Dead Secret

by Ava McCarthy

  ‘But what about the banks, didn’t they come looking for their money?’

  ‘Ethan paid it all back, every cent. See, he used the borrowed money to invest in legitimate businesses: shopping malls, office blocks, residential units. And he just paid back the loans like a regular businessman. Rectified the property paperwork after the fact, covered his trail. Ended up a wealthy man.’

  Jodie nodded. It sounded like Ethan’s kind of plan: cunning and secretive, modifying reality to fit in with his own wishes. Novak went on.

  ‘But it was starting to unravel. A few years back, one of the home owners accidentally discovered his house wasn’t registered in his own name. I’m still trying to unwind all the shell companies behind it, but everything I have points to Ethan and Caruso.’

  ‘So why not go to the cops with it? Get Caruso indicted for fraud?’

  ‘Because Caruso is nickel and dime. Big deal, so we uncover another corrupt official. Happens every day, where’s the story in that?’

  ‘You don’t care he’s getting away with it?’

  ‘I care about the story, and the real story’s Ethan. Picture it: smooth, charming lawyer, back from the dead; swindler fakes his own death, lets his wife rot in prison. That’s the scoop.’

  ‘And the scoop is important?’

  Novak gave a humourless laugh. ‘Yeah. Yeah, you could say that.’

  The hint of desperation wasn’t lost on Jodie. ‘I’m guessing you’re not on the payroll of some big national newspaper here.’

  Same humourless laugh. ‘With a steady salary and pension? You’re kidding, right? Those days are long gone. Freelancing without a safety net, that’s all I got left.’

  ‘Anyone lined up to buy your story?’

  There was a pause. ‘Not yet.’

  A pocket of silence filled the space between them. Then Novak rushed to fill it.

  ‘But it’ll sell. It has to sell, this story’s hot—’ He stopped short, then switched tack. ‘Look, that fraud stuff isn’t what I wanted to show you, anyway. There’s something else.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Did you know Ethan was keeping a dossier on you?’

  ‘He was what?’

  ‘Yeah, he had a file full of stuff. I haven’t read it all, but it’s mostly photos, newspaper articles, addresses—’

  ‘Photos? What kind of photos?’

  ‘Shots of you. Day-to-day stuff. Walking around, mostly. Let’s see. Shopping, getting out of a car, walking down the street. Here’s one of you having coffee with some plump brunette.’

  Nancy. Jodie’s eyes widened. Novak went on.

  ‘One of you outside an art gallery, one carrying a little girl in dungarees—’

  Novak broke off. Missed a beat. Pain rushed up through Jodie like a wind, snatching at her breath. She closed her eyes, drove blindly into the snow. Surrendered to agonizing memories: Abby’s beloved dungarees; the baby-blue T-shirt she always wore beneath them; her soft warmth; her scent so sweet, like soap and vanilla.

  Novak cut back in, his tone over-rough. ‘If you ask me, he was having you followed.’

  Jodie opened her eyes. Closed them again, cradling the pain. Unwilling to let Abby go.

  ‘Jodie? You still there?’

  She dragged her eyes open. Noticed she was drifting close to the crash barrier. She pictured herself slamming hard on the accelerator, smashing into oblivion.

  Novak barged in on the image. ‘You wanted a divorce, right? He was probably looking for ammunition, something to use against you.’

  Memories of Ethan punctured her stupor. Recurring arguments.

  ‘You’ve been seeing someone else, haven’t you, Jodie? How do I even know that Abby’s my daughter?’

  Jodie exhaled a long breath, suddenly weary. ‘It wouldn’t surprise me.’

  She flexed her shoulders, warding off the seductive lethargy, and straightened her course on the road.

  ‘You mentioned newspaper articles,’ she said.

  ‘Yeah, from some years back. Looks like they’ve been printed from online archives.’

  ‘Articles about me?’

  ‘Reviews of your art exhibitions in Ireland.’ He started reading aloud. ‘Jodie Garrett, a graduate of Dublin’s National College of Art and Design with a Masters of Fine Art Degree, has a powerful feel for themes of abandonment … Sound like you?’ He read on. ‘Garrett’s images evoke long-forgotten landscapes, lost time at the edge of the sea … ’ Novak paused. ‘Jesus, who writes this stuff?’

