Salem's Cipher (30 page)

85

Twelve Years Old
Daniel's Last Day

T
hree days earlier, the fat-fingered man had stolen something from her with his grabby eyes, sticky like fly feet over her body, as if he could see the breast buds under her training bra, the soft triangle of hair between her legs. Salem hadn't mentioned anything to her mom. Somehow, she knew she shouldn't.

“A bikini?” Vida asks. They're at JCPenney. It's June, and Salem has grown two inches up and one inch out since last summer. They're going to the lake today—Daniel, Vida, and her—and she needs a new swimsuit. “Persian girls don't wear bikinis.”

“I'm not Persian. I'm Minnesotan.”

“What about this? The fabric is lovely.” Vida holds up a black one-piece with a skirt, the brown molding of the cup liners off-center and peeking out.

Salem hasn't asked for a lot from her parents. Even at twelve, she is aware of this. “Please, Mom. I'm growing up. I'm becoming a woman.” She'd rehearsed that line on the drive to the mall. In her head, it hadn't sounded so ridiculous.

Vida's eyes fill with tears like someone left the hose on behind them. Salem reviews her words, panicking. Her mom never cries, never. Except that one time she fell while biking and had to get stitches, but that doesn't count. That was pain.

“Mom?”

Vida tips her head as if gravity can send the tears back where they belong. Salem thinks her mom is going to pretend like the crying isn't happening—hopes she'll pretend that—but Vida comes to a decision. She untips her head and the tears run down her cheeks. She looks straight at Salem. The message is clear:
I'm crying. It's okay to cry.

It's kinda late for that bit of info
, Salem thinks. She's learned a lot from her mom—how to articulate arguments, how to cook Persian food, how to be a good friend. She's seen Vida Wiley stand in front of a crowd of thousands and deliver a speech on women's rights that has people standing on their chairs, yelling their support, as if her words are keys unlocking something in them.

She has not learned emotion from her mom.

That has come from her dad. Daniel was the one who held her and stroked her hair when she cried about Peter Miller calling her Salami Willy in third grade. Daniel's was the face she could count on in the audience of her band concerts and at her science fairs. She even went to her dad rather than her mom when she got her period last winter. It wasn't comfortable, make no mistake, but it made more sense than confiding in Vida.

Salem doesn't know what to do with a weeping Vida in the swimsuit section of the Minneapolis JCPenney, so she hands over the most important thing to her in this moment, a sacrifice that hurts but it's all she can think of. “I don't need the bikini, Mom.”

Vida wipes her face. She sniffles. She reaches for one of Salem's unruly curls, holding it, running her fingers down it. “You make me proud every day, baby. Do you know that?”

Salem's stomach drops. She'd hoped her mom wouldn't take her up on her offer, but she knows that once you make a deal, you stick with it, no matter what. She musters a wan smile.

Vida pulls her into an embrace. “But of course you need a bikini, because you
are
becoming a woman. A strong, proud woman.”

Salem is confused. What had Vida meant about being proud of her if it wasn't that she'd conceded the swimsuit battle?

But she doesn't worry too long. She's getting a bikini.

When they arrive home, Salem runs immediately to Daniel to show him the new swimsuit. He says it's pretty, and that he's happy she got what she wanted. Daniel and Vida kiss. Salem is so used to seeing their affection, the way they share secret looks, how she can hear them some nights laughing and talking well past the time they should be asleep. She knows that deep friendship is what it means to be married.

Daniel has packed for their day at the lake. He takes the cooler, Vida the beach bag with their books, sunglasses, and sun cream, and Salem lugs the beach towels. They are almost out the door when the phone rings.

“I'll get it,” Vida sings, setting the bag on the floor. She's happy, Salem can see that. They always have fun at the lake.

The conversation doesn't go well, though. When Vida hangs up, her expression is heavy. She tells them that Beth, her colleague, has gone into labor early. Someone needs to cover her classes. She has a guest speaker booked, a famous lecturer, and the college has paid too much for him to cancel.

“You can take Salem alone, honey.” Vida plants a kiss on Daniel's nose. “Remember that one time I took her when you had to work late? This will make us even.”

Salem feels sad, but then a thought buoys her: she'll get to wear her bikini without her mom staring at her sideways all day.

It will be the first day Salem and her dad go to the lake without her mom.

It will also be the last.

86

In Flight

T
he Virginia-bound plane pitched and dropped, yanking Salem out of her light sleep.

For as long as she could remember, Salem had thought her mother had grown cruelly selfish after Daniel died. Vida always put her work before her daughter. But a simpler, equally painful realization was twisting its way free. Adult Salem realized her mother had likely struggled with depression after Daniel's suicide.

To twelve-year-old Salem, it had felt like someone had iced the sun.

