A light caused Neeley to shift left. She watched as Hannah walked into the bathroom. Her hair was disheveled and she wore a floor-length robe. She stood in front of the mirror for almost thirty seconds without moving. Hannah's position was directly in front of the huge window that must have been above a proportionally large tub that Neeley could just make out the far edge of.
Neeley twisted the focus knob, straining to see what thoughts were reflected on Hannah's face as she tugged the robe off her shoulders. After a few moments Hannah turned toward the window and then disappeared from view as she stepped into the tub. Neeley lowered the glasses and relaxed for a few moments.
Neeley looked back at the bathroom window. She could still see in despite the gathering steam. Hannah stood so quickly the water sloshed over the edge of the tub. Neeley followed window to window as Hannah wandered, naked, into the kitchen, picking up a drink.
Hannah strolled back to the bathroom and settled back into the tub, drink on the edge. Neeley watched as Hannah finished her drink. Neeley didn't know if Hannah knew anything about her husband's past activities or present location, but the bottom line was that she was the only link Neeley had to John Masterson.
***************
Hannah slid into the hot water and pondered the recent developments in her life in a distant reflective manner. When her own parents had died, Hannah had gone to live with the first of a succession of foster families. Although she had been only six, Hannah had felt very separate from the members of her new family. She had tried hard, but she had never again felt like part of a family. Even with John she had sometimes wondered if she was forever meant to be an outsider. He had always been so secretive about his life before he met her and rarely ever talked about his work at Tyro Oil.
Hannah realized that John's leaving had taken something very important from her life. She wasn't exactly a soon to be divorced woman; she was a gardener without a garden, a shepherd without a flock. John had been her excuse not to think, not to dwell on her life by itself. His life had required lots of support and Hannah had allowed his daily existence to become her focus. Had that been love? Hannah unconsciously pushed her wet hair from her face and forced her thoughts elsewhere.
She looked down at her submerged body. It was a good one, not perfect but good. Slim with full breasts and a nice feminine flair at the hips. John had loved her breasts, especially braless under those silk blouses he bought her.
Eyes tightly closed, body completely still, she allowed the water to envelop her with its heavy weight. Hannah suddenly started, realizing she had briefly fallen asleep. A person could drown like this, she realized. Using a towel, she wiped some steam from the mirrored wall across from her. The woman in the mirror appeared to be alive. She crossed her slim legs yoga-style under the water and leaned forward to stare directly into her pupils. After her parents died, she had spent hours staring in mirrors, accepting that because there was a reflection she was alive, that she did have substance.
She reached toward the towels piled on the tub edge next to the wall. Her hand slid under the pile and her fingers curled around the handle of a knife. She pulled it out and stared at it in the mirror, holding it between her and the glass. She turned the point toward herself and placed it between her breasts. Her breathing grew shallow.
She felt the pressure of the point as if it were happening to someone else.
Hannah suddenly stood and grabbed a towel. She dried off and put her robe on, then made her way to the kitchen, glass in hand. She poured herself another drink and turned on the TV mounted on the kitchen counter. She blindly grabbed a book and took it with her to the couch. She went over to the couch, the noise of the TV a comforting distraction behind her and began reading until her head nodded forward and she fell asleep.
*************
Deep in the shadows, Neeley hadn't moved. Neeley considered options, but then realized there weren't many courses open to her.
Neeley took one final look at Hannah asleep on the couch. Neeley felt reasonably confident Hannah wouldn't be doing anything else tonight. There was no guarantee of that, but she couldn't stay here forever just watching. She doubted very much that John Masterson would show up in the middle of the night. She could think while she moved.
Neeley slid the field-glasses into the backpack and threw it over her shoulders. She moved through the darkened woods, heading back for the truck, not needing the GPR to find her way back. After fifteen minutes, Neeley came to the parking lot. Before leaving the shadows, she scanned the street and the other lots. There were no other vehicles that looked like surveillance. There was no reason why there should be, but Neeley never took chances.
Neeley drove without thinking. She pulled the pickup into the underground garage at the hotel and parked. She took the elevator up to the second floor and went into her room, leaving the lights off. Always the second floor—low enough to be able to get out the window, but not the first floor where it would be easy for someone to get in the window.
Pushing the bed aside, Neeley stripped and stood in front of the large mirror that topped the dresser. Slowly she started stretching, working from her neck down. After years of intense work, she could finally do a complete split of her legs to the sides and, after a few minutes, she got down all the way. There, spread on the floor, she bent over and pushed her hamstrings even further, touching her forehead to her knees. The strain on the muscles felt good.
