Page 40 of The Shadow Friends

Maggie gave a disbelieving laugh. “You think that’s why she left?”

“She wouldn’t be the first woman who walked out on her husband.”

“Oh, Jo.”

“She sends him out of town on a useless task, and then she leaves without telling him where she’s going. And her note. ‘I need to leave.’ That sounds like a wife who’s fed up with her marriage. Who can’t take it anymore. Could there be another man in her life?”

If they were talking about anyone but Ingrid, that explanation would make perfect sense, but Maggie refused to accept it. She didn’t want to accept it. She’d known Ingrid for nearly four decades, and if one of Maggie’s oldest and dearest friends could deceive her, it meant she could be deceived by anyone.

Then she thought about the conference reception Friday night, when the five of them had stood in the hotel ballroom, toasting Ingrid’s skill as an emcee. She remembered the strikingly handsome man who’d joined their circle, one of Ingrid’s former colleagues, he’d said. Rodrigo. And she remembered Ingrid’s reaction when she first saw him. Surprise. Discomfort. Turmoil. Ingrid had clearly been reluctant to introduce him to her friends. Ingrid and I used to work together, he’d told them, hinting that he, too, had once operated under nonofficial cover.

Was that all he was to her, a former colleague? Or had there been something more between them?

“You know that saying you just quoted?” said Jo as she opened her car door. “‘When you hear hoofbeats, think of horses, not zebras’?”

“Yes. It means common things are common.”

“Yeah. And a woman leaving her husband for a lover? That’s definitely a horse, not a zebra.” Jo slid into her cruiser. “Think about it.”

Chapter 16

Hannah

Through the closed bedroom door, Hannah could hear Andrei talking on the phone. He spoke so softly that she could not make out his words, but she knew he was speaking English, not Russian, so he was not talking to his family in Belarus. The closed door, his hushed voice, told her he did not want Hannah to know who he was talking to, but it wasn’t easy keeping secrets from those living under the same roof, especially in a house with walls as thin as this one. In just the few weeks she’d shared this cottage with Andrei, she’d already learned a few secrets about him. She’d learned that he was afraid of dogs and thunderstorms. She’d observed how his eyes misted over when he spoke of his dead mother, and how his face tightened when he spoke of his father. She’d seen him sketching on napkins, finely detailed ink drawings that he later crumpled and threw away, as if embarrassed by his talent. She knew he dreamed of being an artist.

And she knew he had a secret friend.

Two weeks ago, she had seen them huddled together in a parked car behind the local library. The two men probably thought they would not be noticed there, but Hannah had recognized Andrei’s bicycle in the sidewalk bike rack, and then she’d spotted him sitting with a dark-haired young man in the car. The car was a gray Honda with a Maine license plate, the sort of forgettable sedan that you would drive if you wanted not to stand out.

She never asked Andrei about the man in the Honda. She didn’t need to, because the clues were already adding up: the nights he did not come home. His hushed phone calls behind the closed door. The way his face flushed bright pink when she asked if he’d met anyone special. She understood why he was afraid to be honest; the world was cruel to those who were different.

So Hannah tried to be kind to him, to be the mother he missed so much. Tonight she was cooking him potato and leek soup, and when he emerged from his room, she had a meal waiting for him. The soup was rich and creamy and flecked with green leeks, and she’d also set out a platter of melted cheese on toast. The meal was simple but tempting, yet he did not pick up his spoon. He sat across from her, head bent, a forelock of blond hair drooping over his eyes.

“Aren’t you hungry?” she asked.

He sighed. “Will hotel close?”

“I can’t imagine it will. The season’s not over. Why?”

“If it closes, I must go home.”

“Would that be so bad? To go home now?”

Quickly, furtively, he wiped a hand across his eyes but said nothing. She thought about Andrei’s hushed phone calls. About the young man he’d been sitting with in the parked car. For those two men, there could be no happy ending together, not in a world where politics and prejudice would inevitably wrench them apart.

Now Hannah was about to deliver another painful blow.

“I’m sorry to tell you this, Andrei,” she said. “I’ve just quit my job.”

He looked up at her. “No. No, Hannah.”

“This was always temporary, just for the summer. And after what happened to Karen, I . . .” She let out a breath. “I don’t feel safe here.”

“But where do you go?”

“I’m going to look for another job. Maybe in Boston. Hotels are hiring everywhere. I just want to get away, before something bad happens again. This place, this town . . .” She shuddered. “There’s something really wrong here. I need to leave.”

“Like everyone else,” he whispered. “Everyone leaves. They always leave.” He pushed to his feet and walked away.