Page 50 of The Dead Come to Stay

The man standing in front of Jo wore a tailored suit; hair perfectly set, shoe leather buffed to shine. But his eyes had just

widened in their sockets, pulling hooded lids into wells of excess skin folds. Pigeon. Window. Smack.

“Ms. Jones?” he asked, his voice rising on the last syllable, the sharp note of disbelief.

“You’re dead,” Jo said. Because that was the first thought that came to mind, and at the moment shock wasn’t permitting any

others.

He opened his mouth, failed to speak and closed it again. Then he gestured to the car door.

“I can explain,” he said finally. “I know it seems incredible, but there’s—there’s an answer. A solution. A very simple solution. Can you? Just come with me, please.”

The sentences came out half-formed; a theory, a question, an imperative. Jo did not like it.

“I’m going to go now,” she said. Except she didn’t. Her eyes kept straying to the dark windows; he followed her train of thought exactly.

“You’re looking for the girl.” He took a step forward—Jo took a step back. “I’m trying to protect her. She’s in trouble.

“Then you should call the police,” Jo said. She thought: Thirty steps to the parking ramp .

“I will. I’m going to.” Foley had recovered from the shock of seeing her. His manner smoothed. “But I don’t want to get Lina

in trouble.”

“Why would she be in trouble?” Jo asked.

Foley sighed. “Because the system is broken, that’s why. She’s an asylum seeker.” He waited for Jo to understand. She didn’t.

“Undocumented, I suppose, you’d say. She fled to the UK and applied for asylum. But she’s been denied.”

Jo was backing up, slowly.

“What does that mean?”

“It means she’ll be deported. But Lina is safe with me.” Foley looked over his shoulder and gestured to the car. “Do you want to meet

her?”

Jo could smell the exhaust; whoever started the engine, it wasn’t Foley. And that bothered her. Everything bothered her almost

as much as the not-dead Foley. There were questions she ought to be asking, but they’d bottlenecked: Why was he here, who was the girl... who was the dead guy ?

What she said was: “Let her out of the car.”

Foley stood with his hands in front of him, palms open, facing out—nonthreatening. He took a step backward, his face near

the window of the passenger side. It was, Jo noticed, cracked open.

“Lina, do you want to come out?” he asked. Jo’s breath came quick in her throat as she watched the rear of the SUV. Her brain

felt itchy. Something wasn’t right. On the other side of the vehicle, Jo heard a door open and shut. Run , she told herself. Run and don’t look back. Jo spun around and sprinted for the garage doors; she could make it to the street then back to the bridge—

“Gotcha!” Two arms wrapped tight around her middle, and the force almost sent her colliding with the pavement.

“Let go !” Jo shouted, writhing and kicking.

“Put her in the back,” Foley said. He remained exactly where he was, unhurried, arms folded. Jo threw her head backward, trying

to find a nose to break.

“She bloody feral,” the man growled. “Open the door!”

Jo saw the back of the SUV in mental flashbulb: black leather seats, black interior, blacked-out windows, and cowering in

the far corner was Lina . Under the yellow coat she wore an oversize shirt and leggings. She wasn’t hurt, but the look on her face was one of hypervigilant

attention—and possibly confusion. These men were not her rescuers. Jo raised both her knees, shifting the center of gravity. Her captor arched backward to compensate, and Jo

kicked down as hard as she could, Doc Martens connecting solidly with both shins.

“Fucking hell!” he squealed and Jo wrenched free.

She didn’t get far. Two rough hands closed on her shoulders, lifted and tossed her into the vehicle as if she was a cast-off

rag.

“Nebby hinny, yar?”

Jo caught a glimpse of the man’s heavy jowls and squared-off shoulders before the door closed. The Geordie. She dived for

the handle, only to hear the child-safety locks click into place.

“For your own protection, you understand,” said Foley, now from the passenger seat. Jo couldn’t reach him; the SUV had been

fitted with a caged partition. The other man—the one she’d kicked—climbed into a seat just in front of it. Jo threaded her

fingers through the grate and gave it a shake.

“This is kidnapping!” she shouted.

In the front seat, Foley turned to face her. “I promise, we can work all of this out,” he said. And then, to the man in front

of her: “Close the curtain.”

Jo watched as he tugged black fabric. Her window on the world closed by degrees until there was nothing but darkness.

Then the SUV lurched forward, knocking her onto the bench seat.

Her phone was dead, and no one—not Gwilym, certainly not MacAdams—knew where she was.

Jo felt her chest constrict with the urge to hyperventilate.

.. and then, a small hand reached out and clutched her own.

“I am afraid,” whispered the girl in yellow.

