While Mauricio went back to Boston-actually, to his apartment in Medford, just north of Boston-Mr. X was driving Alexa north. He tossed her phone out as they passed through Leominster. Presumably she stayed in the vehicle with him.
Then they crossed the border into New Hampshire.
“So the route stops in southern New Hampshire,” I said. “Nashua.”
“No, Mr. X’s mobile phone goes off the grid in Nashua. That could mean that he shut it off. Or it lost reception, and then he shut it off. Whatever, he hasn’t used it since.”
“Sloppy for him to keep his cell phone on,” I said.
“Well, to be fair, he assumed it was untraceable.”
“Is it?”
“No, actually. But there’s a difference between untraceable and untrackable. It’s like following a black box on the back of a truck. We don’t know what’s inside the box, but we know where it is. So we can’t determine his identity, but maybe we can find his location. Understand?”
“He’s in New Hampshire. Which means she probably is too. Maybe in or near Nashua.”
“I wouldn’t assume that. Mr. X might have passed through New Hampshire on his way to Canada.”
“That’s not a logical route if you’re driving all the way to Canada.”
He nodded in agreement.
“They’re in New Hampshire,” I said.
57.
The offices of Marcus Capital Management were on the sixth floor of Rowes Wharf. I gave the receptionist my name and waited in the luxuriously appointed lobby, on a gray suede couch. The floors were chocolate-brown hardwood and the walls were mahogany. An enormous flat-screen monitor on the wall showed the weather on one half of a split screen and financial news on the other, with a stock crawl at the bottom.
I didn’t have to wait even a minute before Marcus’s personal assistant appeared. She was a willowy redhead named Smoki Bacon, a stunningly beautiful, elegant young woman. This didn’t surprise me. Marcus had a reputation for hiring only beautiful women as admins, beauty contest winners, former Miss Whatevers. My mother, who’d been lovely and attractive in her prime, was the sole exception. She never looked like a runway model. She was more beautiful than that.
The curvaceous Smoki gave me a dazzling smile and asked if I wanted coffee or water. I said no.
“Marshall’s in a meeting right now, but he wants to see you as soon as it’s over. It might be a while, though. Would you like to come back a little later?”
“I’ll wait.”
“At least let me take you to a conference room, where you can use the phone and the computer.”
She showed me down a corridor. “It’s so nice to meet you,” she said as we rounded a bend and passed by what was once the trading floor. There were thirty or forty workstations, all empty. All the computers were off. The place was as quiet as a tomb. “I just can’t tell you how worried sick we’ve all been about Alexa.”
“Well,” I said, not knowing how to reply, “keep the faith.”
“Your mom used to babysit for her sometimes, you know. She told me that.”
“I know.”
“Frankie’s the best.”
“I agree.”
“She calls me every once in a while just to check up on things. She really cares about Mr. Marcus.”
At the threshold to an empty conference room she put a hand on my shoulder. She leaned close and said through gritted teeth, “Please get that girl back, Mr. Heller.”
“I’ll do my best,” I said.
BUT INSTEAD of waiting, I decided to wander down to Marcus’s office.
His assistant, Smoki, sat guard at her desk outside his office, I remembered. I also remembered that Marcus had a private dining room next to his office. When I’d had lunch with him there once, the waitstaff came and went through a back hallway.
It didn’t take long to find the service hallway. One entrance was next to the men’s room. It connected a small prep kitchen to the boardroom and Marcus’s dining room.
His dining room was dark and tidy and bare. It looked like it hadn’t seen much use in quite a while.
The door to his office was closed. But when I stood next to it I could hear voices raised in argument.
At first I could make out only fragments. Two men speaking, I was sure. One, of course, was Marcus. His voice was the louder, more emotional one. Easier to make out.
The other was soft-spoken and calm and barely audible.
VISITOR: “… to go all soft now.”
MARCUS: “Wasn’t that the point?”
VISITOR: “… pretty much to be expected…”
MARCUS: “If she dies, it’ll be your doing, you understand me? It’ll be on your conscience! You used to have one of those, didn’t you?”
VISITOR: “… damnedest to keep you alive.”
MARCUS: “I don’t care what you people do to me now. My life is over. My daughter is the only-”
VISITOR: (a lot of mumbling) “… years you’ve been the guy with all the solutions… they decide now you’re the problem?… what their solution will be.”
MARCUS: “… on my side!”
VISITOR: “… want to be on your side. But I can’t be unless you’re on mine…”
MARCUS: (voice growing steadily louder) “… you wanted, I did. Everything!”
VISITOR: “… have to spell this out for you, Marshall? ‘Grieving financier kills self at Manchester residence’?”
I pushed the door open and entered the office. Marcus was sitting behind a long glass desk heaped with papers.
Leaning back in the visitor chair was David Schechter.
58.
“Nickeleh!” Marcus exclaimed. “What are you-didn’t Smoki take you to a conference room to-”
“He was eavesdropping,” Schechter said. “Isn’t that right, Mr. Heller?”
“Absolutely. I heard everything you said.”
Schechter blinked at me. “As of this moment, your services are no longer required.”
“You didn’t hire me,” I said.
“Schecky, let me talk to him,” Marcus said. “He’s a mensch, he really is.”
Schechter rose, straightened his tweed blazer, and said to Marcus, “I’ll expect your call.”
I watched him leave, then sat in the chair he had just vacated. It was still warm.
Behind Marcus was a glittering picture-postcard view of the Atlantic, red ochre in the dying light.
“What kind of hold does he have over you?” I said.
“Hold…?”
I nodded. “You hired me to find Alexa, and I can’t do that unless you level with me. If you don’t, you know what’s going to happen to her.”
His eyes were bloodshot and glassy, with heavy pouches beneath them.
“Nicky, you need to stay out of this. It’s… personal business.”
“I know how much you love Alexa-”
“That girl means everything in the world to me.” Tears came to his eyes.
“It took me a while to understand why in the world you’d withhold the one thing that could get her back. Schechter is blackmailing you. He’s keeping you from cooperating with the kidnappers. And I think I know why you hired me.”
He turned around in his chair and stared out the window, as if he were looking to the sea for answers. Or at least avoiding my eyes.
“I hired you because I thought you were the only one who could find her.”
“No,” I said quietly. “You hired me because that was the only way you could get her back without giving in to their demands. Right?”
He wheeled slowly back around. “Does that offend you?”
“I’ve been offended worse. But that’s not the point. From the beginning you’ve been sandbagging me. You lied about calling the police. You didn’t tell me how you were forced to take money from criminals, and you didn’t tell me you’d lost it all. Now they want the Mercury files-they are files, aren’t they?-and you pretend you don’t know what they are. So let me ask you this: Do you think David Schechter really cares if Alexa dies?”