Finding Jessica Read online

  “How are you?” And to herself, are you still separated from your wife? In the background she heard the clink of glasses, a foreign language. Arabic. She remembered her Uncle Victor calling from assignments all over the world and wanting more than anything to feel the thrill of an exotic place.

  “Better now that I’m talking to you,” Daniel said. “How’s my favorite girl, and how come you haven’t answered my emails?”

  Because you’re married. “I’ve been busy with the investigation.” She told him about their plan to use The Peacemaker. How odd that she could be in sleepy Haven, investigating an art heist, kickboxing at Ernie’s and going to bed early with Cosmo in her bed. It wasn’t long ago she’d been flying off to Turkey in the middle of the night on reconnaissance missions, meeting with the Ambassador working to get American tourists out of Pakistani prisons, and helping Daniel challenge warlords in Algiers. Life had changed so much in the last five years, her past often felt like a figment of her imagination. “We can’t get near Amber,” she said. “Getting Beach is all the Bureau wants. They don’t care about Hal’s murder.” The thought made her hate Thorne.

  “Well, let me know if I can help.” She heard the roar of a truck engine, followed by the blast of a car horn, and she felt suddenly so glad she wasn’t out there anymore.

  “You know I’d do anything for you,” he said.

  It was irritating that he could always make her feel strong and incredibly feminine at the same time. The feeling was powerfully addictive. “Where are you?”

  “A café in Kabul, having a coffee before I meet my contact. And don’t worry, I’ve got a Glock on. Wearing one in the open is like a fashion statement around here.”

  “Well, the connection is great.” A narrow band of silver moonlight escaped the clouds, illuminating the beach in a halo of light. “You sound as if you’re in the room with me.”

  “Baby,” he said quietly, “you have no idea how much I want to be in the room with you.”

  She was glad he hadn’t called her later, when she might have had too much to drink. She looked out at the lake. “How are Crystal and the kids?”

  Daniel paused so long, she wondered if their connection was lost. Finally, he said, “She’s still in South Carolina.”

  Rose felt a shot of hope go through her and then immediately heard Hal’s voice in her head: Take care, Rosie girl, guard your heart.

  “What about the kids?” Are you filing for divorce, or are you going to kick that can down the road for the millionth time? “Isn’t Alexander starting his senior year of high school in the fall?”

  “Yeah, he’s living with me,” he said. “He’s at home right now, probably ruining the house with parties.” She thought she heard Daniel say shukran to someone. “This place reminds me of Kuwait, you remember that job?”

  “In ’94 when Amir set you up?”

  “If it hadn’t been for you, I wouldn’t be here.” She could hear him breathing, could almost feel his warm breath on her neck. “We were a good team.” He paused. “God, Rosie, I wish you hadn’t left me.”

  She closed her eyes. “I couldn’t stay.” They’d had this conversation too many times. “I almost died.” She could feel her shoulder begin to ache. And I needed to get you out of my head, to stop thinking about you all the time.

  “Well, it was great seeing you, touching you.”

  “Daniel …”

  “It’s been a year since Cameron died,” he said gently. “Are you really planning to stay in Haven?”

  She opened her eyes. Cosmo was licking her hand. She almost said, Are you ever going to put an end to your loveless marriage? “I feel safe here,” she finally admitted.

  “When I get back, I’m coming up again.”

  She hoped he wouldn’t, not unless he was truly free of Crystal. He had always been the most dangerous box on her mental shelf, the one she was most afraid to touch for fear of opening it.

  “Sweet dreams,” he said. She thought his voice sounded sad, as it usually did when they talked. She probably sounded the same way to him.

  “It was nice talking to you,” she told him. Her finger hovered over the End Call button on her phone. “Stay safe.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Barrington paused at the receptionist desk of the Haven Assisted Living Facility. It was about thirty degrees cooler inside and so bright his eyes hurt. The receptionist’s nametag said Cherry. “May I help you?” Her hair was the color of fire.

  “I’m waiting for Tom Minot.” He glanced at his watch.

