the wrought iron table that her mother had been here: Annette’s lipstick-stained teacup, a full ashtray, the newspaper held down by a cut glass paperweight.
Jane’s eyes scanned the front page of the Chronicle, though she knew the ransom letter by heart. Nick had bragged about its cleverness, even as Jane worried that it made them sound like evil super villains in a cartoon—
This is a direct communication from the Army of the Changing World. We have kidnapped Dr. Alexandra Maplecroft, a tool of the fascist regime, a pawn in the dangerous game played by Martin Queller and his so-called healthcare company. We demand an apology for the part that Martin Queller played in the genocide of the Juneau family and other families across the greater California area. Queller Healthcare must be stopped. They have systematically exploited, tortured and beaten patients in their institutions. More lives will be lost if—
“Nice digs.”
Jane startled.
“Sorry.” Agent Danberry was standing in the doorway. He had an unlit cigarette in his mouth. He stared at the view with open admiration. “My apartment, I can see the alley I share with my neighbor. If I open the window, I get to smell the puke from the junkies sleeping it off.”
Jane didn’t know what to say. Her heart was hammering so hard that she was sure he could see it moving beneath her blouse.
“They closed it a few years ago,” he said. “The bridge. Wind gusts.” He took the cigarette out of his mouth. “That piano in there—probably could pay off my car, right?”
The Bösendorfer could likely buy him fifty new cars, but he wasn’t here to talk about pianos.
“What’re the extra keys for?” He waited.
And waited.
Jane wiped her eyes. She couldn’t just stand here crying. She had to say something—anything—about the bridge, the fog, the view, but her mind was so filled with panic that even the most innocuous observation could not make its way to her mouth.
Danberry nodded, as if this was expected. He lit his cigarette. He stared past the trees at the bridge. The distant bray of foghorns floated up from the rocks.
Jane looked up at the bridge, too. She thought of the first time she’d stood with Nick in the backyard to watch the fog roll in. It wasn’t until that moment that Jane had realized that she’d taken the view for granted. Only Nick had understood how lucky they were.
Danberry said, “I saw you play once.”
Jane knew what he was doing—trying to steer her to something familiar, to make her comfortable.
“My wife dragged me to a club on Vallejo. Keystone Korner. This was a long time ago. They’ve moved across the Bay, I heard.” He pulled out a chair for Jane. She had no choice but to sit. He said, “I know this is hard for you.”
Jane wiped her eyes with her fingers. The skin felt burned by her tears.
He took a seat without being asked. “What were you doing in Germany?”
Jane knew the answer to the question, at least the one she was supposed to give.
“Miss Queller?”
She forced out the word, “Working.” Her voice was barely more than a whisper. She had to pull herself together. They had practiced this. It was just like a performance. All the notes were in her head. She just had to coax them out with her fingers.
She rubbed her throat to relax the muscles. She said, “It was meant to be temporary. I was filling in for a friend in Berlin as a session pianist.”
“West Berlin, I hope.”
He smiled, so Jane smiled.
He told her, “I know what you’re thinking: we know what you did over there. We know where you lived. We know where you worked, where you ate lunch, that you went to the East sometimes. We also know your flight to Oslo was out of East Berlin, which isn’t unusual over there, right? The fares are cheaper.” He looked back at the house. “Not that you need to save money, but who can pass up a bargain?”
Jane felt the panic start to return. Did he really know everything, or was this a trick?
He asked, “How was East Germany?”
She tried to see past his question. Did they think she was a communist? A spy?
He said, “I hear everybody watches you. Like, what you’re doing, who you’re talking to, what you’re saying.” He tapped his cigarette into the overfull ashtray. “Kind of like me right now, huh?”
He smiled again, so Jane smiled again.
Danberry asked, “They let them listen to music over there?”
Jane chewed her lip. She heard Nick’s voice in her head: If they try to make you comfortable, let them think they’re making you comfortable.
Danberry said, “A little Springsteen, maybe some Michael Jackson?”