  Jodie frowned, recalling the review. It had been written ten years earlier, during her first exhibition, two years before she’d ever met Ethan. He’d never mentioned having a copy, and he certainly hadn’t got it from her.

  She never kept reviews, often didn’t even read them, afraid her next work would be tainted by a need to first filter it through the critic’s eye. Her paintings were hers, and hers alone. Reviews could contaminate: tempt her to repeat previous successes for approval; cripple her into mediocrity from a fear of rejection. Whose paintings would they be then, hers or the critic’s?

  ‘Here’s another one,’ Novak went on. ‘Garrett experiments with shadows, and often the work is about the shadow cast rather than the object itself … Her sombre and alienating colours portray a world of abandoned and forgotten panoramas … Wow, that sounds bleak. Not like any paintings of yours that I ever saw.’

  ‘You’ve seen my paintings?’

  ‘Yeah, some.’ His tone became offhand. ‘I was curious after the trial. All I remember are the crazy colours. Blue trees, orange rivers. Like something from The Wizard of Oz. These other ones sound grim.’

  ‘The Oz colours only started after I married Ethan.’

  ‘Really? Funny, you’d think it’d be the other way around.’

  Jodie made a wry face. He had a point. Though the fairy-tale paintings said less about the reality of her life with Ethan and more about her urge to escape it.

  She’d painted the first one less than a year into their marriage. She’d been playing hooky from the house, fleeing the captivity to hike the forest trails with her easel. Crisp leaves had covered the ground like a low tide, and she’d swished through them, inhaling the sweet, earthy air, letting her subconscious drift.

  She never knew beforehand what she wanted to paint; just waited on the quickening in her chest that signalled she’d found it. Around her, the rain spit-spatted on the undergrowth. The light was grey, too flat for painting, really, but the open-air walk was liberating. She clambered for an hour, rustling and crackling through the forest foliage, until finally she found herself in a secluded clearing. In the centre stood a small, derelict dwelling, half-obscured by underbrush and trees.

  She moved in for a closer look. Ivy hugged the walls like thick cladding, and half the roof had fallen in. Where stone was exposed, it looked cold and damp, dappled with moss. An old rusted gate marked the entrance, knitted in place with dense, ivy stitching.

  Jodie stared at the cottage for a while, then gave a mental shrug. No quickening sensation. Just a dull recognition that the drab colours were a match for her mood these days.

  She was about to turn away when a watery light rinsed through the gloom. A faint rainbow arched over the trees, dispersing misty, pastel hues. Something fluttered in Jodie’s chest.

  The house looked different. Warmed up. Then the rainbow dissolved, and the fragile light sank back to a lifeless grey. But already another image was burning against Jodie’s retina. A different rainbow. A vibrant candy-stripe, dripping with phantasmagorical colours: alizarin crimson, cadmium yellow, cerulean blue.

  The fluttering quickened, and she reached for her paints. She rejected conventional, true-to-life shades. Created instead a patchwork of improbable colour: magenta trees, orange grass, stone walls of vivid pink. Whimsical combinations that transformed the house from an abandoned wreck to a heart-warming, fairy-tale cottage.

  The picture framers called a few weeks later. A customer had seen the painting, wanted t
o know would she sell it. He turned out to be a Danish architect, hired by a local landowner to demolish the cottage in favour of a modern, glass-fronted cabin.

  They’d met for coffee. His name was Lucas Olsen and he was about her own age. Tanned, slender, dressed in casual-student style. He’d gazed at the painting, seemed mesmerized by the symphony of far-fetched colours. Then he’d raised intelligent, blue eyes to hers.

  ‘I’d like to live there, wouldn’t you?’ he’d said.

  She’d sold him the painting and he’d commissioned two more, each one designed to capture enchantment before it got hit by the wrecking ball. Soon afterwards, the fantasy colours had become her trademark.

  The wipers squeaked against the windscreen, and Novak cut in through her thoughts.

