Fool Me Once

The basement had started life as a rather upscale “man cave”-three flat screens, an oak bar, a wine cooler, a pool table, two pinball machines-but Joe had been slowly converting it over into a playroom for Lily. The dark wood paneling had been stripped off, and the walls painted bright white. Joe had found life-sized decals of various characters from Winnie the Pooh and Madeline and plastered them everywhere. His oak bar was still there, though he’d promised to remove that too. Maya hadn’t cared if it stayed. In the far corner of the basement was one of those Step 2 indoor playhouses Joe had bought at Toys “R” Us on Route 17. It was fort-themed (“manly,” Joe had claimed) with a kitchenette (“womanly,” he almost claimed, but his survival instinct took over), a working doorbell, and a window with shutters.

Maya headed for the gun safe. She bent down, checked the basement steps even though she knew she was alone, and then placed her fingertip on the glass. The safe came with the ability to store thirty-two separate fingerprints, but only she and Joe had ever worked it. She had debated adding Shane’s fingerprints in case he ever needed to get one of her weapons or if she needed him to get one out for whatever reason, but she just hadn’t had the chance.

Two clicks signaled that her fingerprint was recognized and the safe unlocked. Maya turned the knob and opened the metal door.

She took out the Glock 26, and then, because it was better to put her mind completely at ease, she made sure all the other guns were still in place-that no one had come here, opened the safe, and taken one.

No, she didn’t believe Joe was alive, but at this stage, she would have to be stubbornly crazy to completely dismiss the notion.

She took the guns out one by one, and even though she had done it recently, she once again opened them up and gave them a thorough cleaning. She always did that. Every single time she touched a gun, she rechecked it and cleaned it. Doing so, being so anal about her weaponry, had probably saved her life.

Or ruined it.

She closed her eyes for a second. So many crazy what-ifs in all this, so many sliding-door moments. Had it all started on the campus of Franklin Biddle Academy or on that yacht? Could it have simply ended there, in the past, or did her combat mission over Al Qa’im somehow bring it back to life? Was Corey to blame for awakening those ghosts? Was Claire? Was having that leaked tape released to the world the cause? Was it going to Tom Douglass?

Or was it opening this damn safe?

Maya didn’t know anymore. She wasn’t sure she cared either.

The guns in plain sight, the guns she had shown to Roger Kierce, were the ones that had all been legally registered in New Jersey. They were present and accounted for. Maya reached her hand toward the back, found the spot, pressed against it.

A secret compartment.

She couldn’t help but think of Nana’s trunk in Claire’s house, how the idea of the fake wall and secret compartment started generations ago in Kiev, and now here she was, carrying on the family tradition.

Maya still kept two guns back here, both bought out of state and thus untraceable to her. Nothing illegal about that. They were both there, but what had she expected? That Ghost Joe had come and stolen one of them? Heck, ghosts don’t have fingerprints, do they? Ghost Joe couldn’t open the safe, even if he wanted to.

Oh boy, she was feeling punchy.

The buzz of her mobile phone startled her. She checked the number but didn’t recognize it. She hit the answer button and said, “Hello?”

“Is this Maya Burkett?”

It was a man’s voice, smooth like one of those guys on NPR radio, but there was an unmistakable quiver in it.

“Yes, it is. Who is this?”

“My name is Christopher Swain. You sent me an email.”

Joe’s high school soccer co-captain. “Yes, thank you for calling me back.”

Silence. For a moment she thought that perhaps he had hung up.

“I wanted to ask you some questions,” she said.

“About?”

“About my husband. About his brother Andrew.”

Silence.

“Mr. Swain?”

“Joe is dead now. Is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“Who else knows you’ve contacted me?”

“No one.”

“Is that the truth?”

Maya felt her grip on the phone tighten. “Yes.”

“I’ll talk to you, then. But not on the phone.”

“Tell me where to go.”

He gave her an address in Connecticut.

“I can be there within two hours,” she said.

“Don’t tell anyone you’re coming. If you’re with someone, they won’t let you in.”

Swain hung up.

They?