“The Spinnaker,” Ellie said again, weighing it. “Okay. Ten minutes.”
She got there in eight. From the sidewalk below, she looked up to a second-floor deck, a gray-washed wooden structure with a flapping green-striped canvas canopy, possibly made of a real spinnaker sail. The place looked like it had been battered by years of salt and wind, and the powerful waves that must have sloshed over it in a lifetime of Boston nor’easters. As Gabe had promised, a bank of shiny metal heaters lined the water-side of the deck, and even from below, Ellie could see the glowing orange coils providing a band of electric heat to the hardy souls who wanted to be outdoors, even—or especially—in challenging weather.
Waves crashed against the sides of the wooden pier beside the restaurant, coils of thick ropes snaked along its edges and a lone dinghy, tethered to a metal standard, bobbled in the rough seas. The snow had ended, and the waning sun struggled to send a wintry shimmer over the harbor.
One person sat on the deck, alone, facing the street. He did not move upon Ellie’s arrival, didn’t stand, or wave, or stride, welcoming, to the edge of the deck. Was he pretending he didn’t see her? Maybe the light was wrong. Maybe the line of fake spindle-leafed areca palms lined up in terra-cotta containers shielded his view of the street. Or maybe her spot beneath him was off just enough to hide her, and give her a chance to see him without him seeing her. Brown boots, she cataloged. Jeans, a black puffer jacket and black watch cap.
The wind picked up, and with a buffeting gust, the imitation leaves on the pretend plants fluttered and shifted. The man turned his head, and she caught his profile outlined by the steely sky.
No, Ellie thought. No.
CHAPTER 11
NORA
Nora’s work cell rang, echoing though the car’s Bluetooth.
Caller ID unknown, the readout said. She pushed the phone button on the steering wheel as she stopped for the light at the intersection. Snow had started to fall, a gentle dusting this Tuesday morning, but the steely clouds looked full, graphite and forbidding. She flipped on her wipers, the slowest speed. “Nora Quinn,” she said into the phone’s speaker.
The light had barely turned green when the driver behind her honked impatiently and swerved his SUV around her, passing on the right, then pulling in front of her, brusque and demanding. Boston drivers, Nora thought. Men.
A white silence came through the open Bluetooth line as Nora blended her car into the traffic. She was headed from her morning appointment to a bustling sandwich shop in the impersonal retail chaos of the Shoppers World mall, a short-order short-term respite where she could catch up on paperwork and then phone in her morning report to P-X, another worker bee in the buzz and hustle. And the place was near her next meeting. Google Maps had shown she could see the office building from there.
“Hello?” she answered again. Maybe a wrong number? Or a robocall. She frowned, poised her finger to disconnect.
“It’s Kaitlyn. Kaitlyn Armistead? From yesterday morning?”
“Oh, hi, Kaitlyn. Of course.” Nora’s brain spooled out the possibilities, almost getting ahead of itself. She reminded herself of who she was and what she wanted. “How’s it going?”
Silence again. Nora kept silent too, allowing Kaitlyn her emotional space. If she had gotten good news, no doubt she’d have yelped with delight, the words pouring out. Silence meant disappointment, and it made Nora feel guilty.
Nora heard Kaitlyn sniffle, choke back a sob or a wail. “It’s … not good.”
Nora steered her car into the tangle of the shopping center, trying to concentrate on the parking place hunt without getting bashed by texting teenagers or grocery shoppers in oversized SUVs. She slid into a spot close to the highway, no one on either side of her, and left the car running. She didn’t want to have this conversation and drive at the same time. But maybe she wasn’t going to stay here.
“Where are you, honey?” Nora asked. Flakes of powdery snow began to dot the windshield, each a unique treasure melting in an instant. Nora stared through the thickening flurries and out onto the highway, the swish and flash of traffic and flapping windshield wipers, the changing lights muddled by the quickly intensifying white. Squalls, they called them around here, snow-in-an-instant on a previously sunny day. Nora watched the cars in front of her blur into a blurred stream of motion and counted her blessings she’d pulled into the parking lot. And that her next appointment was within walking distance.