  ‘Jodie, you still there?’ Pages riffled at his end of the line. ‘There’s a few more art reviews, no point in reading them all out. Oh, hold on. This one’s different.’ He paused. ‘It’s not a review. And it’s dated 1984. That’s what, thirty-one years ago?’

  He cleared his throat.

  ‘Storms in Ramsey County claimed more lives last night when three men drowned in Devil’s Lake while driving through floodwater. Damien Hynes (18), Ken Robbins (20) and Peter Rosen (19) drowned after their car drove off Highway 57 into high waters at Devil’s Lake at 10.30 p.m. last night.’

  Jodie stared at the windscreen, her brain playing catch-up. The whunk-whunk of the wipers sounded loud in her ears. Novak cut in.

  ‘Those names mean anything to you?’

  Whunk-whunk.

  ‘Peter Rosen,’ she said. ‘He was my father.’

  ‘But he died at nineteen.’

  ‘Yeah, I never knew him.’

  ‘Oh.’

  She could almost feel her brain crease up as she tried to make sense of it. Why had Ethan dug up a newspaper report about her father’s death?

  She’d found the same report herself online, not long before she and Ethan had met. But she’d never mentioned it, and something had stopped her from printing it out as a keepsake. She hadn’t wanted a permanent reminder of his death, maybe afraid that, like the art reviews, it would colour the rest of her life.

  Novak cleared his throat again. ‘Look, if you want to see any of this stuff, I can show you next time I visit.’

  There was a pause while she worked out how to put him off. Then his tone underwent a sudden shift.

  ‘Hey, wait a second.’ His voice was louder, sharper, as though he’d snapped to attention. ‘What the hell …’

  A low murmur sounded in the background, gradually picking up volume.

  ‘… Garrett escaped custody from Franklin Pierce Memorial Hospital earlier this evening … ’

  ‘Jesus Christ.’

  ‘… could be armed and dangerous, and the police are warning the public not to approach … ’

  ‘Jodie? Jesus. What’s going on? You’re out?’

  ‘… last seen in the vicinity of Waltham, Middlesex County … ’

  Jodie’s skin prickled. They knew about Waltham. The cabbie must have already woken up and told his tale. She shot a look in the rear-view mirror. No headlights, no sirens, no flashing beacons.

  Not yet, anyway.

  ‘Jodie? Where are you? Don’t run out on me, Jodie!’

  Slowly, she moved the phone away from her ear. Looked at it for a moment. Novak’s voice was still audible, full of urgent panic as his story slipped away from him. With effort, she made herself hang up the call.

  The truck rattled into the silence. The wipers thumped back and forth like a heartbeat, and she let out a breath, oddly sorry that Novak was gone.

  For a while there, they’d almost been on the same side.

  15

  ‘Next flight to Belize leaves at 6 a.m.’

  The woman behind the American Airlines ticket desk added, ‘You’ll just about make it.’

  Jodie clutched her fake passport, reluctant to part with it. The woman’s fingernails clacked across the keyboard.

  ‘Flight’s almost full.’ She flashed a red-lipsticked smile. ‘Good thing you’re heading so far south. Snowstorm’s cancelled a lot of domestic flights today.’

  Jodie glanced around. Logan Airport was busy, clogged with lines of disgruntled travellers, all weighed down with luggage they couldn’t check in. Inconvenient for them; good crowd cover for her.

  The ticket agent handed her an itinerary.

  ‘You’ll have a ninety-minute layover in Miami, arriving in Belize City at midday, local time. That’ll be seven hundred and fifty dollars.’

  Jodie paid over the cash, thankful for Reuben’s clean-smelling bills. She’d already spent some in the airport boutiques, taking Reuben’s advice and buying oversized shades, which she now wore, as well as makeup to cover her bruise and the healing cut on her neck.

  She’d bought some clothes, too, and had changed into a navy business suit and smart shoes, stuffing the rest of her belongings into a new carry-on bag, along with some lighter items for Belize. She’d ditched her old holdall in the ladies’ restroom, cutting the last link to any description the cabbie might have given. It occurred to her she should try to disguise her appearance; cut her hair, dye it maybe. But there wasn’t time. And besides, that wouldn’t fool anyone.