Jo stared into puffy, red eyes. She couldn’t be more than eighteen. Get a grip , Jo told herself. Vagus nerve. Autonomic stimulation. Four belly breaths and hold... She gave the girl’s hand a squeeze.

“I’m Jo,” she said.

***

Sherlock Holmes would count the turns in the streets or identify route by sense of smell. Jo didn’t know Newcastle well enough

for any of that to matter, but she paid special attention to the time. Thirteen minutes from where she’d been; that was the radius. She tried to think of the GPS map and scale; it included a lot

of ground on both sides of the river, but they were still in the city’s center... somewhere. The vehicle came to a halt

in a pouring rain; Foley opened the door, holding an umbrella.

“I need you both to come with me,” he said.

“No way,” Jo said, scrabbling backward—into the broad chest of the Geordie.

“Ye dee as yer telt!” he boomed.

“Tie you up if it was up to me, an’ don’t tempt me,” said the third man, guiding them out of the car.

Two men on both sides of her, one behind, all within touching distance. Jo’s skin crawled. Focus on the ground , she told herself. New asphalt, wet streaked beneath the black umbrella. A parking lot, but in a moment they were under the

awning of a building. She heard Lina whimper: “Where is Habibi?” The word teased Jo’s memory; she’d heard it before.

Foley just answered by saying, “Everything will be fine.”

The umbrella came down once they were inside; the space was cavernous. Polished stone, cut glass and a fountain in the center. Atrium? Office building?

“Why are we here?” she asked.

“I have something to attend to,” Foley said. “It won’t take long.” He led them to an elevator, and when it dinged open, the

Geordie herded them in behind Foley—but the other man stayed behind. He turned to go, and in the barest stripe of visual before

the doors closed, Jo could see a handgun tucked into his waistband.

Oh shit oh shit oh shit , she breathed as the floors counted up— six, seven, eight floors; nine, ten, eleven . The elevator didn’t open to a hallway, but a whole floor.

“Make yourselves comfortable,” Foley said, pointing to a sunken area with shiny sofas and a heavy coffee table. “Would you

like a cup of tea?”

“Are you serious?” Jo asked. Lina just stared at him, wide-eyed.

“Where is Habibi?” she asked again.

“Let me get you that tea,” Foley said. “And then we can talk about everything.” He stepped up to the peculiar platform that

circled the room, a sort of display area for various awards. To one side was a small counter and tea maker. Jo looked for

the door but found the Geordie instead. He stood in front of it firm and joyless as a salt pillar. And for the first time,

Jo noticed the sheath buckled to his belt. It wasn’t a gun, thank God. It was a knife, which was almost as bad. Jo swept her

eyes back to center.

“You kidnapped us.”

“I invited you,” Foley corrected. “Do you take milk? I’m sorry I don’t have any biscuits to offer.” He set two cups down,

one for Lina and one for Jo. “You were more hospitable, I know.”

Jo was afraid to drink it. Lina wasn’t in a state to deny; she gulped it thirstily.

“This doesn’t feel like an invitation. Someone’s blocking the door. And the man downstairs had a—”

“A temporary arrangement,” Foley completed.

“Nar, us has a deal ,” said the Geordie. “Got to get gannin; wot you waiting ’ere for anyways?”

Foley clenched and unclenched his hands against the blue blazer, then turned back to Jo in smiling composure.

“Ignore him. I just have some paperwork to take care of. Then we can talk about—everything.”

“Can we talk about who the dead man is?” she asked.

Foley’s smile went brittle like plastic. “It’s just a misunderstanding,” he said, but Jo wasn’t having it.

“There is a man in Abington morgue, and he’s not misunderstood,” she said. “He’s dead.”

“Dead?” Lina rose to her feet. “Who is dead? Please not Habibi!”

Habibi. The meaning escaped Jo before but returned in a flash. She’d seen it on the cover of an Arabic language-learning book she’d

edited; it was a term of endearment. It meant my love . Jo’s brain skipped forward to MacAdams’s kitchen; “Foley had a girlfriend.” The girlfriend was the missing hiker. The missing

hiker was Lina, who begged for news of her lover . The man standing before them was the same man who arrived on Jo’s doorstep in the rain. But he was not Ronan Foley.

21:00

The case had never made sense, because the very first piece of evidence had been wrong. Ronan Foley supposedly shut the attic

door between himself and Jo Jones at 11:00 p.m. on Friday. Since then, it had been questions with no answers: why Jo’s cottage

instead of Abington Arms? How did he get there? Where was his car? Why was the body iced? Why the stolen towels and soap?

Green had said it best; the case would make more sense if Jo got the timing wrong. She didn’t. Instead, she’d mistaken the man , who had convinced her he was someone he wasn’t.