obsessing on my fake husband, and that leads to the money he swindled, the house we lost, hurtful things my sister said and so on, into an endless loop.
Times like this, the only thing that helps is to get up, don a robe and soft slippers and pad through the residence taking deep, restful breaths. The central lighting system has switched to the sleep mode, meaning the equivalent of night-lights at ankle height, providing soft illumination. Passing the room Jack Delancey uses when he’s spending the night in town, I detect the dirty-sock scent of the cigar smoke he carried home on his clothing, and smile to myself. Boys will be boys. Doubtless Jack was out with his cop buddies, sampling various bad-for-his-health potions. Did he learn anything interesting or useful? If so, he’ll make it known in the morning meet, which is something to look forward to.
Farther down the hall there are lights on under Teddy’s door, and the faint electric-train hum of the fans that cool his computers. He’ll be deep into the hunt. Ignoring the impulse to drop in, see how it’s going—our barefoot boy doesn’t need the distraction—I head on down the long hallway, over intervals of thick Persian carpets and cool hardwood flooring and take the back stairs, descending to the ground floor.
Despite the fact that we’d been invaded by armed thugs a little more than fifteen hours ago, I feel safer in the residence than anywhere else; safe because I know it intimately, the specific physicality of the place, and because my posse is within shouting distance. Naomi and Jack and, just lately, young Teddy, and even Mrs. Beasley. No, especially Mrs. Beasley, who I’m confident would defend me with her life, as I would her. Maybe this is what marines feel like, at night in their foxholes, surrounded by mortal danger but in the company of true, take-a-bullet buddies.
This wing of the residence has unusually high ceilings. On account of a very unusual architectural feature, a fifteenth-century Japanese Zen sand garden courtesy of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. The original that was for many decades located in the Asian Gallery, not to be confused with the modern, picnic-friendly version located outside in the museum courtyard. According to Jack, who was already here when I came on board, the exact reproduction of the ancient garden was a gift of the Benefactor, who had loved it as a child. That’s his theory—when asked, Naomi manages to be quite vague on how the garden happened to move from the museum to the residence. Vague or not, she frequently seeks a kind of meditation there, although she refuses to use the word.
Relaxing, she calls it. Thinking.
And there she is in her favorite silk kimono, sitting on a stone bench in the lotus position, scratching in the recently raked sand with a long stick. Nocturnal lights of the city shaft through the skylights, softening the shadows. Already I’m feeling a little more relaxed, knowing that boss lady is adhering to routine, finding a pattern.
“Welcome,” she says, not the least surprised to see me wandering the residence at this time of night. “Be seated.”
“Ah,” I sigh, and park my butt on the unforgiving stone. “Have you ever considered cushions?”
“It’s more comfortable cross-legged.”
“Sorry, I don’t pretzel.”
“You need to learn to relax, my dear.”
“I need to know if there’s a missing kid. If there isn’t, I can relax. If there is, I relax by getting to work. Either way, I need the knowing.”
Naomi takes a long, slow inhale, as if savoring the slightly minty air, then exhales slowly, deliberately. “Me, too,” she says. “We’ll know more tomorrow but for now I’m thinking, yes, there is a missing child, based on nothing more than gut instinct.”
“How so?”
“I’ve been going over all the stuff Teddy found on Randall Shane. Shane doesn’t seem to be the type who is easily fooled. Quite the opposite. Plus he’s always been discerning, not to say cold-blooded, about the cases he agrees to work. If he’s not convinced a child is alive, he won’t proceed. Really, it’s the only way to fly. Otherwise you get sucked into the vortex of desperate parents who cling to hope, despite all evidence to the contrary.”
The way she says it makes me think, for a moment, that she’s been there, in the vortex. Then in the darkness she smiles and the certainty dissipates. She’s merely speaking from professional experience. Nobody is as cool and calculated about accepting cases as Naomi Nantz, who I have seen turn down weeping mothers camped out on the doorstep, begging for help. Generally speaking, a case must first be brought to Dane Porter, where it gets rigorously vetted as to merit and the possibility of success. Often there’s nothing to be done, or we can’t improve on what’s already being accomplished through normal law enforcement channels. But every now and then, a glimmer of hope shines through, and that seems to be happening now, based on nothing more than experience and judgment of character.
“I want in on this,” I say. “I want to help.”
“You’re always helpful, Alice. That’s why I hired you.”
“I mean out in the field.”
Her left eyebrow arches slightly. “What did you have in mind?”
“Let me chat with the neighbors. If the professor ever had a kid around, somebody must have noticed. Jack has more than enough ground to cover—this is something I can handle. Just chatting.”
Naomi draws a few more lines with her funny little rake. Looking up to meet my eyes she finally says, “Why not? You don’t look like a typical cop or an investigator and that may prove useful. Just be careful.”
“I’m always careful.”
“Except when you aren’t,” she says with a smile.
There’s no reason at all that our brief conversation should help ease me into sleep, but for some reason it does. That and the sense, mostly unspoken, that if a child is missing, we’ll work the case until the child is found, or the sun goes cold, whichever comes first.
Chapter Eight
The Bad Boys Club
Taylor Gatling, Jr., the young founder and CEO of Gatling Security Group, likes to think that no matter how rich he gets, how much wealth and power he accumulates, a man should still empty his own spittoon. Unpleasant as it might be—and the thing has a vile smell, no question—it’s not a job to be delegated. Even if the man happens to have thousands of employees depending on his every whim, some of whom would no doubt consider it an honor to flush away the boss’s effluents, and scour the antique brass receptacle, and return it with a snappy salute and a brisk “Yes, sir! No problem, sir!”
Nope. He’ll handle the spittoon himself, thank you very much. A leader has to take responsibility for certain unpleasant tasks, something his own father never quite learned. And in this case it means he gets to spend a few moments by himself, out on his boathouse deck in New Castle, New Hampshire, overlooking the deep and roiled waters of the Piscataqua River, racing in the moonlight like a band of undulating mercury. Across the broad tidal river, shadowed and stark on its own few acres of island, rises the concrete carcass of the old Portsmouth Naval Prison, now abandoned, a fairy-tale castle with towers and turrets. Beyond that, the spiky tree line of the farther shore, interrupted by the occasional and very tasteful colonial mansions peeking out at the water from behind ancient guardians of spruce and fir. Elegant yachts moored in the cove, masts tick-tocking as hulls absorb the swell. Gatling smiles to himself when he recalls the real estate agent who handled the sale standing
