Six Years

  "No, Jamal wasn't burned alive," Benedict said. "But the cartels still got their vengeance."

  The proverbial veil was being lifted from my eyes. Well, no, it felt more like a camera coming into focus. The indistinguishable blob in the distance was gaining shape and form. Turn by turn--or in this case, moment by moment--the focus was growing sharper. Natalie, the retreat, our sudden breakup, the wedding, the NYPD, that surveillance photo, her mysterious e-mail to me, the promise she forced me to make six years ago . . . it was all coming together now.

  "You faked your own death to save this woman, didn't you?"

  "Her," he said. "And me too, I guess."

  "But mostly her."

  He didn't respond. Instead Benedict--or should I call him Jamal?--moved toward the computer screen. His eyes were moist as he reached his finger out and gently touched Marie-Anne's face.

  "Who is she?" I asked.

  "My wife."

  "Does she know what you've done?"

  "No."

  "Wait," I said, my head spinning with the realization. "Even she thinks you're dead?"

  He nodded. "Those are the rules. That's part of the oath we take. It is the only way to make sure everyone stays safe."

  I thought again about him sitting here, looking up that Facebook page, staring at those photographs, her status, her life updates--like the one about her being "in a relationship" with another man.

  "Who is Kevin Backus?" I asked.

  Benedict managed something like a smile. "Kevin is an old friend. He waited a long time for his chance. It's okay. I don't want her to be alone. He's a good man."

  Even the silence pierced the heart.

  "Are you going to tell me what's going on?" I asked.

  "Nothing to tell."

  "I think there is."

  He shook his head. "I already told you. I don't know where Natalie is. I've never met her. I've never even heard her name except through you."

  "I'm having trouble believing that."

  "Too bad." He still had the gun in his hand. "What made you suspect me?"

  "The GPS in your car. It showed you'd gone to the retreat in Kraftboro, Vermont."

  He made a face. "Dumb of me."

  "Why did you drive up there?"

  "Why do you think?"

  "I don't know."

  "I was trying to save your life. I pulled into Jed's farm right after the cops. Seems you didn't need my help."

  I remembered now--that car coming up the driveway as the cops found my buried phone.

  "Are you going to shoot me?" I asked.

  "You should have listened to Cookie."

  "I couldn't. You of all people should understand that."

  "Me?" There was something akin to fury in his voice now. "Are you out of your mind? You said it before. I did all this to keep the woman I loved safe. But you? You're trying to get her killed."

  "Are you going to shoot me, yes or no?"

  "I need you to understand."

  "I think I do," I said. "Like we said before, you worked as a prosecutor. You put some really bad people in jail. They tried to seek vengeance on you."

  "They did more than try," he said softly, gazing again at Marie-Anne's photograph. "They took her. They even . . . they even hurt her."

  "Oh no," I said.

  His eyes filled with tears. "It was a warning. I managed to get her back. But that was when I knew for certain that the two of us had to leave."

  "So why didn't you?"

  "They'd find us. The Ghana cartel smuggles for the Latin Americans. Their tentacles can reach anyplace. Wherever we'd go, they'd track us down. I thought about faking both of our deaths, but . . ."

  "But what?"

  "But Malcolm said they'd never buy it."

  I swallowed. "Malcolm Hume?"

  He nodded. "See, Fresh Start had people in the area. They heard about my situation. Professor Hume was put in charge of me. He went off protocol though. Sent me here because I thought I could be of value as both a teacher and, if they needed me, someone to help others."

  "You mean, someone like Natalie?"

  "I don't know about that."

  "Yeah, you do."

  "It is very compartmentalized. Different people deal with different aspects and different members. I only worked with Malcolm. I spent some time in that training facility in Vermont, but until a few days ago I never knew about Todd Sanderson, for example."

  "So our friendship," I said. "Was that part of your work? Were you supposed to keep an eye on me?"

  "No. Why would we need to keep an eye on you?"

  "Because of Natalie."

  "I told you. I never met her. I don't know anything about her case."

  "But she does have a case, doesn't she?"

