Vanish (34 page)

“Why?”

“I hated DC. And I admit, I’m a born Yankee. Call me a masochist, but I missed the winters up

here, so I moved back to Boston in February.”

“What was your beat in DC?”

“Everything. Features. Politics, crime beat.” He paused. “A cynic might say there’s no

difference between the last two. I’d as soon cover a good juicy murder than chase after some

blow-dried senator all day.”

She glanced back over her shoulder at him. “Have you ever dealt with Senator Conway?”

“Of course. He’s one of our senators. “ He paused. “Why do you ask about Conway?” When

she didn’t answer, he leaned closer, his hands grasping the back of her chair. “Dr. Isles,” he

said, his voice suddenly quiet, whispering into her hair. “You want to tell me what you’re

thinking?”

Her gaze was fixed on the screen. “I’m just trying to make some connections here.”

“Are you getting the tingle?”

“What?”

“That’s what I call it when I suddenly know I’m onto something interesting. Also known as

ESP or Spidey sense. Tell me why Senator Conway makes you sit up and take notice.”

“He’s on the intelligence committee.”

“I interviewed him back in November or December. The article’s there somewhere.”

She scanned down the headlines, about Congressional hearings and terrorism alerts and a

Massachusetts congressman arrested for drunk driving, and found the article about Senator

Conway. Then her gaze strayed to a different headline, dated January 15.

Reston Man Found Dead Aboard Yacht. Businessman Missing Since January 2nd.

It was the date that she focused on. January 2nd. She clicked on the entry and the page filled

with text. Only a moment before, Lukas had talked about
the tingle.
She was feeling it now.

She turned to look at him. “Tell me about Charles Desmond.”

“What do you want to know about him?”

“Everything.”

Who are you, Mila? Where are you?

Somewhere, there had to be a trace of her. Jane poured herself a fresh cup of coffee, then sat

down at her kitchen table and surveyed all the files she had collected in the days since coming

home from the hospital. Here were autopsy and Boston PD crime lab reports, Leesburg PD

files on the Ashburn massacre, Moore’s files on Joseph Roke and Olena. She had already

combed these files several times, searching for a trace of Mila, the woman whose face no one

knew. The only physical evidence that Mila had ever existed had come from the interior of

Joseph Roke’s car: several human head hairs, found on the backseat, which matched neither

Roke’s nor Olena’s.

Jane took a sip of coffee, and reached once again for the file on Joseph Roke’s abandoned car.

She had learned to work around Regina’s nap times, and now that her daughter was finally

asleep, she wasted no time plunging back into the search for Mila. She scanned the list of items

found in the vehicle, reviewing again the pathetic collection of his worldly possessions.

There’d been a duffel bag full of dirty clothes and stolen towels from Motel Six. There’d been

a bag of moldy bread and a jar of Skippy peanut butter and a dozen cans of Vienna sausages.

The diet of a man who had no chance to cook. A man on the run.

She turned to the trace evidence reports and focused on the hair and fiber findings. It had been

an extraordinarily filthy car, both the front and the back seats yielding up a large variety of

fibers, both natural and man-made, as well as numerous hair strands. It was the hairs on the

backseat that interested her, and she lingered over the report.

Human. A02/B00/C02 (7 cm)/D42

Scalp hair. Slightly curved, shaft is seven centimeters, pigment is medium red.

So far, this is all we know about you, thought Jane. You have short red hair.

She turned to the photographs of the car. She had seen these before, but once again, she studied

the empty Red Bull soda cans and crumpled candy wrappers, the wadded-up blanket and dirty

pillow. Her gaze paused on the tabloid newspaper lying on the backseat.

The
Weekly Confidential.

Again, she was struck by how incongruous that newspaper was, in a man’s car. Could Joe

really have cared about what was troubling Melanie Griffith, or whose out-of-town husband

was enjoying lap dances? The
Confidential
was a woman’s tabloid; women
did
care about the

woes of film stars.

