To the Death

She checked every cupboard, checked under the bed, checked the kitchen and the bathroom. Throughout her stay, she had been careful to accumulate nothing. She stripped the bed of sheets and pillowcases, gathered up two damp towels, scooped up a couple of dish towels, and raced for the incinerator hatch, down which residents could get rid of any rubbish they no longer required. She dumped anything that might bear DNA samples straight down the chute. Shakira would leave her apartment carrying only what she had brought with her.

She took her cell phone onto the balcony and dialed the numbers for the house in Gaza. No reply. She had not expected one. She just left the briefest of messages: Evacuating immediately. Cell phone active.

Then she dialed a local number, let it ring twice, and pressed the cutoff button. Downstairs, Fausi pulled into the drive, his headlights off. He parked in the shadows, rendering the car almost invisible.

Then he walked around the side of the building, selected an expensive Lincoln Continental, picked up a stone from the rock garden, and hurled it through the windshield.

The alarm system went off like a klaxon, echoing through the deserted parking lot. Fausi raced back to his own car and swept up to the front of the building. He charged through the door, still in his chauffeur’s uniform, and yelled through to the little anteroom where Fred was watching television.

“Excuse me, sir, I think I just saw two guys break into one of the residents’ cars. I heard a crash and then they ran right past me. I didn’t realize anything was wrong until I heard the alarm go off.”

Fred, a heavyset former Green Beret, came out of his chair like a bullet. This would not look good for him, a professional security officer. “Thanks, pal,” he called, as he raced across the foyer. “I’m right on it.”

The big doorman rushed outside, following the sound of the blaring car alarm. And as he did so, the elevator door slid open. Fausi beckoned Shakira to come out, and she edged her way through the foyer, turning deliberately away from the door and covering her face with a copy of American Vogue. She walked slowly, in a stooped fashion, like an old woman.

Outside, Fausi grabbed her suitcase, and the two of them slipped swiftly through the shadows to the Buick, which was running quietly. Fausi shoved the suitcase onto the passenger seat and climbed in behind the wheel, while Shakira prostrated herself on the backseat.

The black car, displaying no lights, sped off down the drive, swung right toward Route 17, and moments later was hurtling up the highway. No one at Chesapeake Heights, especially the night doorman, knew that Carla Martin was no longer a resident.

It was almost midnight now. Back in Brockhurst, Emily Gallagher was sound asleep, content in the knowledge that Carla would take care of Charlie in the morning. Jim Caborn was upstairs watching television, feeling self-congratulatory at the competence of his latest bar manager. And the undiscovered body of Matt Barker seeped blood, silently, in the shadows of the hotel parking lot.

By 1 A.M., Fausi had reached the junction with Interstate 95, the endless highway that runs north-south down the entire length of the eastern seaboard of the United States.

Once more they turned north, and Fausi asked, “Okay, where’s it to be, Shakira? Washington Dulles, Philly, or New York?”

“Boston,” she replied.

“Wow!” said Fausi. “That’ll take us another eight hours. That’s a long way. I guess you mean nonstop?”

“I most certainly do,” she replied. “And I am sure you understand, Fausi, that right now this car is my best friend in all the world. Every mile we travel is one more away from Brockhurst. Every mile means I am just a little more remote.”

“When do you think they’re going to find that body?” he asked.

“Probably early in the morning. When one of the hotel residents drives out that way. I suppose around eight o’clock. I’m hoping they’ll think it’s a local murder and concentrate their search for the killer in the Brockhurst area.”

“You want to go straight to Logan?”

“Oh, I think so. Then I’ll get the first flight to Europe I can.” Not even Fausi was permitted to know her destination. And he knew it. Never even asked. He just said, “I’m going to miss you, Shakira. It’s been tense, but enjoyable.”

Shakira had never heard those two adjectives used together, and, as a student of language, she found herself laughing. “Very nicely stated, Fausi,” she said. “I think you are better at speaking English than I am. Which is important, because I am really good.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Rashood,” he replied. “I’ll accept the compliment.”

It was forty miles more from the I-95 junction up to Washington, which they made by 1:45 A.M. They avoided the city, because 95 swings sharply right on the southern outskirts of Alexandria and sweeps across the Potomac on the Woodrow Wilson Memorial Bridge, straight into the state of Maryland.