Dennis Lehane - Since We Fell

“What?”

“If this goes south, they will kill us all. The baby too.”

She stared through the dark Range Rover at him.

“We can’t give her any reason to be any more unpredictable than she’s liable to be already. We tell her in Amsterdam.”

She nodded.

“I need to hear you say it.”

“We tell her in Amsterdam.”

Brian looked at her for a long time before he said, “You still got your gun?”

“Yup.”

He reached under the seat and came back with a 9mm Glock, put it behind his back.

“You’ve had a gun the whole time,” she said.

“Shit, Rachel,” he said with a distracted sigh, “I’ve got three.”

They walked around the outside of the house twice in the dark before Brian led them up the sagging back steps to a door that had lost most of its paint over the years. The floorboards squeaked underfoot and the house itself creaked in an unseasonably cool wind, more early autumn than early summer.

He moved along the porch, checked all the windows and the front door before they returned to the back. He unlocked the door and they entered.

An alarm beeped to their left and Brian punched in her birthdate on the keypad and the beeping stopped.

The central hallway ran straight from the back door, past an oak staircase to the front door. The house smelled clean but dusty, maybe a light foundational odor of mildew that a thousand housecleanings could probably never remove. He produced two penlights from his jacket, handed her one, and turned on his own.

Haya sat below the mail slot in the front door, junk mail off to her right, a gun clasped in her hands.

Brian gave her a wave and a warm smile and came down the hall to her. She lowered her gun and he hugged her awkwardly and then they stood in front of her.

“Baby is asleep.” She pointed at the ceiling.

“You need sleep,” Brian said. “You look exhausted.”

“Where is Caleb?”

“The bad men, Haya, they may be following him. He didn’t want to lead them here. To you and Annabelle. You understand?”

Her breath was coming too fast. She bit her upper lip so hard Rachel feared it would spout blood. “He is... alive?”

Jesus.

“He is,” Brian said. “He’s going to go out through Maine. Remember how we talked about it? He’s going to cross into Canada and fly out of Toronto. No one will be able to track him in Maine. We know that terrain. You understand ‘terrain’?”

She nodded twice. “He will be... okay?”

“He will be,” Brian said with a firmness Rachel despised.

“He does not answer his... mobile phone.”

“We explained that. They can track a phone, Haya. If any of us thinks they’re being followed, they stay off the phone.” Brian took her hands in his. “It’s going to be okay. We’ll all be out of here in the morning.”

Haya looked at Rachel, woman to woman, a look that transcended any language barrier: Can I trust this man?

Rachel blinked an affirmative. “Get some sleep. You’ll need the rest.”

Haya climbed the dark stairs and Rachel resisted the urge to run to her and tell her everything they’d said was a lie. Her husband was dead. The father of her child was dead. She and her infant were about to go on the run with a pair of two-faced strangers who lied to her and would continue to lie to her until she couldn’t fuck up their escape.

Haya turned right at the top of the stairs and Rachel lost sight of her.

Brian read her mind. “What do you want to tell her?”

“That her husband is dead,” she whispered.

“Fine. Be my guest.” He waved his arm at the staircase with a flourish.

“Don’t be cruel,” she said after a moment.

“Don’t be judgmental,” he said, “unless you’re willing to walk the walk.”

They checked the downstairs together, room by room, and it was empty.

Only then did he turn on the lights.

“Sure that’s wise?” she asked.

“If they knew about the place,” he said, “they’d have been out in the mill or inside with her. They aren’t, which means this safe house is still safe. Nicole didn’t give it up. Probably because they didn’t know to ask her.”

“Haya’s got the bedroom up top on the right.” His body sagged with exhaustion all at once and she realized how wiped she was as well. He used his gun hand to point vaguely back up the stairs. “There’s a linen closet outside the bathroom. The first bedroom on the left has a dresser with a bunch of clothes in your size. Let’s each take a shower, I’ll put on some coffee, and we’ll get back to work.”

“What do we have to work at?”

“I gotta teach you a little forgery.”

Hair still wet, coffee in a mug, wearing a T-shirt, hoodie, and sweats that were, as promised, in her size, she sat at the table with her husband — was he still that? — as he placed a pad of blank paper in front of her with a pen. He then laid down several documents with his sister’s signature on them.

“I’m going to be Nicole?”

“For the five minutes it should take to get in and out of that bank, you’re going to be Nicole’s last alias.” He dug around in a gym bag until he came back with a small stack of IDs and credit cards wrapped in a rubber band. He extracted a Rhode Island driver’s license. It was in the name of Nicole Rosovitch. As he placed it on the table in front of her, Brian shook his head tightly. She got the feeling he didn’t know he was doing it.

“I don’t look anything like her,” she said.

“Similar bone structure,” he argued.

“Eyes are different.”

“That’s why I keep a set of color contacts.”

“They’re shaped differently.” She pointed. “And hers were bigger. Her lips are thinner.”

“But your nose is close and so’s your chin.”

“Anyone will be able to tell I’m not her.”

“A straight, almost-middle-aged guy with the two-point-two kids, the world’s most boring job, and I’ll assume the corresponding world’s most boring wife? He’s gonna remember one thing about the hot blonde in his office three months ago — that she was a hot blonde. So let’s make you a blonde. The hot part’s already covered.”

She ignored the appeal to her vanity. “You’ve got the right hair dye in this place?”

“I got wigs. Same one she wore.”

“Banks have face recognition software these days, you know.”

“Not at this bank,” he said. “That’s why I picked it. When in doubt, go mom and pop. This bank has been in Johnston for three generations. They only got an ATM four years ago and only after their customers filed a petition. The owner, that’s who you’ll be meeting, is also the bank manager and handles all safe deposit transactions. His name is Manfred Thorp.”

“Get the fuck out of here,” she said.

He straddled the chair beside her. “No, really. He told me the name Manfred goes back in the family a thousand years. Says every generation has to name one kid ‘Manfred’ and he, as he put it, drew the short straw.”

“How well do you know him?”

“Just met him once.”

“But you know all that about him.”

He shrugged. “People like talking to me. My father was the same.”

“Who was your father?” She turned her chair toward him. “Your real father.”

“Jamie Alden,” he said brightly. “People called him Lefty.”

“Because he was left-handed?”

He shook his head. “Because he never met a place or a person he wouldn’t leave. Left the army without telling them, left about twenty jobs, left three wives before my mother and two more after her. He’d pop back in and out of my life until he stuck up the wrong jeweler in Philadelphia. Guy was armed to the teeth and Lefty wasn’t a shooter anyway. Guy killed my dad.” He shrugged. “Live by the sword, die by the sword, I guess.”