Their house became gray. Frozen dinners replaced home-cooked meals. Vida worked or slept, never smiled unless Gracie was around. Vida treated Salem like an inconvenience. When Salem won the eighth grade science fair blue ribbon for a tornado-predicting computer program she'd back-rigged to break into any word processing program and warn the user of dangerous weather, Vida had not been there. Same with band concerts, parent-teacher conferences. Her mom was competent, distant, and after Daniel's death, Salem grew up without her.

But what had Vida given up when she'd lost Daniel?

The plane dipped again. Salem glanced over at Bel.

Her friend had claimed the window seat. Her head leaned against the cold oval of the closed screen, her eyes closed, undisturbed by the brief turbulence. Salem had the middle seat, and Ernest the outer. One of his knees was halfway up the seat in front of him, and the other looked like he'd unrolled it into the aisle. Salem thought of waking Bel to talk about Daniel with her. She hadn't, not really, since his funeral. She'd shut Bel down when she asked questions—what was there to say?

But suddenly, for the first time since her father had killed himself, a new thought was tossed to Salem like a rope: where had Daniel gotten the sleeping pills the day he'd drowned?

She sat up straighter. She had carried the beach bag after Vida left, shoving the towels into it. There had been no pills in there. They weren't in the cooler, either. Daniel could have stolen the sleeping pills from out of the lake cabin's medicine cabinet, but Salem knew there hadn't been any there, either, because she'd peeked inside when she'd used the bathroom (toothpaste, Visine, mint floss, a generic bottle of ibuprofen, two toothbrushes). She supposed they could have been in the pocket of his swim trunks.

“I have to use the bathroom.”

Ernest stood to let her pass. He was too tall to stand fully upright in the plane. The red-eye flight Lu had booked for them was surprisingly full. The bathroom line was three deep. Salem was okay with that. It gave her time to uncramp her legs. She thought about all they had to do—land, rent a car, buy gear, follow the coordinates, crack Beale's vault, fly back to San Francisco to hand over to Agent Stone what they'd found—and how little time they had to accomplish everything.

The man in front of Salem turned, smiled. He wore sunglasses. She didn't smile back. Something about him made her uncomfortable. Was it his smell? But if he had an odor, it was too mild to pick out on the plane. His face appeared pleasant enough around the metal rims of the sunglasses. She didn't recognize him. She looked away, but he didn't.

“Been to Virginia before?” His voice rumbled just above a whisper. A couple sleeping in the seats next to him shifted, the woman pulling the thin airplane blanket closer to her.

Is he really picking me up on an airplane?
Salem shook her head and looked away. She hoped he'd get the hint. Did it bother her that he was wearing sunglasses at night, in the air?

He nodded and turned back toward the bathroom door accordioning open. A woman squeezed out and another sardined in. The line was now down to two, plus Salem. The man in sunglasses returned his attention to her.

“Where in Richmond are you going?”

Salem felt trapped. She wanted to be polite, but his attention was making her uncomfortable. Her body language should have made that clear, but she gave it one more shot, shrugging by way of an answer.

That must have registered loud and clear, finally, because he turned away from her. Thirty seconds later, though, he turned back, his lower lip trembling. “I'm just trying to make conversation, you know? I don't know if you think you're too good to talk to me or what, but I think I deserve some decent human interaction here.”

Every one of Salem's fears came crowding back in. She felt terrible for making him feel bad. She opened her mouth to speak but found Ernest at her side, crouching.

“She doesn't owe you anything, man.”

“It's okay, Ernest.”

“No, it's not.” Ernest didn't look mad, just that mix of resigned sadness he got when he was stressed. “You get to stand in line any way you want to.”

“Really, it's fine.” She appreciated Ernest's brotherly reaction, but she didn't want a scene. She certainly didn't want to make this man mad. They were going to be stuck on this plane together. “You can sit down. I'm okay. He's going to leave me alone, and everything will be all right.”

Ernest glanced at her, hesitated, then nodded and shuffled back to his seat.

Salem stopped herself short of apologizing to the man in sunglasses—barely—and shoved her hands in her pockets. She wished she had a phone to look at.

The bathroom door opened again and places were traded. The man in sunglasses was next in line. Salem was glad she wouldn't have to stand next to him much longer.

“You never said where in Richmond you were going,” he said, without turning to face her.

Her breath caught.
Really?
She opened her mouth to say something to him directly then snapped it shut. The plane ride was almost over. She could keep her peace until they landed. Besides, the man wasn't even looking at her.

Then he did. He turned. She saw her own face reflected in his lenses, upside down and tiny. “Northern Richmond is pretty this time of year. Are you visiting friends?”

She didn't know what exactly it was about the interaction that dug up, dusted off, and pushed her
fuck it
button after all these years, and especially after the last five days. Maybe it was his simpering aggressiveness, his shaming of her for not doing his bidding, the way he'd ignored all of her nonverbals. Maybe it was that she realized she'd gone without Ativan for four days, and that she was surviving. Better than surviving. Probably accumulated stress had something to do with it, too, but suddenly, she found herself caring much more about her own comfort than his. “You're being a dick.”

