"The police were here today with a search warrant. Maybe they bugged my phone while they were at it. I hope they're out on the street in some van, listening to you, tracing this stupid-ass call-"
"Quit the tough-girl act, Val. Or is it always Valerie?" This time, she thought she sensed a smile, a touch of kindness. "Here is what you need to do. It's simple, but it's not easy. I need you to bring Hank Callahan to Cold Ridge. Tonight."
"What? Are you out of your goddamn mind? He's a senator. I can't just-"
"You can. You have to. Senator Callahan is the key to proving your husband's innocence. He likes you, Val. He believes in your husband. He'll want to help you. Talk him into driving to Cold Ridge with you tonight."
"Then what?"
"Everything will be fine. Trust me."
She licked her lips, squeezing her eyes shut as if that might help her figure out what to do. "I don't even know where he is. I can't-"
"You have one chance to help your family. Don't squander it. It's time to trust someone. Trust me, Val."
"But who are you?"
"I told you. A friend."
She shook her head. "No way. I know all of Manny's friends."
"No, you don't."
She took a breath, unable to speak. Was it possible this call was legitimate? At this point,was anything possible?
"Hank and your husband performed dangerous combat search-and-rescue missions when they were in the military together. Play on Senator Callahan's sympathies, his sense of loyalty."
"Nothing will happen to him? You won't hurt him?"
"Val, I'm a friend. I'm not going to hurt anyone. I just have to be very careful. The forces against your husband are-let's just say the deck is stacked in their favor."
"The Rancourts, you mean?"
Silence.
"The police? Do they have the police in their pockets?"
"I'll call back when you're on the road and give you further instructions. You can do it."
"If I don't?"
"Then I can't help you."
Click.
Shaking, sobbing, Val dialed 911, then slammed down the phone. What if the caller wasn't screwing around? What if powerful people wanted Manny to take the fall for murder?
And how could she just call 911? She needed to call the FBI or something.
She tried Manny's cell phone, but didn't let it connect. Then Nate Winter's number and Tyler North's number, neither time letting the call connect.
She dialed Eric on his cell phone. He answered on the third ring, sounding sleepy. "Eric-it's Mom. Did I wake you?"
"Yes."
"Everything all right?"
He coughed. "Yes, ma'am."
"You're sure?"
"I'm sure."
It was a conversation they'd had dozens of times. She'd tiptoe onto his room at night and stand over his bed, check to see that he was breathing. Sometimes he'd wake up, and she'd scare the hell out of him, standing there like some ghoul.
To him, this was probably the same. Reassure his crazy mom, then go back to sleep.
"I'll call you in the morning when you're more awake, okay?"
"Yes, ma'am. Good night."
She hung up and burst into tears, because there was no way-no way-Eric could bear to lose his father.
Fifteen minutes later, a car pulled up in front of her apartment, and Hank Callahan, the junior senator-elect from Massachusetts, got out and walked up to the front of her building.
"Jesus," Val breathed, as if Hank's presence was a gift from God.
Twenty-Two
Carine wrapped herself up in a quilt she'd made one summer and sat on the floor in front of her woodstove. By unspoken agreement, she and Ty had decided to spend the night at her cabin. Gus had left, after a long discussion about defunct dairy farms and how, between farming and logging, much of New Hampshire had been denuded of its forests in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, before so much of it turned into national forest. He'd searched his memory for Sanborns he'd known over the years. But Carine could tell he wasn't that taken with her discovery.
In any case, what did it prove? The man who'd called himself Louis Sanborn was dead. Whether or not he was one of the shooters from last fall, it didn't say who his murderer was.
Ty checked the cabin for various critters-bats, mice, chipmunks, squirrels, God knew what else-and emerged from the cellar, picking cobwebs off his shirt. She had a feeling he'd found a snakeskin down there, but he wouldn't tell her.
"Don't protect me," she said. "Just give it to me straight."
"It was a grizzly bear with cubs."
She laughed, but only for a moment. The fire popped behind the screen, startling her, reminding her of how on edge she still was. "When I think back to Wednesday, finding Louis, it's like my senses were heightened," she said. "I can see myself standing in the hall when I realized something was wrong. I can see the blood oozing toward me-his hand was in it. I can hear myself yelling for help, feel the sun on my neck when I ran outside and Manny was there. I can see the pigeons on the mall. Every detail is etched in my mind in a way it wouldn't have been if I'd just gone back and taken pictures, and it was a normal afternoon."
Ty sat on the floor next to her, not taking any of her quilt. He put one knee up, his other leg stretched out, his toes almost against the stove. He'd pulled off his boots, and she noticed he had on the kind of expensive socks Gus sold. "That can happen when you're under a high level of stress."
"Is it that way for you when you're on a mission?"
"I focus on the job I'm there to do."
"But afterward-"
"Afterward there's another job."
"I didn't have a job to do in the library. I wasn't sent in to rescue Louis or treat him, investigate his murder- I'm a photographer. I'm not a doctor like Antonia, a U.S. marshal like Nate, a military guy like you. I didn't have any protocol or orders to follow. I had no professional responsibility."
"If any of us came unexpectedly upon the murder of someone we knew, I doubt we'd react all that differently than you did."
"Me? I screamed my head off and got the hell out of there."
He smiled. "You see?"
"I remember the shooting last fall in excruciating detail, too. I never thought of my job as having inherent dangers, especially compared to what you do for a living. Dangling out of a helicopter-"
"I don't dangle. I'd be in a shitload of trouble if I dangled."
She looked over at him, picturing him decked out in a flight suit and all his gear, fast-roping out of a helicopter. "The idea would be for you to get people out of trouble, not get in any yourself."
"That would be the idea, yes. But things can go wrong."
"Well, I thought I'd be safe in the woods taking a picture of an owl. And you and Manny and Hank- you weren't on a mission. You were just there to steal my food."
"Share, not steal."
"My point is that anything can happen, anytime. I can't live my life worried about it. I do my job, I take sensible precautions."
He gave her a skeptical look. "You were out in the woods alone."
"I can't take someone with me every time I go out- that's part of my job. I suppose that's one of its inherent risks." She frowned at him and lifted a corner of her quilt. "You cold?"
"No, but I like the idea of being under a blanket with you."
She shook her head. "Only if you tell me what's in the cellar. Snake?"
"Dragon."
She let him under her quilt with her, anyway, and scooted next to him, her leg pressed up against his. "Do you suppose Louis Sanborn really was one of the shooters? He was always so nice to me in Boston." She didn't wait for Ty to answer. "I don't get what's going on. Maybe we're off base totally and Manny was on a secret military mission."
Ty kissed the top of her head. "Maybe you're so tired you're getting screwy."
"I can make us tea-"
But she stopped abruptly, seeing his expression. He didn't want tea.