Shaw said a brief hello to Penelope when she woke in her room at Holliday House, initially groggy from the sleep and her medications.
“How’s the foundation? Crossroads?” Penelope managed to say after a sip of water. Her elfin frame was bundled in blankets, with only her thin face and a fall of light brown hair streaked with gray above the folds. But her eyes were bright and clear after a night’s rest.
“The therapists you found are great,” said Shaw. “We’re in the money-gathering stage now.”
“That stage never ends. You let me know if there’s something I can do. I should be going home from here within the week.”
Addy prepped a few things for the daytime staff and kissed Penelope on the cheek before they left. Shaw drove Addy home in her battered Subaru.
“Did Penelope mean she was going home because she’s on the mend or because there’s nothing more they can do for her?” he asked as they waited at a stoplight.
Addy sighed. “The former, happy to say. But it’s all fits and starts. We don’t expect the girl has much more than a year, even with the best prognosis.” Addy frequently referred to her friends as girls, even though, like Penelope, most had seen their seventieth birthday pass some time ago.
“It’s amazing that she wants to work.”
“Well, of course she does. Nothing keeps the spirit up like feeling wanted. Useful.”
Cyndra was asleep on the living-room sofa when they arrived, the massive white bulk of Stanley lying on the floor next to her like an ice floe. He raised his head and his tail thumped heavily on the rug, but he stayed put.
“Kept you up all night, did she?” Addy said, sitting on her ottoman to scratch Stanley’s taco-size ears. “Poor boy.”
Shaw tapped Cyndra’s shoulder until the girl sat up, blinking. He found some running pants on the shelf reserved for his things in the linen closet, changed out of his ragged trousers and threw them in the trash, went to the kitchen to make coffee, and returned to the living room to find Cyn still in the same position, staring blankly at the curtains. He sat on the floor by Stanley and stretched his legs, trying to get some blood moving. He could tell that his knee wasn’t seriously hurt, but it would be a few days before he’d feel up to throwing any roundhouse kicks. Cyndra stood up with the blanket and disappeared into her room without a word.
Addy glanced at him. “So were you going to tell me what happened this morning?”
“I’m not sure myself. I was attacked. I got away.”
“That’s all?”
“The abridged version, yeah.” Addy could handle hearing about the violence, but Shaw had decided he was too wiped to argue with her about involving the cops. “I got offered a job.”
“While you were being assaulted?”
“Before that. It’s good pay—very good pay—and all the perks. It would also mean a lot of travel. Starting immediately. Today.”
“On a Sunday. They must really want you. This is legitimate work?”
“Yes. Or technically legit. The offer might be a kind of payoff. The company’s trying to make some sort of big merger. I know a lot about it. As an employee I’d be beholden to keep my mouth shut, at least until the deal was finalized.”
“Protecting a company’s secrets is pretty normal fare. What’s the catch?”
“Somebody died while I was on the island. And a corporate secret might have been stolen. It’s all very warped, and I know I’m not getting the whole truth.”
“Yet with all that you’re undecided.”
“Crossroads could use the money. So could we, for that matter.”
Addy waved a hand. “The house is paid for. The child has food. We’re fine.”
“Maybe it’s me.” Shaw smiled. “I’d have to grow up.”
“Ask them for more time to think about it. Maybe their reaction will tell you something.”
He nodded. “They wanted an answer before noon. I’ll do it now.”
His call went to Linda Edgemont’s voice mail. Shaw explained that he needed another day to weigh the offer and to set his things in order to be out of town, and that he appreciated the consideration. The business-speak didn’t feel natural, coming out of his mouth. He hung up unsure if he’d sounded like he was mocking them. Maybe he had been, unconsciously.
Addy readied herself for bed while Shaw used the living-room computer to search for mentions of Karla Lokosh. She had a LinkedIn listing, noting her time at Bridgetrust and previously at a company called Atwater Marketing. Both were finance jobs. She’d been promoted twice during her five years with Bridgetrust.