She pushed out the well-rehearsed words, “Popular music is frowned upon, but it’s not completely verboten.”
“Music is freedom, right?”
Jane shook her head. There was no script for this.
“It’s like—” He held out his hands, fingers splayed. “It moves people. Inspires them. Makes them wanna dance or grab a gal and have a good time. It’s got power.”
Jane felt herself nodding, because that was exactly how she’d felt watching the impromptu concerts the students had put on in Treptow Park. She’d wanted desperately to tell Nick about them, but she had to be careful about Germany because she didn’t want him to feel left out.
Danberry asked, “You political?”
She shook her head. She had to play the game.
They’ll know you’ve never voted.
She told the agent, “I’ve never even voted.”
“You do a lot of volunteering, though. Soup kitchens. Homeless shelters. Even that AIDS ward they set up over at UCSF. Not afraid you’ll catch it?”
Jane watched him smoke his cigarette.
He said, “Rock Hudson shocked the hell out of me. Never would’ve thought he was one of them.” He stared up at the Golden Gate, asking, “Was your dad playing matchmaker?”
Don’t answer the question if you don’t understand it.
Danberry explained, “You went away to Germany for three months. Your boyfriend stayed here catting around with your brother.” He glanced at her, then looked back at the bridge. “Ellis-Anne MacMillan said the break-up with Andrew was very unexpected. But they usually are.”
Don’t let them surprise you into reacting.
He asked, “So, the old man flies Mr. Harp to Norway for what? To get you two kids back together?”
Just give them the facts. Don’t over-explain.
She told him, “Nick and I were never apart. I was in Berlin for a job. He had to stay here for work.” Jane knew she should stop talking, but she could not. “Father gave him the job at Queller. He probably wanted Nick in Oslo for himself. The panel with Maplecroft was a big deal. Nick’s very charming, very easy to be around. People have always liked him. They’re drawn to him. Father was no exception. He wanted to help Nick up the ladder.”
“Guys like that always fall up.”
Jane chewed the tip of her tongue. She had to look away so that he did not catch the anger in her eyes. She had never been able to abide anyone running down Nick. He’d suffered so much as a child. People like Danberry would never understand that.
“He’s got charisma, right?” Danberry put out the cigarette on the bottom of his shoe and tossed the butt into the ashtray. “The pretty face. The quick wit. The cool clothes. But it’s more than that, right? He’s got that thing some guys have. Makes you want to listen to them. Follow them.”
The wind picked up, rustling the edges of the Chronicle. Jane folded the paper closed. She saw the garish headline: $1,000,000 RANSOM OR PROF DIES!
A ridiculous headline for a ridiculous manifesto. Nick had made them all sound unhinged.
Danberry said, “‘Death to the fascist insect that preys on the life of the people.’”
Jane didn’t recognize the line from the ransom note. She pretended to skim the paper.
Danberry said, “It’s not in there. I was talking about the Patty Hearst kidnapping. That’s how the Symbionese Liberation Army signed all of their screeds—‘Death to the fascist insect that preys on the life of the people.’” He studied her face. “Your family has another house near the Hearsts, right? Up in Hillsborough?”
“I was a kid when it happened.”
His laugh said that he thought she still was a kid. “Carter couldn’t free the hostages, but he got Patty Hearst out of lock-up.”
“I told you I don’t follow politics.”
“Not even in college?” He said, “My old man told me everybody’s a socialist until they start paying taxes.”
She mirrored his smile again.
“Do you know where the word ‘symbionese’ comes from?”
Jane waited.
“The SLA’s leader, Donald DeFreeze—the jackass didn’t know the word ‘symbiotic,’ so he made up the word ‘symbionese.’” Danberry leaned back in the chair, crossed his ankle over his knee. “The newspapers called them terrorists, and they committed acts of terror, but all terror cells are basically cults, and all cults usually have one guy at the center who’s driving the bus. Your Manson or your Jim Jones or your Reverend Moon.”
They’ll seem almost nonchalant the closer they get to the point.
