Page 94 of The Shadow Friends

There was another silence as they all mulled over this detail.

Jo shook her head. “How does that fit into this?”

“I’m not sure,” said Maggie. “But now we really need to find her.”

“According to the Cod Cove manager, her current mailing address is just a PO box in Portland, Maine,” said Jo. “The FBI’s probably looking into that right now. But I checked her license plate, and I found an older address, the one she used to register her car three years ago. It’s in Amesbury, Massachusetts. Maybe one of her old neighbors down there knows how to find her.”

“I’m ready for a road trip,” said Ingrid.

“Not you, Ingrid,” said Lloyd. “You’re the target.”

“A moving target is harder to hit. I’m starting to feel cooped up here, like one of Maggie’s chickens.”

“My chickens are free range,” Maggie said.

“Which is what I’d like to be.”

“No, this farm is a secure location,” said Lloyd. “You need to stay here, with Maggie and me.” He turned to Rodrigo. “You tell her.”

Rodrigo smiled. “I don’t think I can tell Ingrid anything.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, she listens to you. If you have any feelings for her, tell her she can’t go.”

Jo looked back and forth at Lloyd and Rodrigo, puzzled by what Lloyd had said. If you have any feelings for her. Had she missed something? She focused on Rodrigo, and imagined him as a young man, dark eyed and dashing. Then she looked at Ingrid and pictured them as they must have appeared in their prime. It wasn’t hard to imagine sparks flying between these two.

“Ingrid is perfectly capable of making her own decisions,” Rodrigo said calmly, “but I have to agree with Lloyd. She should stay here. I will too.”

“Thank you,” said Lloyd.

“Then it’s Ben and me,” said Declan. “If we leave now, we can get to Amesbury before dark.”

“Hannah’s never met you,” said Jo. “If two armed guys show up on her doorstep, she might freak out. I should be the one to talk to her.”

“Then we’ll be your backup,” said Ben. His chair scraped the floor as he rose to his feet. “Let’s take my SUV. I’m driving.”

“So what’s the story with Ingrid and this guy Rodrigo?” Jo asked from the back seat as they drove south toward the New Hampshire border. Neither Ben nor Declan immediately answered the question, and as the silence stretched on, she wondered if they’d heard her. Wondered if maybe she should politely broach the subject of hearing aids. She’d been relegated to the rear of Ben’s SUV, like a child stuck behind her parents, and for miles she’d been staring at the backs of their heads, feeling like just a tagalong, not a real member of the team. “Hello?” she said.

Finally, Declan turned to look at her. “We’re not entirely sure what the story is.”

“You really don’t know?”

“It’s Ingrid’s private business. We don’t ask. She doesn’t tell.”

“But I thought you were friends.”

“Which is why we don’t ask,” said Ben.

“Is this some sort of secret? It seemed pretty obvious to me that something happened between them.”

There was another silence. Once again, she was forced to stare at the backs of their heads. These men had been trained to resist interrogation, and she was clearly not going to get them to talk unless they wanted to.

“It must be painful for Lloyd,” she said. “That man Rodrigo, he’s a fine-looking fellow.”

No response.

“Well, he is. A really hot ticket. If he were fifty years younger, I might consider—”

“Fifty years?” Ben snapped. “How old do you think we are?”