‘Nicole? It’s been hours.’
I glance at the clock on the screen and see that it has – it’s supper time. I can’t log off the search, though, it has to keep running. ‘Is it OK if I stay here tonight?’ I ask. I glance over at the massage table in the corner. ‘I can sleep there. It’s fine.’ I am not going to sleep.
Jeanine comes closer, not trying to see what’s on the computer screen, but staring at my face as if she’s never seen me before.
I’m not sure she has. This person sitting in front of two computer screens in the dark, this person is me. The real me. I have left Nicole Jones behind, with her bike and her paintings and her cozy little house.
‘Can I bring you something to eat?’ she asks.
‘Sure,’ I say, although I’m not really hungry. But it will give her something to do, something that will keep her away for a little while longer.
‘Steve called, looking for you. I told him you were here.’ She hugs herself tighter. ‘He’s coming by.’
I pretend that this is not an inconvenience. ‘OK.’
‘He said something about talking to Frank Cooper.’
I stop breathing for a second. Has Frank finally discovered who I really am? I try to keep my tone light. ‘Did he talk to him? Is there some news?’
Jeanine shakes her head. ‘I don’t know. You’ll have to ask him when he gets here. I’ll get you some food.’ She disappears out the door, leaving me alone.
I flip up the laptop cover to see a message from Tracker.
Got it.
I know he means the password for the firewall. I am crushed; the old competitiveness is back.
You’ve been away a long time, he writes, and again I am struck by how much our minds meld. We were like this back in the day; it has been so easy to fall into our old rhythm.
What do you have? I ask.
Current credit card number and an address. He has gone even further than the firewall. He has gotten all the way in. I am kicking myself for giving it all up, for not being able to hold my own anymore.
I have done a complete one-eighty. Just a couple of weeks ago, I was content with my life, the life I’d created for myself.
Within seconds, the information Tracker has discovered appears on my screen. I scan it. Paul Michaels lives in Los Angeles.
But this isn’t all I need anymore. I’ve got another name. Amelie Renaud.
Give me a few minutes.
I want to beat him to this one, but I don’t have time to do anything because the door opens and Jeanine comes in with a plate. It’s full of sprouts and sliced tomatoes and cucumbers and chick peas. I pick up the scent of raspberries. She has given me some of her homemade vinaigrette. A crispy flatbread sits next to the salad.
‘I hope this is OK,’ she says apologetically, her eyes veering toward the laptop screens. I have not closed them. ‘What are you doing?’ The question is pointed; she expects an answer.
‘I’m trying to find out information about the man who’s on the island,’ I explain.
She puts the plate down next to me, and I pick up the fork and spear a tomato. It is sweet and juicy, and I realize I’m hungrier than I thought.
‘The man you’ve been sleeping with?’ she asks, her eyebrows rising into her forehead.
‘The one and the same,’ I say.
‘I thought you said his name was Zeke.’ She notices that I am looking at information on Paul Michaels.
‘No. It’s not.’ I don’t know how much more I can say without telling her everything.
‘So what is his name?’
Just then, a message pops up on the screen, distracting her.
‘Who’s Tracker?’
But I am not thinking about how to explain it to her. I am seeing that Tracker has found Amelie. She is in Paris.
I am not quite sure how to process this. Amelie Renaud is a real person, not just a figment of my imagination. Not just a name on a passport that I have used.
The passport.
I used it when I came back. It was in my backpack as I crossed over to the island on the ferry.
I never got rid of it. I didn’t expect to stay here, so I kept it close by for another quick escape. But as the years passed, I almost forgot that it existed. When I close my eyes, I can see its hiding place.
Its expiration date is long past. But I need to go get it. Before the police find it.
TWENTY-THREE
‘Who is Tracker?’ Jeanine is still asking. She has pulled up a stool and is staring at my screens. ‘What’s that?’ She points at the code.
‘I just needed to find out some information,’ I say.