“I—I don’t know what to do. I can’t stand it,” Kaitlyn’s voice buzzed over the car’s tinny speakers, like there was sudden snow in the transmission too. “I had to go back to Dr. McGinty again today for my final-final results. Can you believe it? As if I wasn’t just there, just yesterday, with you. And it got my hopes all up again, like maybe there had been a mistake, but no, it’s still awful, still horrible, still the worst thing ever. And still their fault. And today it’s like oh, we know we told you yesterday, but now we need to tell you the bad news again.”
Nora heard the tears in Kaitlyn’s voice. The sorrow. “Are you driving, Kaitlyn? Where are you? Is it snowing? Maybe pull over and then we’ll talk?”
“No, no, I can’t stop, I have to get home.” Kaitlyn drew out the word, like a wail or a plea. Home. “I’m only to the reservoir, by that movie theater.”
“Kaitlyn. Seriously.” Nora kept talking as she shifted her car into reverse, backed up, and pulled into traffic. Lunch could wait. “Pull over. I’m on my way.”
“I’m so sorry to call you, and I know it’s crazy, but it’s not gonna work, it’s never gonna work, and we don’t have any more money, and I think…”
Nora eased onto the highway, nosing in front of a poky sedan, skating through a yellow light that turned red while she was still in the intersection. She accelerated, gauging the traffic, gauging the distance, gauging the snow, Kaitlyn’s voice growing taut and insistent.
“I really think they tricked me, Nora. That doctor knew all along this might happen! He said he’d warned me, but he didn’t!”
“Kaitlyn? Are you sure he didn’t warn you? I mean, maybe you missed it, or maybe he didn’t make it seem like a big deal?”
A red light glowed ahead of her. She had to stop. She punched “Framingham Cinema” into her GPS, near where Kaitlyn must be. She could get Kaitlyn to tell her what happened, to see if doctors like McGinty—and Hawkins, and the rest—were misleading patients about what Monifan might do. Kaitlyn might be the very person she needed.
The light turned green. Kaitlyn hadn’t said a word, but through the car’s speakers Nora heard the sounds of horns and windshield wipers. “Kaitlyn? You okay? Pull over. We need to talk. Okay?”
“He didn’t warn me! He didn’t. And I told him so, right to his face, this morning, and I told him I was going to—”
“Focus on driving, okay?” Nora didn’t like the edgy panic in Kaitlyn’s voice. Or the sounds of sniffles and tears. “We’ll talk when I get there.”
“I am, and I’m driving fine, but I can’t believe, after all this time and all his promises—”
Nora heard a little gasp, as if Kaitlyn was choking on her tears.
“I know, I know.” Nora kept her voice quiet, reassuring. “We’ll figure something out. Just give me time to get to you.”
Four minutes away, Nora’s GPS promised. If the weather weren’t so treacherous, she might make it there sooner. But she had to drive carefully; she still wasn’t used to Boston’s winter, or its lack of road rules.
“Is there a Starbucks? Something like that?” Nora tried to remember that area. She’d only been to movies there once, and by herself. Her windshield wipers flapped, persistent. Two minutes, her GPS said. “Can you see any place nearby? I really want to talk to you, and you’re in no shape to drive, Kaitlyn.”
“All I wanted was children.” Another sob. “Like I told you. And I told him that, and he promised me, promised, that it would work! And now I can never—”
Nora pressed her lips together, concentra
ting on the road, concentrating on everything, feeling something beginning and something ending, and Kaitlyn was the key.
“I’m coming to get you right now,” Nora said, taking a chance, swerving into the right lane, then back to the center, feeling her tires shift and slide. Her car seemed as unreliable as her emotions. “Pull over. Stop. Just wait for me.”
“Nora. Nora? I am so—I can’t even see straight. I—I told him, that McGinty, that liar, right to his face, that I’m calling the news, I’m calling every reporter I can think of, and telling them this doesn’t work! It not only doesn’t work, it—ah. I swear to God, Nora, he never—”
“I’m with you, I am, but it’s hard to listen properly and drive at the same time.” Kaitlyn had threatened McGinty? She wanted to spill to a journalist? Nora’s stomach twisted. That could change everything. They needed to talk. And now.
