“Now,” she says.
The car stops. I ease out of the back, hit the ground, shut the back hatch. It takes me no more than three seconds. I keep low and roll behind an evergreen. She continues to drive. I move to the other side of the shrub. When I stand up, the view laid out before me is beyond awe-inspiring. The Payne estate is built on a cliff. In the distance, over an expanse of green, I can see the waves of the Atlantic Ocean. The lawn has gardens that must be manicured by the gods. There are shrubs shaped as animals, as people, as skyscrapers even. The fountain in the middle is a large-scale sculpture, modern, a giant head seemingly made of mirrors with water spouting from the mouth. It reminded me of the Metalmorphosis by David Cerny down in North Carolina. The mansion is up to the right. You’d expect an old opulent masterpiece, but the Paynes had gone with something white and cubist. Still, despite the modernity, I can see climbing vines and ivy along the side. To the left is what appears to be a golf course. I can only see two holes, but this is private grounds along the prime real estate of Easton Bay, so how many holes would make sense? There are two waterfalls and what looks like an infinity pool blended into the ocean.
There is no one outside. It is silent other than distant echoes of the crashing waves.
So what now?
Our plan, which we admit is piss-poor, is for me to skulk around the property and see whether I can spot…anything really. Ideally, Matthew. I know, I know, but what other plan is there? Rachel is going to talk to Hayden. Confront him even. And if none of that worked, if we couldn’t find Matthew or any clues…
I still have the gun.
I feel oddly safe. I assume, of course, that Pretty-Funny Irene has called the police. At some point, they will find traffic cameras or whatever and may be able to trace us into Newport, but we still have time. Or at least I think that we do.
I make my way up the drive, sticking close to the evergreens. When I’m close enough to see the front door, I duck down and watch. Rachel heads for the door. I’m probably fifty or sixty yards away. The estate, no surprise, is massive.
When Rachel approaches the front door, it opens.
Hayden Payne steps out.
Chapter
37
Gertrude Payne finished her laps in the indoor pool. She had been doing forty-five minutes of pool laps every day for the past thirty years. She mostly stayed here in Newport, but her mansion in Palm Beach and the ranch in Jackson Hole also had both indoor and outdoor pools. They were important to her. The exercise was great, of course. She swam slower than she used to, which was hardly a surprise at her age. When she was young, she had wanted to be a competitive swimmer, but she’d been maddeningly caught up in a time when her father still believed “girls’ sports” were a waste of time. Still, she loved the water, the quiet of it, the utter stillness in your head where the dominant sound was the steady rhythm of your own breathing.
One of her great-grandsons called it “Pixie’s little mental health break.”
He wasn’t wrong.
As she slipped out of the water, Stephano was holding a towel for her.
“What’s wrong?”
“Rachel Anderson has just arrived.”
He filled her in on Hayden’s call with his old college chum. They’d been monitoring Hayden’s calls since Burroughs had broken out of prison. Hayden could be irrational and childlike. He worked off emotion and could vacillate with the best of them.
When he finished, Pixie said, “What should we do?”
“This is spinning out of control,” Stephano said.
“You don’t buy that she wants his help identifying someone in the photograph?”
Stephano frowned. “Do you?”
“No. Do you have a plan?”
“According to the news reports, Rachel Anderson is aiding and abetting a convicted child killer with his escape from a federal penitentiary,” Stephano began in his customary matter-of-fact way. He never raised or lowered his voice. He was always calm, always in control, never flustered or ruffled, no matter how dire the situation. “I will put this coldly. We should grab her when she is here. We find out where David Burroughs is hiding. She has to know. We find him. We make them both vanish. For good. I get one of my people to drive her car out so if the police find out she was here, we have evidence she drove out. If asked, we say she asked to see some photographs.”
“So they just…vanish?” Gertrude said.
“Yes.”
“The police will think, what, that they escaped?”
“Probably. They will continue their search, of course.”
“But they will never find them.”
“Never,” Stephano said.
“Suppose they told someone already.”
Stephano smiled. “No one would believe it. And even if they did, between your attorneys and my work, we would shut it down hard.”
Gertrude thought about it. In a way, this was not unique. The best way to get rid of any problem is to get rid of the problem.
“There really is no other way, is there?”
Stephano did not reply. There was no need.
“So when does Rachel arrive?”
“She’s just pulled in,” Stephano said. “I’m just waiting for your approval.”
“You have it.”
*
Hayden stepped outside and hugged Rachel. She let him, doing her best not to squirm away or even cringe. But now she knew. There was no question about it. She could feel it in him now—the lies, the deception, the evil. He had hinted at it to her so often over the years. His propensity for violence. The times his family had covered it up. She had accepted it, embraced it even, because it had benefited her. He had saved her that night. She knew that. And so her vision of him became skewed. Part of her knew that. Part of her could feel something wrong in him, but she’d allowed herself to be deceived. He had helped her. He was also rich and powerful and in truth, being around that was fun and exciting.
“It’s good to have you here again,” Hayden said, still holding her against him. “It’s been too long since you’ve been to Payne.”
When he backed away and looked at her face, she tried to smile through it.
“What’s wrong?” Hayden asked.
“Can we just take a walk through the gardens?”
“Of course. I thought you had photographs you wanted to show me.”
“I’ll show you in a bit. I want to talk first, if that’s okay.”
Hayden nodded. “That would be nice.”
They walked in silence toward the side yard. Up ahead, Rachel could see the mirrored-head fountain and hear the ocean in the background.
“Beautiful, isn’t he?” he said.
“Yes.”
“You are seeing it the same as I am, aren’t you?”
“I’m not sure what you mean, Hayden.”
“We both see this beauty. We both experience the same thing. We have employees here. We have people who work inside the house and outside the house. They have eyes, just like mine, and see the same view I do. We experience it the same. There’s no special platform here just for the rich. So why are they so envious? We see the same thing. We can experience the same pleasure.”
Hayden liked to do this, she knew—justify his wealth in various ways. This was not a rabbit hole she wanted to go down right now. She scanned down the row of hedges looking for David, but he was either well hidden or not there.