Serena's POV
By Friday morning, they've lost them.
Torres tells us at six, standing in the middle of the safe apartment in a crumpled suit, with the grey face of a woman who hasn't slept. Brandt's townhouse on East Seventy-Ninth is empty. His housekeeper is in Palm Beach. His car's in the garage. His private jet, which should have been on the tarmac at Teterboro, took off at ten past four yesterday afternoon, filed for Rockland, and is now, according to the tower, sitting quite peacefully on a Maine runway.
"He's at Windward," says Torres.
"He's at home," says Dominic.
"Yes."
"And Vance? Tessa?"
"On the plane. Or in the car. Or in the boathouse." Torres rubs her eyes. "I've got the Boston field office. I've got Maine State Police. I've got a tactical unit, twelve men, on standby at Camden."
"Then storm it."
"I can't."
"Why not?"
"Because of this." She holds up her phone. On the screen is a grainy black-and-white image, sent in the night from an agent on the hill above Windward. A long grey roof. A slipway. A stack of lobster pots. And, along the ridge of the boathouse, thin as spider-silk, a line of small black dots. "Motion sensors. Cameras. Thermal, I think. He's wired the whole shoreline. The second a man in a vest comes through the trees..."
"He kills them."
"He's said so."
"Then we do what he asks," I say.
Everyone looks at me.
I'm sitting on the sofa with a blanket round my shoulders and a cup of tea I haven't touched. My hands have stopped shaking. I noticed it an hour ago, with a small surprise. It's as though something in me has finally run out of fear.
"He wants me," I say. "Alone. At midnight."
"You're not going alone," says Dominic.
"No."
"You're not going at all."
"Dom."
"I'm serious."
"So am I." I put down the cup. "Listen. He's not going to hurt Tessa until I get there. He's too much of a showman. He wants an audience. He wants to look me in the eye and say it."
"That's exactly why..."
"And if I'm there, he'll keep talking."
Torres has gone very still.
"A wire," she says slowly.
"A wire."
"Under a coat. And a bone-conduction earpiece. We'd hear every word."
"You'd hear him say it."
"We'd have him." A long breath. "We'd have him on tape, admitting the whole thing."
"He's already said it to me," I say. "I'd like to hear him say it to you."
"It's too dangerous," says Dominic, hoarsely.
"I know."
"He's got a gun."
"He's got a bomb," I say. "If I'm any judge."
The room goes very quiet.
"Why do you say that?"
"Because it's what he does," I say. "He uses what's worked."
***
Caleb is released at ten.
I'm not there. I'm told about it by Marcus, afterward, in a voice that cracks in the middle: a long grey corridor, a bored guard, a plastic bag with a belt, a wallet and a pair of shoelaces. Judith Weiss, small and ferocious, with a stack of papers and a hungry look. And in the doorway at the end, my husband, with his arms open.
He comes to the apartment at noon.
He's grown a beard in four days. His eyes are red. He stands in the doorway of the kitchen, in a borrowed sweater, and looks at me across the table, and I look at him.
"Serena," he says.
"Cal."
"I'm..." He swallows. "I owe you an apology."
"You don't."
"I do. For three years. For thinking... for letting Dom..."
"You didn't know."
"I should have."
"Caleb." I stand up. "You carried a bottle down some stairs for your brother's wife because you thought it was a present. That's not a crime. That's a kindness."
His mouth twists.
"It killed you."
"It didn't."
"It nearly did."
"It nearly did." I come round the table. "And you spent three years drinking yourself half to death over it, and gambling, and being generally awful. I know. I read the files."
"Thanks."
"I'm saying you've paid."
"Have I?"
"I'm saying," I say, "that I'd like my brother-in-law back."
He stares at me.
Then his face crumples.
I put my arms round him, and he puts his head on my shoulder, a head taller than me, bearded, shaking, smelling of prison soap, and weeps like a child.
Dominic, in the doorway, turns his face to the wall.
After a while, Caleb straightens. He wipes his face on his sleeve.
"I'm sober," he says.
"Good."
"Ninety-six hours. It's the longest in a decade." A watery laugh. "I'd like to make it a hundred and twenty."
"We'll help."
"Thank you." He draws a shuddering breath. "What do you need?"
"Everything you know about the boathouse."
He frowns.
"Why?"
"Because that's where he's going to be."
He goes pale.
"The boathouse."
"Midnight."
"Oh, God." He sits down. He puts his hands flat on the table. For a long moment he says nothing, and I see the bright, frivolous, charming boy I met nine years ago go, quietly, and a man take his place. "All right. Give me a pen."
***
He draws it on the back of a takeaway menu.
A long rectangle. A slip, with a ramp. A loft, with a ladder. A workbench, with a vice. A row of shelves along the north wall.
"There's a room under the slip," he says.
"What room?"
"A cold store. Mother had it built, in the eighties, for lobsters and wine. It's only reachable by a trapdoor under the workbench, and from the water side, by a little iron door at the waterline. We used to swim in there when we were kids." He taps. "Dom and I. We called it the Smugglers' Hole."
"Does Brandt know?"
"Not by that name."
"But he knows it's there."
"He gave Father the key."
"Brandt did?"
"Brandt gave everybody keys." Caleb's voice is bitter. "That's how he works. He's got a key to everything. He had one for the boathouse. One for the lighthouse. One for the safe. He was always dropping in with a bottle and a smile, at Christmas, at Easter..." He stops.
Something has changed in his face.
"What is it?" says Dominic.
"The shelves."
"What about them?"
"I was thinking about the shelves." He taps the drawing, very slowly. "On the north wall. When Mother and Father got married, Brandt gave them a present. A set of silver champagne coolers. From Tiffany. Eight of them. A bit vulgar, honestly. Mother kept them in the boathouse because she said they looked like trophies."
The room goes still.
"Eight," says Marcus.
"Eight. We lost two in the sixties, and one on the yacht, they said, in the..." He stops. He looks up. His eyes are huge. "That was his. The one that blew up. It was one of Brandt's."
"We know," says Dominic gently.
"I counted them. In August. I was down there looking for a fishing rod." Caleb's voice is hollow. "There were five on the shelf. Five. I thought, that's right. Eight, less two, less one, makes five."
"Cal..."
"I was in there in September."
"When?"
"The week before you hired her." He's looking at me now, with his mouth open. "I went down to be sick. I was hung over. I couldn't make it to the house. And I remember, I stood in the dark with my head against the shelves, and I thought: funny. Because they were all there. All together. In a row. All the same height."
"How many?" I whisper.
"Six."
The word drops in the silence like a coin down a well.
"Six," says Caleb, "on the shelf. I counted twice. And I thought, I must have been wrong."
Nobody moves.
"Boss," says Marcus, very softly. "That's not a mistake."
"No," says Dominic.
"That's a sixth."
"I know."
"He's been building it." The big man's voice is flat with horror. "Since September. Waiting. He knew she'd come."
I look down at the drawing.
At the long, small, careful rectangle, with its slipway and its ladders and its shelves.
I look at the row of six little squares that Caleb has drawn, absently, without noticing, along the north wall. Six, in a neat silver line.
I think of a cooler. A drilled lid. A neat round hole.
I think: He's going to do it again.
And, quite clearly, in the cold quiet of my own head, I think: Good.
"Marcus," I say.
"Ma'am."
"How long does it take to train someone to defuse a bomb?"
He stares at me.
"Years."
"And how long," I say, "to teach one to recognise it?"