Chapter 24

It had taken him a few days to find Lily Kintner. She was living back at home with her parents in Shepaug, Connecticut. The mother, Sharon Henderson, was a sculptor, but not a very good one, Ethan thought, and her father was David Kintner, the English novelist, who, surprisingly, was still alive.

The reason it had taken him so much time to find her was that Lily owned a house in Winslow, Massachusetts, home to Winslow College, the last place she seemed to have had employment. He'd traveled there first, wasting a day keeping an eye on the small shingled cottage by a pond, only to discover that it had apparently been rented out to an elderly couple with two whippets. Ethan was well aware that it was a dangerous thing to do, but he'd gone into the CVS located in the Winslow town center, bought a celebrity magazine, plus a padded envelope, and returned to the cottage pretending to be a deliveryman with a package for Lily Kintner. The old couple straightforwardly offered up the information that Lily Kintner had returned to Connecticut to look after her parents, while one of the whippets sniffed aggressively at Ethan's crotch.

He left Winslow and made his way to Shepaug, elated by this new pursuit. He knew it was dangerous—everything had been dangerous since the moment he stuck a knife into Martha Ratliff's throat—but he also knew that he needed to get to Lily before she got to him. She'd know by now that Martha was dead, and she would certainly know who'd done it. Would she run directly to the police with the name of Ethan Saltz? A normal person would have. But he somehow didn't think Lily was quite normal. He thought she might try to find him herself. And while he doubted she'd be able to do that—Ethan Saltz had well and truly disappeared off the face of the earth—he wasn't one hundred percent sure.

When he got to Litchfield County he stopped first in a town called Washington, parking downtown to get a cup of coffee and to call his wife.

She answered, as she always did, as though he'd just interrupted her while she was in the middle of a good book.

"Darling," Ethan said.

"Oh, that's a bad sign. Is this about the dinner party?"

"I'm just giving you a possible heads-up that I might not make it. I've found this old coot in Maine who claims he owns an original Wyeth sketch, but he keeps putting off showing me. If it's real, I'm thinking of killing him for it. How do you feel about that?"

Rebecca was silent for a moment, but he could sense she was smiling. He'd obviously married her for her money and for the house in Philadelphia, but it didn't hurt that she enjoyed his occasional morbid jokes. At last she said, "I was already dreading this party, and the only thing that was giving me hope was that you and I could laugh at its awfulness during our post-party debrief. How long will it take you to murder this man and steal his painting?"

"My plan right now is that I'll be back for the party, but I did want to give you a warning in advance that there is the smallest chance I'll have to cancel. I really will try, but it's an Andrew Wyeth."

"No, I understand."

"What are you doing right now?"

"Sorting shoes, actually, and waiting for a call from Stephanie about the house in Great Barrington. Where are you right now?"

"I'm staring at the Maine coast and thinking about how much you would hate it here."

After ending the call, Ethan took a stroll. He wandered through a small parking lot behind the town pharmacy, then picked out a car, not in the lot but parked behind a residential building that abutted the lot. It was some old model of Lincoln, backed into a tight spot. The car was white, but there was a fine film of grime and dust all over its exterior. It looked as though it hadn't been driven in years. He crouched between the back of the car and the brick apartment building, took a screwdriver from his leather briefcase, and removed the license plate. He didn't know how long he'd be in Shepaug and it wouldn't hurt to have Connecticut plates.

It didn't take him long to find the Kintner residence. It was set far back from the road, an old farmhouse with several outbuildings, and Ethan didn't even slow down while he went by. Instead he parked in Shepaug's tiny town center and considered his options. His plan right now was to kidnap Lily if he had a chance. If he could get a tranq dart into her, then throw her into the trunk of his car, he'd drive her to his house in Tohickon, where he had a room waiting. It wouldn't be impossible, but the chances for something going wrong would be high. Still, if he could pull it off it would mean he'd get to talk with her, wipe all the smug off her face and let her know that she'd lost. Just thinking about the possibility made him almost hard. It would be nice to talk to someone about his achievements, even to someone not long for the world. It was vanity, he knew that, but if anyone deserved to be a little bit vain it was him.

