Salem's Cipher (14 page)

38

Salem, Massachusetts

B
el leapt forward, grabbed the assailant's wrist, and twisted it as she ducked under in a move that reminded Salem of square dancing. They'd learned the basics in a middle school gym class, except in Bel's current version, she kept moving underneath and behind, twisting the man's arm to the point where Salem could hear the sinew protesting, at which point Bel shoved the sharp side of her foot into the back of his knee, pushed in and down, and used her weight to pin him long enough to yank her Glock out of its holster and press it deep into his temple.

“Don't!” A girl no more than seven, all jutting bones and greasy hair, jumped from the shadows and pushed Bel, oblivious to the gun and the danger. “Don't be mean to my brother!” She beat Bel with her tiny fists.

“Ernest?” Salem asked, recognizing the lanky man in Bel's grip. “Bel, let him go.”

“Not until he tells us what he's doing here. And get the kid offa me.” A car motored by slowly, the driver certainly wondering at the tableau of Bel overpowering 6'7" Ernest while being pummeled by a little girl.

Salem reached toward the child, but the girl moved to the other side of Bel, just out of Salem's reach.

“Don't hurt her!” Ernest's voice was tight with panic, his flesh white from the pain of Bel's hold. He jerked his head toward the girl, whose face was streaked with tears and dirt. “I think they're after her.” She was still pounding Bel but hadn't the strength to do damage. “Mercy, stop it.”

The girl paused, stepping around front so she was face to face with Bel. Her eyes were wide, scared, their lashes impossibly long. “Will you let him go?”

Bel didn't answer.

Ernest tried again. “I need to get out of town to protect Mercy. You two need to get out of town to save your
own
lives. The Hermitage Foundation sicced one of their best assassins on you, and the FBI is in Salem too. No telling whose side they're on today. I figure you have sixty seconds before one or both locates you here.”

Bel ground her knee into his back. He grunted.

“Bel!” Salem said.

“Fifty seconds.” His jaw was clenched. “No way can you get a car rented in that time. Even if you did, it'd be traceable. We can take mine.”

“That's as traceable as a rental,” Bel barked.

“But it's not tied to you two.” He glanced away from Mercy, who was twisting a soft-looking blanket in her hands. “And anyhow, it's not mine.”

“Stolen?”

“Yes,” he said. “Forty seconds.”

Bel glanced at Salem.

“Please,” the little girl begged, turning to Salem. With her huge eyes and wringing hands, she reminded Salem of a Keane painting.

“You don't have to trust me,” Ernest said. “You don't even have to like me. Just get in my car, let's drive somewhere safe, and I can explain the rest. You know you can overpower me if you need to. You've done it twice.”

Still, Bel paused.

“Thirty seconds,” he pleaded. His upper body was trembling from the pain of Bel's hold. “That old brown sedan over there is mine. We can still get out of this.”

“Go. Now!” Bel holstered her gun, released him, and all four of them raced to the car.

39

Massachusetts

T
he phone buzzed like a rattlesnake nest inside Jason's jacket pocket. It was almost certainly Carl Barnaby calling him for an update, but if Jason didn't check, he wasn't technically avoiding talking with him. And there was no need to speak with Barnaby until he had something to report.

He signaled left to stick close to the brown sedan the women and the tall man and the child had tucked themselves inside of, jabbing the window button to allow the brisk breeze to wash through the car, cleansing him of Salem Wiley's scent. The woman was a frightened rabbit, eyes wide, shivering. If not for the FBI agent's interference, he would have slid the knife into her gut and his hand into her pocket to retrieve the document, then stepped to the rack of brochures while Isabel (she was so beautiful up close that he called her Isabel now) rushed to Salem's side, thinking her friend had fainted.

He would have knelt to help Isabel, puncturing her kidney so cleanly she'd feel only a strange punch before bleeding out. And then he'd stand with a different face, making room for the bystanders rushing to assist the two women, and stroll out the front door, into his car, and fly to San Francisco to celebrate and wait.

Sixty seconds, start to finish.

He opened the cracked windows to their full extent, fresh air collapsing itself around the cinnamon particles still clinging to him and sweeping them out to sea. The gray trees and brown grass matched his mood, the garish shops designed to cash in on the Witch Trials annoying him. It didn't even make him happy to see that there were no police cars in front of the First Church, either of them.

The sedan turned left on Washington. He did the same. The women had made contact with the man and girl just ahead of his arrival at the strip mall and were fleeing to the airport or the train station. It didn't matter to him which.

He punched the radio. Whoever had rented the car before him had tuned it to NPR.

