Chapter Thirty-Seven
As Ashley drove home, Diana kept a tight grip on the door handle. Unnerving as it had been driving a Hummer on I-93 North, riding along I-93 South in the middle of the night in the Mini Cooper felt like zipping along at ground level in a tin can.
She held Daniel’s walking stick across her lap. The pine-resiny essence wafted up. He was still out there. Somewhere. She really didn’t care where.
By the time they’d left the mill, police officers had impounded all the surveillance and computer equipment, including Diana’s laptop. They also seized the black limousine. The Hummer, of course, had vanished along with Daniel.
Diana and Ashley had led the police to the floor where Ashley had been held unconscious. They’d stood by watching as investigators took pictures, lighting up the room in flashes and gathering evidence. Ashley had watched, her arms crossed over her chest, shivering, as investigators collected the IV bag with the tube and needle still attached.
“It feels so weird, standing here. Like an out-of-body experience,” Ashley had said. She told Diana how bits and pieces, mostly visuals, were coming back to her. The rough-hewn beamed ceiling. The restraints—thick Velcro cuffs. The tube through which mind-numbing drugs had been forced into her body.
“You were very brave,” Diana said, putting an arm around her sister.
“I was unconscious. How can you be brave when you’re out cold?”
“Believe me. You were both.”
After a pause, Ashley said, “What bastards.”
“The worst.”
Ashley and Diana had gone from the mill to New Hampshire State Police headquarters in Manchester, where they’d been questioned and given their statements. The district attorney assured them that Jake would be held while the investigation continued. He’d most likely be charged with assault and kidnapping, and depending on what investigators found, there could be charges of extortion and more.
As Ashley drove home along the nearly deserted stretch of I-93, she asked, “So how do you feel now?”
“I thought I’d feel more, I don’t know, elation or something. Paying them back in kind.” Diana stared out the window at the blur of trees that lined the road. “Instead, I guess I’m just sad. Disappointed that they weren’t who I thought they were. Disappointed in myself that I was so willingly gulled. Disgusted, really.” A sign on the side of the road, MASSACHUSETTS WELCOMES YOU, flew by. “Most of all, ready to move on.”
“Sounds good to me,” Ashley said, and flashed her a tired smile.
It was near dawn by the time they got back to Ashley’s apartment. Ashley called in sick, and both she and Diana slept straight through the morning. That afternoon, Ashley drove Diana home. She parked in front of the little house where they’d grown up.
“We should probably call Mom,” she said.
“It’s Friday. She’ll think something’s wrong,” Diana said.
“She already knows something’s wrong.”
Ashley got out of the car. Diana followed her to the front door. All it took was a turn of her house key to get inside. Except for a trail of dirt on the carpet that must have gotten tracked in when Jake and Daniel were moving her things, the living room looked untouched.
She raised the shades, then walked from room to room, letting in light. In her bedroom, she made a mental note—later she’d get out on Craigslist and find herself another bed. She never again wanted to see the one that she and Daniel had shared.
She stood in the doorway of her barren office and looked at the empty tables and shelves. The Peruvian wall hanging seemed like it was trying too hard. Maybe she’d get a Ping-Pong table. Or a cushy leather sectional couch and a mammoth TV screen. Or maybe not. The only thing she knew for sure was that Gamelan was officially out of business.
It seemed oddly comforting when the doorbell rang without the Klaxon going off first, with no monitor to show who was standing on her doorstep.
“I’ll get it,” Diana called to Ashley.
She returned to the front door and looked out through the peephole. At first, it didn’t look as if anyone was there. Then she saw a hand wave, and below that just the top of a head with white-white hair.
“Pam!” Diana pulled open the door and Pam’s wheelchair whirred across the threshold.
“Okay, this is going to be a joint project,” Pam said. “I brought the booze.” She handed Diana a bottle of brandy. “We need three stiff shots.”
Diana passed the bottle to Ashley. “Can you open this and do the honors?”
Ashley disappeared into the kitchen and came back with three juice glasses. She set them on the coffee table, pulled the cork from the bottle, and poured a few fingers of brandy into each glass.
“Too bad this won’t fit into the fireplace as is,” Diana said as she leaned Daniel’s driftwood walking stick at an angle against the wall and brought her foot down. The wood cracked. She came down on it again and it broke into pieces.
Diana handed Pam and Ashley double sheets of newspaper and showed them how to roll it, tie it, and shred the ends. When they’d made a half-dozen newspaper logs and she’d nested them in the bottom of the fireplace, she gathered up the pieces of the walking stick and arranged them on top.