She had social-media accounts, too, none of which showed many posts beyond intermittent individual photos of her on skiing trips to Colorado and Utah and some snapshots of restaurant meals. That wasn’t odd in itself. He imagined that investment firms were conservative by nature. Posting selfies during wild nights out or leaving photos from past relationships wouldn’t do Karla’s career any good.
He tried searching for Karla Haiden. There were other women on the eastern side of the nation with that name; none of the top results was the redhead he knew. He refined the search by trying “finance” without success, and then “dance.” Karla had said she taught classes; she might be listed on the faculty of some studio.
One result on the second page caught his eye, from Berklee College. In Boston. He clicked on it.
It was an archived photograph from the school’s performance season of twelve years before. A troupe of fifteen or sixteen dancers, caught in motion. Radiating out from center stage, leaning back with an angle and length that would be impossible for the average human. The show was called Lonesome Heart: Beats. Each of the dancers wore black long-sleeved leotards and capri dance pants in metallic gold and black stripes. All their hair had been pulled back and ruthlessly tamed into buns.
The performers’ names were listed along with the director and key technical crew in a tightly spaced paragraph below the picture. Shaw found hers squeezed into the lines below: Karla Haiden, 3rd year.
The picture was sharp but taken from a distance. He examined the photo again, trying to discern the faces of the dancers who were white and female. Their figures were too much alike, given the naturally lithe people who would pursue dancing into adulthood and the years of hard training that had refined their bodies in similar ways.
He found her on stage left. Leaning back like the others, right arm thrown high and balanced on her left leg. Her hair had been a darker red then. She was turned partly away from the camera. But it was her. Shaw was sure. He could almost smell the clove scent of her hair.
It didn’t tell him any more than he’d already guessed. She had been born Karla Haiden, changed her name to her husband’s, most likely, and kept it after the divorce.
And if her online presence was as carefully trimmed as a topiary animal, so what? There were good and rational reasons for a woman to have little to no online presence. Privacy. Security. Professionalism.
None of that eased his mind.
At any other time, he’d have let the lack of information go. But after Karla’s subtle nudge about the value of the missing chemical sample and the attack on him this morning, Shaw’s antennae were quivering.
Addy returned to the living room to say good night, or good morning.
“I’d like you to do me a favor,” he said.
“From your tone I can tell I may not enjoy it.”
“It’s easy. But it’s also a little . . . creepy. You told me once that some of the jobs Penelope had filled were government posts with security clearances. Deep background checks and things like that.”
“Yes.”
“I want a profile on someone. They might have changed names one or more times. They might even have covered their tracks to make a search hard for the average person.”
“What’s her name?”
“How’d you know it’s a woman?”
“You said it was creepy. You wouldn’t think twice about this for a man.”
“The name I know her by is Karla Lokosh. It used to be Karla Haiden.” He spelled the names for Addy. “She went to Berklee College in Boston. She supposedly works for an investment firm called Bridgetrust Group. That’s the sum total of the verifiable facts.”
“Do you know her personally?”
“How’d you guess?”
“I’d take more credit, but you are an open book.”
“If this isn’t something you want to do—”
Addy scoffed. “Part of the reason you’re easy for me to read is that I know you well. You’re not asking me to help you stalk the woman. There must be some impetus beyond your sex drive. Is she in trouble?”
“More like she is trouble. The short version is that she may have a connection to the men who made a run at me this morning. Or maybe not. I need to know.”
“Whether she can be trusted. I see. Sounds urgent. I’ll tell Penny later today.”
“Thanks, Addy.”
“All part of the service.” She headed off to the bedroom. In another moment Shaw heard her pulling the blackout curtains closed. He’d hung those when Addy had started subbing the night shift at Holliday House.
He went to the kitchen and fried some sausages and rolled them in buttered toast. Stanley had been paying attention since the meat had touched the cold pan. The dog found the strength to get up from the rug and lumber out to join him on the front porch. Shaw sat in one of the Adirondack chairs and ate the food with a liter bottle of water. He tossed bits of an extra sausage to Stanley. When they were done, he set the plate down for the dog to lick and resumed stretching his back and legs. His shoulder ached where the guy built like a fireplug had twisted it. He figured the bastard’s nose was in worse shape. That was a satisfying thought.