“ … her husband, Charles Hayes, nearly negotiated an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal during his tenure as Secretary of State. With local DC news station WLJA posting grainy photos that appear to be Israeli Ambassador to the United States David Meridor and PLO Ambassador to the United States Yousef Ziad ar-Reefy leaving a Washington, DC, office building separately and minutes ahead of Democratic presidential candidate Gina Hayes, pundits are speculating that she intends to finish the job her husband started if elected. This means … ”

He slammed his fist into the console, cracking the plastic. The radio squawked country music before he punched the off button. Concentrating on his pulse, he reminded himself how close he was to his goal. Ahead of him, Salem Wiley was driving, with the strange man in the passenger seat and Isabel Odegaard next to the girl in the back. Wiley surely had the master list stuffed in her front left coat pocket, the one she'd kept patting in the hotel lobby.

The Crucible would be on Alcatraz Island on Monday, November 7,
the day before the presidential election. That gave him six days to catch the women, nab the list, and kill them.

He wouldn't need six days.

Once their car stopped, he wouldn't need six minutes.

40

Ten Years Old

D
aniel has joked that Bel has two switches: on or off. She never does anything halfway, which is why Salem isn't surprised when Bel signs up for law enforcement camp the summer after she graduates from eighth grade. She's given up looking for her dad; at least, she doesn't talk about it anymore. Now, it's all about arresting the bad guys.

The week without Bel is excruciating. Salem tries helping her dad, or going to the park, or reading, but it's not the same knowing she can't call Bel when she wants to. When Gracie asks Salem if she wants to go with to pick up Bel at the end of the week, it's all Salem can do not to yell her yes.

Bel seems different on the drive back. Distant, maybe, or like she's guarding something. When the two of them are alone in Bel's bedroom, she spills it.

“I kissed a girl.”

An unpleasant heat burns in Salem's chest. She's seen people kiss, of course—her parents, people in movies—but she thought it wouldn't be something she'd have to worry about until high school at least. “What was it like?”

Bel gets a faraway smile. “Warm. Wet. I liked it.”

Salem feels the chasm growing between them. She's a girl, ten. She still wears a helmet when she bikes. She owns a training bra, but she doesn't wear it because she hasn't even got what the boys call “mosquito bites.” Bel is growing up without her. The heat moves to her eyes, and she thinks she might cry. She adjusts her shirt, its front emblazoned with a dorky
Saved by the Bell
iron-on. She feels fat and stupid and out of place.

“But not as much as I liked the rope wall. Salem! I can't wait to be a real police officer! I have to show you what I learned about climbing. Come on.”

Bel takes her hand and tugs her outside. They take their secret path to the limestone caves by the river, and Bel teaches her all her tricks. They giggle and finish each other's sentences and Bel flashes her gorgeous smile, and everything is right again.

41

Massachusetts

S
alem tried to cover herself with the warm recollection of that smile as she drove the brown Buick Century, wrapping the memory around herself like a sweater.

Or a bulletproof vest.

Ernest sat next to her, massaging his arm. Mercy rested in the seat directly behind him, looking even younger curled around her blanket, and Bel rode next to the girl, her back against the door, eyes and maybe gun trained on Ernest. Salem couldn't tell from the driver's seat. All she knew was that Bel had patted down Ernest before she let him in the car and she'd ordered everyone where to sit, all in the span of one of the tensest twenty seconds of Salem's life.

Salem blinked against the setting sun. Her eyes felt gritty enough to make pearls if she could only close them for more than a second.

She needed to talk to stay awake. “How did you find us?”

Ernest shrugged, then winced. “Lucky guess. Figured you'd take a cab to the nearest car rental.”

Bel cursed from the backseat.

Salem asked another question. “Back at the hotel, you said the Hermitage Foundation came after our moms, and now they're after … your sister?” She glanced in the rearview mirror. The girl appeared asleep. She imagined Bel was glaring at the back of Ernest's skull, her eyes shooting bullets into him. Salem had seen her friend agitated before, but never to this level. They both needed sleep, food, and to get their heads on straight.

“That's right.” Ernest fidgeted. Salem first thought his height made it difficult to get comfortable, but then she realized he was trying to check on his sister in the mirror.

Salem craned her neck so she could glance deeper into the backseat. “I think she's sleeping.”

“Yeah,” Bel said from the rear. “I can hear her breathing. And now you should tell us anything you left out back at the Hawthorne, and quickly. We have somewhere we have to be.”

Salem knew better than to say
where
they needed to be—Bel would be furious if she spilled their destination to Ernest. That was unfortunate, because all Salem had was a vague idea that Amherst lay about two hours away on the western side of the state, combined with an awareness that the sun set in the west. She had no idea which roads to take and was following the fading light.

“Can I cover her with my jacket first?” Ernest looked pained.

“Of course,” Bel replied. “You're not hostages.”

He was too tall to remove his parka without bumping Salem two separate times. Other than the chicken-soup smell announcing he was past due for a shower, Salem didn't mind. He unbuckled, leaned over the backseat, and tucked his jacket around Mercy. She didn't stir. He returned to his spot and rebuckled.