“DeFreeze was a black fella, an escaped con doing five-to-life for rolling a hooker, and like a lot of cons, he had a lot of charisma, and the kids who followed him—all of them white, middle class, most of them in college—well, they weren’t stupid. They were worse. They were true believers. They felt sorry for him because he was this poor black guy in prison and they were spoiled white kids with everything, and they really believed all the shit that came out of his mouth about fascist insects and everybody living together all Kumbaya. Like I said, he had that thing. Charisma.”
Pay attention to the words they repeat because that’s the point of the story.
Danberry said, “He had everybody in his circle convinced he was smarter than he actually was. More clever than he was. Fact is, he was just another con man running another cult so he could bed the pretty girls and play God with all the boys. He knew when people were pulling away. He knew how to bring them back on side.” Danberry looked at the bridge. His shoulders were relaxed. “They were like yo-yos he could snap back with a flick of his wrist.”
Make eye contact. Don’t look nervous.
“So, anyway.” Danberry clasped his hands together and rested them on his stomach. “What happened was, most of the kids following him ended up shot in the head or burned to death. And I have to tell you, that’s not uncommon. These anarchist groups think they’re doing the right thing, right up until they end up in prison or flat on their backs in the morgue.”
Jane wiped her eyes. She could see everything he was doing, but felt helpless to stop him.
What would Nick do? How would he throw it back in Danberry’s face?
“Miss Queller,” Danberry said, then, “Jinx.” He leaned forward, his knees almost touching her leg.
They’ll get in your space to try to intimidate you.
He said, “Look, I’m on your side here. But your boyfriend—”
“Have you ever seen someone shot in the head?” The stunned look on his face told Jane she’d found the right mark. Like Nick, she let herself draw power from his mistake. “You were so cavalier when you said those kids ended up getting shot in the head. I’m just wondering if you know what that looks like.”
“I didn’t—” He reeled back. “What I meant—”
“There’s a hole, a black hole no larger than the size of a dime, right here”—she pointed to her own temple where Martin Queller was shot—“and on the opposite side, where the bullet exits, you see this bloody pulp, and you realize that everything that makes up that person, everything that makes them so who they are, is splattered onto the floor. Something a janitor will mop up and toss down the drain. Gone. Forever.”
“I—” His mouth opened and closed. “I’m sorry, Miss Queller. I didn’t—”
Jane stood. She went back into the house and slammed the door behind her. She used her hand to wipe her nose as she walked down the hallway. She couldn’t keep up this façade much longer. She had to get out of here. To find Nick. To tell him what was going on.
Her purse was on the sideboard. Jane rummaged for her keys, and then she realized that Nick had taken them.
Where had he gone?
“Jinx?” Jasper was still in the parlor. He was sitting on the couch beside Andrew. They both had drinks in their hands. Even Agent Barlow, standing by the fireplace, had a glass of whisky.
“What is it?” Jasper stood up when she entered the room.
“Are you okay?” Andrew was standing, too. They both looked alarmed, almost angry. Neither one of them had ever been able to abide seeing her upset.
“I’m all right,” she patted her hands in the air to calm them. “Please, could I just have someone’s keys?”
“Take mine.” Jasper gave Andrew his keys. “Andy, you drive her. She’s in no condition.”
Jane tried, “I’m not—”
“Where do you want to go?” Andrew was already heading to the closet for their jackets.
Jasper had his hand in his pocket. “Do you need some money?”
“No.” Jane didn’t have the strength to fight both of her brothers. “I need to find—” She was aware that Barlow was listening. “Air. I need some air.”
Barlow asked, “Not enough of it in the backyard?”
Jane turned away from him. She did not wait for Andrew. She grabbed her purse off the table. She walked out the front door, down the front steps. Jasper’s Porsche was parked beside the garage.
“I’ve got it.” Andrew had jogged to catch up with her. He reached down to open the door.
“Andy—” Jane grabbed his arm. Her knees felt weak. She could barely stand.
“It’s okay,” he said, trying to help her into the car. “Just play it cool.”
“No,” she said. “You don’t understand. They know.”