“Seriously, Kaitlyn, could you do me a favor and get off the road? Is there a gas station, someplace we could meet?”
“And James! I just called my husband, James, and he’s a mess, and now he’s coming home and I have to decide how to talk to him about it in person, which will be awful, and he’ll be so angry! Like it’s my fault, again, and it’s not!”
“What kind of a car do you have, Kaitlyn?” Nora interrupted, tried to keep her voice calm and soothing. GPS showed the cinema less than half a mile away on the highway. “So I can find you?”
“It’s a white hatchback,” she said. “A Civic.”
A Civic. Hatchback. Nora pictured that. Okay. A small white—
“And now,” Kaitlyn interrupted her thought, “I have to decide which reporter to—damn it!”
“Kaitlyn? Kaitlyn?”
“Hey! Watch it!” Kaitlyn’s voice had changed, high-pitched, annoyed. Then frantic. “Watch it!”
“Kaitlyn? You okay?”
Brake lights appeared ahead of Nora, blinking on in unison as if they were synchronized, red and red and red, glowing though the blustery snow. She slowed, craning her neck around the chain of cars lining up in front of her, blocking her way.
“Kaitlyn?”
She heard sounds through the speakers, wrong sounds, sounds like metal and yelling and horns.
“Hey!” she yelled, and “Kaitlyn!” But no answer. A flash of white noise. Then silence.
She yanked the wheel to the right, rumbling through the narrow potholed breakdown lane, needing to get there, hoping she wouldn’t see what she had heard, what she’d imagined, hoping there was another explanation, her teeth clenched and fingers grasping the steering wheel.
Horns, and more horns now, and other cars moved in her way, with their own needs and their own goals and blocking her way to whatever had happened.
She honked too. She had to get those people to move, clear a path, give her room. She heard the blare of sirens, and saw more red lights, their intense colored beams sweeping across the snow.
A tiny graphic pinged onto her GPS, and then blocky words: CRASH AHEAD. Seek alternate route.
CHAPTER 12
ELLIE
Ellie ripped the Channel 11 envelope from the front door of her apartment. All she needed. Another damn mystery. Someone—Meg, no doubt—had used a bit of bright blue painting tape to attach the envelope to the brass 3-A above her peephole.
She sighed, heavy with frustration about the world and why people did what they did. Take Meg, now. All that woman would have to do to see if Ellie was home was check whether the envelope on the door was gone. If Meg hadn’t been wanting to keep tabs on her, she could have slid the note—or whatever was inside—under the door. If she hadn’t been a complete control freak, she could have texted her. Or, imagine, talked to her at the station.
“Blinker, humans are crazy,” she told the cat. She stashed her coat, then stuffed the envelope in the waistband of her skirt. She needed wine before she had the stamina to read whatever Meg had sent her. Ellie was still reeling from her day, and her meeting with Gabe. Or whoever he was. “Did Ms. Meg leave us anything dead-birdy today, cat? A severed hand? A withered apple? The black spot?”
Blinker wound herself through Ellie’s legs as she headed for the fridge. For the millionth time, she wondered if she was going at this Pharminex story the wrong way. But if she didn’t expose those people, who would?
She stood in front of the open fridge door, a blast of cold hitting her in the chest as she pulled out the green bottle of sauvignon blanc. No need to second-guess herself. It was a juggle, but it was the only way. More people would die if she didn’t.
She poured the last of the wine into a stemmed glass, took a packet of string cheese from the fridge, and grabbed a handful of crackers and a paper towel for a plate.
And the meeting with Gabe yesterday—Gabriel Hoyt, he’d said, was his full name. She’d tried to parse what he’d told her, sift the truth from the chaff. See if any truth was left. She’d googled that name as soon as he made a trip to the Spinnaker bathroom, and found “Gabriel Hoyt” was a freelance investigator, a lawyer, who worked for whatever law firm hired him. She’d sent him a test email—got an out-of-office response. Back on the Spinnaker deck he’d told her he’d heard about her inquiries from a law firm that he worked for—he wouldn’t tell her which one—that was investigating Pharminex with an eye toward a massive class action lawsuit. To benefit the women Monifan had “allegedly” harmed.
