Tom Savage - Mrs. John Doe

She’d only eaten one sandwich, so she pushed her other one across the table. Craig, who had already devoured both of his sandwiches, immediately started in on it. She smiled, thinking, He eats like Jeff. These men were very busy, and they often forgot about things like meals and a good night’s sleep. When food was put in front of them, they ate heartily, and when they remembered to sleep, they were dead to the world. Nora watched the sandwich disappear, feeling a sudden rush of affection for this stranger.

She wondered if Jeff was eating, wherever he was. Had he been abducted, taken prisoner? It certainly seemed that way. An unknown South Asian man on a late-night train platform in East Anglia-what were the chances Jeff himself had arranged that meeting? None. He’d bought a ticket for London, fully expecting to go there, then from there on to Paris. Instead, he’d vanished. If he was being held somewhere, what were they doing to him? Was he being tortured? Did people still do those things? Yes, they did. There was that scandal a while back, and that was the American military. If the good guys were capable of it, what would terrorists do to an American if they wanted information from him?

No, she couldn’t think about that now. She had to get back to London. Bill Howard’s people were looking for her husband, and she needed to be there when they found him. Alive, please, God.

God? Nora was suddenly falling back on her Catholic upbringing, the religion of her parents that she’d shunned in her youthful decision to be agnostic. The nuns and priests in the parochial schools she’d attended would be so proud of her now! Their little rebel was calling on the Almighty in her time of need. Apparently, it was true that there were no atheists in foxholes. Or agnostics, for that matter.

They finished their meal and paid in cash, and Nora left a pile of notes under the candle for Betty to find. They used the pub’s restrooms-the doors were labeled PIRATES and WENCHES-and bid their host a grateful farewell. Then they went back through the archway and across the darkened dining room to the door that led out onto the high street.

This cobblestoned lane ran parallel to the one on the seawall at the other side of the pub, and it comprised the rest of the “downtown” area of the little village. It was lined with shops, and the residential cottages and two-story dwellings were spread out in smaller streets behind it, heading away from the beach. There was no one about; the entire population of the town was apparently down at the party or asleep. Nora shivered in the night air and put on her coat.

“There,” Craig said, pointing off to their right.

The garage where Betty’s young man worked was easy to find. It was the last building in the row along the street, closest to the road that led to the motorway, and next to it was a crowded parking lot. Two gas pumps stood on the narrow sidewalk beside the wide-open double doors, and light spilled out onto the street. They heard a blast of heavy metal music from inside as they crossed the cobblestones and entered.

The young man, Adam, was a rough-looking lout, all ear studs and spiked hair and leather wristbands, but he was surprisingly polite. He immediately turned off the music and ran over to the brown car that stood in the center of the room next to a pickup truck. He opened the passenger door for Nora, and Craig slipped him some money and got into the driver’s seat.

When the old Ford Focus pulled out of the garage and turned onto the high street, it briefly caught Constable Dawson in its headlight beams. The burly policeman stood in the lane beside the Lucky Dolphin, staring after them with bleary eyes as they drove toward the motorway.

She woke in another strange environment, just like the previous morning in France, and once again she had to think a moment before she remembered where she was. London-she was back in Gower Street, at the Byron Hotel.

But not in her usual room. The second floor-or, in British terms, the first floor-of the Byron had a long corridor with five doors on each side. Her usual room, number 3, was in the center at the front of the building, facing Gower Street. Now, thanks to a call from Craig’s cellphone on the road last night, Mme. Blanche (as in DuBois) Williams (as in Tennessee) was ensconced in room 8, directly across the hall from room 3. Her favorite stage role in A Streetcar Named Desire had been on her mind ever since her impromptu dialogue in the French guesthouse yesterday. “Mme. Blanche Williams” was a seventy-four-year-old widow from Paris, in London to consult a specialist about her arthritis if anyone should ask. Always keep your lies simple: another bit of advice from her husband.

Craig hadn’t liked the idea of her returning to the Byron last night, but he’d really had no choice. Nora had pointed out that any other hotel or guesthouse in London would require authentic identification and payment, and that could set off an alarm bell somewhere. The Tindall family had allowed her to put the new room on account, to be paid for later, when it was safe to use her credit cards.

She’d briefly considered her husband’s apartment in Soho, but he’d always refused to let her so much as set eyes on it; he insisted on staying here with her when she was in London. Besides, how would she get in there without help from his colleagues? It was a grim fact that Nora was now dodging the good guys as well as the bad guys. Anyone outside Bill Howard’s little team was a potential threat to her remaining in England, and she had no intention of leaving.

So, the Byron it was. When she’d called the hotel last night from the car, the dependable Lonny Tindall had answered. He’d run upstairs to prepare the new room for Mme. Williams, and he’d sneaked Nora’s clothes over from room 3. The bundle of jewelry and the iPhone from the hotel safe were waiting at the front desk when she arrived at midnight. Lonny stared at her strange disguise, but then he grinned; he clearly found it-and her new, assumed name-more amusing than curious. Good.

She went to the new room and checked for messages on her iPhone. But first, she put on her wedding ring, and her spirits rose the moment she felt the familiar band of metal around her finger once more. It was a connection, a physical one. The man who wore its mate was out there somewhere, as worried about her as she was about him. And she would find him, if she had to march into hell itself to do it.

There were four messages: three texts from Dana (Hi, Mom, call me. Mom, r u there? Mom, whr r u???) and one voicemail from Vivian Howard (Hi, darling, it’s Viv. Bill says you’re still in London for a couple more days, so give me a buzz when you get this and we’ll do lunch or whatever. Ciao!). It was too late to call Viv, but it was seven o’clock in the evening in Great Neck, Long Island. She was careful not to call from the iPhone, remembering Jeff’s last written message, the one they’d found clutched in the hand of the dead Solange. Trust no one else, and don’t use your phone . She placed the long distance call from the hotel’s landline beside the bed. Aunt Mary answered; she and Dana were just sitting down to dinner.

“Noreen, dear, how lovely to hear from you! Your daughter has been frantic for the last two days, but I told her you were busy over there. She’s grabbing at the phone, so here she is. I’ll talk to you lat-”

“ Mom! Oh, thank God! Where have you been? I was ready to call Scotland Yard! First Dad, now you-nobody over there is taking my calls! Have you two, like, disowned me or something? What gives?”

It took Nora several minutes to calm Dana down, lying about where Dad was (“Oh, you know, work, work, work!”), but she promised they’d be home soon, hoping she’d be able to honor that promise. She repeated her order that Dana must not use her devices-no calls, texts, tweets, or Facebook-or tell anyone where she was. Dana didn’t understand; for a twenty-year-old, one week without electronics was the equivalent of ten years in Sing Sing. But she agreed, with many pointed questions and martyred sighs, to do as instructed. When Nora had finally extricated herself from her daughter’s melodramatics, she’d fallen across the bed, exhausted. She’d slept for nine hours.