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“He died in a sailing accident. Claire Montgomery and her brother took out the family yacht, a sailboat that bore her name—the Claire-Voyance. A three-million-dollar boat daddy bought for her twenty-first birthday. They ran into bad weather a couple of miles off the coast of New York. The boat sank. She lived, but barely—the Coast Guard pulled her near-drowned and hypothermic body out of the ocean. Her brother died. She visits his grave every year.”
“Shit,” Walt whispered under his breath, taking a long swallow of rum.
“What’s the matter?”
Walt thought back to his confession earlier in the night. His stupid, bumbling, rambling confession, and his explanation of the survivor’s guilt that came with making it through the shooting that had taken his partner’s life. He spoke as if his situation were unique, as if Avery could never understand the feeling. She surely did.
“Nothing.” Walt offered a drunken wave. “Just sounds like a shit situation.”
“When are you seeing her again?” Oliver asked.
Walt walked over to the desk in the corner, where papers were strewn across the surface. “Tomorrow. She wants to check out all this Cameron Young stuff to see if any of it can be used on her show.”
“Good. Make sure the meeting happens. And if you get a chance to get into her hotel room, take it.”
Walt didn’t like the implications of what Oliver was suggesting.
“On what pretense would I end up in her hotel room?”
“Come on, Walt. Use those icy blues of yours. We’re off the record on this one. Get creative.”
Oliver reached into the breast pocket of his sport coat and pulled out a thin, square, metal box, which he placed on the foot of the bed.
“I’ve got a dozen agents who would kill to be in your current position. But I went all the way to a tiny island in the Caribbean to recruit you. You’re the only one with the Cameron Young connection, and we need to exploit it.”
Oliver checked his watch. “Forty-eight hours. I want another update.” He walked across the hotel room and opened the door, then turned before he left. “Good work this week, Walt. This little arrangement is already paying dividends.”
The door closed and Walt stood in the quiet of the hotel room. He stared at the small box Jim Oliver had left on the end of the bed. He walked over and picked it up. The brushed metal container was flat and thin. He unclasped the front lock and opened it. Inside were four small, circular devices that looked like silver-oxide batteries. He lifted one out of the seated felt and turned it over to find a 3-M decal covering the pad of tape on the back. Remove this decal, Walt knew, and the tiny listening device could be stuck just about anywhere.
PART IV
Evidence
CHAPTER 35
Catskills, NY Saturday, July 3, 2021
SHE STEERED THE RANGE ROVER THROUGH THE MOUNTAIN ROADS AS her mind replayed the previous night. Her thoughts continued to return to the moment in front of her hotel when she swore Walt Jenkins was on the verge of kissing her. Avery spent much of the night lying in bed, trying to decide if she had wanted him to kiss her. Of course she did. She was, despite her mind’s best attempt to convince herself otherwise, in the midst of a terrible dry spell. Even for her arid standards, eighteen months was something of a record for her. Taking over American Events during the last year had left little time for a love life, and she’d gone so long without intimacy that she wondered if perhaps her impression of Walt’s intentions was nothing more than seeing an oasis where, really, just more desert sand stood. They had shared an intimate conversation earlier in the night, during which Walt revealed that the love of his life had not only broken his heart, but perhaps his spirit too. Perhaps this innocent confession had given Avery the impression that Walt wanted more from their face-to-face moment in front of her hotel room than reality dictated. Perhaps she had misread the situation entirely.
She pushed Walt Jenkins from her mind when she pulled into the driveway and saw Emma Kind waiting on the front porch, just like the first time they’d met.
“Welcome back,” Emma said as Avery climbed from the Rover.
“Good to see you again, Emma.”
“Come on in.”
Avery walked up the steps and through the front door.
“Can I get you something to drink?”
“No wine today, that’s for sure,” Avery said.
“Good Lord, no. I’m so embarrassed about that.”
“Don’t be. I drank as much as you did.”
“Still, I’m sorry to have mixed my emotions that day with so much wine. It’s never a good idea. But the news about Victoria’s remains, and your interest in her story, well . . . the memories just overwhelmed me. The idea that after all these years someone is willing to help me in this quest to prove my sister’s innocence, a quest that has felt futile for the last many years, just got to me. And the idea that Avery Mason might help shine light on such an injustice. . .”