“You're not going to like this,” he began, “but I don't know much more than I told you at the hotel. The Hermitage Foundation was formed by Andrew Jackson back in the early 1800s. He invested his fortune into it. I think he envisioned a secret group of men who would get rich and stay rich, sort of orchestrating the world behind the scenes. Part of their mission entailed keeping women in their place.”

“Why?” Salem asked.

Bel echoed her. “Yeah, weren't religions and governments doing just fine at that?”

“That's just it.” Ernest swiveled to face her. His voice was sincere, begging Bel not to make fun of him. “The original founders were the heads of
everything
at the time, including churches, businesses, and the government. They wanted to keep it that way. They've done a pretty good job too.”

“I thought I heard something in the news sometime about the Barnaby Brothers being active in the Hermitage.” In response to Bel's questioning stare in the mirror, Salem explained, “Those two rich guys taking down unions all over the country.”

Ernest nodded. “One of them, Carl Barnaby, is the Hermitage's CEO. His brother, Cassius, is on the board. They oversee the American arm of the Hermitage. Their mission is to help the rich get richer, starting with themselves. It's the original good old boys club.”

Bel glanced out the window, taking her eyes off of Ernest for the first time. “Let me guess: women's inequality is a conspiracy, created and funded by the Hermitage Foundation.”

He misread her sarcasm as buy-in. “Exactly! Women are the majority. If they united, they could take their power back. The Hermitage knows that. Cutting female genitals and sewing what's left mostly closed, sanctioned war-time rape, acid attacks, how impossible it is in some places to get an education—or even birth control—if you're female, unfair pay, erasing women from the history books … they're all movements funded by the Hermitage Foundation. They're so good at it that they have people thinking all of that is their own idea. They even have
women
speaking out against their own interests. And your mothers”—he turned his attention to Salem—“were instrumental in keeping the Hermitage in check, even though it's always been an uphill battle.” He coughed. “You're going to want to get on Highway 2.”

Bel spun her eyes back into the car. “What?”

The shadow of a smile appeared on Ernest's lips. “I peeked at the note back at the hotel, when you had me in that lock hold? I saw Emily Dickinson's signature. I figure you're going to Amherst, right?”

Salem sneaked a peek at Ernest. He was so tall he had to bend his shaggy head forward to fit in the car. He otherwise sat as straight as he could, long fingers spread out on his knees, face too young to grow a proper beard but a couple weeks past a shave nonetheless. He'd proven himself to be resourceful and smart, and he clearly loved his little sister. He was growing on Salem. “I think we should trust him, Bel.”

A flash of light appeared in the backseat as Bel fired up her phone. “The directions he gave look good.”

Ernest nodded happily. Traffic was heavy enough to keep the sedan at 40 miles per hour, gray cars full of gray people on gray roads streaming past like groupers against a current. The only color in the severe fall landscape was the sun, which had nearly dipped below the horizon, a vivid corona of blood orange marking its passage.

Bel's voice cut into the silence. She was still researching on her phone. “The only Minneapolis homicide stories mention Mrs. Gladia.” Bel aimed her words at Ernest. “No mention of her dog, no mention of our mothers disappearing, both facts that you knew.”

“And my nickname,” Salem said.

Bel dropped her phone and rubbed her face with both hands. “Okay. The kidnapping of two women, one of them a local celebrity, should be headline news. Goddammit.”

Salem's eyes grew hot. If she started crying, she wasn't ever going to stop, so she swallowed the cresting wave of fear and loss. No one was looking for Grace and her mom—no one but them.

“Your mom was right, Salem,” Bel said softly. “We have to beware. We're on the run, officially, until we figure this out.” She put her hands on the front seat and pulled herself forward. “Ernest, I
don't
trust you, but it's not personal. It's common sense.”

He bobbed his head. “Understood.” His voice dropped. “Your moms knew the Hermitage was coming for them. They set something in motion before they were … taken care of.” He pointed to Salem's pocket. “Emily Dickinson's note must tell us what it is.”

Salem's hand flew to the cloth of her jacket. She pushed lightly and heard a crinkle.

Dickinson's letter. Safe and sound.

Relieved, she let out her breath. “Where are you from, Ernest?”

His shoulders slumped. “Everywhere. Me and Mercy have been in Massachusetts for the last few months.”

“How'd you get caught up in all this?” Bel asked from the backseat.

Ernest glanced at the shadows racing outside his window. “We were living in Georgia. My mom died giving birth to Mercy. The Underground found us soon after. They give us places to bunk up and down the coast, help me with Mercy when I run errands for them. We can't ever stay in one place too long. I don't want the Hermitage to find her.”

The jacket in the backseat moved. “I'm hungry,” Mercy said.

Salem covered her mouth with her hand.
How much had the girl heard?
“You know what, honey? I'm hungry too. I'll take the next exit and—”

A deer leapt out of the ditch, scaring the words from her mouth, hurtling toward the hood of their car.