Page 97 of The Shadow Friends

The tone of his voice, so quiet, so still, instantly drew their attention. He was standing in front of a wall-to-wall cabinet, its doors now wide open to reveal a massive armory. Jo stared at the array of rifles and scopes and tripods.

And stilettos. A row of them, suspended by wires like precious jewels in a museum case.

Declan said, “Tell us again about Hannah Murray. What do you know about her?”

Jo swallowed hard. Said, softly: “Not enough.”

He looked at her. “I think it’s time to hand this over, don’t you?”

Jo pulled out her cell phone and called Agent Minnihan.

Chapter 36

Maggie

Even spies needed to eat, and with six of them now regularly congregating under her roof, Maggie’s refrigerator needed replenishing. Except for eggs, of course, but there were only so many omelets she could feed her guests before they rebelled. So at eight thirty that evening, she headed to her local grocery store and cruised the aisles, stocking up on enough food to feed six hungry spies plus one even hungrier police chief.

Enough for the next two days, anyway.

At that hour in the evening the store was quiet, and she could take her time perusing the fruits and vegetables, squeezing avocados and bagging bunches of herbs. She was at best an average cook, but if she handed Lloyd a few leeks and mushrooms, he could probably do something magical with them, so she selected both, along with lettuce and spinach, potatoes and onions, plus a few squashes thrown in for good measure. By the time she’d made it through the meat and dairy sections, her cart was almost full.

And she hadn’t even hit the liquor aisle yet.

That was another problem with spies: They drank too much, and her supply of booze had been severely depleted. Into the cart went a dozen bottles of wine and two bottles of whisky. The latter would not be up to her friends’ standards, of course, but in the midst of crisis, one could not be choosy about one’s tipple.

She wheeled her overflowing cart to the checkout line and began setting her purchases on the belt, unloading the liquor first. As the cashier tallied up the wine and whisky, her eyebrows lifted at the prices on the single malts.

“Having a party, huh?”

“Friends from out of town.”

“No one ever invites me to parties like yours,” the cashier said with a sigh, and she handed Maggie the grocery receipt with its eye-watering total. “Looks like it’s gonna be a blast.”

Let’s hope not.

Maggie wheeled her cart with its six bulging bags out into the night. It was the last week of October, and she could feel the bite of frost in the air, could see her own breath swirl away in the darkness. How short the summer was. It seemed the world went from warm grass and hummingbirds to flying snow in the blink of an eye. She loaded the first two grocery bags into the bed of her pickup truck and felt her shoulder twinge with pain. Another year, another malady. Next she loaded the bags containing the wine and whisky, and the bottles clinked as they went into the truck bed. Ben and Declan would almost certainly want a nip or two of that whisky when they got back tonight from Amesbury. She reached down to lift the last two bags from the shopping cart. In those few seconds, as her body was bent and thrown off balance by the weight of the bags, she did not notice the woman emerge from behind a parked car and move toward her.

“Maggie Bird,” said a voice.

She turned to find the barrel of a gun pointed straight at her chest. A gun held by a woman whom Maggie had met before.

Hannah Murray gestured to a dark-colored sedan that was parked two stalls away. “Get in the trunk,” she said. “We’re going for a ride.”

Chapter 37

Jo

Agent Minnihan looked at the splintered doorframe and the fragments of wood littering the floor and he said: “I don’t want to know how this happened.”

“And I don’t want to tell you,” said Jo.

“You had no search warrant. You’re out of your jurisdiction—”

“Forget all that for the moment. We can deal with that later. Just go in there and take a look at what we found.”

Minnihan walked through the ruined doorframe and into the windowless room, where Declan and Ben stood waiting. They watched as Minnihan surveyed the multiple computers, the spaghetti tangle of cords, the heavy-duty cable climbing toward the satellite dish on the roof. Then he crossed to the open cabinet and stared at the rifles and suppressors, the 9mm handguns and boxes of ammo. But what drew his attention was not the firearms but the stilettos, suspended by wires as delicate as strands of hair.

“Just like the one that killed Karen O’Brien,” said Declan.