“Sorry. I didn’t mean to belittle the whole thing.”
“No, you didn’t,” Caroline said, but Ethan could tell that his tone had lessened the conversation somehow. “Being slated for death puts things in perspective, I guess.”
“Even though we’re always slated for death.”
“Exactly.”
There was another slight pause, and Ethan forced himself to not comment on it. Instead, he said, “I know I’ve asked you this already, but do you have any new theories about what our connection is? Why we’re all on this list together?”
“Nothing new. I think it’s random, that somehow we were randomly selected.”
“My newest theory is that the list is a smokescreen,” Ethan said. “Like maybe someone wanted to kill Frank Hopkins, the first one murdered. So they make a list of eight random people plus Frank, send the list out, then kill Frank, and the police are so worried about the list that they miss the obvious suspect sitting right in front of them.”
“Except two more people have died,” Caroline said.
“Maybe it’s random. I mean, if you think about it, any list of nine people is a list of nine people who are going to die.”
“But not a list of nine people who will be murdered.”
“Right.”
“That plot you described is the plot of an Agatha Christie novel, but I can’t remember which one,” Caroline said.
“It’s from The A. B. C. Murders, one of the Poirot books.”
“That’s right. Are you a mystery fan?”
“When I was a kid, I was,” Ethan said. “I read all the Agatha Christie books, and all the Fletch books, and Father Brown, and stuff like that. Then I discovered Charles Bukowski and Jack Kerouac and I stopped reading mysteries.”
“I read all the Agatha Christies as a kid too. But then I discovered Jane Austen.”
“Well, at least we have Agatha Christie in common.”
“We have a lot of things in common. We both like poetry. We have a similar sense of humor. What else?”
“We’re on a death list?”
“Yes, we’re on a death list,” Caroline said.
Another small silence, and Ethan forced himself to not fill it. Caroline said, “I should go to sleep, I think.”
“Okay. I’m glad we talked on the phone. This was nice.”
“It was. It was nice. Now we have something else in common.”
“We both agree that talking on the phone is nice.”
“It’s very old-fashioned of us.”
“Yeah, the kids today don’t really talk on the phone.”
“They don’t.”
“Can I call you again?” Ethan said.
“Anytime.”
8
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 1:03 P.M.
Fischer, driving north along Route 1, reached the outskirts of Rockland, Maine, and turned his Equinox around in the parking lot of a fish shack. He was about to start driving south when he decided that he should put some food into his stomach, even though he wasn’t particularly hungry, and call Brandon back to see if he’d gotten any more information on where Jessica Winslow might be hiding out. Brandon was another one of Fischer’s colleagues whom he knew only as a voice on the phone and an undoubtedly fake first name, but ever since he’d started working as a gun for hire, Brandon was the man to call for information about his quarry. Fischer thought of Brandon as the reference librarian of his particular profession.
He’d never been in Maine before, so Fischer, to mark the occasion, ordered a lobster roll, even though it was twenty dollars. He was asked if he wanted mayonnaise or butter, and because of his hesitation, the young pretty girl said, “How about both?” and he agreed.
It was cool outside, the sky threatening rain, but Fischer sat at one of the picnic tables. There was a single bar on his cell phone. He called Brandon.
“If she’s on the run,” Brandon said, “there’s no one in that part of Maine that I can find who has any connection with her.”
“What about Maine in general?”
“One of her friends lives in Portland, Maine.”
“What kind of friend?”
“Don’t know exactly. It’s just someone she friended on her defunct Facebook account. A Jay Anderson. He’s a barista. It’s all I’ve got.”
“Okay, thanks.”
After eating his lobster roll—better with the melted butter was his amateur opinion—Fischer looked at his map app. It was clear that Jessica Winslow knew she was being targeted and had gone on the run. Whoever wanted her dead had someone tail her, and at some point, along Route 1, they lost her. It had probably been a single tail, so it wasn’t surprising that they’d let her get ahead of them, especially being on a major road. But then they would have sped up, tried to catch up with her, and if they hadn’t spotted her again, she had probably veered from Route 1. She could have gone inland, of course, but Fischer thought it made more sense that she would have turned onto the St. George Peninsula. It was where he would start to look. It wasn’t exactly a small peninsula, comprised of three villages, but it had only one major road. Fischer decided to focus on the cottages and houses closest to the shore and look for her car. Jessica Winslow was upper-middle class. If she were looking for a place to hide out, she’d borrow one of her friend’s summer places. It made the most sense.