Let Me Go (15 page)

“Fur hats?” Sanchez said.

Susan sighed. “I'm kidding,” she said.

“Tell him how you came to be there,” Archie said, leading her.

Susan peeled something off her fingertip and chewed it. “Someone named Cooper came to my house,” she said. “He told me Leo wanted me to come to a party. He was insistent. He drove me out there. They got me all dressed up. But Leo didn't know anything about it. Not until I saw him out there last night.”

“They used her as leverage,” Archie said.

“They wanted to ensure that Leo would do something for them,” Susan added.

“And they let you go this morning,” Sanchez said. Archie could see him thinking, his eyes roving. After a few moments, Sanchez came to the inevitable conclusion. “Leo must have done what they wanted,” Sanchez said. His eyebrows knitted. “Any idea what it was?” he asked them.

Actually, Archie had a pretty good idea. But he wasn't going to tell Sanchez that. “No,” Archie said.

“No,” Susan said. She frowned. “But it might have had something to do with the letter.”

This got Sanchez's attention. He fingered the flap of one of his safari jacket pockets. “The letter?” he said.

Susan shrugged. “Last week. Leo gave it to me to mail. He seemed really nervous about it.”

“Where is it?” Sanchez asked. “Do you have it?”

“Have what?” Susan asked.

Sanchez's face was scarlet. “The letter,” he said.

Susan looked from Sanchez to Archie, a picture of innocence. “I mailed it,” she said.

Susan had delivered it perfectly, exactly as Archie had instructed her in the bathroom. If Sanchez was corrupt, he was bound to be paranoid. He would worry that Leo had learned Sanchez was dirty and that the letter incriminated him. At the very least it might buy Leo some time.

Sanchez swallowed a few times. His forehead glowed. He touched the tips of his fingers to his mouth. “Do you remember the address on the letter?” he asked Susan.

Susan offered an uncertain smile. “I think it was Oregon,” she said. Then she made a pained face and laid a hand on her lower abdomen. “Ouch,” she said. “There's that uterine cramping again.”

Sanchez's roughcast features seemed to spasm. He glanced away, cleared his throat, and then put his palms on the tabletop. His gaze was steady now, his expression uncompromising. It was the expression that FBI agents practiced in the mirror. “I need to know everyone who was there,” Sanchez said. “I need you both to look at mug shots.” He cast a meaningful glance at Archie. “We can leave Leo out of it,” he said. He directed his attention at Susan. “I'll get my assistant in here to walk you through the database. She won't ask too many questions, and she can help you with your … female issues.” He raised his eyebrows at Susan. “Now, can Archie and I have the room for a minute?”

“You want me to wait in the hall?” Susan asked. She was looking at Archie.

“Just for a few moments,” Sanchez said.

Susan was still looking at Archie.

“It's okay,” Archie said.

She relented and pushed her chair back from the table, yanked the wrinkled paper bag of clothes from under her seat, and stalked out of the room into the hall. She didn't close the door behind her and Sanchez had to get up and shut it and then sit back down.

Archie pulled the compass out of his pocket and turned it in his hand under the table.

Sanchez still had the G-man face on. “Suppose you tell me what's going on,” he said.

Archie lifted an eyebrow, but didn't speak. He could feel the bottle of pills in his pants pocket, pressing into his leg like a hand on his thigh.

“You know I'm an FBI agent, right?” Sanchez asked. “A trained investigator. Went to Quantico and everything.” He leaned forward slightly. “So, you want to tell me why you walked off that island wearing different clothes than the ones you had on when you arrived?”

Archie met Sanchez's unblinking gaze. “I got dirty,” he said.

The two men looked at each other for a minute, and then Sanchez shook his head. “I told you not to get involved,” he said.

Archie couldn't respond, not without telling Sanchez everything, and there was no way he was going to do that until he knew he could trust him.

“These people are not your friends, man,” Sanchez said. “They don't owe you anything. You think Jack's daughter's murder makes him like other grieving fathers? He counts on that. He's preyed off public sympathy since her funeral. His daughter's murder was the best thing to ever happen to his business. We gave him a walk for years after that. Then his freaky son Jeremy goes and gets himself murdered? Jack must have pinched himself, he was so happy.”