Satisfied she was loose, Neeley stood back up, faced the mirror and began the first Kata. Low block left. Sliding step combined with middle punch. Reverse. Low block right. Sliding step with middle punch. Ninety degrees left. Middle block left flowing into a snap kick to the face. Middle punch. The first Kata was 48 movements and took her almost a minute.
Neeley liked the discipline of the Katas, the formalized movements required of martial arts students. She enjoyed watching herself in the mirror. Her muscles rippled and flowed as she blocked, punched, chopped and kicked. The only thing lacking was an opponent. She moved without a noise. Even the required jump kicks were deadly silent on the room's carpet.
Kata's one through eight, those required of the level one black belt, took almost ten minutes. Neeley repeated the cycle ten times: eighty complex mini-dances. By the end, the sweat was pouring off her. As Neeley finished the tenth number eight she draw her fists together in front of her eyes and slowly brought them down together in front to her waist. Feet shoulder width apart, she stood that way for a long minute, arm and chest muscles vibrating from the pressure she was exerting on the fists.
A vision of Gant passed across her eyes and was reflected in the mirror. The discipline of the art slid away. In one fluid movement she slid her right leg back, reached across her chest with her left fist and then pulled back with that same fist towards her side as her right fist flashed forward towards the mirror, push-pull, the essence of power. Some remnant of sanity stopped her fist a scant inch from the flat surface of the mirror and the projected image of Gant.
Neeley shivered as she realized what she had almost done. The ridges of muscle across her stomach and chest relaxed as she took a deep breath. Neeley turned to the bed and collapsed across it.
Hannah groggily put her arm over her eyes to shield them from the bright morning sun. She rolled away from the huge palladium windows that allowed the unfiltered light to blaze through their high arches. John's windows, she thought. Those two windows had probably cost more than the first house she was sent to in Kansas. She raised her head from the pillow to check the time and was hit with a tremendous wracking pain that told her she had once again drank too much.
She tried to think of a good reason to get off the sofa and had just about decided there wasn't one when the phone rang. She reached across and grabbed the phone. "Hello," she croaked in a voice husky enough to cause concern.
"Hannah Masterson?" a female voice tentatively inquired.
"Yes?"
"I'm just confirming your appointment today with Doctor Jenkins."
"Jenkins," Hannah repeated. "Oh, yeah, right. I'll be there."
"See you at eleven." The phone went dead. Jenkins. Hannah had been seeing him intermittingly for about five years. She’d gone the first time at John’s insistence after the miscarriage. She wasn’t sure the psychiatrist was doing her much good but Howard’s urging had spurred her to make the appointment and she figured now that she was locked in, she might as well go, considering she’d be charged whether she were there or not.
Hannah put her feet on the ground. She looked around the room, remembering the time she had painted the walls, when her greatest concern had been making sure the paint color matched the curtains.
The doorbell echoed through the empty house. Hannah threw on a robe and staggered to the front door.
Amelia Lewis looked surprised for only a moment, and then she walked through the open door and set down a folder on the foyer table. Hannah searched her muddled mind for the proper role.
"I have the information you need for the fund-raiser," Amelia said.
Hannah looked at the folder. "I'm sorry Amelia but I thought--"
Amelia held up a hand. "Listen, Hannah, I know something's going on. But there's no need for you to bury your head in the sand. If you don't want to talk about it, that's your business, but remember, I am here for you. I don't think you should just chuck everything."
Hannah bit back the insane laughter that welled in her chest. “
I
didn’t chuck everything, Amelia.”
Hannah could almost hear the synapses connecting in the other woman's head. Amelia fidgeted, looking very uncomfortable and concerned.
"Well, come in," Hannah said, more to get her out of the foyer and view of the street than anything else. She led Amelia to the kitchen. "Care for a drink?"
There was a part of her that took pleasure from the shocked look Amelia’s face.
"Hannah, what’s going on?”
“Oh, come off it,” Hannah said as she poured herself a glass full of scotch. “I’m sure Celia has filled everyone in.”
Amelia’s face tightened slightly. “John really left you?”
“’Left me’?” Hannah repeated.
"You shouldn't blame yourself for what happened, Hannah."
“Oh, that’s good,” Hannah said. “I’m not blaming me for John. I’m blaming me for me.” She saw the lack of comprehension on Amelia’s face and knew they were so far apart now, in just a few short days, that they could never really talk again. There was no common ground for understanding.