‘From where?’ Her tone is casual, but I can see the determination in her eyes. She does not want to be left out. ‘Who is Tracker?’ she repeats, not willing to give it up.
‘An old friend. He’s helping me.’
‘Helping you do what?’
I stall by taking a big forkful of salad. In the meantime, the door creaks open and Steve sticks his head in. He looks from me to Jeanine and then at the computers in front of me.
‘So have you told her, then?’ he asks, coming in and shutting the door behind him.
‘She has told me very little,’ Jeanine says, with a bit of an attitude. ‘I’ve brought her food and a laptop, but she won’t say much. She’s got some friend named Tracker.’
‘Oh, yes, Tracker,’ Steve says, as though he and Tracker go way back. I am still eating, hoping to stall as long as possible.
‘So you know who this Tracker person is?’ Jeanine demands, her hands on her hips as she confronts him.
Steve gives her a smile. ‘Yes.’ And he turns to me. ‘Nicole, are you going to tell her?’
If I tell Jeanine, that’s one more person who knows. One more person whom I will probably be putting in danger. She can get the Reader’s Digest version. I swallow, then say, ‘Zeke isn’t Zeke. He’s an old boyfriend named Ian, and he’s been looking for me because I left him without even leaving a note.’
‘That’s all?’ she asks, knowing it isn’t.
I nod. ‘That’s all.’ I shoot Steve a look that tells him if he spills any more of the story, he’s going to regret it. He seems to get it, because he doesn’t push it. Instead, he says something I’m not expecting.
‘Frank Cooper is looking for you.’ His expression is neutral. I can’t tell if Frank Cooper looking for me is good or bad.
‘Did he say why?’ My mouth has gone dry; it is all I can do to get the words out.
‘He said he needs to see you as soon as possible. He said it would be best if you came to him.’ He lets that lie between us a few seconds, then adds, ‘I told him I didn’t know where you were, but if I found you, I’d let you know.’
Steve has covered his bases. And I also notice that he is not pushing me out the door. Does he have the same ominous feeling about this that I do?
‘He chartered one of Chip Parsons’s boats,’ I say. ‘Ian, I mean. Not Frank. But he didn’t show.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘Talked to Will at Bethany’s. He saw Chip at the Kittens last night.’
Steve’s eyebrows rise into his forehead. ‘Why were you out at the airport? Was it because the car is there?’
And then I remember the license plate.
I feel a sudden surge of adrenaline. This is something I can do, something I can find out. Granted, Frank Cooper probably already knows, but he won’t tell me, I feel pretty sure of that.
I don’t answer Steve, but turn my back on him and Jeanine and find the website I need. It doesn’t matter anymore; Steve knows, and Jeanine suspects, so I let them watch me at work.
It is surprisingly easy to find an open portal on this site. I make a mental note that after all this I need to contact them about that. I used to do that, sometimes, back then: hack in somewhere just to see if I could and if so, I would anonymously let the system’s owners know, so they could add security and keep people like me out. I know there are hackers
who do that on a regular basis; some companies specifically hire hackers to find security holes in their systems.
Maybe if I survive all this, I can start a new business.
I enter the BMW’s license plate number and wait. Steve and Jeanine are ominously quiet behind me, but I can feel their eyes on me, on the computers, on what I am doing.
When the information pops up on the screen, I can barely believe my eyes.
The BMW is registered to Tony DeMarco.
Why is Ian driving a car registered to him?
My head is spinning, and I barely hear Steve’s voice, until he puts his hand on my shoulder and asks, ‘What does this mean, Nicole?’
I shake my head.
‘Who is Anthony DeMarco?’ Jeanine asks.
If I had known what the search would bring up, I would not have brazenly done it in front of her. Because now I really do need to give her an answer.
‘He was one of my father’s business associates,’ I say flatly, unable to look at her for all the lies I have told her over the years.
‘Your father?’ In all these years, Jeanine has not known me to have any family, and now I have a father.
I nod, but I am distracted. Why is Ian driving Tony’s car?
