Thyme Painter was giving a briefing to a room of forty-six uniformed and plainclothes Charlottesville cops, midway in the 277 miles between Baltimore and Roanoke. Her cell phone rang, and it was a call she had to take—Detective Inspector Toby Rice from the London Metropolitan Police. “Excuse me for one moment.” She listened to the call, glanced with a look of excitement at Kopański, and said to Rice, “Excellent work, Detective.”
When she ended the call, all eyes in the room were on her.
She said, “Ladies and gentlemen, by chance, we’ve had a breakthrough. A man in Scotland called the British police because he was concerned about the whereabouts of his English wife. In tandem, NYPD forensics reached out to the UK with details of the Waldorf victim’s DNA. London’s Met Police compared the DNA of our victim with the DNA of the missing wife.” She smiled. “We have a match.” Her smile vanished. “But this takes the situation to a whole new level. The victim is Sarah Goldsmith. In the next hour, I will be revealing her details to the media and asking members of the public to come forward if they have any information about her that might relate to her death. It appears she was lured to New York on the false pretext that she was being interviewed for a job. That fraud may or not be related to her death. We will be investigating it. More important, her identity, the fact that she was murdered in Cochrane’s room, and the fact that he fled mean we’re damn sure Cochrane is guilty of her murder.”
Everyone else in the room was silent.
“Sarah Goldsmith is Will Cochrane’s sister.”
The diner in Roanoke was one of the twins’ favorite places to eat out because it served burgers as big as their heads and offered second helpings of fries and soft drinks for free. This evening, Billy was alone with his aunt Faye, too nervous to eat because he knew they were about to have a grown-up discussion. He thought it would make his tummy churn again. And he knew that the conversation would be about Uncle Will.
Faye watched him stab at his fries but not lift them to his mouth. “Billy, Uncle Will’s done something very bad.”
“Killed someone,” muttered Billy.
“Yes. Well, maybe not. We don’t know, but we do know the police are trying to catch him so they can ask him what happened.”
“Why doesn’t he just go to the police and tell them he didn’t do it?”
Faye’s eyes moistened. “Maybe because if he does that, they’ll arrest him and put him in prison for a very long time.”
“Not if he’s innocent.”
“And if he’s guilty?” Faye hated saying the words, though she knew that right now Robert and Celia would be having the exact same conversation with Tom. They’d agreed that in order to give the twins certainty about their immediate future, they had to use unambiguous language and not supply false hope. But talking this way still made Faye feel terrible. “When people run away from a dead body and don’t contact the police, it usually means they’re guilty of killing the person.”
Billy dropped his fork, tears running down his face. “He could be scared. That’s why he ran.”
“A man like Uncle Will doesn’t get scared easily.”
The ten-year-old blurted, “I wasn’t scared on the valley swing we made. Then one day I was and couldn’t go on it. I don’t know why. Uncle Will just got . . . just got suddenly scared.”
Faye placed her hand on his. “It’s possible, but the police think he murdered a woman. They want to arrest him. He can’t be your father if he’s a wanted man.”
“Wanted?”
“If the police want to catch him and put him in prison.”
“But . . . but . . . he bought us a new home, close to our school. He got a job in the school so he could always be close to us. Tom and me were going to teach him how to open a Microsoft account so he could . . . could . . .” His face turned red as his sobbing intensified. “Who’s going to look after us?”
Faye rubbed his hand. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about this evening. Uncle Robert and Aunt Celia and I have spoken about this. We will continue to look after you, though I will be your parent. Even if it’s just temporary because it turns out Uncle Will is innocent.”
“But you couldn’t look after us before. You kept crying.”
“I’m better now. At least . . .” She paused to be sure of what she was about to say. “The most important thing is that you and Tom know that life will continue as normal. You’ll keep going to school, have your own rooms, play in the garden, life as normal. And I’ll stay in the house until . . . until we know what’s happening with Uncle Will.”
Viktor Zhukov, six other men, and one woman were standing by three vehicles on the side of a dark, deserted Virginia country road.
The males in the team comprised ex-military and technical experts, the female a doctor who’d had her license revoked. Zhukov didn’t know any of them, but that didn’t matter because Edward Carley did. All that mattered to the Russian was that the others did what they’d been told to do this evening, with clockwork precision. If any of them deviated from that task, he wouldn’t hesitate to kill them.
Zhukov and his team had covertly watched the house for two days. However, the plan of action was not his. After Zhukov had relayed surveillance updates to him, Edward Carley had told him exactly what to do.
“Two of the family are away this evening. That doesn’t matter. But if they return while I’m there, I will deal with them. First I need to take care of the car.” Zhukov looked at each person in turn. “Give me five minutes. Once that’s done, I will call. Move very fast then. And make no mistakes.”
He left his vehicle and walked alongside the road, away from the group.
Tom had been sent to bed, emotionally and mentally exhausted, pulling the drawstring on the back of his teddy so that the hidden device inside could activate its ten-minute sound recording operation. But he had no words to record, and just let the thing listen to empty air.
At the downstairs kitchen table, Robert and Celia were grasping undrunk mugs of coffee. Robert wanted to be angry about the situation. He wanted to be able to channel that anger into energy and leadership, but all that remained in him was a feeling that they had somehow let the twins down, giving them false hope by agreeing that Will could adopt them. He wished he could turn the clock back and say to Will, “No. You can’t father the boys. You’re not suitable because one day you’re going to murder a woman.”
Celia could sense her husband’s mood, though her thoughts were different. She recalled the way Will had spoken to them about his plans for the twins’ future. She’d sensed no malice in him. Nothing but a genuine desire to give the boys a stable, healthy, and loving future. He’d seemed like a good man; one who was carrying demons, for sure, but not someone who could do something as catastrophic as this. Perhaps her judgment was becoming more flawed with age; perhaps Will Cochrane had hidden his dark side from her.
“Can Faye find the strength?” she asked her husband in a voice that sounded as unreal as the thoughts in her head.
“With us by her side, I think she can.” Robert wasn’t looking at her or anything in particular. The normally in-control man now felt like a fish out of water.
Celia went to him and put her arms around him. “None of this is our fault. We have and will continue to look after the boys. And when we were real parents, we raised two fine daughters.”
“We were younger then and knew what we were doing. Things change.”
“You’re being too hard on us.”
Robert looked at his wife. “Faye has to be strong enough. I can’t have the boys going into foster care.”
“It will never come to that. Our daughters would step in if—”
“They’re up to their necks in their own kids, and mortgages, and every other responsibility under the sun. Their hearts would be in the right place, but no way do they have the resources to take on more responsibilities.”
Robert was right. Short of Will being miraculously found innocent, Faye and the Granges were the twins’ only hope.
Robert glanced at his watch. “Faye and Billy will be home any time now.”
The detective who was taking the night shift entered the room. “My colleague’s going to bed, though he’ll be up in a second if there’s need. I don’t want to disturb you folks, so is there a room I can use tonight?”
Celia answered, “You can use the living room. In fact, most downstairs rooms. Robert and I will just be using this room until bedtime.”
“Okay, ma’am. I’ll leave you alone in here. I might also be taking some walks around the property, checking perimeters. And I’ll have constant lines of communication with the squad car at the bottom of your lane. If Will Cochrane is out there, we will find him.”