Two teenage girls walked past his car yakking at each other, not even seeing him sitting there, but he decided that if he was going to stay in the Shepaug center he shouldn't just sit in his car attracting attention. He pulled the stiff mesh baseball hat he was wearing farther down on his head, stepped outside, and looked around for a store to browse in. There was a bookstore called Stone's Throw, but people noticed browsers in bookstores. It was probably filled with lonely Shepaug women hoping to find some man flipping through the latest Margaret Atwood book so they could strike up a conversation. The best stores to browse in if you didn't want to be noticed were drugstores. Everyone shopping in drugstores was in their own little bubble of solipsistic anxiety, just hoping to get out of there as soon as possible. No one wants to run into a neighbor while holding a tube of hemorrhoid cream.

He'd walked two blocks when he spotted a woman with red hair entering what looked like a small grocery store. He'd only seen her for a brief second, but something coiled in his chest. The color of her hair was unmistakable.

Back in his car, he did a U-turn and parked across the street from the Carrot Seed. If she was shopping she probably wouldn't be longer than fifteen minutes, and she'd probably come out and get immediately back in her car. He'd follow her and, if he could, pass her on the road and force her to pull off to the side. His tranquilizer gun and a Taser lay on the seat next to him, covered by a folded sweatshirt. He went over good and bad outcomes in his mind. She might spot him right away when she came out of the grocery store. She wouldn't really be able to do anything about it, but it would put her on guard. If she didn't spot him and he was able to run her off the road, then another car might pass by. If that happened he'd put a gun in the face of the driver and see how long they hung around. But what if Lily was carrying her own weapon, a real handgun? Well, he had one of those as well, in his glove compartment, and if he couldn't kidnap Lily, then he'd kill her and leave her body by the side of the road. He'd get out of Connecticut and ditch the car. There would be very little reason to connect Ethan Saltz to Lily Kintner, but absolutely no reason to connect Robert Charnock to Lily or even to Martha or Birkbeck College.

While he was going over pros and cons, Lily—it actually was her—came out of the store. Instead of making her way to her car, she sat on a sidewalk bench. She didn't have a grocery bag with her, just a takeaway coffee, the lid of which she pried off. Ethan slumped in his seat, angling his head so he could keep watch on her. She wore green pants and a raincoat. She sat there for a while, and at least two people came and talked with her. It occurred to him that maybe the smartest thing to do would be to leave the Shepaug center and go wait by the entrance to her driveway, blocking it. But he wanted to keep an eye on her for a while longer. It had been huge luck that he'd spotted her away from her house, and maybe there'd be more luck coming his way.

Twenty minutes passed. Most of the passersby didn't give Ethan a second look, but one old woman stared at him a little as she shuffled down the street using a cane. He stared back until she looked away. His mind, as it always did and always had, conjured up a sudden image. In this one he ripped the cane out of the woman's gnarled hands and pushed its rubber tip down her throat, pinning her to the ground until she choked. The image spread through him like a shot of whiskey and he was calm again, thinking about Lily and how long she was going to sit on that fucking bench.

When she eventually stood up, he thought she might turn to her right—it was where most of the town's parking spots were located—but instead she began walking away from town, cutting down a side street. Ethan lost sight of her. He got out of the car and crossed Main Street, then turned down the side street Lily had taken. She was up ahead, walking with purpose. It was a short street and Ethan could see that it ended at the road he'd taken to get to the town center after passing by the Kintner household. She was walking home.

He walked briskly back to the Kia, marveling again at his luck. Part of him wondered if he should just run her down in the street, make her a victim of a hit-and-run. But, no, he did want to spend some time with her in Tohickon before killing her. He felt he deserved that, like buying a painting he couldn't quite afford as a special treat.