Page 67 of The Shadow Friends

Ben sat down across from her. “It’s complicated.”

“Yeah. With you people, it’s always complicated.” She looked around the kitchen, which seemed sadly empty without the other three members of the group. When all five of them put their heads together, the result was like nuclear fusion, crackling with energy. Still, two of them was better than none, and tonight Jo needed all the help she could get. Already, Declan had his laptop open on the kitchen table, and as she slathered mayonnaise on bread and piled on salami, he opened a file filled with names.

“What’s that?” she asked.

“Everyone who attended the conference. The 378 members of the audience as well as the twelve invited speakers. We’re also looking at the employees who worked at the resort, the drivers who delivered supplies, and anyone who might have been on the property the day Dr. Maslov checked into his hotel room.”

“You’re conducting a parallel investigation.”

“We’re trying to. It would be a lot quicker if Ingrid were here to work her magic.”

“She’s the reason I’m here. What the heck’s going on with Ingrid, anyway?”

“Sorry,” said Ben. “We can’t help you there.”

“Why not?”

“We don’t know.”

Jo gave a startled laugh. “You mean you don’t have all the answers?”

“When do we ever?”

“You always manage to make me feel clueless.”

“This time, we’re in the dark with you,” said Declan. “All we can tell you is Ingrid abruptly left for Amsterdam, for reasons that aren’t entirely clear. Then Lloyd and Maggie went to find her.”

“Have they found her?”

“No.”

“And they landed in one big heap of trouble,” said Ben.

“What kind of trouble?”

The men exchanged looks, as if silently consulting with each other whether to take her into their confidence.

“Oh, come on,” said Jo. “You’re not going to cut me off now.”

“Let’s just say, they were lucky to survive what happened,” said Ben.

“Did someone try to kill them?” She looked back and forth at the two men. “What does this have to do with Dr. Maslov?”

“As we told you, it’s complicated,” said Declan. “Dr. Maslov isn’t the first Russian defector to be murdered. There’ve been other recent assassinations, in cities around the world. For years, these victims had lived quietly under cover identities. Then suddenly, their identities were exposed, and they were eliminated.”

“But Maslov was living out in the open.”

“That was his mistake. He thought enough time had passed, that Moscow had forgotten about him. But Moscow never forgets. They killed Alexander Litvinenko six years after he defected, and it was ten years before they got to Sergei Skripal. In Purity, they finally caught up with Maslov. Somehow, they managed to slip polonium into his food or drink. It would have been the perfect crime, because no doctor in Maine would normally consider radiation poisoning as a cause of death.”

Jo looked at Declan’s laptop. At the names that filled the screen. “You think someone at the conference did it.”

“Based purely on proximity.”

“I see local names on there as well.”

“Including our own. Obviously, some names are easier to eliminate as suspects.”

She reached for the mouse and scrolled down the list. So many names, so many suspects. She reached the S’s and paused at the name Slocum. She hated to ask the next question, but it couldn’t be avoided, as painful as it might be. “Could Ingrid be involved?”