Stephanie gives Jake a direct, appraising glance. He looks back, awkward at first, but then he straightens his hunched shoulders and meets her stare head-on. She snaps a grin at him. “Okay, dude,” she says. “Let’s hit it.” She jerks a thumb in my direction. “If the boss says go, I go.”
I’m pairing them as a test of sorts and I suspect they know that too. So far, both Stephanie and Jake have worked solo or with me, but I’ve mentioned to each of them that I want to experiment with some other partnerships within the organization. I seem to have more cries for help than ever and I’ve had to contend with unanticipated growth. A wry smile crosses my lips as I think, I’m management.
“I don’t know what you’re so happy about, boss.” Stephanie is as outspoken as always. “Still have to get them out of the country.”
“Bonne chance,” I murmur to Jake and Stephanie. “Play nice, you two.”
I approach the Harris family and lay a hand on Steve’s back. “Okay, guys. Back in the car. We have a plane to catch.”
An hour later, the Harrises and I are strapped into Dex’s Citation VII, taxiing for departure. I’m heaving a sigh of relief as my phone rings. Not a burner. Not a disposable phone assigned to a specific case and never to be seen again. No, the one reserved for my few true friends, the one number on which they know they can reach me if they are ever in trouble.
With the roar of the engines flooding my ears, I hit the button to connect.
“Hello,” I say. “Long time.”
The voice on the other line is both refined and boisterous, deeply grave yet speckled with laughter.
“Hello, darling,” says Forrest Holcomb. “You have no idea how sorry I am to ask. But I need you. By any chance are you anywhere near Hong Kong?”
A HARD ASK
Catherine,
Mexico City, Mexico
Toluca airport is located thirty-six miles from the dense heart of downtown Mexico City. Smaller than Mexico City International, it’s for private planes like the old Cessna we’re coming in on, and also where I’ve greased a few palms in advance of our arrival. We touch down and I quickly corral the Harris family together and hustle them off the plane.
Gabriela waits in a fruta delivery van, motor purring. She’s as striking as when I first met her years ago: thick black hair, now with one silver streak, intense brown eyes under thick, arched brows. She’s beautiful, yes, but more than that, her essence lets you know immediately this woman is strong, this woman is proud.
I open the back of the van and gesture the family inside. They clamber in, Steve hovering protectively around his wife and kids. I slam the door and lock it. Climb in next to Gabi.
“Thank you, my friend,” I say in Spanish. “Good to see you.”
She snorts with laughter. “Your accent is worse than ever,” she retorts. “Speak English.”
“Kill me for trying,” I shoot back, pleased that we’ve folded so neatly into our old camaraderie.
“Anything I need to know?” she asks.
“I’ll want to keep the family here at least until I arrange a safe deposition for Harris. Get everything on the record. Then we’ll assess.”
Gabi nods as we pull out of the airport and onto the crowded highway, heading for her townhouse in Roma Norte.
We pass airport hotels, parking structures, warehouses, gas stations, and fast-food joints without speaking. It’s been a long time since I’ve been in Mexico City and as happy as I am to see my old friend Gabi, she also represents a line of harsh demarcation. Gabi is the reason I live off the grid, do what I do; she’s the first person I helped escape an abusive relationship, the impromptu reason the Burial Society was formed, how I found my peculiar calling.
I’m dedicated to what I do, but it has its personal costs. One of them is the ungainly sack of bitter memories that always sits heavily, forever a weight on my shoulders.
I turn the conversation to Gabi’s daughter, Mia; she’s the future, not the past. Mia’s twenty now, away at college studying environmental science. I ask Gabi how she’s faring with her empty nest. She’s happy, I’m pleased to hear. She likes living alone; she may go back to school herself. We don’t talk about her husband. We never do. Not since the day I spirited her out of Aspen, Colorado, a sobbing, frightened Mia in her arms, both of them bloodied by that bastard’s quick fists.
