Salem's Cipher (13 page)

34

Ten Years Old

S
alem skips up the sidewalk of the blue-and-white bungalow. The air smells like the inside of a freezer. The corpses of flowers and weeds alike, brown and jaggy from an early frost, hang over the sidewalk. A year ago, Vida had given her lawn over to what she called “an English garden.”

Salem had lost a friendship bracelet in there that she had yet to find.

She walks up the three stone steps, one of them bearing her left hand print. She'd disliked the cold, messy feel of the cement when her dad had pressed her kindergarten fingers into it five years earlier.

At the top of the stairs, she curls her grip around the familiar C-shaped handle, depressing the tongue with her thumb. The door is unlocked. She steps inside.

She shouldn't be home. It's the middle of the school day. But it's picture day, a day she dreads because she looks like a frog with her poofy hair, green eyes, and big lips, and she doesn't want that in the yearbook. Again. So she told the nurse she was sick and that she was going home. The nurse, one year from retirement, either hadn't heard or didn't care.

One bus ride later, and she's standing inside her home. Her mom calls her housekeeping style “tousled.” Her disorganization is a side effect of her peculiar genius, Salem's dad tells her. He should be in his shop, working, and Vida should be teaching at Hill College. Salem is going to sneak an Orange Crush out of the refrigerator and bring it to her room before she goes to his shop so she has something to drink up there because her dad is for sure sending her straight to bed when he sees her home this early.

She is almost around the hallway corner and in the kitchen when she hears them arguing. Her mom and dad. Home in the middle of the day. Her throat tightens. She wishes she really was sick.

“She's too young,” Daniel is saying. “Let her be a child yet.”

Her mom answers. “She's perfect, Danny, and you know it. The girl's a genius.”

“Yes, but she's
our
girl.”

Is Daniel crying? Salem has never seen either of her parents cry. The thought terrifies her. She peeks around the corner.

“She sets us free,” Vida says, “and we're free forever. All of us. You, me, Gracie, Isabel. So many more. It's not just about one person; you taught me that.”

Vida's hair is in a bun. She's wearing hoop earrings. Daniel has on a faded t-shirt. They stand in front of the refrigerator, the grocery list secured with a Salem-crafted button magnet visible between them. Vida reaches for Daniel, who is indeed crying, his lashes dripping with tears like jewels. Salem gasps. They both swivel, spotting her.

What happens next is vague, a ghost memory of letting her watch movies and eat popcorn even though both her parents, normally strict about school, know she is playing hooky.

Yet they spoil her that day.

35

Salem, Massachusetts

E
rnest Mayfair's words echoed.

When Vida was here, she said she was training a code breaker to track down the document once and for all. She said it was you, Bits.

His announcement hung in a silence so intense that it became a living thing.

Bel slayed it. “That is absolutely, one hundred percent enough horseshit for one day. I am full up.” She reached for her duffel and began packing up her toiletries.

Salem felt hollow. Hollow and lonelier than she'd ever been in her life. She believed her mom would use her—in a heartbeat, in fact—but her dad?

“Sorry.” She shot Ernest a sad smile. Bel was being harsh with him, even though he clearly believed every word he'd said. “This is a lot to digest. We're both pretty freaked out that our mothers are missing.”

Ernest's shoulders slumped. “How else can you explain their disappearance and whatever you found at the First Church? You both know this is big. I can see it in your eyes.”

Salem was struck by his bearing, which he wore almost like an accent, a posture and expression that was an unlikely mix of innocence and defiance. If she believed what he'd said about the Hermitage Foundation and her parents training her to solve this code, that meant she'd have to believe that either Vida or Grace was dead. Gripping that thought was like squeezing a live coal.

“The only thing I know for sure,” Bel said, “is that if
you
know we're here, that means someone else could too. We have to get the fuck out of Dodge.”

Ernest nodded eagerly, as if they were finally all three on the same page. “I'll come with you.”

Bel snorted. “No way.”

Amazingly, Salem trusted Ernest.

But she trusted Bel more. She powered down her laptop and slid it into its case. Next, she grabbed the Dickinson note and refolded it gently to its original shape before sliding it in her jacket pocket. She moved past Ernest to reach the door. “Sorry.”

He didn't seem to hear her. “The man who chased you into the Witch Museum is waiting outside. He's at the restaurant across the street or maybe in the lobby. I can show you a back way out.” His voice was little more than a whisper.

“We'll pass on that generous offer.” Bel's voice was sleek with sarcasm. She opened the door and held it ajar for Salem. “Walking down dark halls with strangers is one of the first no-nos they teach you at the police academy. We'll go straight from the lobby to a cab, so it doesn't matter where that creep is. He won't grab us in public, and he won't know where we're going, just like you won't.”

Ernest nodded in resignation. Salem had never seen anyone look so sad. She opened her mouth but realized she had no way to make him feel better. She stepped outside of room 325, and the door closed behind her. Bel was already halfway down the hall. Salem hurried to catch up.

“You didn't have to be so mean to him.”