The question keeps circulating in my head until it lands on something that makes my heart pound. I have been worried for Ian with Carmine here, but he did tell me that he was only the first one here. Maybe he was sent ahead, and now that Carmine has arrived, that’s why he’s disappeared. Maybe that’s why he chartered Chip Parsons’s boat. Because his job was done.
But that was wrong. The job wasn’t done. I hadn’t done what he’d asked. I’d run away from him.
I look from Steve to Jeanine. ‘I can’t tell you any more. I think that it could be really risky.’
‘Risky, how?’ Jeanine demands, her brow knitted into a frown.
‘There are some scary people after me.’
The money wasn’t all going to Ian and me. It was going to the person who’d set the whole plan in motion from the start. Who’d known that I could do the job but would never do it if he were the one to ask. He had to find someone who I would do it for: a poor boy who was desperate and wanted to be rich.
For a moment, I feel sorry for Ian, sorry that my father used him like that. My father was a pathological con man, a greedy man who used both of us for his own purposes. The millions that I transferred went to his accounts set up specifically for my transaction.
My father wasn’t the only one who was going to benefit from my skills. Some of the money was going to Tony DeMarco. Tony was one of my father’s most important business associates. He sent my father his first client, and then more and more. My father gave Tony kickbacks, or, as they say in the financial industry, ‘finder’s fees.’ He thought he was going to make a lot of money off my transactions.
Until he found out that one of the accounts we broke into was one of his, and his money vanished. I had rerouted it into the account I’d set up to pay Tracker that I hadn’t told anyone about. It was the only account that wasn’t frozen because the Feds couldn’t find it. I didn’t know Tony was the account holder. All I had were numbers. But if I had known, I don’t know whether it would have made a difference. After all, none of it was personal.
Tony DeMarco thought my father and I planned it together. So he went to the Feds and in exchange for his testimony about my father’s business and, by extension, me, he got a pass. It took a couple of years, but my father went to prison for life. I had disappeared, and no one could find me.
I didn’t know any of this until the accounts of my father’s arrest and trial came to light in the papers and on TV. They’d found an old picture of me, cropped it into an unattractive mug shot. If anyone here had seen the photo, no one had ever made the connection. I was only a small part of the story anyway, even with my mysterious disappearance, because my father stealing from celebrities and billionaires was too juicy and far more interesting to the journalists than trying to decipher how I managed my crime.
Ian must have told Tony it was all me, otherwise he wouldn’t have survived Tony’s wrath. A bubble of anger rises in my chest. Any empathy I might have had for Ian dissipates as I think about how it seems he is now working for Tony DeMarco, how he has no problem using me.
‘You’re a computer hacker.’ Jeanine states the obvious, but her eyes are wide with the revelation. I am glad, however, with the distraction. I can see from the look on Steve’s face that he has done his homework. That he has been busy on Google and he knows all about me, about what I did.
‘I haven’t done this for a long time,’ I tell Jeanine, unwilling to look at Steve.
‘So why now? This old boyfriend – Ian, right? – was he a hacker, too?’
‘No.’
‘So why was he here, really? What’s going on?’
‘I owe him some money.’ I wish it were that simple.
‘Is that why he broke into your house? Did he think you had it there?’
‘I don’t really know,’ I say, still unwilling to tell them about Carmine. ‘I think it’s more of a control thing.’
She studies my face, and I allow myself to look her in the eye for the first time. ‘I loved him,’ I say.
She gives me a sad smile and reaches over, brushing a curl off my forehead. ‘I know.’
‘Nicole, what does this mean?’ Steve interrupts, indicating the computer screens. I know what he is asking.
I turn the question over and over in my head, not willing to face the answer. Because I know what it has to be.
‘It means I have to leave.’
TWENTY-FOUR
‘Leave?’ Jeanine frowns. ‘Leave, where?’