  Her final purchases had been Tylenol for her throbbing stab wound, and a guide book to Belize City. She’d bone up on the maps during the flight.

  The ticket agent held out her hand for Jodie’s passport. Her stomach tensed as she passed it over, but the agent made no comment and, two minutes later, Jodie was edging through the crowds, following the signs for Departures.

  Her gaze was restless behind the shades, sweeping the area for signs of ramped-up security. The police were only one step behind her. All she could do was make her next move before they had time to make theirs.

  Her insides felt knotted. In truth, she didn’t really have a next move. Beyond getting to Belize, her mind was a blank, and without the name of Novak’s contact, her way forward was a little murky.

  She paused by a monitor showing flight information, and double-checked her departure gate. The display scrolled down through the day’s flights, many now cancelled, and she found herself wondering where Ethan had been headed that night of the fireworks by the lake.

  She recalled Novak’s words: Did you know there are no flights to New York that time of night?

  If not New York, then where?

  She scanned the display. Today was Thursday. July 4th had fallen on a Wednesday that year, so flights had probably been running to a similar midweek schedule. She waited for the list to scroll to the end, then noted the last two destinations: Zurich and London.

  She wasn’t sure it meant anything.

  ‘Wondering which flight Ethan was catching that night?’

  Jodie whipped around. Novak stood facing her: same scruffy jacket, same unshaven chin; brown curly hair matted from sleep. Her body pitched into fight-or-flight mode, pumping blood into her limbs. She backed up a step.

  ‘I wondered too,’ Novak went on, ‘since he went to the trouble of lying about it. So I checked the flights out.’

  Jodie edged away, scouring the crowds for signs of alerted security. Novak held up his palms.

  ‘Hey, relax, I’m not here to hand you in. You want to know why? Two reasons: one, it’d break my story into the open before I’m ready; and two, think of the inside edge this’ll add. Me riding along with a fugitive while we track Ethan down? That’s Pulitzer Prize stuff right there.’

  Jodie gave him a hard look. ‘Riding along?’

  He snatched the boarding pass out of her hand, checked the details, then held up one of his own.

  ‘Snap. I made an educated guess. From the questions you were asking, it wasn’t hard to figure out where you were headed.’ He handed back the boarding pass. ‘Now I’m coming with you.’

  ‘Like hell you are. This is none of your business.’

  ‘It’s more than my business, it’s my fucki
ng story.’

  ‘Are you out of your mind? The police are on my tail. You want to be an accessory? Charged with harbouring a fugitive?’ She narrowed her eyes at him. ‘What’s going on with you, Novak? You’d do that just for a story?’

  He shifted his gaze, evading the question. ‘That charge would never stick, not if we can find Ethan. Once we prove you’re innocent, the rest is just a technicality. Your case’ll be re-opened, all the charges dismissed. Ethan’s the one who’s committed the crime, not us.’

  Jodie’s grip tightened around her bag. ‘I don’t want you along, this is not your concern.’

  ‘You don’t have a choice. Besides, you need me. I know you want to talk to my contact in the bank. Just how were you planning to do that without me?’

  Jodie glared at the reporter. Beneath the stubble, his face was strong-boned, his mouth now set in mulish lines. She hated to admit it, but the guy had a point.

  She gestured at the screen. ‘Gate’s closing, I haven’t got time for this.’

  She turned and dodged ahead through the crowds, then gradually slowed, letting him catch up. The police were on the lookout for a single female. As part of a couple, she was less likely to catch their eye. She glanced at Novak’s rumpled appearance, took in the contrast with her own smart suit. Wasn’t sure if the mismatch made them even more conspicuous.

  They joined the line for passport control. Gooseflesh tingled on Jodie’s skin, but when her turn came, Reuben’s forgery went unremarked.

  Leaving the US isn’t a problem. But you try and re-enter, that’s when they’ll take a closer look.

  Shelving her unease, Jodie boarded the plane and spent the next five hours in a seat three rows behind Novak’s. At Miami they switched planes, and this time the reporter nabbed an empty seat beside her, though he spent most of the flight dozing. He woke just as the captain was announcing their final approach.