Bel sighed and waited for Salem. “It's not mean to stand up for yourself. We didn't know that guy from Adam.”

“But he knew
us
.”

“Nothing an Internet search and a solid dose of crazy couldn't get him.”

“Why would he bother?”

Bel stabbed the elevator button. “I don't know. Where are we headed?”

Salem glanced over her shoulder. The hallway was empty. She lowered her voice anyhow. “Amherst, Massachusetts. It's where Emily Dickinson grew up.”

“You think there's another message there somewhere?”

“I don't know, but we have to get out of this town, and that'll buy me more time. Amherst is a couple hours west, I think. I can research while you drive.”

They rode the elevator in silence, the air between them charged. When they hit the main floor, Bel held up a hand and peered around the spacious lobby. Three women reclined on the ornate couches in the middle of the atrium, paging through wedding planners. A gray-haired guy sat across the couch from them, back to the elevator, reading a magazine. The same efficient man who had checked them in was working the front desk, helping a woman in a black blazer. A group of people were talking loudly around the corner from the elevator, out of Salem and Bel's sight line.

“Do you see him?”

Bel shook her head. “All clear. Stick close.”

They stepped into the lobby. Salem's pulse thumped in her temples. She felt conspicuous, and like she wanted to look into all the corners at once. “I'll ask about a rental at the desk.”

“I'll watch for him out front. There's too many damn entrances to this lobby.” Bel turned toward the foyer.

Salem walked to the counter and stood in line behind the woman with the black jacket. The woman glanced toward Salem then back to the hotel employee. Her shoulders drew up, and she abruptly ended her conversation and turned back toward Salem as if to leave.

Her face was bland, unremarkable.

Salem would have let her walk right past, but they locked eyes.

The same eyes she'd seen in the man outside Plummer Hall.

The same eyes that had followed them into the Witch Museum.

Evil eyes.

The woman stepped toward Salem, a smile licking her mouth. Salem tried to yell for Bel. A low moan escaped instead. The woman reached into her interior jacket pocket.

Salem smelled metal. Fear grabbed her, touched her where she didn't want to be touched.

She learned what it was like to be hypnotized by a snake's eyes, to watch, frozen, while a deadly creature slithered toward you, unable to so much as breathe. Her feet sunk through the carpet, into the floor below, holding her so she could be harvested.

If she hadn't been bumped from behind, violently, she was sure the woman in the black blazer would have swallowed her whole. She fell forward.

“Excuse me.” Agent Lucan Stone grasped her arm, scowling at the woman before turning his full attention to Salem. “Are you okay?”

Salem threw her hand onto a nearby pole to steady herself. Her heartbeat, which had been suspended, returned with a pounding force. “What are you doing here?”

“Coincidence.” His smile was brilliant.

Salem felt an electric surge. They stared at each other for a moment too long. When Salem glanced around the lobby, the evil-eyed woman had disappeared.

“Not likely,” Bel said, appearing at Salem's side. “You must have news for us.”

Agent Stone's grin disappeared. “I'm afraid not. I do have questions, however.”

“Sorry,” Bel said, grabbing Salem's hand and leading her toward the door.

They stepped into the chilly November afternoon, the setting tangerine-­and-gold of the sun at odds with all the darkness in their lives.

36

Salem, Massachusetts

C
lancy was the first person Agent Stone had spotted when he'd entered the Hawthorne Hotel lobby from the rear moments earlier. His partner had been sitting on a couch in the center of the spacious room, pretending to read a magazine. The second person Stone saw was Salem Wiley, frozen in terror as the eerie woman in a black blazer turned from the front desk and walked toward her,
predator
written on every inch of the woman's creepy skin. Stone had seen death row gangbangers with less hate in them.

Clancy had witnessed the same thing Stone had, but Clancy didn't appear alarmed. Rather, he looked like a man who'd ordered the steak and been brought chicken instead and was willing to make the best of it.

Stone had discovered early in their pairing that Clancy was clandestine, his backstop deeper than Stone could dig, which is why Stone didn't always share ops with him. He assumed Clancy returned the favor. It was unusual for Clancy to sit by on something so aggressively public, however. Clancy had been letting the woman in a black blazer advance on Wiley, and she would have gotten her if not for Stone's intervention. The woman had since disappeared like a ghoul.

As Stone watched Wiley and Odegaard scurry out of the hotel, he wondered if Clancy had gone hard. Stone let Clancy grab him.

“What in the hell are you doing here?” Clancy's face was red. He clutched Stone's lapel, twisting it, his free hand fisted at his side as if itching to throw a punch.

Stone's brows drew in and his jaw tightened. It's not what he'd driven here expecting, but maybe it was time to work this shit
out
. Rather than remove his partner's hand, he gave Clancy thirty seconds to consider how badly he didn't want to throw down with younger, taller Stone.

It took a minute.

Clancy unclenched Stone's lapel and swore, stalking toward the parking lot entrance. “You should have notified me of your location,” he muttered over his shoulder.