She left the kitchen and peeked into her daughter’s room. Regina was still asleep—one of those

rare moments that would all too soon be over. Quietly she closed the nursery door, then slipped

out of the apartment and headed up the hall to her neighbor’s.

It took a few moments for Mrs. O’Brien to answer her door, but she was clearly delighted to

have a visitor. Any visitor.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” said Jane.

“Come in, come in!”

“I can’t stay. I left Regina in her crib, and—”

“How is she? I heard her crying again last night.”

“I’m sorry about that. She’s not a good sleeper.”

Mrs. O’Brien leaned close and whispered. “Brandy.”

“Excuse me?”

“On a pacifier. I did it with both my boys, and they slept like angels.”

Jane knew the woman’s two sons.
Angels
was not a word that still applied to them. “Mrs.

O’Brien,” she said, before she had to listen to any more bad-mother tips, “you subscribe to the

Weekly Confidential,
don’t you?”

“I just got this week’s issue. ‘Pampered Hollywood pets!’ Did you know some hotels have

special rooms just for your dog?”

“Do you still have any issues from last month? I’m looking for the one with Melanie Griffith

on the cover.”

“I know just the one you’re talking about.” Mrs. O’Brien waved her into the apartment. Jane

followed her into the living room and stared in amazement at tottering stacks of magazines piled

on every horizontal surface. There had to be a decade’s worth of
People
and
Entertainment

Weekly
and
US
magazines.

Mrs. O’Brien went straight to the appropriate pile, rifled through the stack of
Confidential
s,

and pulled out the issue with Melanie Griffith. “Oh yes, I remember, this was a
good
one,” she

said. “ ‘Plastic Surgery Disasters!’ If you ever think about getting a face-lift, you’d better read

this issue. It’ll make you forget the whole thing.”

“Do you mind if I borrow it?”

“You’ll bring it back, though?”

“Yes, of course. It’s just for a day or two.”

“Because I
do
want it back. I like to reread them.”

She probably remembered every detail, too.

Back at her own kitchen table, Jane looked at the tabloid’s issue date: July 20th. It had gone on

sale only a week before Olena was pulled from Hingham Bay. She opened the
Confidential
and

began to read. Found herself enjoying it even as she thought: God, this is trash, but it’s
fun

trash. I had no idea
he
was gay, or that
she
hasn’t had sex in four years. And what the hell was

this craze about colonics, anyway? She paused to ogle the plastic surgery disasters, then moved

on, past the fashion emergencies and “I Saw Angels” and “Courageous Cat Saves Family.”

Had Joseph Roke lingered over the same gossip, the same celebrity fashions? Had he studied

the faces disfigured by plastic surgeons and thought:
Not for me. I’ll grow old gracefully?

No, of course not. Joseph Roke wasn’t a man who’d read this.

Then how did it end up in his car?

She turned to the classified ads on the last two pages. Here were columns of advertisements for

psychic services and alternative healers and business opportunities at home. Did anyone

actually answer these? Did anyone really think you could make “up to $250 a day at home

stuffing envelopes”? Halfway down the page, she came to the personal ads, and her gaze

suddenly froze on a two-line ad. On four familiar words.

The Die Is Cast.

Beneath it was a time and date and a telephone number with a 617 area code. Boston.

The phrase could be just a coincidence, she thought. It could be two lovers arranging a furtive

meeting. Or a drug pickup. Most likely it had nothing at all to do with Olena and Joe and Mila.

Heart thumping, she picked up the kitchen telephone and dialed the number in the ad. It rang.

Three times, four times, five times. No answering machine picked up, and no voice came on the

line. It just kept ringing until she lost count.
Maybe it’s the phone of a dead woman.

“Hello?” a man said.

She froze, her hand already poised to hang up. She snapped the receiver back to her ear.

“Is anyone there?” the man said, sounding impatient.

“Hello?” Jane said. “Who is this?”

“Well, who’s
this
? You’re the one calling.”

“I’m sorry. I, uh, was given this number, but I didn’t get a name.”

“Well, there’s no name on this line,” the man said. “It’s a public pay phone.”

