Helen picked up Lydia’s phone. “The nice man at the store told me that you go into settings.”
Claire took the phone. “It needs the password.” She angled the screen so her mother couldn’t see the last thing she’d looked at—Paul’s photo of Lydia in the trunk. She got rid of the image and pretended to tap in the password before handing the phone back to Helen, then watched in amazement as her mother navigated the software.
Helen entered in the burner phone’s number, then exited out of the menu. “Oh, look.” She turned the screen toward Claire. “See that funny thing at the top, the image of a phone and an arrow? That means the calls are being forwarded.” She seemed impressed. “What a wonderful little device.”
Claire didn’t trust the funny thing at the top. “Call the number and make sure it’s working.”
Helen took out her iPhone. She found Lydia’s number under recent calls. They both waited. Several seconds passed, then the burner phone started to ring.
Helen disconnected the line. “My mother used to scold me for calling her on the phone. She said, ‘It’s so impersonal. Why don’t you write me a letter?’ And I scold you for emailing instead of calling. And all of my friends scold their grandchildren for their illiterate texting. Such a strange gallimaufry of needs.”
“I love you, Mom.”
“I love you, too, Sweetpea.” She cleaned up the mess Claire had left on the coffee table. Helen was trying to appear casual, but her hands were shaking. She still had tears in her eyes. She was obviously conflicted, but she was just as equally determined to do whatever she could to help. “I should get going. How long do I need to stay at the bank?”
Claire had no idea how long it took to access a safety deposit box. “At least half an hour.”
“And then?”
“Get back on seventy-five. I’ll call you on your phone and let you know.” She remembered what Paul had said. “Be careful. That’s not a great area, especially in the Tesla.”
“The bank will have a security guard in the parking lot.” Helen touched Claire’s cheek. There was still a slight tremor in her hand. “We’ll have dinner after this is over. With drinks—lots of drinks.”
“Okay.”
Claire checked the time so she didn’t have to watch Helen walk away. Adam Quinn had said his presentation was first thing this morning. The offices opened at nine, which meant that Claire had half an hour to walk ten blocks.
The burner phone went into her back pocket. Her purse went over her shoulder. She finished her coffee as she walked back toward the bathroom. Claire’s appearance had not improved since she’d seen her reflection in the mirror behind Fred Nolan. Her hair was plastered to her head. Her clothes were a mess. She probably smelled sweaty from running full-bore through the city.
The cut on her cheek was still tender. The dark circle under her eye was turning into a full-on black bruise. Claire touched her ingers to the skin. Paul had punched Lydia, too. He had made her forehead bleed. He had made her eye swell shut. He had done other things, too, things that had made Lydia give up, to believe that no matter what Claire did, she was already dead.
“You are not dead, Lydia.” Claire spoke the words aloud for her own sake as much as her sister’s. “I am not going to abandon you.”
Claire ran water in the sink. She couldn’t go to Adam Quinn looking like this. If Adam was clueless as to what Paul was really involved in, then he’d be much more likely to help Claire if she didn’t look like a homeless person. She washed her face, and then quickly took a whore’s bath. The underwear Helen had bought came up past Claire’s belly button, but she was in no position to complain.
She slicked back her hair with water, then fingered it into a soft wave to dry. There was make-up in her purse. Foundation. Concealer. Eye shadow. Blush. Powder. Mascara. Eyeliner. She winced as she patted her finger around the bruise. The pain was worth it, because she felt like she was slowly coming back to herself.
The hour and a half of sleep had probably helped more than the ninety-dollar concealer. She felt her thoughts whirring back awake. She remembered the question she had told Nolan he needed to ask: Why was Paul sticking around?
He wanted the USB drive. Claire was not so narcissistic to think that her husband was waiting around for her. Paul was a survivor. He was risking his safety in order to get the USB drive, and he was telling Claire the things he thought she wanted to hear because keeping her onside was the best way to get it.
Saying he loved her was the carrot. Lydia was the stick.
Nolan thought that Paul was offering evidence of the masked man’s identity, but Claire knew that Paul wasn’t going to give the FBI evidence against himself. So what did that leave? What information could be on the drive that was so valuable that Paul was risking his freedom?
“His customer list,” Claire told her reflection. It was the only thing that made sense. On the phone yesterday, Paul had claimed he got into the family business because he needed tuition. Setting aside that he had graduated years ago, what kind of money were people willing to pay to watch his movies? And just how many names were on his customer list?
Gerald Scott’s VHS collection went back at least twenty-four years. There were at least one hundred videotapes in the garage. The archived equipment on the metal shelves pointed to various other means of duplication. Floppy drives for photographs. DVDs for movies. The super Mac to upload edited footage to the Internet. There had to be an international component. Paul had taken Claire to Germany and Holland more times than she could count. He’d said he was going to conferences during the day, but she had no way of knowing exactly what he did with his time.
Paul couldn’t be the only man in this business, but if she knew her husband, he was the best. He would franchise the concept to other men in other parts of the world. He would demand top dollar. He would control every aspect of the market.
So long as he had his client list, Paul could operate the business from anywhere in the world.
The bathroom door opened. Two young girls came in. They were giggling and happy and carrying large Starbucks cups filled with sugary, iced concoctions.
Claire drained the water from the sink. She checked her makeup. The bruise still showed in a certain light, but she could easily explain the damage. Adam had seen her at the funeral. He knew that her cheek was scraped.
The lobby was filled with travelers in search of breakfast. Claire looked for Jacob Mayhew and Harvey Falke, but they were nowhere in sight. She knew from movies that FBI agents tended to wear earbuds, so she scanned the ears of all the single men in the vicinity. And then she looked at the women, because women were in the FBI, too. Claire was fairly certain that she was looking at tourists and businesspeople because they were all vastly out of shape and she assumed you had to be fit to work for the FBI.
Her refreshed brain easily jumped to the next conclusion: No one had found her in the Hyatt, which meant that Paul had not given them her location, which meant that Paul was not working with Jacob Mayhew or the FBI, which meant that by extension, he was not working with Johnny Jackson.
Probably.
A quick look outside the hotel revealed that the light mist had turned into a steady rain. Claire went up one floor and took the skybridge, which was part of an eighteen-building, ten-block project to help tourists navigate the convention corridor without passing out in the sweltering summer heat.