  "You don't get it. I don't know." He shook his head. "No one has ever said anything to me about your Natalie."

  "But it makes sense, right? You'll grant me that?"

  He didn't respond.

  "You didn't call it a retreat," I said. "You called it a training center. How brilliant, really. Disguising it as some kind of artist retreat in such a remote area. Who'd suspect, right?"

  "I've said too much already," Benedict said. "It isn't important."

  "Like hell it isn't. Fresh Start. I should have guessed by the name. That's what they do. They give people who need it a fresh start. A drug cartel wanted you dead. So they saved you. Gave you a fresh start. I don't know what that entails--fake IDs, I guess. A plausible reason for a person to vanish. A dead body in your case. Or maybe you paid off a coroner or a cop, I don't know. Maybe some kind of training on how to behave, learn a language or a new accent, maybe wear a disguise like yours. By the way, can you take those stupid glasses off now?"

  He almost smiled. "Can't. I used to wear contact lenses."

  I shook my head. "So six years ago, Natalie is up at this training center. I don't know why yet. I assume that it has something to do with that surveillance photograph the NYPD showed us. Maybe she committed a crime, but my guess is, she witnessed something. Something big."

  I stopped. Something here wasn't adding up, but I pushed on.

  "We met," I said. "We fell in love. That was probably frowned upon or maybe, I don't know, she was up there for another reason when we started our relationship. I don't really get what happened exactly, but all of a sudden Natalie had to vanish. She had to vanish fast. If she wanted to take me too, how would your organization have reacted?"

  "Not positively."

  "Right. Like with you and Marie-Anne." I barely stopped to think about it now, the pieces just falling into place. "But Natalie also knew me. She knew how I felt about her. She knew that if she just broke up with me, I'd never buy it. She knew if she suddenly disappeared, vanished, I'd follow her to the ends of the earth. That I'd never give up on her."

  Benedict just stared at me, not saying a word.

  "So what happened next?" I went on. "I guess that your organization could have faked her death, like with you, but nobody would buy it in her case. If guys like Danny Zuker and the NYPD were looking for her, they'd need some pretty solid proof that she was dead. They'd need to see her body and with DNA, well, I don't know. It wouldn't work. So she staged that fake wedding. In many ways it was perfect. It would convince me and, at the same time, it would convince her sister and close friends. Several birds, one stone. She told me that Todd was an old boyfriend that she had recently decided was her true love. That was a lot more plausible than a guy she'd just met. But when I asked Julie about him, she said she had never met Todd. She just thought it was a whirlwind romance. Either way, even if we all felt it was odd, what could we do about it? Natalie was married and gone."

  I looked up at him.

  "Am I right, Benedict? Or Jamal? Or whatever the hell your name is? Am I at least close?"

  "I don't know. I'm not lying. I know nothing about Natalie."

  "Are you going to shoot me?"

  He still had the gun in hand. "No, Jake, I don't think so."
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  "Why not? What about your precious oath?"

  "The oath is for real. You have no idea how real." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small box. My grandmother used to keep her pills in one just like it. "We all carry one of these."

  "What's in it?" I asked.

  He opened it. There was only one black-and-yellow capsule inside. "Cyanide," he said simply, the word chilling the room. "Whoever grabbed Todd Sanderson, well, he must have caught Todd off guard, before he had a chance to jam it in his mouth." He took a step toward me. "You see now, don't you? You see why Natalie made you promise?"

  I just stood there, unable to move.

  "If you find her, you kill her. It is as simple as that. If the organization is compromised, a lot of people will die. Good people. People like your Natalie and my Marie-Anne. People like you and me. Do you understand now? Do you understand why you have to let it go?"

  I did. But I still raged against the machine. "There has to be another way."

  "There isn't."

  "You just haven't thought of it yet."

  "I have," he said in the gentlest voice I have ever heard. "More times than you can imagine. For years and years. You have no idea."

  He put the pillbox back in his pocket.