Sanchez had a point. But right now Archie couldn't entertain it.

“Are you going to pull Leo out of there or not?” Archie asked. He spun the compass in slow circles on his palm.

“It's an active investigation,” Sanchez said. “I can't comment.”

“I see,” Archie said.

Sanchez started to say something else, but hesitated. Archie wondered if he was thinking about the letter. “Thank you for your help,” Sanchez said.

“Sure thing,” Archie said. He slid the compass back in his pocket as he stood. “By the way, you owe me three hundred and twenty-eight bucks for the tux.”

“Wait,” Sanchez said. He rubbed his forehead. He looked conflicted, like he was struggling with something. Archie had a feeling this wasn't about the tux. “Wait,” Sanchez said again. He exhaled slowly and then reached into the inside pocket of his khaki jacket and pulled out a folded piece of printer paper. “I shouldn't be showing this to you,” he said. “But I think you have the right to know.”

Archie took the paper and sat back down.

“Gretchen was spotted crossing the border in Blaine two days ago,” Sanchez said.

Archie stiffened. Blaine was just south of the border between Canada and Washington State, just a five-hour drive north on Interstate 5.

“Gretchen is spotted everywhere,” Archie said, fingering the still-folded paper. “She's like Elvis.”

“It's a still from a security camera,” Sanchez said. He snapped the paper from Archie's hands, unfolded it, and returned it to the table. “Look at it,” he said, tapping the printout.

Archie looked down. The image showed a close-up of the driver's side of a car, probably taken from a camera mounted to a customs booth. The vehicle was a white SUV, though Archie couldn't see enough of it to determine the make or model. The woman behind the wheel had her blond hair pulled back and was wearing a white blouse. The car window was rolled down and her arm was outstretched, a passport in her hand. She was smiling, apparently at the customs agent who was about to receive the passport. The passport was blue, but a blacker blue than the U.S. passport. The woman was reaching toward the customs agent, but she was looking right up into the camera. There was no doubt in Archie's mind that it was Gretchen.

“How did she get through?” Archie asked hoarsely.

“She had a Canadian passport in a different name,” Sanchez said. “A fake, obviously, but a good one. It didn't raise any flags. The car was registered in the same fake name as the passport. We have the plates, but she's probably dumped it by now.”

Archie's pulse throbbed in his throat. He swallowed hard. “The entire world is looking for her, and she manages to drive over a border? She's not even wearing a disguise.”

“Exactly,” Sanchez said.

Of course. It was the smartest move she could make. Everyone expected her to have altered her appearance. No one was expecting Gretchen Lowell to look like Gretchen Lowell.

“The customs agent had just finished training,” Sanchez continued. “She'd probably been watching. It was the kid's first solo shift. He's on leave now. I suspect he won't be going back on the job anytime soon.”

“What name did she use?” Archie asked. “On the passport?”

“Isabel Stevens,” Sanchez said. “Does that mean anything to you?”

Archie's head stung. He reached up and scratched at the fresh scab. “Isabel was the name of Jack Reynolds's dead daughter,” he said quietly. He chuckled darkly. He had only learned about the name Stevens a few months before. It was the closest he had ever gotten to Gretchen's past, and still he knew only what she had allowed him to discover. She was always one step ahead. And she was reminding him of that. “And Stevens was the last name Gretchen used when she was a teenager in the foster system.” He glanced up at Sanchez. “But you knew that.”

“Why would she use Isabel?” Sanchez asked. “Of all the people she killed?”

“It means something to me,” Archie said. He touched his pants, making sure that the brass pillbox was still there.

“You want to share?” Sanchez asked

Gretchen had maintained that she hadn't, in fact, killed Isabel Reynolds, that it had been Isabel's brother Jeremy. Jeremy had been a spoon short of a full drawer and he'd sure as hell had an unhealthy obsession with the Beauty Killer. Archie half believed Gretchen was telling the truth. Then again, Gretchen never told the whole truth. But Jeremy was dead, and that was a hornet's nest that Archie didn't feel like kicking. “It won't help you,” he said.