Stone followed, pissed by Clancy's rage. “We agreed to meet here, remember?”

Clancy grunted and walked away.

Stone followed him outside. Clancy strode straight toward an illegally parked sedan.

Stone walked to the driver's side door, blocking Clancy. “Keys?” It was a low blow, but Clancy should be grateful Stone was working his anger out with words. That's not how he'd learned to play growing up in Detroit.

“How'd you get to the hotel?” Clancy snarled.

“Cab.”

Clancy slapped the roof of his rental and tossed Stone the keys before sliding into the passenger seat, avoiding eye contact. “We're tailing the girls, right?”

“Best plan.” Stone slid in and started the car. He didn't know how all the murder victims were connected, or how that extended to Wiley and Odegaard, but he intended to save their lives. That's why he'd slipped the tracker in Wiley's pocket back in the lobby.

He could still smell Salem from where their clothes had touched—something spicy and clean like cinnamon, and under that, a raw animal fear. For a moment, he wondered how long Clancy had been hiding in the lobby. He ultimately dismissed the thought. Worrying about another man's motives was a sure way to drive yourself crazy in this business.

All you could complete was your own mission.

37

Salem, Massachusetts

“I
t was the same guy from the Art Institute in Minneapolis.” Bel was chewing on the inside of her cheek. “I don't know what he was doing at the Institute or in the freaking Hawthorne lobby in
Salem,
Massachusetts
, but it was him both times, I promise. Chubby Ed ­Harris–looking guy.”

“Forget Ed Harris,” Salem said. “Who was the snake-eyed woman?”

The cab was currying them to the Enterprise Rental on Canal Street. The cabbie had assured them she was driving as fast as she could. It didn't stop Salem from wanting to strap jet packs to the roof and rocket them across town.

“I wish I knew. Maybe we're being followed by a brother and sister? That would explain why they have the same eyes.” Bel touched the outline of her handgun. She'd assured Salem that she could carry the piece across state lines as long as she kept proof of her law enforcement status handy. Salem didn't like guns, but she was happy to make an exception in Bel's case. Their situation had gone from upside-down to deadly.

Salem started her fingernail-rubbing routine. “Maybe we're just being paranoid? I've read about heightened stress causing delusions.”

“Paranoia might be all that keeps us alive here.”

Salem flinched. “If what Ernest said was true, it didn't work for our moms. At least for one of them.”

“I won't believe that without proof.”

But they both settled into the heavy blackness of the possibility. It had the ring of truth, as did every word Ernest Mayfair had uttered. It was simply too large to process all at once, though Salem had tried to fit those words into the slots that would elicit the correct emotions.
Conspiracy. Hermitage. Underground. Death.

She cleared her throat. “I think it was a mistake not to talk to Agent Stone back in Minneapolis. Or here. My mom said not to trust anyone, but we have to trust
someone
.”

Bel shrugged. “No looking back, only forward. Besides, I don't like that Stone showed up in Salem, and that he was in the lobby the same time as the snake-eyed woman and Ed Harris. There's no good reason for the FBI to be following us.”

“Are you thinking about what Ernest said about the Hermitage having a plant in the FBI?”

Bel ran her hand over her face. “I'm thinking about your mom's warning. I intend to beware. We both should.”

Salem hugged herself and glanced out the window at the bayside city sliding past.
One two three breathe
. They would look forward, not back. They would talk about things as if both Grace and Bel's mom were both alive, because the alternative would hurt too much.
One two three breathe
. Wherever the messages took them, they would follow, because her mother had set them on this trail.
One two three breathe.

“He looked pissed,” Bel mused.

“Who?”

“The Ed Harris guy. But not at us. At Agent Stone.”

“Think they know each other?”

“Stone for sure has a partner. Could be him. But right before the Ed Harris guy looked pissed to see Stone, he looked
surprised
to see him. Just for a split second.”

Salem rubbed her eyes. Blinked. Her vision was blurry. When was the last time she'd slept? Two days ago? Three? She took a whiff of her armpit. Definitely past due for a shower. She envied Bel's rapidly drying silken hair.

The cab stopped abruptly in front of a strip mall, the force of the sudden halt banging Salem into the seat back.

The driver clicked a button on her meter. “Here you are.”

Salem handed her a ten, told her to keep the change, and squeaked out with her and Bel's duffels in hand, rubbing her shoulder where it had hit the seat. She slammed the door and glanced around. Bel did the same. They stood in front of a Jackson Hewitt Tax Service. A Family Dollar was around the north corner, occupying most of the strip mall. On the south side, a white garage with shredded paint leaned against a graffiti-stained warehouse.

The setting sun turned the sky a dull red.

Besides one car parked in the strip mall lot, the neighborhood was deserted. Salem knocked on the cab door. “Hey, I don't see—”

But the cab sped off. Salem had to hop to keep from having her toes run over. “Dangit!”

“Over here,” Bel said, jogging north. “The Enterprise is right around the corner, tucked behind the—”

Her words were cut off as a shadow separated itself from the bushes and stalked toward her.