  "You know what I'm saying is the truth, Jake. You are my best friend. With the exception of a woman I will never get to see or touch again, you are the most important person in my life. Please, Jake. Please don't make me kill you."

  Chapter 28

  I almost bought it.

  Check that: I did buy it for a long while. At first blush, Benedict--he wanted to make sure that I always called him that, that there would never be any slipup--seemed to be absolutely right. I had to back off.

  I didn't know all the details, of course. I didn't know what the full deal was with Fresh Start. I didn't know for certain why Natalie had vanished or where she had gone. Truth was, I didn't even know if she was alive. The NYPD had suspected that she was dead. I didn't know why, but they probably surmised that if guys like Danny Zuker and Otto Devereaux want you dead, someone like Natalie doesn't survive and stay out of sight for six years.

  There was more I didn't know. I didn't know how Fresh Start worked or about the training center doubling as a retreat or about Jed or Cookie or what role everyone played in this organization. I didn't know how many people they'd helped vanish or when they had started, though according to that charity report, it all began twenty years ago, when Todd Sanderson was a student. I could probably build a comfortable house with what I didn't know. That no longer mattered. What did matter, of course, was that lives were at stake. I understood the oath. I understood that those who had made such sacrifices and taken such risks would kill to protect themselves and their loved ones.

  There was also tremendous comfort in knowing that my relationship with Natalie had not been a lie, that she had, it seemed, sacrificed the truest love I'd ever known in order to save our lives. But that knowledge and its accompanying utter helplessness tore a hole straight through my heart. The pain was back--different maybe, but even more potent.

  How to lessen that pain? Yep, you guessed it. Benedict and I hit the Library Bar. We didn't pretend the arms of a stranger would help this time. We knew that only friends like Jack Daniel's and Ketel One could blot out or at least blur images this searing.

  We were pretty deep into our Jack-Ketel friendship when I asked one simple question. "Why can't I be with her?"

  Benedict didn't reply. He was suddenly fascinated by something at the bottom of his drink. He hoped that I'd let it go. I didn't.

  "Why can't I vanish too and live alone with her?"

  "Because," he said.

  "Because?" I repeated. "What are you, five years old?"

  "You'd be willing to do that, Jake? Give up teaching, your life here, all of it?"

  "Yes." There was no hesitation. "Of course I would."

  Benedict stared back down at his drink. "Yeah, I get that," he said in the saddest voice.

  "So?" I said.

  Benedict closed his eyes. "Sorry. You can't."

  "Why not?"

  "Two reasons," he said. "One, it isn't done. That's just part of our protocol, part of how we compartmentalize. It's too dangerous."

  "But I could do it," I said, hearing the pleading in my voice coming right through the slur. "It's been six years. I say I'm moving overseas or--"

  "You're talking too loudly."

  "Sorry."

  "Jake?"

  "Yes?"

  He met my eye and held it. "This is the last time we talk about this. Any of this. I know how hard it is, but you have to promise me you won't raise it again. Do you understand?"

  I didn't reply directly. "You said there were two reasons I couldn't be with her."

  "Right."

  "What's the second?"

  He dropped his eyes and finished his drink in one enormous gulp. He held the liquor in his mouth and signaled to the bartender for another. The bartender frowned. We had been keeping him busy.

  "Benedict?"

  He lifted his glass, tried to drain out the last drops. Then he said, "No one knows where Natalie is."

  I made a face. "I get that there's secrecy--"

  "Not just secrecy." He kept an impatient eye toward the bartender now. "No one knows where she is."

  "Come on. Someone must."

  He shook his head. "That's part of it. That's our saving grace. That's what's keeping our people alive right now. Or so I hope. Todd was tortured. You know that, right? He could give up certain things--the retreat in Vermont, some members--but not even he knows where they go after they get their"--he made quote marks in the air--"'fresh start.'"

  "But they know who you are."

  "Only Malcolm does. I was the exception because I came from overseas. The rest? Fresh Start set them up. They are given all the tools. Then, for everyone's safety, they go out on their own and tell no one where they end up. That's what I mean by compartmentalizing. We all know just enough--and not any more than that."

