Everywhere to Hide

by Siri Mitchell

  I rose, threw away the paper towel, and followed her out into the hall. I kept the door open so we wouldn’t have to punch in the code again. “The detective’s interested in the regulars.”

  “Yeah. That’s what he said. Because they might have noticed the killer.” She put the pail in the big service sink and turned the water on.

  “There’s something I need to tell you. I have this condition.”

  When the pail was full, she turned the water off and then hefted it out and walked past me through the door.

  I let it close behind us.

  “It’s called prosopagnosia. Face blindness.”

  She swished the mop around the bucket. “I’ve never heard of that.”

  “I can’t recognize faces.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “My brain literally can’t map faces. It’s like trying to buy something and the barcode won’t scan. The computer has no idea what it is because it won’t connect with the database.”

  “Hate it when that happens!” She took the mop out and got to work. “But—you mean . . . you know who I am, right?”

  “You’re Corrine.”

  “So you know my face.”

  I put a finger to her name tag. “I know you. I know your beautiful curly hair. I know your voice. But mostly I can read. And this says Corrine.”

  “So you don’t know me?”

  “As long as we’re in this store, I hear your voice, I see you’re scheduled for my shift, I know you. But if I saw you at the grocery store and you weren’t wearing your name tag, or you were wearing a sweatshirt with the hood up—or even if you weren’t—I would walk right by you.”

  “Seriously? But what if I was like, ‘Hey, Whit!’?”

  “I hope I’d recognize your voice. But if not, then I would just say, ‘Hey, how’s it going?’ and I would desperately pray that you would say something that would help me put you into context.”

  “Wow. So you don’t know me. After all this time? And all the shifts we’ve worked together?”

  “I do know you. I just can’t recognize your face.”

  “Can you recognize yourself? Like if you look in a mirror do you know it’s you?”

  “I know that I have to be seeing myself because who else would it be? But sometimes, if there’s a mirror in a restaurant or a reflection in a window, if I’m not expecting to see myself? No. I have no idea.”

  “So you really don’t know me! That makes me feel bad.”

  “It makes me feel worse. Especially when there’s a killer out there who knows who I am.”

  She gasped. “And you have no idea who he is!”

  Exactly. “That’s where my favor comes in.”

  “What do you need me to do?” She stuck the mop back into the pail and pumped it up and down.

  “I just need you to help me see people. The victim was my friend. He’d asked me to meet him out there in the alley. He thought I had some information that he needed. If the killer shot him because of what he knew, then what might he do to me?”

  Corrine gasped again. “So he’s after you too?”

  “Maybe. So I need you to tell me if you see anyone suspicious. Anyone you keep seeing when you might not expect it. Is there anyone hanging around outside? Anyone who looks like they don’t belong? I need your eyes and your brain. Because mine don’t connect.”

  “Of course. Sure. Yes. So how will I know if it’s him? Besides the handlebar mustache. That’s the guy, right? But the important thing is not to worry. I’ve got your back. If you think it’s someone else, just tell me what he looks like and I’ve got you.”

  Maybe I shouldn’t have told her. Because clearly, she didn’t get it.

  Chapter 32

  Leo texted me to say he’d be back at the shop in time to take me to the library. On Saturdays I worked a short shift so I could spend more time with my students.

  But at 9:50, I still didn’t see his SUV.

  I thumbed open my car app and scheduled a ride. There was a driver just a few blocks away. As a car pulled up to the curb several minutes later, I looked at my app. Gray Toyota Camry. License plate TEJ 492.

  I walked to it, bent to look in the passenger’s window.

  The driver rolled it down.

  “Who are you here for?” I asked him.

  A car pulled up behind him. Honked.

  “Here for Whitney?”

  Relief untied the knot in my stomach. I opened the back door and got in. The driver circled the block and then headed toward the library.

  As we waited for a light to change, the car behind us honked.

  My driver raised a hand.

  The car honked again.

  The driver turned to speak to me over his shoulder. “I think this guy behind us wants you.”

  “What?”

  “This guy behind us. In the car.”

  I looked out the back window. Behind us was the same car that had honked at the curb. But I didn’t know anyone who drove a white Nissan. “I don’t know that man.”

  “Maybe he knows you.”

  As we neared the library, I undid my seat belt and slipped my backpack over my shoulders so I could hit the pavement at a run.

  But my driver pulled into the parking lot at a leisurely pace and did a slow-motion stop in the drop-off area. By the time I could actually get out, that car was right behind us again.

  There wasn’t anyone walking through the parking lot or on the walkway to the building. When I stepped out of the car, it would just be me out there. Alone.

  I leaped out, slamming the door behind me, ready to make a run for it.

  As the car drove off, I heard a popping sound behind me.

  I’d taken two running steps toward the library before someone caught my arm.

  It was a man wearing jogging shorts and a T-shirt. His dark hair was slicked back from his face.

  I wrestled free. Started to run again.

  But he grabbed me, throwing me to the ground behind a row of bushes.

  Panicked, I kicked out. Thrashed my arms.

  “Bullet,” he said.

  What?