I confirm logistics. We can enter Gabi’s place through the alley. Drive directly into the garage and from there, enter the house. She’s gifted her longtime housekeeper (along with the housekeeper’s entire family) a three-week vacation at the villa Gabi maintains in Acapulco. It’s not the first time the Ruiz family has so benefited from my operations.
While it appears traditional on the exterior, the interior of Gabi’s home has been transformed into a strikingly modern, yet still warm, showpiece.
Sustainable bamboo floors run throughout, except for the bathrooms, kitchen, and expansive pantry, where heated tiles powered by solar panels warm your feet. Spotless modern appliances in an unusual copper color blend beautifully with the honey onyx countertops in the open kitchen. Skylights flood the space with light. In addition to the kitchen, with its long oak table capable of seating twelve, there is a comfortable sitting area with a wide-screen television, and a second grouping clustered around a vast fireplace faced in the same warm onyx.
It’s almost impossible to feel frightened here; the house is like a hug. Once inside, the Harris family relaxes visibly.
Gabi offers a platter of tortas and bottles of water. I show the Harrises upstairs to the rooms we’ve allocated them: Steve and Lisa in Mia’s room, along with a cot for Finn, Dakota in Gabi’s studio down the hall. Gabi has been thoughtful, made the beds, laid out towels and sweet scented soaps. She’s also removed any and all electronic devices from every room in the house and swept for listening devices (usual precautions), but the Harrises don’t need to know any of that. Even the TV downstairs will only play DVDs because, after all, we have to allow them some entertainment.
I need them to eat, sleep, and regroup before I begin to brief Steve on next steps. They are all frightened but will need bravery and resolve to see this through. I leave the family alone together, lingering at the top curve of the stairway. I hear some tears, some murmured words of comfort, what might be a yelp of pain? Or frustration? I can’t tell.
It’s only when I hear a shower running and the rhythmic lilt of Lisa reading aloud to Finn that I walk back down the stairs. Gabi waits for me with a shot of tequila.
“Give me a minute.”
She raises an eyebrow in surprise. I cross to the sliding glass doors leading out to a terrace garden, pull them open, and welcome the gust of bold air that greets me. My spot (as I like to think of it) is as welcoming as ever: a cushioned armchair set deep under an eave in a location that provides a sweeping view of the entire street; a chair equally committed to comfort and to providing a perch where one can see without being seen.
Forrest Holcomb, or Holly, as I call him, is an anomaly in my life: a genuine intimate connection. We met when I first came to Paris. In the aftermath of the destruction of the closest thing I’d had to a childhood home and the disappearance of Mallory Burrows, I was reeling and reckless. Holly picked me up in a club. Or was it the other way around?
I knew who Holly was, although I pretended I didn’t. I pretended a lot of things. Like my name, age, occupation, and nationality, just for starters. Our affair was explosive; we fevered for each other, couldn’t stay away. Holly found me maddeningly elusive. I was uncharacteristically vulnerable, even so. Particularly to a man my father’s age. I’ve read Freud.
Holly would have married me; after all, he marries freely. But after a while, he became suspicious of the time alone I insisted upon, my mysterious disappearances for days or weeks at a time. He thought I was cheating and had me followed. I surprised, disarmed, and debriefed hi
s investigator. Afterward, I made the decision to expose myself to Holly, at least a little bit.
He learned that I was faithful to him. But also that I was not remotely the woman I’d pretended to be, that even my stories of loss had been just that—stories. I’d never tell him that the emotions had all been true; I only smudged the gritty details to protect him as much as myself. To this day he knows little about me, except that he loves me in his way, and I him, in mine. He’s also sent me money, no questions asked, on more than one occasion. I always pay him back with interest. If that’s not friendship, what is? I punch a number on my phone.
“Holly,” I breathe into the mouthpiece.
“Hello, darling. May I ask where in the world you might be?”
“Sorry.”