As he stretched his quads, his subconscious nudged him about something.
Nelson Bao had worked at the company called Avizda until at least February, according to his pay stubs. The date stamp on the chemical sample Shaw had found in Bao’s apartment had been from January. Could the sample be from Avizda instead of Jiangsu Manufacturing?
He returned to the computer to look up Avizda. It wasn’t difficult to find. The company looked to be a close competitor of DuPont and other industrial conglomerates. Based in Dallas, as Shaw had seen on Bao’s pay stubs.
It was a leap to guess that the sample might be from the Dallas company. Chen and Zhang could have brought it from China. Hell, the label on it might mean nothing. The vial could have been reused a dozen times since the label had been printed. But all the secrecy and what Karla had told him about Chen’s purported innovation made Shaw wonder if there was another wrinkle to the corporate deal.
He texted Professor Mills, asking her to call when convenient. The phone rang within a minute.
“Hello, Professor,” he said. “Thanks.”
“No problem, I was just starting the day.”
“I have a question. Or a guess. You know the company Avizda?”
“Everybody does in my world,” said Mills.
“Do you know if they’ve had any thefts of their research in the last few months?”
She made a sound of surprise. “Nothing they’ve shared publicly. That would be industry news. Why?”
“It’s conjecture. But I came across a chemical sample like we were talking about.” He described the vial and label and contents to her. “It was in the hands of a former Avizda employee. I wondered if it might be stolen. And why.”
“It does sound like something out of a QC lab. A five-milliliter vial, probably one of a batch of other samples that would be tested during the same shift. The first number, 146, would be the lab’s room number, the rest being the batch number and the date and the initials of the chemist who created the sample.”
“All the . . . activity around the sample makes me think it could be worth a lot. Worth stealing, maybe straight from Avizda’s Room 146.”
Mills paused for a moment. “You said the vial was only about a third full. That’s a tiny sample on its own. Could be they’ve already done their testing and used up most of the vial.”
Shaw considered it. Could Morton and Bao have completed their work on the island before Bao had died?
“I know some employees at Avizda,” the professor said. “And even more people who have friends and relatives there. You’d be surprised how interwoven the scientific-research community can be. People gossip. I’ll ask around and see if anyone knows whether they’ve had trouble.”
“Thanks. Again. This might be nothing.”
“Or it could be industrial espionage. I’m intrigued by all the mystery.”
She hung up.
Espionage. The word made Shaw think of Zhang’s hidden passports and Bao’s multiple names.
Bao’s—and Karla’s.
“Karla,” said Cyn, coming around the hall corner. Maybe reading Shaw’s thoughts.
“Yeah?” he said.
“Who is she?”
Shaw looked at her. “Big ears you have.”
“I wasn’t listening. It’s a small house. Who is she?”
“A friend.”
“A girlfriend?”
“We could go round and round like this all morning, Cyn. What do you want to know?”
“Why are you going out with her?”
“Same reason you have a dozen video calls going every day with your friends. I like her. I want to spend time with her.”
“You don’t even trust her.”
“Different question. Maybe a different answer.”
“Well, it sucks,” Cyndra said. Her feet planted as if straining to grow roots.
“Which part?”
“It’s a shitty thing to do to Wren.”
Shaw leaned back and folded his arms. “That’s between me and Wren, kid.”
“You owe her more.”
“And neither of us owes you an explanation. Not if you’re gonna plant a flag on the moral high ground before you know what the hell you’re talking about.”
Cyn turned and walked into her room and slammed the door.
Shaw let out a breath. Stanley stared at him from his place on the rug.
“That sure could’ve fucking well gone better,” he murmured to the dog.
Stanley, maybe reluctant to take sides, laid his huge head on his front paws and sighed heavily.