  Cherry smiled. Young enough to get me arrested, Barrington thought. “Oh, yeah, Alisa’s son.” She tucked her fire red hair behind her ear. “He’s so good to his mother.” She sounded breathless, and her braces gave her a slight lisp. “He always visits her before he goes to work in the morning. Oh, he’s here!”

  Barrington turned to the door. No wonder the receptionist was all hot and bothered. In his linen suit Tom looked like some Nordic god just off a GQ modeling shoot. Haven’s most eligible bachelor, Rocky had told Barrington when he’d hinted it was possible he and Amber might have dated briefly. And Alisa was a real looker before she got sick, he’d said of Mrs. Minot.

  “Great to see you again,” Tom put out his hand and didn’t even glance at Cherry, even though she was staring at Tom the way a dieter might stare at ice cream.

  A quick flash of age jealousy hit Barrington sideways. “Glad your mother’s well enough for a visit,” he said.

  “Actually,” Tom said, “I didn’t tell her you were stopping by.” He gestured toward the elevators. “I wanted to surprise her.”

  “Oh.” Barrington scratched his head. He thought he’d gotten all the paint out of his hair, but he must have missed a few spots. “Are you sure this is a good idea, dropping in unannounced?” He wished he’d worn something classier than a T-shirt. He wondered if he’d taken the whole living in the country thing too far.

  “It’ll be fine.” Tom walked briskly down the hall, and Barrington felt old and awkward. “She always feels best in the morning,” Tom said. When he looked back, Barrington saw Cherry stretched across her desk, trying desperately to get another glimpse of Tom. He worried vaguely that she’d topple over and land on her head. “Mother will be thrilled to meet you.” Tom brushed a speck of invisible lint from his lapel. “When I told her you were renting Solitude, she was so surprised she couldn’t speak.” He laughed, his teeth white and square, and Barrington wondered if he’d remembered to brush his own. “She’s bought every calendar and card she could find with your work on it, and when the Currier had that exhibit a few years ago, I swear she was first in line.”

  Barrington watched Tom push the button. To say he was flattered sounded stupid, but he was, of course. He never got tired of people responding to his work. And this was especially surprising to hear, considering when Tom had stopped by the cottage after the break-in, his nonrefundable deposit had seemed to be the only topic of interest to him. Like static interference, he heard Rose’s voice pop into his head: They were probably still reeling from the murder and break-in, you big ox. Stop thinking the world revolves around you. Thinking about Rose tended to happen more often than not these days. “Rose asked me to pass on the invitation to the party personally.” He held it up for Tom to see.

  Tom barely looked at it. “We were lucky to find an available unit in this building,” he said as the elevator doors slid open. “It’s the only assisted living facility in Haven.”

  Barrington didn’t think Tom was old enough to have a mother in assisted living. “Is your mother very sick?” he asked as they stepped into the elevator.

  “She was diagnosed with a neurological condition about two years ago, right after she turned fifty.” Tom watched the numbers go up. “Since then, her symptoms have slowly gotten worse.” His voice was programmed, robotic, as if he was holding something back. “Her doctors put her on some new medication recently, and it seems to be working. We’re hopeful she’ll go into remis
sion.”

  “Is it MS?” Same age as him and in an assisted living place. Barrington had a rush of gratitude that his own cancer had passed.

  Tom shrugged. “They’re not sure.” He seemed to step out of the elevator before the doors had slid all the way open. The brightly lit hall was silent, and its beige carpeting muffled all sound. “Dad passed away a few years ago.” Barrington felt as if he was power walking, trying to keep up. “His death was really hard on her, but she’s a big art buff, takes bus trips to museums and paints in the studio they have here. She’s been forced to slow down, but nothing’s going to stop her from living.” He flashed his hundred-watt smile again. “This is going to floor her, meeting you.”

  They stopped in front of a plain white door. Sounds from a television show blared on the other side. The welcome mat was a print of the 1897 painting A Knock at the Door by Katie Alma-Tadema. I think I’m going to like this lady, Barrington thought. Tom knocked loudly, and the television volume lowered. A female voice called out, “Who is it?”