  “That was a bullet.” He jammed his hand in his pocket, even as he kept me covered with his body.

  “Let me go!”

  “Whitney! It’s me. Leo.”

  He wasn’t wearing his usual suit jacket and pants. His hair wasn’t even right. It wasn’t falling onto his forehead.

  “I was in the car right behind you. I was trying to save you from calling a ride.”

  He didn’t look like Leo. He didn’t smell like Leo. “Let me go!”

  “I would, but I don’t know that it’s safe.” Keeping one hand on my arm, he moved off my back and positioned himself on the ground beside me. “I’m sorry I was late. I was trying to get your attention back at the Blue Dog so you wouldn’t have to pay for a ride.”

  “You weren’t driving your SUV.”

  “I know. It’s a loaner. I had to take mine into the shop. That’s what I did after I left.”

  “And you’re not wearing a suit jacket.”

  “I thought I could squeeze in a run before picking you up.”

  Now I could see that it was Leo. His bangs were drenched in sweat. He’d slicked them back from his forehead.

  He’d been moving his head, trying to see through the bushes. Now he shifted sideways and rose just a little before dropping back down beside me. “We’re going to wait until Beyer’s team shows up.”

  I was past being scared. I was just plain mad. And I was shaking. “I thought you were the killer.”

  “I didn’t even think. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  I shook my head because I couldn’t form any words.

  “I don’t—I just—I wanted to tell you, as soon as I could, that there’s been a development.”

  “You couldn’t text?”

  “If I hadn’t come in person, you might be dead right now. And I was just down the block at the gym. My timing was off, oth
erwise I would have met you outside the shop.”

  “What’s the development? Have you identified the killer?”

  “No. But we’ve identified the person who trashed your place.”

  “Which is the killer, right?” What wasn’t I understanding?

  “Maybe. The person who trashed your place was Hartwell. Fingerprint match.”

  Hartwell.

  My white-hot anger was replaced by a cold, dark rage.

  It made perfect sense that Hartwell would invade my space and take revenge on me by destroying my things. But knowing it was him didn’t make it any better. It just made the shadow that he’d cast over my life even longer. Made my future seem even darker.

  “That’s what I wanted you to know.”

  Agent Beyer’s team came to investigate. One of them interviewed Leo and me while the others roped off the crime scene and began their investigation.

  I had a group session first that afternoon and I was able to start them on a set of practice questions before I answered the FBI’s questions. But there really wasn’t much I could tell them. I hadn’t seen the shooter. I’d heard the bullet, but I couldn’t tell them which direction it had come from.

  “Detective Baroni said my ex, Hartwell Thorpe, was the one who trashed my place?”

  The agent nodded.

  “Doesn’t that strengthen the case that he’s the killer?”

  “Cade Burdell was part of an ongoing investigation at the FDIC. That’s the angle we’re pursuing right now.”

  “HARTAN is a contractor for the FDIC. And HARTAN is Hartwell’s company.”

  “I can’t really go into the details, but the investigation doesn’t involve Mr. Thorpe or his company.”

  “Maybe it should.”

  The agent wouldn’t say anything else about it.

  We knew nothing about the shooter. He knew way too much about me.

  My hands were shaking again. I tried to ignore them.

  Didn’t help.

  I tried to actively stop them from trembling.

  It only made the tremors worse.

  When the agent left, I rose to follow. I had to get back to my students.

  But Agent Beyer came into the room.

  He sat down beside me. “I know you’re frustrated with this investigation. We are too. But we’re going to catch this guy. We are. I can’t tell you everything about our investigation in the FDIC, but you already know that it has to do with that hack back in 2010. The Chinese had a contact in the FDIC back then. Cade discovered that person, whoever it is, is still there.”

  “What?”

  “That’s what he was working on with me. We’re trying to identify the mole. That’s what the coffee orders were all about. Cade suspected someone was watching him, so we set up the robo mobile coffee order. Every day at 1:20 we could communicate. That’s why he didn’t have any identification on him. And that’s why he was so hesitant to link himself to you.”

  “So it was the Chinese who killed him? I thought Hartwell was a suspect.”

  “We have to consider everyone until we can rule them out. Mr. Thorpe is one, although he’s only been interacting with the FDIC for a couple years. Detective Baroni’s Mustache Man is another. But frankly, that’s what it looks like to me. The Chinese or someone working with them.”

  Then the whole thing was much bigger than I’d thought.

  And much more terrifying.

  Chapter 33

  Agent Beyer left us. Before I rejoined my students, I asked Leo a question.

  “Doesn’t the FBI do safe houses?”

  “I was going to ask you if you wanted me to make the case for one. It might be tricky because you can’t actually identify the suspect.”

  “Cade thought I had important information.”

  “But you don’t know what it is.”

  My face must have shown him what I thought about that.

  “I get it. I can suggest it to the FBI.”

  “If they could work it out though, I’d have to stay there, at the safe house, right? I wouldn’t be able to leave, for my jobs?”

  “That’s my understanding.”

  “Well then, never mind. I can’t.”