Hannah knew deep in her heart that there had never been any to start with. She was here because of John. None of these other women had been raised as wards of the state, moving from foster home to foster home, seen the things she’d seen at such a young age. She had tried so hard to pretend but ultimately she had failed at this life. She didn’t know yet how she had, but there was no doubting now that she had. Staring at Amelia, Hannah felt something shift inside of herself. The pretend Hannah was dead-- the thing she wasn’t sure of, was who was the real Hannah?
“Hannah--” Amelia began. “Well, you know, I mean, there--” she sputtered to a halt, out of gas in uncharted territory.
Hannah took another drink. “Sure you don’t want some?”
“Hannah! You need to pull yourself together!”
“Why?” Hannah asked. “I
was
together. I got abandoned, so being together that way, your way, this way--” Hannah waved her hands, taking in the house-- “didn’t work too well. Don’t I get to fall apart first before I have to be
together
again?” Hannah felt something rise in her chest. “Don’t I get to be upset for a little while? I got screwed, Amelia! More than screwed. Don’t I get to be angry? Pissed off? Just for a little while?”
Amelia was backpedaling. “I have to go.”
Hannah didn’t follow her to the door as she finished her drink.
***************
Neeley pulled her backpack from under the bed. Grabbing the locked trunk from the hotel room's closet, Neeley dialed the combination and swung up the lid. There were several small plastic cases inside and Neeley sorted through. She'd planned all this last night as she lay in bed after her workout. She knew that Gant probably would have kicked in the door last night at Hannah's house and forced her into giving up John's location; if she knew it. Neeley preferred a less direct approach.
Gant had lectured endlessly about women having the same violent capabilities as men, but he had usually been discussing terrorists or criminals. Neeley had argued vainly that while women were just as susceptible as men to emotional inducements to violence, women on the whole required those inducements and seldom resorted to violence for the act itself whereas men would maim and kill without much reason. Neeley had often wondered which gender was the more realistic. She also knew that despite her observations, it was dangerous to classify people into groups. Gant had always said that you could never really tell about a person's true character until you saw how they acted in a crisis.
All the previous night she had pondered the problem and her only solution seemed to be to carefully monitor Hannah Masterson while she tracked husband John through other means. A very important question that nagged at Neeley from the moment she found out John had gone under was
why
had he done that? Had he heard of Gant's death? Or was something else going on? Had the Cellar already moved on John Masterson? But if that was so, why had the Cellar left Hannah dangling? The biggest issue to be resolved was what was the connection between Gant and John Masterson?
Neeley transferred the needed items from trunk to backpack and then relocked the former. She wore a pair of faded blue jeans and a black windbreaker over a t-shirt. Throwing the backpack on her shoulder she headed out, locking the door behind her.
She looped around the city, melding with the flow of the early morning rush hour, careful to observe all traffic rules. Neeley didn't need to consult the GPR to get to Manchester. Once she navigated somewhere she could always get there again.
Soon after parking the pick-up truck in the same spot, she was at her perch behind the log. She pulled out the glasses and scanned.
Hannah was at the kitchen putting some dishes in the sink. Then she turned and headed for the bedroom.
***************
In her closet, Hannah scanned the racks for something appropriate. It was hard to concentrate. She could hardly decide what to wear to see her shrink, much less how she was going to handle the meeting. A part of her wondered if he’d still see her given that John’s insurance was probably going to disappear soon. She’d never particularly felt that Jenkins had much empathy for her. Hannah had found the dialogue once a month since she started seeing him to be intellectually stimulating but of little use otherwise. But John has insisted she keep going and she had no real reason not to, so she’d continued.
She turned on the shower and, as the steam flowed over the top of the glass door, pulled off her nightclothes. She stepped into the hot spray and let the water pound some of the tension from her back and shoulders. She put both of her hands against the tile and leaned forward until she felt a comfortable stretch in her legs.
She stood in the shower a long time thinking of how she had let herself be led into this gilded cage of a marriage. There was a truth somewhere, a reason she had settled for so little while foolishly believing she had so much.
She towel dried her hair. When her hair was reasonably dry, she quickly applied her makeup using extra concealer to cover the dark smudges under her eyes. When she finished her face, she started back on her hair, throwing her head down and brushing it so hard she could feel the tugs at the roots. Done, she took one last look in the mirror and then pivoted out of the room.
Forgetting the earlier quandary of what to wear, she grabbed the first dress off the rack and slipped it on. She stepped back to look at herself in the mirror. The Ann Klein dress fit perfectly and the warm peach color was good with her hair and eyes. That made her feel slightly better.
