“Oliver?” Annabelle said. “What is it? What’s wrong?” She put a hand on his shoulder as he steadied himself against a tree.

Stone finally found his voice. “Do not follow me out of here. I’ll meet you back at the cottage.”

“But-”

“Just go.” He set off in the direction of the departing van.

As the cemetery workers started to fill the hole back in, Annabelle strolled casually by the grave.

“I thought they were supposed to put coffins in the graves, not take them out,” she said.

One worker glanced up at her, but said nothing. He went back to his shoveling.

She moved a bit closer, squinting to read the name on the marker.

“Uh, can you tell me where they do the changing of the guard here?” she asked as she edged closer.

As the worker told her she glanced over his shoulder and finally made out the name chiseled on the marker.

“John Carr,” she said to herself.

On foot, Stone followed the van until it hit the main road and then shot out of sight, after passing around the traffic circle leading away from the cemetery. It didn’t cross over Memorial Bridge into Washington. Instead the van headed west, farther into Virginia. Stone had a good idea where it and the coffin were going: Langley, home of the CIA.

He called Reuben on his cell phone.

“I want you to contact every friend you have at DIA and find out why a grave was exhumed at Arlington National Cemetery today.”

“Whose grave?” Reuben asked.

“A man by the name of John Carr.”

“Did you know the guy?”

“As well as I know myself. Hurry, Reuben, it’s important.”

Stone clicked off and made another phone call, this time to Alex Ford, the only living person other than Annabelle Conroy who knew that Stone’s real name was John Carr.

“You saw them dig it up?” Alex said.

“Yes. Please find out what you can.”

Stone walked back to his cottage, certain that Annabelle, who’d driven them both over to Arlington National, would beat him there.

She was standing by his desk when he walked in. “You look good for a dead man.”

He said, “Where are Paddy and Caleb?”

“They went to the grocery store. You apparently don’t keep much food here. Caleb told me to tell you he was appalled.” She motioned to the papers on Stone’s desk. “You’ve got quite a file going on Jerry here.”

“Jerry and you,” he said, startling her.

“You dug up stuff on me?”

“No, my friend only pulled Bagger’s file. The stuff on you is just conjecture.”

He sat down behind his desk.

“So the cemetery piece is bad, I take it.”

Stone said, “Let’s put it this way-when they open that coffin, they’ll be surprised what they don’t find in it, namely me.”

“Is there another body in the coffin?”

He shrugged. “I didn’t have any input in the decision. I was too busy avoiding being the body in the coffin.”

“Why would they be digging it up now?”

“I don’t know.”

“So what was the problem you mentioned earlier?”

“It’s not something I can really talk about.”

Her face flushed angrily. “You’re telling me that? After I spilled my guts to you? And I’ve never done that with anybody. Ever! Now I want the truth.”

Inwardly, Stone winced. For years he’d kept a sign in Lafayette Park that had read, “I want the truth.”

“Annabelle, it’s not something I can talk-”

“Don’t. Don’t try to make bullshit excuses. I took bullshit to an art form.”

Stone simply sat there, while Annabelle tapped the heel of her shoe on the plank flooring. “Look, Oliver, or John, or whatever the hell your real name is.”

“I told you my real name before. It’s John Carr.”

“Good, that’s a start. Keep going.”

He rose. “No. I won’t. And I can’t help you now with Jerry Bagger. In fact, the faster you can get away from me the better. Take your father and use all your money to run as far and as fast as you can. I’m sorry, Annabelle. I’m sorry. If you’re anywhere near me, you’ll die. I can’t have that on my conscience too.”

He gripped her arm, walked her to the front door and closed it behind her.

CHAPTER 54

HARRY FINN’S MOTHER rose early. The pain, the gnawing at her bones, always made her rise before dawn.

She used the bathroom, shuffled back to her bed and read through her newspapers with the discipline of a lifetime. The radio and TV news shows followed in her ritual of endless fact-finding. And that’s when she found herself staring at his face up there on the screen. She clawed at the remote control, and his grinning, smug countenance disappeared.

Her breaths coming in gasps, she looked down at the cell phone her son had given her. She had never called him on it; it was only reserved for emergencies, he’d told her. She kept it tied to a string that she wore around her neck. She only took it off to bathe. She needed to call him. She needed to know about the man. The face on the TV. Was it true? Could it be true?

She heard someone coming and quickly slipped back on the bed. The door opened and the attendant came in, whistling.

“How are we today, Miss Queenie?” the attendant said. The nickname had come from her patient’s imperious manner.

The old woman’s face had assumed a vacant expression. She muttered a few words in the odd language she spoke. To anyone else it would sound like mindless ramblings, which was exactly what she intended. The attendant was very familiar with this speech.

“Okay, you just go right on jabbering while I get your dirty clothes and clean up the bathroom. Whatever makes you happy, Miss Queenie.” The attendant glanced over at the well-thumbed newspapers and smiled. Miss Queenie wasn’t nearly as out of it as she wanted people to think.

The woman performed her duties and left. Only then did she sit up and look at the phone again. It was odd that when one grew old decisions that were made quickly when young now required extensive internal deliberation. To call or not to call?

Before she had actually made up her mind her fingers punched in the numbers.

It was answered before the first ring was even finished. He had obviously recognized the number on the caller ID.

Finn’s voice was low but clear. “What’s happened? Are you hurt?’ he asked firmly.

“No. I am fine.”

“Then why did you call?”

“I saw on the news that he left the country. The man is going on vacation. This man can take a holiday? Is this true? Tell me!”

“I’ll take care of it. Hang up, now.”

“But he must-”

“Don’t say it. Hang up. Now.”

“No one can understand what we’re saying.”

“Now!”

She clicked off and put the phone back around her neck. Harry was angry with her. She should not have called. But she could not help herself. All day and all night she sat here, in this place, in this hell, rotting, and thinking only of it. And then to see the man on the TV.

She scuttled over to the window and looked out. It was a beautiful day and it didn’t matter to her. She did not belong to this world anymore. She belonged to the past and that was nearly gone as well. Her family, her friends, her husband, all dead. Only Harry was left. And now he was angry at her. Yet he would get over it. He always got over it. He was a good son; a mother could have no better son than she did. She opened the drawer and pulled out the single remaining photo she had of her husband.

She lay back on her bed, the photo over her heart, and dreamed of the death of Roger Simpson.

Harry Finn slowly put the phone back in his pocket and returned to the kitchen, where Mandy and the children stared anxiously at him. When his phone had rung and he saw the number come up, he’d forgotten that he even had a family. He had raced from the room, certain that his mother was calling to tell him they had found her. That she was about to die.