“Let’s make it my place,” she said. “I don’t want to be the first person to turn on your oven. Does it even work?”
“I’m not sure. Let me go home and get changed and take a shower. Or a sponge bath.”
“It’s just dinner, you know.”
“Not a date. Of course.”
“Like the thought never occurred to you.”
“Never,” I said.
“You know something, Nico? For a guy who’s so good at recognizing a lie, you’re a really bad liar.”
I just shrugged. She wasn’t so good at it either.
108.
ONE WEEK LATER
The waves crashed loudly on the rocks below, and the wind howled along the point. The sky looked heavy, a mournful gray, as if any moment it might begin to pour.
No more armed guards, I saw. The guardhouse was empty. I parked in the circular drive and crossed the porch, the floorboards creaking underfoot.
I rang the bell and waited almost a minute, then rang again. After another minute the door opened, and Marshall Marcus stood there.
He was wearing a gray cardigan and a rumpled white dress shirt that looked like it hadn’t been pressed.
“Nickeleh,” he said, and he smiled, but it was not a happy smile. He was weary and defeated. His face seemed to have sunk and his teeth seemed too big for his mouth and far too white. His face was creased and his reddish hair stuck out in crazy tufts. It looked like he’d been napping.
“Sorry to wake you,” I said. “Want me to come back?”
“No, no, don’t be silly, come on in.” He gave me a big hug. “Thank you for coming.”
I followed him to the front of the house where you could watch the sea. His shoulders slumped as he walked. The front room was gloomy, the only light coming from the fading late-afternoon sky. Crumpled on one of the couches was a cheap synthetic Red Sox blanket, the kind they sell at Fenway.
“She’s still not talking?” I said.
Marcus heaved a long sigh as he sank into a chair. “She hardly even comes out of her room. It’s like she’s not even here. She sleeps all the time.”
“After what she’s been through, she needs to see someone. It doesn’t have to be one of the trauma specialists Diana’s recommending. But someone, at least.”
“I know, Nick. I know. Maybe you can change her mind. Lexie always seems to listen to you. You feeling better?”
“Totally,” I said.
“Good thing you were wearing a vest, huh?”
“Yeah. Lucky break. You’re doing the right thing.”
He gave me a questioning look.
“Meeting with the FBI.”
“Oh. Yeah, well, only because Schecky says he can get me a deal.”
“Give Gordon Snyder what he wants,” I said, “and you’ll have the FBI on your side. They have a lot of influence with the U.S. Attorney’s Office.”
“But what does that mean? They’re gonna put me in prison? My little girl, look what’s she’s already been through—now she has to lose her daddy?”
“Depending on how much you cooperate, you might even walk,” I said.
“You really think so?”
“It depends on how much you give them. You’re going to have to tell them about Mercury. They know a lot already.”
“Schecky says I have nothing to worry about if I just do what he says.”
“How well has that worked out for you?” I said.
He looked uneasy and said nothing for a long while.
Finally I broke the silence. “Where’s Belinda?”
“That’s why I asked you to come here,” Marcus said. “She’s gone.”
109.
He handed me a pale blue correspondence card with BELINDA JACKSON MARCUS on the top in small navy blue copperplate. The script was big and loopy and feminine, but a few of the letters—the H’s and the A’s and the W’s—looked Cyrillic. Like they’d come from the hand of someone who’d learned to write in Russian as a child. The note said:
Darling—
I think it’s better this way. Someday we’ll talk.
I’m so happy Alexa is home.
I really did love you.
Belinda
“She said she was going out to meet a girlfriend in the city, and when I got up I found this propped up against the coffeemaker. What does it mean?”
It meant she’d been warned the FBI was about to close in on her. Though in truth, it would have been difficult to prove Anya Afanasyeva guilty of any serious crime.
“Sometimes it takes a crisis to find out who a person really is,” I said.
I doubt he knew who I was really talking about.
Marcus shook his head, as if he were trying to dodge a pesky fly, or a