They were quiet for a few moments, the photo between them on the table. Sanchez fished the tin of mints out of his pocket again, and put one in his mouth. This time he didn't offer one to Archie. “You want to change your mind about protection?” Sanchez asked.

“No point.” Archie was still studying the image. It was the same with every picture of Gretchen—he had trouble tearing his eyes away. But there was something about her expression in this one—the way she was looking at the camera—that made him feel like she was looking right at him, into him. He reached for it, his throat dry. “Can I keep this?” he asked.

“Knock yourself out,” Sanchez said.

Archie pulled the photo toward him and stood up. The pills rattled in his pocket. The plastic bottle knocked against the brass pillbox.

Sanchez stood up as well, and the two walked around the table and met at the door. “You need to figure out who your friends are,” Sanchez said.

“You have no idea,” Archie said.

Gretchen had been Archie's friend. Until she had drugged him, strapped him to a gurney, and started cutting him into small pieces. This was one of the things Gretchen had taught him—his instincts, always so reliable when it came to crime, could fail him when it came to people. It was why Archie had so few people in his life—he was never sure when someone was going to slip him a paralytic and start torturing him—and that sort of uncertainty tended to put a strain on relationships.

Sanchez leaned close to Archie. It was an intimate gesture, as if he were about to share a confidence, even though they were the only people in the room. Archie could smell the peppermint on his breath. “Take care of yourself,” Sanchez said.

The caution implied danger. But what was Archie supposed to be in danger from? Gretchen? Jack Reynolds? The pills in his pocket? And were Sanchez's words a warning, or a threat?

“I always take care of myself,” Archie said.

The statement was such an obvious lie that it made both men grin.

 

CHAPTER

22

 

Archie drove Susan
home. The roses Cooper had brought were still on the porch, limp and wilted. Her mother had probably walked right by them. Susan stooped to pick them up, noticed that Archie was waiting for her to get inside before he drove away, gave him a wave, and opened the front door. She was greeted by the smell of warm caramel and the sound of Jefferson Starship blasting on the turntable. She found her mother in the kitchen. Bliss's platinum dreadlocks were separated into two long braids and she was wearing a T-shirt with an image of a marijuana leaf on it and the word
LEGALIZE
, along with red and orange tie-dyed yoga pants. There was a pot of melted caramel on the stove and several dozen blushing green apples sitting on the counter.

Clearly, her mother had not been exactly panic-stricken about Susan's disappearance. “Seriously?” Susan said. She stalked to the sink and began stuffing the roses in the compost bin.

“I'm making caramel apples for Halloween,” Bliss explained.

“Not that,” Susan said. That was pretty evident. “Didn't you wonder where I was?” The roses were long stemmed and Susan had to use a dish towel to protect her hands as she folded and smashed down the bouquet on top of decomposing orange peels and tea leaves.

Bliss paused, the wooden spoon in her hand hovering over the pot of caramel. “You called me two hours ago,” she said.

“I mean before that,” Susan said. She jammed the lid on the compost bin and tossed the dish towel aside. “After I disappeared yesterday.”

“Don't put those roses in the compost,” Bliss said. “They're soaked in pesticides.”

Aha! So her mother had noticed the roses on the porch. She just hadn't wanted to pick them up without a Hazmat suit. Susan snatched up the compost bin and emptied the entire contents into the trash.

“Bill told me you'd gone to a party at Leo's father's house,” Bliss said, stirring the caramel. “I assumed you'd spent the night.”

“Did he tell you the part about the big man and the black car and me acting strangely?” Susan asked.

Bliss set the spoon down. “Honey, you always act strangely.”

“I was kidnapped, Mom. Held against my will. Like the Lindbergh baby.”

“I thought you were on the island,” Bliss said. She picked up a wooden Popsicle stick and jammed it into the bottom of an apple. Juice bubbled out where the stick separated the flesh.

“I was on the island,” Susan said.

Bliss licked the juice off her fingers. “They wouldn't let you leave?”