  “We’ll catch him. Soon.” He told me to take a car home and to be careful.

  Did I tell him I didn’t have anywhere to stay?

  No.

  If he was working to identify the killer, I wanted him to be focused on that, not on me. I’d be safe at the Blue Dog. Safer, apparently, than I had been when I was living at Mrs. Harper’s.

  Since the library closed early on Saturdays, I only had one private student session. As she reached across the table to take a set of practice problems from me, her sleeve lifted, revealing a nasty bruise.

  “You okay, Allie?”

  “What?”

  “Your arm.”

  She grabbed the hem of her sleeve and tugged it down to her wrist. “Fine.” But as she extended her arm to pull her homework from her backpack, I could see several other similar marks on the inside of her wrist.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Because if I kept getting bruises in the same place all the time, then I’d stop doing the thing that was causing them.”

  She had everything going for her. She was bright, poised. She was active in sports and had a full list of extracurricular activities and volunteer hours. Most of my students didn’t have a prayer at getting into the Ivy League. She just might. And she was aiming for Harvard.

  “I work hard. I set goals. I don’t really have time to sit here every Saturday afternoon. I have a chance of going to nationals this year in my sport. I have to keep training. And cross-training. So that’s how it started. It was an incentive to stay focused. I made a goal. I’m wearing this rubber band 24–7.” She pulled her sleeve up to show me. “If I don’t get a hundred on this practice test, then I have to snap myself.”

  I bit my tongue to keep from saying something I’d regret. Something that might stop her from talking.

  “Is that what the welts are from?” I tried to keep my voice steady. Tried to remain calm.

  “It really stings at first, when you do it. But the welts go away after a while. Then they turn into bruises. Every time I look at them, I think, ‘See? That’s what happens when you fail.’” She was speaking so evenly, so matter-of-factly, as if snapping herself with a rubber band was just another goal-setting tool. “And I don’t fail that often. It works.”

  She was only seventeen years old.

  “What would happen if you didn’t get into Harvard?”

  “I’m getting in. That’s what I’ve told everybody. That’s why I have to ace this test.”

  “But once you take this test, once you submit your application, it’s not up to you anymore. Your part in the process stops. The school’s admissions officers take over.” It was the same way in the real world. That’s what interviewing was all about. You presented your best argument for why a company should hire you, but after that it was up to them.

  “I have the grades. I have the athletics. I have the extracurriculars and the volunteer hours. All I need is this test.”

  “But this test isn’t a guarantee. There’s nothing you can do to make them take you.”

  “I’m giving them everything they want.”

  “But even if you get a perfect score, it won’t make them take you. You know that, right? All it gives you is a chance.”

  “You got into an Ivy. That’s what it says online.”

  “I did.” But that was in a different era. “If I had to do it again, I would go to a school in-state. Do community college for the first two years.”

  “What if someone told you that you wouldn’t have gotten into your Ivy though? That it wasn’t up to you? That it was someone else’s decision? Would that have made you try less?”

  “I’m only saying that—”

  “Because when someone tells me I can’t do something, I do it anyway. I do it fas
ter, stronger, better. You only fail if you don’t try hard enough.”

  That’s what I used to think too. But sometimes, no amount of trying could make something happen. Nothing could cure my mother. Nothing could make me recognize a face. “As far as your part of the process goes, that’s true. I’m just telling you that there’s a whole other part that you don’t have control of. That’s all.”

  She didn’t see it. Couldn’t see it. Or maybe she didn’t want to see it. But I’d done what I could.

  She was the opposite of me. She was doing everything she could to get in; I had done nothing but had gotten in anyway. But I hadn’t seen clearly either. I’d thought an Ivy was the key to my future. I didn’t understand that it would shackle me to debt for the rest of my life. And I hadn’t had the agency back then to advocate for myself, to pursue scholarships. I thought people would think less of me if they knew I needed money. I didn’t want to stand out by standing up to ask. I didn’t want anyone to know what I didn’t have. That sense of shame, the fear of not fitting in, kept me from getting the financial help I’d needed.

  As Allie worked on her practice problems, I continued my search for a new apartment. A new room. Anything, really. But the cheapest studio I could find was a thousand dollars. The cheapest room I could find was eight hundred.

  The kind of situation I’d had at Mrs. Harper’s was the kind that never gets advertised. People knew that Aunt Suzy needed someone to live with her. Or Grandma Sally had a spare bedroom and the need for a little extra money. But those situations went to people who could be trusted, not to strangers. I’d been so grateful Cade found it for me.

  I might have been able to pick up a nanny suite if I’d wanted to work as one, but I didn’t have time to watch kids even if I could have. And I couldn’t. Face blindness. How could I be counted on to recognize them?

  I thought of posting an ad at some of the local community centers and churches.

  Quiet law student

  Looking for room or studio

  Willing to trade rent for odd jobs and light housekeeping

  But the killer seemed to be following me. He might see those notices too. And then he’d have my phone number.

  As Allie continued to work through her review questions, I did some more research on China. I’d done a project on the strength of the dollar relative to other currencies when I was interning on the Hill.