“I suspected as much, but I needed to ask. I’m not just being nosy. As I said, I have a situation in Hong Kong. One of my best and brightest, an American I scooped up and moved to London, is there on vacation with his wife. Big anniversary trip he planned as a surprise. Only she’s gone missing.”
“How long has it been?”
“Two days. My chap, Peter Lombard, says he woke up after taking a sleeping pill and discovered her gone from their hotel room.”
“Is there any reason to doubt his story?”
“I don’t. But some of his behavior is reading a little odd. And it seems the local police think he might be good for it.”
“Watching cop shows again, Holly?”
“We all have our guilty pleasures.”
I smile, loving our easy rhythm. “I don’t see how a grand romantic gesture is pointing suspicion, though.”
“Hotel staff heard them fighting when they checked in. As did the driver who brought them from the airport. Then Lombard was kind of an ass. He didn’t alert anyone she was gone until hours after he realized she wasn’t in the hotel. He bloody went shopping instead. Then came back to the hotel and ordered room service. Stupid git.”
Holly knows enough about what I do that I don’t ask why he thinks this might be a problem for the Burial Society. He must have his reasons. I wait for him to continue.
“Look,” he goes on, “Lombard’s a good man. His wife seems like a sweetheart. Two days. We all know what that means. If she hasn’t taken off on her own, she’s probably dead. But there’s no way Lombard did it: I’d stake my reputation on it.”
“When have you ever cared about your reputation?” I tease.
“I care what you think,” Holly replies, suddenly grave.
An image flashes into my mind’s eye. Holly and I at the Mandarin Oriental hotel, Paris, all tangled limbs and heated breath. The fiery intensity in his eyes.
“How’s your wife?” I ask.
Holly doesn’t rise to the bait. He’d asked me to marry him. I said no. Instead he now details the events that have plagued the Lombards for the last few days: mysterious men, an attempted break-in, rifled luggage, all on top of Eva Lombard going missing.
“Will you look into it? Lombard thought she was imagining things at first, but now of course he’s beating himself up over not taking her more seriously.”
“For you, I will.”
When I hang up the phone fifteen minutes of questions and answers later, I’m scheming. I need to stay here with the Harrises, but this could be the perfect time to test out a pairing of recruits. I walk back into the house and crush the burner phone I just used under the heel of my boot. Take the shot of tequila Gabi has on offer and shoot it back.
Jake and Stephanie are going to Hong Kong.
ANNUAL NUMBER OF DEATHS
Stephanie Regaldo, aka Stevie Nichols,
Hong Kong Island
Hong Kong is madness.
Buckled into the backseat of a taxi zipping its way through a confusing tangle of jammed roadways, Stephanie grips an armrest in terror. Her bright blue eyes take in the extraordinarily crowded vertical skyline rife with cranes signaling even more structures to come. The entire city is hung with mist, gray swaths that float and twist and twine like wraiths around the skyscrapers.
Signs flash by in Chinese and English. Stephanie notes some British spellings and terms: colour instead of color, GIVE WAY on a triangular sign instead of YIELD. It’s the first time she’s been out of the United States and she can’t deny she’s thrilled. Catherine had promised her this: a life of purpose and adventure, even if she’d also warned there would be dangers.
But what life isn’t dangerous? Stephanie knows all too well how fragile our ties are to this earth. To have come from where Catherine found her to being here is an impossible dream realized.
She pulls out the passport and studies it again. She still can’t believe how real it looks, along with the Massachusetts driver’s license and credit cards to which it conforms. She mouths her cover name: Stevie Nichols. Stephanie had picked this name as a small nod to her mother living back on the northern tip of the island of Kauai, raising organic vegetables and keeping chickens; Stevie Nicks is Mom’s favorite singer. Stephanie knew she’d keep Stevie Nichols straight in her head.
A rush of excitement and, yes, a tremor of fear race through her.
Control your breath. Control your mind.