They were ready. Pam held a kitchen match. Ashley stood by the stereo system, waiting. When Diana nodded to her, she turned it on. As the first notes of Pachelbel’s Canon filled the room, Pam struck the match on the brick fireplace surround and handed it to Diana. Diana touched the flame to a bit of newspaper fringe.
Ashley passed around the drinks, and together they watched the paper burn. It took a few minutes, but finally the dry wood caught. Then the fire burned hot and fast, white smoke curling up the chimney as, in the music, violins circled and soared.
Diana toasted the flames and sniffed her drink, then took a sip. The smoky tang of the brandy worked its way up the back of her throat and filled her head, as she hoped it would, overwhelming any last phantom sensation of pine resin.
Diana felt Ashley’s hand on her shoulder. “You okay, hon?” Ashley asked.
“I am now, thanks to both of you.”
“You’re the one who pulled it off,” Ashley said. “We just took orders.”
Diana looked at Pam. “You did a great job. I got so caught up that I almost believed it myself when the COO started saying how he’d called the FBI.”
“I borrowed my neighbor for that,” Pam said. “He’s an out-of-work voice-over actor. He doesn’t usually get to ad-lib.”
“If I weren’t retiring, I’d want to hire him as my chief of operations,” Diana said. “He did a brilliant job impersonating one.”
She stepped to the mantel and took down the brass urn that supposedly contained Daniel’s ashes. Ashley lit another match and held it as Diana rotated the urn so that the wax seal holding the lid in place melted. With a pop, it came free. She opened it and peered inside. The contents looked like nothing more sinister than pebbles and sand.
Diana set the urn on the brick fireplace threshold. With a brass shovel from her fireplace tool set, she scooped up the still-smoldering ashes from the walking stick and tipped them into the urn. She unfastened the leather cord from around her neck, slipped off one of the gold Ds, and tossed that in too. Then she closed the urn and held it between her hands. She felt the last warmth seeping from the remaining embers but nothing else.
“So, when are we getting tickets?” Ashley asked.
“You taking a trip?” Pam asked.
“I thought we’d fly to Zurich,” Ashley said. “What do you think, Di? First class? Get to the top the easy way. By train or lift, whatever. Scatter a few ashes?”
“You think they’ll let me through airport security with this?” Diana said, indicating the urn. But as she looked down at it, she realized that it held nothing that mattered to her any longer. More than that, she didn’t want to squander another ounce of energy looking back.
“Why waste a perfectly good trip to Europe on an a*shole?” she said. “I have a much better idea.”
She marched through the kitchen, opened the back door of the house, and stepped outside. There, alongside the door, were the dozens and dozens of stones she’d left, lined up like soldiers, each one marking another tentative foray into the outside world. She picked one up and dropped it into a pocket. It would be a keepsake, a reminder of a state of mind she vowed never to find herself in again. With a swing of her booted foot, she sent the rest of the stones flying into the grass.
She flipped open the lid of the nearby garbage can and dumped in the urn’s contents. The urn made a satisfying thud as she tossed it in after.
“Good riddance,” she said as she closed the lid.
Acknowledgments
This book was inspired by the idea that someone could spend her waking hours “living” in a virtual world. For orienting me to that world and showing me its possibilities, special thanks to Jeff Bardin, Olin Sibert, Char James-Tanny, Jim Freeman, Yael Even-Levy, and Michelle Chambers.
Thanks to others who shared their expertise: George Fournier, Cathy Cairns, David Cairns, Doug Lyle, MD, and Anthony Sammarco.
Thanks to fellow writers who provided valuable critiques of the manuscript: Jan Brogan, Linda Barnes, Roberta Isleib, Hank Phillippi Ryan, Naomi Rand, Donna Tramontozzi, and Barbara Shapiro.
A special thanks to Pam David-Braverman for her generous contribution to National Braille Press and allowing me to pinch-hit for the incomparable Robert B. Parker.
Thank you, Jerry Touger, my patient husband, for reading and encouraging.
There can be no smarter or warmer agents than Gail Hochman and her international colleague, Marianne Merola. For savvy and insight and patience, thanks to an extraordinary editor, Katherine Nintzel. Also, many thanks to the rest of the folks at William Morrow, especially Danielle Bartlett.
About the Author
HALLIE EPHRON is an award-winning mystery reviewer for the Boston Globe. She is the author of Never Tell a Lie, which was a finalist for the Mary Higgins Clark Award and was made into the film And Baby Will Fall for the Lifetime Movie Network, and Writing and Selling Your Mystery, which was nominated for both an Edgar and an Anthony Award. Ephron lives near Boston, Massachusetts.
www.HallieEphron.com
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