  Nobody knew where Natalie was. I tried to let that sink in. It wouldn't. Natalie was in danger, and I could do nothing about it. Natalie was out there alone, and I couldn't be with her.

  Benedict shut down then. He had explained as much as he ever would. I knew that now. As we left the bar and staggered back to the house, I made my own promise of sorts. I would back off. I would let it go. I could deal with this pain--I had dealt with it in other forms for six years--in exchange for the safety of the woman I loved.

  I could live without Natalie, but I couldn't live if I did something that would put her in danger. I had been warned repeatedly. Now it was time to listen.

  I was out of it.

  That was what I told myself as I stumbled into the guest cottage. That was what I planned to do as my head hit the pillow and I closed my eyes. That was what I believed when I flipped onto my back and watched the ceiling spin from too much drink. That was what I was sure was the truth up until--according the bedside digital alarm clock--6:18 A.M., when I remembered something that had almost escaped my mind: Natalie's father.

  I sat up in bed, my entire body suddenly rigid.

  I still didn't know what happened to Professor Aaron Kleiner.

  There was, I supposed, the off chance that Julie Pottham was right, that her father ran off with a student and then remarried, but if that was the case, Shanta would have found him with no problem. No, he had vanished.

  Just like his daughter Natalie would some twenty years later.

  Perhaps there was a simple explanation. Perhaps Fresh Start had helped him too. But, no, Fresh Start had been created twenty years ago. Could Professor Kleiner's disappearance have been the organization's precursor? Malcolm Hume knew Natalie's father. In fact, Natalie's mother had come to him when Aaron Kleiner first abandoned the family. So maybe my mentor helped him vanish and then, what, years later, formed a group under the guise of a charity to help others like him?

  May
be.

  Except twenty years later, his daughter suddenly had to vanish too? Does that make sense?

  It didn't.

  And why would the NYPD have shown me a surveillance photograph from six years ago? How could that relate to Natalie's father? What about Danny Zuker and Otto Devereaux? How could whatever was going on now, with Natalie, be related to her father who vanished twenty-five years ago?

  Good questions.

  I got out of bed and debated my next move. But what next move? I had promised Benedict that I would stay out of this. Moreover, I now understood in a very real, very concrete way the dangers of continuing this quest, not only for me but for the woman I loved. Natalie had chosen to vanish. Whether it was to protect herself or me or both, I had to not only respect her wishes but her judgment. She had scrutinized her predicament with more knowledge than I had, weighed the pros and cons, and decided that she had to disappear.

  Who was I to mess that up?

  So once again, I was about to let it go, was about to surrender to living with this horrible albeit necessary frustration, when another thought struck me so hard I almost stumbled. I stayed perfectly still, mulling it over in my mind, looking at it from every conceivable angle. Yes, it was there--something we had all overlooked. Something that changed the very nature of what Benedict had convinced me to do.

  Benedict was heading to class when I sprinted outside. When he saw the look on my face, he froze too. "What's wrong?"

  "I can't let it go."

  He sighed. "We went over this."

  "I know," I said, "but we were missing something."

  His eyes moved from side to side as though he were afraid someone nearby might be eavesdropping. "Jake, you promised--"

  "It didn't start with me."

  "What?"

  "This new danger. The NYPD asking questions. Otto Devereaux and Danny Zuker. Fresh Start under siege. It didn't start with me. I didn't kick that all up by trying to find Natalie. That's not how it started."

  "I don't understand what you're talking about."

  "Todd's murder," I said. "That's what got me involved. You guys keep thinking that I'm the one who breached your group. I'm not. Someone already knew. Someone found out about Todd and tortured and killed him. That's how I got involved--when I saw Todd's obituary."

  "That doesn't change anything," Benedict said.

  "Of course it does. If Natalie was tucked away safely someplace, okay, I get it. I should leave it alone. But don't you see? She's in danger. Someone knows that she didn't really get married and disappear overseas. Someone went so far as to kill Todd. Someone is after her--and Natalie doesn't even know it."