Her orders are clear. Proceed to the apartment Catherine’s arranged and wait for the arrival of the man identified and introduced to her as John at the Oklahoma reunion of the Harris family. Together, they are to interview Peter Lombard with the questions Catherine’s provided for them. After their interview, they are each to send an independent report of their impressions, about which they are not to speak to each other. Catherine wants their individual gut observations and thoughts untainted by comparison. After receipt of both of their reports, they will be given further instructions.
Stephanie figures Catherine is employing this methodology as a kind of control. The discrepancies in their respective reports will reveal more to her than the similarities. Impressive. That’s what the boss is. Fucking impressive.
Stephanie wonders about John. She guesses they’re pretty close in age; he might be a few years younger. Or he might just be soft. He had that look about him; the one she’d seen on the spoiled rich kids who came to Hawaii for vacations replete with Jet Ski and catamaran rentals and shopping sprees for authentic “Hawaiiana.” The kids who believed every closed door they encountered would graciously sweep open, welcoming them inside. And fuck her if those doors didn’t actually sweep open after all for them; she’d seen it time and again, just as often as they were slamming in her face.
On the other hand, Stephanie knows enough about the other people who work for Catherine to know they are usually survivors of something painful, if not gruesome. Their stories may not be the same, but their scars are aligned. John might be more like her than she knows, hardened in ways not visible to her eye.
She reviews her brief on their assignment: There’s a missing woman. Eva Fitzgerald Lombard, thirty-two, a graduate of Barnard College, with a master’s in journalism from Columbia University, raised on Long Island, recently of London, England. Married, seven years this week, to Peter Lombard, BA, Columbia University, Wharton MBA, currently employed by Holcomb Investments, a London-based hedge fund.
A lot of pricey education going on in that marriage.
Stephanie scowls. She’d graduated high school, just barely; college had never been an option. But, as she defensively reminds herself, Catherine has shown her just how smart she really is. She may not have degrees, but she’s learned to both code computers and to hack them, drive as if she was behind the wheel of a race car, and correctly interpret the body language of most liars and scoundrels and then ply that knowledge with skill. We all have our strengths.
As her taxi whips past an absurdly tall cluster of apartment buildings from which endless rows of air conditioners hang perilously suspended, Stephanie pulls back from the window. She resolves to do an Int
ernet search later for “the annual number of deaths by falling air conditioners in Hong Kong.” Maybe that’s what happened to Eva Lombard. She went out for a walk and got herself knocked on the head by a plummeting AC unit.
The apartment in the skyscraper in Kennedy Town is on the fifty-second floor. The space is tiny, barely five hundred square feet, Stephanie guesses. She drops her bag in the center of the single room and explores. No kitchen, just a toaster oven, a hot plate, and a microwave crowded on a shelf over a dwarf refrigerator nestled next to a washing machine, no dryer.
Behind a sliding pocket door she discovers a minuscule bathroom: toilet, sink, and a shower barely big enough to turn around in.
She pulls back the heavy dark brown curtains covering the windows at the far end of the room. The view is spectacular, if dizzying. More of those precarious air conditioners hang from buildings everywhere the eye can see. Wet clothes strung like flags run in a complicated web from window to window. The cars and people on the street below look like ants.
Stephanie turns back to the room. Four folding chairs hang neatly on the wall, a foldout desk secured next to them with a hook. There’s a narrow single bed and a futon couch that looks like it opens for sleeping. Stephanie moves her bag to the bed.
Firsties! The refrain that had caused a million childhood battles with her brother leaps unbidden into her mind. Catherine is right, she thinks ruefully. No matter how far you go, there you are. The trick is not to forget your experiences, but to figure out how to harvest them and channel them, or as Stephanie gleefully rephrased it in her own words to Catherine one day in training, “make them your bitch.”
Waiting for John, Stephanie fires off a quick text to let Catherine know she’s in place. Then she turns again to stare out the window. Hong Kong. Wow.
POINTS FOR ATTITUDE
Jake Burrows, aka John Bernake,
The Empty Bed Page 9
