“WHERE THE hell are we?” Ingrid asked as the midnight street lamps of suburbia passed them by. On the drive from Montclair, taking the long but less conspicuous route through Lancaster, they’d stopped at a gas station, where Ingrid fed and burped Clare, and by now the baby was dozing in her lap again, barely visible under folds of blanket.
“Waldorf, Maryland,” Rachel said, driving slowly and watching for parked cars.
“How can you tell?” Ingrid groaned.
By now Rachel had grown to appreciate Ingrid’s cynicism, cultivated by months on the run. Bitterness had been given enough time to take root and grow so wild that it had turned on itself, morphing into ironic humor.
“We should be able to stay here a few days,” Rachel said as they passed number 6301, the mud-colored bi-level with the pristine front yard lit up by in-ground lighting. But she didn’t stop. She kept driving and watched for cars parked on the street, or vans in driveways—any signs that the house was under surveillance. It was doubtful—the Bureau was quite familiar with the nasty details of her past, and knew how she avoided it—but you only had to be wrong once for everything to fall apart.
She made a U-turn as Ingrid looked down at Clare and said, “Friends?”
“Maybe.”
They parked in front of a house three down from 6301, and Rachel told Ingrid to get into the driver’s seat and wait. On the off chance that she’d miscalculated, Ingrid would know pretty quickly—the sudden appearance of flashlights and men, or even gunfire. In that case, she should floor it and disappear into the country again. Possibly even make her way south to Florida, to Bill and Gina.
Rachel walked along the sidewalk as sprinklers in neighboring yards misted the air. The place made her think of David Lynch movies. Immaculate shrubs, barbeque parties, children’s soccer and slumber parties all serving as cover for the perversions and brutality that bubble just beneath the surface.
Or maybe she was just thinking of 6301.
She reached the front door and hesitated. Looked back at Ingrid’s silhouette in the car. She pressed the doorbell and heard it ring faintly from inside, and then footsteps. A pause at the eyehole. Then the door opened and the ever-beautiful Mackenzie stood there, radiant and irreproachable in a plush white robe.
“Rachel,” she said, surprised. Not pleased.
“Hi, Mackenzie. Is Gregg in?”
She opened her mouth, then closed it. “It’s pretty late, Rachel.”
“Sorry. But it’s kind of important.”
They’d spoken for long enough that Gregg had pried himself from his glass of wine, or whatever late-night sitcom they religiously watched in the suburbs these days, and he approached from behind his wife, placing his big, hard hands on her slender shoulders. He’d aged, but she could tell from the tendons behind his thumbs that age hadn’t weakened him. “Rachel. What’s up?”
She tried not to show any of the weakness that had defined their relationship for so long. “A huge favor. From you both. I’ve got a woman with a baby who needs to stay somewhere safe for a few days.”
“And you thought of us?” Gregg asked, perhaps irritated, perhaps surprised, perhaps gearing up for a fight.
Mackenzie, though, softened at the mention of a baby. “Who is this woman?”
“A mother who needs protection.”
“From whom?” Gregg asked.
Rachel had considered cover stories—the Mob, foreign agents, the press—but she wasn’t dealing with neophytes. Gregg’s lobbying work had brought him in contact with all levels of the federal government, and Mackenzie’s background was international business law, though she was taking some time off. “By not telling you,” she said, “I’m protecting you.”
They both understood what that meant, and it visibly disturbed Gregg. He took a step back, deeper into the shadows. To Rachel, Mackenzie said, “She needs our help?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, then,” she said, then turned back to Gregg. “Right?”
Gregg shrugged. “Sure. Of course.”
Rachel liked that, seeing the perfect wife putting Gregg Wills in his place. Maybe the brute she’d known had only needed the right kind of tamer.