  “It’s Tom,” he said, winking at Barrington. “I’ve brought someone to meet you.”

  Long pause. Somewhere Barrington heard a clock tick.

  “Who?”

  “Barrington Bigelow.”

  Another long pause. “The artist?” She had a young voice that sounded soft and silky to Barrington.

  “Yes, of course the artist,” Tom leaned closer to the door. “He’s renting Solitude, remember?” When she didn’t reply, he jiggled the door handle. “Ma, aren’t you going to let us in? Barrington Bigelow is standing out here waiting to meet you.”

  “Go away,” she said brusquely.

  Tom’s neck turned crimson. He put his finger up to Barrington and stepped closer to the door. “Mr. Bigelow has an invitation for you to a party on Saturday night, an unveiling of one of his paintings. He wants to give it to you in person.”

  “Slip it under the door,” she barked.

  “Ma, this is ridiculous,” Tom ran his hand through his perfect hair. Barrington could only imagine what his own hair was up to. “Don’t you want to meet Mr. Bigelow? He’s your favorite artist,” Tom tried to coax her. “We won’t stay long, promise.”

  When she didn’t reply, Barrington stepped up to the door. “Mrs. Minot, forgive me for interrupting your morning,” he said.

  “Call her Alisa,” Tom whispered to him, “Mrs. Minot will make her feel old.”

  “Here’s the invitation.” He bent down and slipped it under the door. “I hope you’ll feel well enough to come tomorrow night.” He stood up and straightened his T-shirt as if she could see him through the door. “I’d like to thank you personally for renting Solitude to me on such short notice and to apologize for the trouble it’s caused, what with the break-in and all.” He felt clumsy, standing there in front of a closed door, talking to a woman he’d never seen. “I’m sure when the time is right …” but he couldn’t finish, because such a feeling of urgency came over him that he thought his legs would buckle. For some reason he wanted to see Tom’s mother, wanted her to open to the door so badly he might have stayed there forever. “When the time is right we will surely meet.”

  Silence. A moment later the television volume rose.

  Tom looked stunned. “I can’t believe it,” he shook his head. “She’s never rude, and that was rude.” He reached for the door handle to shake it again, but Barrington stopped him.

  “Leave her be,” he said quietly. “She wasn’t expecting me.”

  They walked back to the elevator in silence. Every few seconds, Tom glanced back at Alisa’s door. “I don’t get it.” He jabbed the down button a few times, as if that would make the elevator get there faster. “Even when she’s not feeling her best, Mom’s not rude. This isn’t like her.” He blew his breath out in frustration. “Actually, sometimes I feel as if I don’t know my mother at all. She’s … look, I’m sorry I wasted your time.”

  Barrington shrugged, but he was stung, as though he’d been turned down, rejected. Most of all, he wanted to tell her he understood. He remembered Marcie chiding him during his chemo treatments for living like a recluse. She had no understanding of how nauseated the treatments made him, how weak he felt, how much he didn’t want anyone to see him like that.

  Tom held the elevator door open for Barrington. “It’s just weird,” he heard Tom say to his back, “that she wouldn’t even say hello.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Rose jammed soda cans into the cooler on her deck. She was grateful for Emily. The crowd in her living room exhausted her. She wished they’d all gone home an hour ago.

  “People keep asking when you’re going to unveil the painting,” Emily whispered, looking over her shoulder at the party.

  Rose nodded. “They keep asking me, too.” She’d invited twenty-four people to the unveiling of The Peacemaker. It looked like the whole town had shown up. She’d had to ask Emily to make an emergency run to the grocery store for more food and drinks.

  Emily picked up her wine glass from the deck railing. “You think the art thief is really here?”

  Rose shut the cooler and stood up. They were having an August heat wave, and her hands were freezing from the ice. “I don’t know.” She took Emily’s wine and sipped it. It tasted sweet and cold. The ice they’d put in the cooler was already melting. The heat was oppressive, record-breaking for New Hampshire. It reminded her of steamy summers in D.C. “I hope so. We’re dangling the proverbial carrot in front of his nose. I just hope he goes for it.”