‘Leave the island.’ As I say the words, my heart sinks. I think about flying along the familiar roads on my bike, the majestic Bluffs, Rodman’s Hollow, Friday nights at Club Soda with Steve, yoga and hot stones with Jeanine. Painting on the beach, pinks and reds mixing with purples and blues, the puffy white clouds winking on the horizon over the ferry that brings the tourists who have helped me survive all these years.
It is though I am dying and my entire life passes before my eyes.
‘I can take you over,’ Steve says simply.
Jeanine turns on him, her eyes dark with anger. ‘What is wrong with you? You’ll take her? Take her off the island? This is her home.’ She swings around to face me again. ‘You’re going to let him win? You’re going to let him run you off?’
She does not even realize that she knows when I say I have to leave, that I mean I have to leave for good. I am not merely going to go to the mainland to shop for a big screen TV or go to a Red Sox game. I am going to take the ferry and disappear into the landscape, never coming back. I can never come back. Because, as I suspect, Frank Cooper knows now who I am, too, and I have no hope.
My life is slipping away with every second.
I glance at the laptops on the table. They were always my home, but I found a way without them. Yet I am back where I started. The last fifteen years don’t matter. I will always be on the run. I have just been fooling myself.
I think again about the passport. And those other things I’ve kept hidden.
‘I need to go my house,’ I say.
Jeanine gives me a triumphant smile. She thinks that I am going to stay. I let her think that.
I look at the computer screens. They are still searching for the password that Tracker has found. Something tickles the back of my brain. ‘Can I keep this going here?’ I ask Jeanine. This is yet another clue that maybe I’m not leaving, and she nods enthusiastically.
‘Is there anything I need to do?’
I shake my head. ‘No. Just leave it be.’ I close down the other laptop and stuff it into the backpack. ‘I’ll just take this one for now.’
‘Do you need a ride?’ Steve has his keys out, he’s flipping them around and around. It is the only annoying habit he has.
‘No. I’ve got one of Pete’s mopeds.
I’m good.’ I lean over and give Jeanine a quick hug. ‘See you later.’
Her arms wrap around me, and I feel her warmth. A sadness rushes through me. I pull away before I begin to cry.
‘I’ll follow you,’ Steve says, and I don’t even try to talk him out of it. He is determined. I can see it in his face.
It is starting to get dark outside. My stomach growls. Jeanine’s salad was not enough. I am tempted to ask Steve if he wants to go to Club Soda for a hamburger and onion rings, but I push the craving aside and climb onto the moped.
‘You know, Frank does want to see you,’ Steve says as I put on the helmet. I notice that although he has promised Frank that he’ll tell him when he’s found me, he isn’t exactly running over to the police station. I am grateful for that.
‘After,’ I say simply and start up the engine. I am already down the road before Steve gets into his SUV.
I know I can’t outrun him on this machine; he is soon right behind me. I glance around at the familiar sights: the National Hotel, the art gallery where I see Veronica adjusting a painting in the window. I wave, and she lifts her hand in response, but she is confused. She doesn’t recognize me. I don’t stop to explain.
I pass the farm and smell the llamas. It’s been so long since I’ve noticed their scent; it’s almost as though I’m here for the first time again.
My house is just up the hill, and as I approach, I see a police car sitting in front. That’s right. Frank said he’d be watching the house. But it is most likely much more than that now. I need to get into my house without him seeing me. I glance back at Steve in the SUV, and suddenly he is waving me away, pointing up the street. I am not exactly sure what he is saying, but I keep going past my house without even a second look from the cop in the car. In the little side-view mirror on the moped handle, I see Steve pull in next to the cruiser. He gets out, and the cop gets out and they shake hands. I recognize Reggie McCallum from the station.
I almost run off the road, so I tear my eyes away from the mirror and pay attention to my driving. I don’t know what Steve is up to, and I need to know, so I turn around and start back the way I came, now looking at my house from the top of the hill. I stop by the side of the road and watch Steve as he chats up Reggie, who is leaning against his cruiser, laughing.
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