“Allegedly harmed?” Ellie had sat with her back to the water, her black muffler up around her ears and the back of her neck. Kept her gloves on. She’d kept her hat on as well, the black knit pulled down over her forehead, the tight ribs touching the tops of her red glasses.
“More like definitely.” Gabe had kept his knit cap on too, as he faced into the brisk harbor wind. “You know that as well as I do. Don’t you?”
“You have victims?”
“Do you?”
This was fun. “Gabe?” She’d tried out the name, aware she was saying it as if it were an alias. “Where’d you get the in-house email about the Vanderwald gala?”
“Come on, Ellie.” He seemed to give her name some baggage too. “If you’d had the email and I asked you that, would you tell me?”
Ellie had looked away, caught a glimpse of steely sky and leaden water. She’d felt safe there, unless this guy picked her up and threw her into the harbor. Inside Spinnaker, the smart customers, all in down vests and jeans, congregated at a cozy-looking weathered wooden bar, a string of buoys and iridescent light bulbs casting a glow on wineglasses and beer mugs. One yell from her and someone would surely come dashing to her rescue. This guy had been so annoying, though, answering questions with questions, she’d almost wanted to throw him in the water. What was his true agenda?
“You say you’re working for a law firm. So you must work for one I called.” Ellie held her coffee mug between her gloved hands. “Interesting. Which one? Do you know of any lawsuits where Pharminex paid victims to keep quiet?”
“They’d be confidential.”
“The exact settlements would, but not the existence of the suits,” Ellie countered.
“Sometimes they’re sealed.”
“How well I know.” She toasted him with her mug. “I’ve scoured every court record on the planet. But now that you lured me out here, are there any of those? Suits against Pharminex?”
Gabe tilted back in his weather-battered chair, looked out over the harbor. “You like boating? Sailing?” he asked.
“Huh? What does that have to do with—”
“Are you from here? Boston? It’s my first time here.” He thunked his chair back into place. “The harbor’s historic.”
Really? Small talk? “How fun. To see it for the first time. It’s difficult to make new friends in a new place, isn’t it?”
He turned his hands palms up, then palms down, maybe yes, maybe no.
“Yes, no?” Ellie couldn’t help it. “You’ve met people? New friends?”
“I’ve met some,” he said. “Hard to be sure, though. About f
riends.”
“Got that right.” Ellie’d heard the waves lapping on the pier behind her, heard the clank of metal chains against the iron fittings attached to the dock. “So. Want to cut the chitchat? You’re not here to talk about sailing.”
“Cards on the table.” Gabe unzipped his puffer jacket, revealing a black crewneck sweater with a black T-shirt underneath. “I’ve seen you before.”
Her eyes widened. Her heavy glasses slid down again, and she one-fingered them back into place. She put her gloved palms up to her cheeks, leaving only her ears and nose showing, the leather chilly against her face.
“Seen me where?”
“At Dr. Hawkins’s office.” He held out his hands, apologizing. “And at other offices too—”
“You did?” Ellie thought hard, felt her entire face squinting. A man at these women’s clinics would instantly be conspicuous. She shook her head slowly. “How could you see me if I didn’t see you?”
“Lab coat.” He’d squared his shoulders, adjusting an invisible white jacket. “Stethoscope. You probably did see me. All us fake doctors look alike.”
Ellie frowned, even more suspicious. She definitely, definitely would have noticed him. Wouldn’t she? Maybe not. People don’t always look that closely at each other. She pulled her turtleneck higher as the sun began to disappear.
“But why were you in those clinics in the first place? How come—”
“Because my law firm is working on Pharminex already,” he interrupted her. “And I was there, let’s say, undercover. Like you were, correct? Did you tell anyone you were a reporter? I’ll assume you have no problem with our investigative method. We’re working on the same thing. And that’s why I’m here. To help you.”
“Can you believe it, cat?” Ellie now said out loud. “He says he was there to help me.” She brushed a few cracker crumbs from the cat’s snowy fur, which Blinker took as affection and coiled her tail around herself in contentment. “Do we believe him? Do we, Blink? We don’t, do we? Do we even think Gabe is his real name?”
The First to Lie Page 6