  Emily took her wine back. Her cheeks were flushed, as they always were when she drank. “How do you know it’s a he?”

  Rose shook her head. “I usually get a feeling for these things, like when you were pregnant, you had a sense if it was a girl or a boy. But this time I have no idea.”

  Emily looked in at the people milling around inside the house. “You amaze me,” she said to Rose. “If I had to figure out who killed my best friend and stole a million dollar painting, I think I’d have a nervous breakdown.”

  Rose laughed. “Three kids would give me a nervous breakdown.” She looked into the house with Em. Even the Lamarche sisters had shown up, and she hoped to God she wouldn’t find anything missing in the morning. “I can’t believe how many people are here.”

  “I believe it,” Emily said. She was wearing a frilly white cotton shirt and tan shorts with a bumble bee print stitched on them. Rose wouldn’t be caught dead in the outfit, but it looked good on Emily. “Haven doesn’t like invites; they just like open houses.” She looked at her watch. “We can only stay another half hour. We left our little angels with my mother, and she’s already texted me three times to come and get them. I guess Jasper and Jake played football in the house and broke a vase, and Janie thought it would be fun to put on makeup.”

  “Putting on makeup sounds harmless,” Rose said. Janie was her favorite. She always wanted to scoop her up and kidnap her for a few days.

  “Not when you use colored magic markers,” Emily said.

  Rose laughed. There were times she missed not having children, but when Emily told her how mischievous they were, the feeling often went away. “I’ll try to get this thing going. Have you seen Barrington?”

  “By the liquor cabinet in the living room.”

  “Of course. That’s where I hide the good stuff.”

  Barrington was in the dining room. He seemed to be hiding out, as Rose often did at parties, a tumbler of whiskey in his hand. He’d trimmed his beard and smoothed his hair with some kind of gel for the occasion, but in his flashy rings and vintage polyester disco shirt with cancan dancers kicking up their legs in a froth of pantaloons, he still didn’t fit in with Haven’s finest.

  “I’ve been mingling, like you told me to,” he said, which seemed to Rose to be an outright lie. “But I can’t tell a guilty person from an innocent one.” He held up his tumbler and squinted at it, as if it might turn into a crystal ball. “Who do you suspect?”

  “Al
l of them.” Rose took a carrot from a tray of hors d’oeuvres at the table. “They’re all art addicts,” she added, keeping her voice low. “Take Parker Prescott, for example. He’s one of the most knowledgeable art dealers in New England. He’s got an incredible art collection at home. It’s hard for me to imagine he’d go off the deep end, but I know he’d give anything to get his hands on one of your paintings.”

  “Parker Prescott,” Barrington mused, sipping his whiskey. “Isn’t he the guy you clocked at Manny’s on the fourth?”

  Rose nodded, and they both turned to look at Parker talking to a buxom blonde, straining to get a glimpse down her blouse. “Who’s the girl he’s talking to?” Barrington asked.

  “Ginger Matthews, the mayor’s daughter, art history major at Dartmouth.”

  “Who’s that stocky guy?”

  “Leo Gagnon, her boyfriend.”

  “He looks like he’s about to shoot Parker,” Barrington said. “There’s one lady who seems a little like a criminal.” Barrington took Rose by the elbow and steered her over to the tall windows overlooking the deck, where Autumn Raines was talking to Rocky at the grill. The setting sun was a smudge in the hot, hazy sky. “That girl talking to Rocky, the one with the dark hair in the red dragon T-shirt.”

  Rose laughed. “That’s Autumn Raines. She’s a friend. She doesn’t even know you exist, Barrington.”

  “There’s something fascinating about her.” Barrington kept watching her. “Isn’t she interested in art?”

  “Not unless it’s a tattoo,” Rose grinned, “but Tom Minot is another one I have my eye on.” He was on the other side of the deck, talking to Chad Connor and a bunch of hot little waitresses from Table Talk. When Chad saw them looking, he gave them a little pinky wave and preened like a peacock in a tight black cotton T-shirt and snug black jeans.

  “Oh, great.” Barrington turned his back to him. “Tell me he isn’t coming over here.”