Page 44

brEE WAS ASLEEP IN a motel room in Hailey, Idaho, when her phone rang.

She found it, answered. “Alex?”

“Sorry not to call last night, Bree,” he said. “There was a major development in the murdered-judges case that you and John need to know about.”

“Tell me,” she said, sitting up.

“We caught the assassin on camera and on audio. Before she shot him, she said, and this is a quote: ‘Maestro knows what you’ve done. It’s over.’”

“C’mon!” she cried as she got out of bed. “Is that right?”

“It was hard to hear, but there’s no mistake.”

Bree put her hand to her forehead. “My God, the heat on you and Ned is going to go sky-high.”

“Deadly, mysterious vigilante group targets possible Supreme Court nominees? I’d say so. Ned and I are on our way back to DC to brief the acting director.”

“And John and I are going to Salmon, Idaho, to try to track down Malcomb’s brother,” Bree said. “We found an address for his father, William. What did Professor Carver do to merit assassination?”

“Unclear. We have possible motives for Franklin and Pak, but not Carver.”

“I think you need to look at Theresa May Alcott,” Bree said. “She’s on that advisory board. She’s the link to Malcomb. She may also be the link to Maestro.”

“We’re on the same page—we’re heading to Cleveland after we see the director. How did yesterday go for you two?”

Bree told him about Eldon Boyt’s theory of the crash on the mountain road and about the dental records.

“Two matches, Bree,” Alex said. “That makes him dead in any court in the world.”

“I know, I know,” she said. “But I wish they’d tested him for steroids. We’d know for certain it was him.”

“You’ll have to figure it out another way. How’s the weather there?”

She looked out the window. “Ooh, snowing. There’s like six inches on the ground. But our rental is a Jeep Cherokee with four-wheel drive.”

“Call me tonight?”

“I’ll try around eleven your time.”

They said they loved each other and hung up. Bree texted Sampson to make sure he was awake, then showered, dressed, and repacked her overnight bag.

John had the Jeep warmed up when she left the room. He also had two coffees and two breakfast burritos waiting.

As they ate and drove north on State Highway 75, past the Sun Valley resort area, she told him about Maestro’s involvement in the assassinations, which stunned Sampson.

“That’s just cold and brazen,” he said. “What do they think they’re achieving by killing these people?”

“I have no clue. But I told Alex they should focus on Theresa May Alcott as the potential link to Maestro.”

“Good idea. But more important, this shows that Maestro is not stopping even if Malcomb was M.”

“Or they’re not stopping because Malcomb is M and he is very much alive.”

They passed the turnoff to Alice Lake a half hour later. Bree pointed to it. “That’s where Malcomb’s adoptive parents were murdered.”

“I remember that,” Sampson said. “Looks like the road in is snowed over.”

“Let’s get to Salmon. I have a good feeling.”

The snowstorm intensified north of Sawtooth City and the going became slow and treacherous on the mountainous two-lane highway. They did not reach Salmon and the address of William Malcomb and his wife, Cherise, until nearly three thirty in the afternoon.

It was a ramshackle dump, half prefab home, half plywood-walled addition, with no siding and tin on the roof. When they pulled in, an angry black standard poodle barked at them from the end of a chain.

As they got out of the Jeep, a wizened-looking woman in a stained red snorkel parka stepped out onto the sagging porch. She clutched a lit cigarette in one hand and a red go-cup in the other.

“Damn it, Fifi! Shut up!”

The poodle did so immediately; she sat and stared at them through the falling snow. The woman said, “Who are you? You were not invited.”

“We’re detectives from Washington, DC,” Sampson said. “We wanted to ask you some questions if you don’t mind.”

“I do mind,” she said. “About what? I ain’t done nothing. I haven’t been nowhere in three damn days.”

They walked toward her with their hands up. “Just a few questions,” Bree said. “Can we come inside?”

“Hell no,” she said. “And that’s far enough.”

Bree could see that the woman was younger than she’d first thought. Scrawny, with sallow skin and missing teeth. Her eyes were glassy and her hands trembled. Bree figured her for a meth addict.

“Are you Cherise?” Sampson said.

“That’s right.”

Bree said, “We were actually hoping to talk with William.”

The woman cackled. “You wanna talk to my Billy? Well, that’s no problem. Follow me.”

Cherise shuffled off the porch, kicked aside the snow, and headed toward a barn, cackling, puffing on the last of her cigarette, and taking sips from the go-cup. She went past the barn door and around the back.

She led them down a short, snowed-over path to a clearing by a creek. She pointed to a fresh grave mound marked by a white wooden cross with a red MAGA hat nailed to it that fluttered in the snowy wind.

Her next cackle was more subdued and sad. She said, “Talk all you want to Billy, ’cause that’s him there. Died last month. Pneumonia got him before the congestive heart failure could.”