He jerked as if she'd hit him. “What?”

“I clearly don't want to talk to you, and you won't let it go, so fuck you. Fuck you for thinking I have to speak with you because we're both standing in line, and fuck you for your creepy sunglasses on a plane. I will stand in this line until it's my turn, I will not talk to you, and you
will
respect that.”

“Fuck yeah,” the woman under the blue airplane blanket muttered sleepily.

Salem realized her chest was heaving up and down rapidly, her heart racing. She waited for the man to react. He opened and closed his mouth. Time unspooled at a snail's pace. He finally responded, sort of. He pushed past her and returned to his seat four rows ahead of hers. She waited until the bathroom door opened, went in, and slid the lock closed.

She leaned against the bathroom door, laughing quietly.

There may have been tears mixed in.

Sunday
November 6

87

Montvale, Virginia

T
he woman was slumped in the backseat of Jason's car when he deplaned one of the Hermitage's private jets onto the Richmond International Airport tarmac. She was bound, blindfolded, unresponsive. The agent who handed him the keys also handed him a Christmas-tree shaped air freshener.

When he slid into the car, he understood why.

The Underground leader's flesh was a swampland of infected wounds, her body running a fever so high that Jason could feel the heat of her from the front seat.

It enraged him.

Surely her wounds were the cuts he'd inflicted back in Minneapolis, but that was in the line of work. If the Hermitage chose to keep her, they needed to tend to her. Jason would be lucky if she stayed alive for the four-hour drive to Montvale, and what good would she be to him dead?

He slammed his hand into the steering wheel.

When Barnaby had called, his command had been clear.

“Take her with.”

“She'll slow me down. Why do I need her?”

“Geppetto tells me you failed outside the Dolores Mission.”

Jason's cheek twitched, took a new shape, popped back. When he'd met Geppetto outside Mission Delores, Geppetto had placed his hand on Jason's shoulder.

He'd squeezed.

Just a bit.

Enough to steal Jason's breath.

To remind him of those nights in the Lower 9, when it was his turn with Geppetto.

To make sure he remembered that single job in Minnesota fourteen years earlier.

To let Jason know that his crack could come again, at any time.

Jason despised Geppetto for that, but he hated himself worse for not reaching for a knife and skewering that meat hook of a hand like a kebab, for not even pulling away. That was Geppetto's power, to teach you that attempting escape hurt worse than letting him have his way, to brand that message deep into your soul.

Adding insult to the promise of injury, the women had escaped their grasp outside the mission. Jason had watched across the street as Wiley fumbled with the middle bell, nearly falling before popping a drawer hidden in the bell's harness and removing something. He saw them exit the front door, and he'd issued a terse command to Geppetto: Hold Isabel, don't hurt her.

Even with her hair chopped, she took his breath away.

But then the FBI agent arrived, followed two hours later by this phone call from Barnaby.

“Yes, we failed. The daughters weren't able to stay for the interview as we'd hoped.” Jason didn't like that his voice sounds whiny, or that Barnaby's good cheer had disappeared days ago and had not returned.

“It's not just the docket anymore,” Barnaby says. “They have the location to Beale's vault. This is a Code Blue. I need you.”

That announcement knocked the whine directly out of Jason.

He felt himself grow taller.

Barnaby continued, “I need stealth. If I send in the entire workforce, Wiley and Odegaard might run before they open the vault, and we'll have nothing. That girl is the only one who can get inside, so make sure she does. A plane is waiting for you at SFO. We'll have the Underground leader in a car for you when you land.”

Jason didn't want to ask again. “Why do I need her?”

A pause announced Barnaby's displeasure. “You may not, but if it comes to it, what would you do if someone was about to dismiss your mother in front of you?”

“Anything.”

Jason meant it. Killing his mother was
his
job.

Barnaby's genteel voice broke into Jason's mental stroll. “Wait until they enter the vault to be sure it's possible. Then downsize them all. We won't need their work any longer. We won't need any outside employees.” His tone became reverential. “Once we have what's inside the vault, the Hermitage will be untouchable.”

“What do I do after they've been dismissed?”

“We'll have a human resources crew on hand, just out of sight, poised for cleanup. You'll tell them when to arrive. I don't want them there until everyone is terminated. Understand?”

“Yes sir. Thank you.”

Barnaby cleared his throat, his tone chiding. “They're your backup, too, if you aren't able to decruit everyone on your own. You'll inform HR when you go in. You'll have ten minutes from that point to finish the job. If they don't hear from you within that time, they swarm. But that won't happen, will it, Jason?”

The words stung. “No sir.”

“Good man.”

Barnaby had better believe it.

Everyone would be dead when Jason was done.