She walked to the kitchen, grabbed her keys and purse and went out the front door.
***************
Neeley checked left and right. No sign of life. She was glad that the houses were spaced well apart. Neeley jogged downhill and was at the back of the house in less than twenty seconds. She knelt at the patio doors and pulled out a specially made tool. It looked like a set of extremely thin needle nose pliers. The name of the security company on the warning signs posted on all the windows of the Masterson residence had alerted her to what she would need.
She slid the thin edges of the tool between the door and frame and pushed it down towards the floor. Four inches from the ground she felt an obstruction. Neeley slid the tool back slightly and opened the jaws, then reclamped them on the mechanical sensor that was pressed against the inside of the door. She locked the jaws in place and folded the handle over, hooking the adjustable catch on it over the edge of the molding on the outside of the door. All set.
Neeley picked the lock and entered. The pliers held the alarm sensor in place as the door opened. From kneeling to entry had taken ten seconds.
Closing the French door, Neeley paused, scanning the immediate surroundings. She worked top to bottom, left to right, in steady arcs. Smoke detectors in the ceiling corners. No sign of any internal alarm system. No rug on the floor, which precluded ground sensors unless the Masterson's had put some extremely sensitive—and expensive-- ones under the tiles. Neeley doubted that.
Her eyes went back to the bookcases that lined almost every wall. She’d never seen this many books outside of a library. And she could tell they weren’t for show as there were numerous well-thumbed paperbacks nestled among leather-bound hard covers. Titles were jammed horizontally on top of rows, filling every available space. Who had that much time to read all this, Neeley wondered?
She had planned out her movements the night before based on the observations of the interior that she was able to make from the outside. Her first move was to the portable phone in the kitchen. She opened the battery case on the backside of the handset, pulled out the rechargeable battery and replaced it with one she had brought with her. The phone would still work, but now it would also simultaneously transmit on a second frequency.
She moved to the stove hood and unclamped the filter. Reaching up as far as her arm would go; she attached a tiny magnetic transmitter to the metal. Backup if the portable phone was taken out of the room.
Neeley turned. Dining room next. She paused in the entranceway and checked it out. Looked clean. She moved along the wall and used a Swiss army knife to unscrew the grating over the air vent. The third bug was in place.
Next the foyer. Neeley stepped into the large open area at the bottom of the double staircase and froze. Her eyes were riveted on a small plastic box in the far corner of the ceiling, pointed at the front door. She slowly looked up and saw a similar box in the corner above her, pointing in the same direction as the other. Neeley slid her feet back and re-entered the dining room. Infra-red sensors. That wasn't good, but not unexpected. She was prepared for the possibility. Neeley considered and made a tactical decision. The foyer wasn't that important and the mikes she had planned for the den ought to pick up conversation there unless they were masked by a TV or other noise emitter in a closer location.
Neeley turned and went around the back of the dual staircase to the den. She checked that out. No sensors there. If there were more IR's than those two out front they would logically be near the master bedroom. On the way across the den, Neeley pressed another bug into the flue of the fireplace.
She paused at the short hall leading between the master bath and a room off to the right. The main bedroom was ahead. Lurking above the door to that room was another IR sensor. Unlike the foyer, this one would have to be dealt with. The master bedroom couldn't be ignored.
Neeley slid her backpack off and pulled out something that looked like a small hand-held searchlight. She plugged it into a wall socket and flipped the switch to on. Nothing apparent happened, but Neeley knew that the bulb was throwing out intense infrared light, enough to blanket any movement she might make. She'd been half-afraid that simply turning on the emitter would trip the alarm, but had taken the chance. The sensor worked off of movement and variation. The solid beam from her light changed the level of IR to one that allowed her to move freely. The electronic engineer in desperate need of money who had sold it to Gant had assured him that it would work on most home IR alarm systems.
All this gear was Gant's. He had taught her how to use it and it was part of his legacy to her. Some men left insurance policies and mutual funds, Gant had left her the tools of breaking and entering along with assorted weapons. More importantly, Gant had left her with knowledge and experience.
Leaving the light in place, she crossed the hall and entered the master bedroom. This was the only room she had not been able to see from the outside. Neeley stared at the massive four poster bed against the far wall for a minute. The bed was made perfectly. Neeley bet that if she checked, the top sheet was upside down so the flowers would be right side up at the blanket fold. Her grandmother in France had taught her to make a bed like that and she imagined that Hannah had been taught the same.