“Where are you?”

“Faneuil Hall. I was just walking by when I heard it ringing. So if you’re looking for someone

in particular, I can’t help you. Bye.” He hung up.

She stared down again at the ad. At those four words.

The Die Is Cast.

Once again, she reached for the phone and dialed.

“Weekly Confidential,”
a woman answered. “Classifieds.”

“Hello,” said Jane. “I’d like to place an ad.”

“You should have talked to me first,” said Gabriel. “I can’t believe you just did this on your

own.”

“There was no time to call you,” said Jane. “Their deadline for ads was five P.M. today. I had

to make a decision right then and there.”

“You don’t know who’s going to respond. And now your cell phone number will be in print.”

“The worst that can happen is I’ll get a few crank calls, that’s all.”

“Or you get sucked into something a lot more dangerous than we realize.” Gabriel tossed the

tabloid down on the kitchen table. “We have to set this up through Moore. Boston PD can

screen and monitor the calls. This needs to be thought out first.” He looked at her. “Cancel it,

Jane.”

“I can’t. I told you, it’s too late.”

“Jesus. I run over to the field office for two hours, and come home to find my wife’s playing

dialing for danger
in our kitchen.”

“Gabriel, it’s only a two-line ad in the personals. Either someone calls me back, or no one takes

the bait.”

“What if someone does?”

“Then I’ll let Moore handle it.”

“You’ll
let
him?” Gabriel gave a laugh. “This is his job, not yours. You’re on maternity leave,

remember?”

As if to emphasize the point, a loud wail suddenly erupted from the nursery. Jane went to

retrieve her daughter, and found Regina had, as usual, kicked her way free of the blanket and

was flailing her fists, outraged that her demands were not being instantly met. No one’s happy

with me today, thought Jane as she lifted Regina from the crib. She directed the baby’s hungry

mouth to her breast and winced as little gums clamped down. I’m trying to be a good mom, she

thought, I really am, but I’m tired of smelling like sour milk and talcum powder. I’m tired of

being tired.

I used to chase bad guys, you know.

She carried her baby into the kitchen and stood rocking from leg to leg, trying to keep Regina

content, even as her own temper was about to combust.

“Even if I could, I wouldn’t cancel the ad anyway,” she said defiantly. She watched as Gabriel

crossed to the phone. “Who are you calling?”

“Moore. He takes over from here.”

“It’s my cell phone. My idea.”

“It’s not your investigation.”

“I’m not saying I need to run the show. I gave them a specific time and date. How about we all

sit together that night and wait to see who calls? You, me, and Moore. I just want to
be
there

when it rings.”

“You need to back off on this, Jane.”

“I’m already part of this.”

“You have Regina. You’re a mother.”

“But I’m not dead. Are you listening to me? I’m. Not.
Dead.
”

Her words seemed to hang in the air, her fury still reverberating like a clash of cymbals. Regina

suddenly stopped suckling and opened her eyes to stare at her mother in astonishment. The

refrigerator gave a rattle and went still.

“I never said you were,” Gabriel said quietly.

“But I might as well be, the way you talk.
Oh, you have Regina. You have a more important

job now. You need to stay home and make milk and let your brain rot.
I’m a cop, and I need to

go back to work. I
miss
it. I miss having my goddamn beeper go off.” She took a breath and

sat down at the kitchen table, her breath escaping in a sob of frustration. “I’m a cop,” she

whispered.

He sat down across from her. “I know you are.”

“I don’t think you do.” She wiped a hand across her face. “You don’t get who I am at all. You

think you married someone else. Mrs. Perfect Mommy.”

“I know exactly who I married.”

“Reality’s a bitch, ain’t it? And so am I.”

“Well.” He nodded. “Sometimes.”

“It’s not like I didn’t warn you.” She rose to her feet. Regina was still strangely quiet, still

staring at Jane as though Mommy had suddenly become interesting enough to watch. “You

know who I am, and it’s always been take it or leave it.” She started out of the kitchen.