‘How soon before you’re back in Belham?’

‘I’m already here. What’s going on?’

‘Tell me where you are.’

‘I just stopped off for coffee at Max’s on Edgell Road.’

Darby knew the place. ‘Stay put. I’ll be there in ten minutes.’

Before she left, she checked in with Coop. Darby headed back out, deciding to walk to the diner. It would be quicker than driving through all the traffic, and she could use the time to organize her thoughts.

Daniel Boyle stood across the street, watching Darby McCormick walking fast down Coolidge, head down and hands stuffed in her windbreaker pockets. He wondered where she was going.

For the past hour, while he had been papering the nearby houses with fliers, tucking the sheets underneath windshield wipers and inside mailboxes, he had been listening to Darby and her partner’s movements inside the house over his headphones. The iPod tucked in his pocket was actually a six-channel receiver that allowed him to switch between the six listening devices he had planted inside the house.

He had listened to the chatty conversation between Darby and her partner inside Carol’s room. After her partner left, Darby had rustled about the bedroom for a bit, opening drawers, before heading back to the mother’s bedroom. Lots of movement in there, especially near the bottom shelf of the bookcase where he had placed one of the listening devices.

Then Darby headed back to Carol’s bedroom again, and after half an hour or so of searching, she went back downstairs to the kitchen. There was no conversation between Darby and her partner. A few minutes later, she was standing on the front porch, making a call on her cell phone.

Why did she have to come outside to make the call? If she had found something interesting, some new piece of evidence, why not make the call from inside the house? Why did she have to step outside?

Boyle had placed the listening devices in strategic locations where no one should be looking. Had she found them?

Clearly, she had discovered something. When she was on the phone, she had seemed either nervous or excited – and she kept looking around the street as if she knew he was here, mixed in with all the volunteers. She had watched him limp his way over to the telephone pole and put up a flier. He had adopted the limp because he wanted to stay close to the house. The cop handing out the fliers had no problem with it.

Boyle watched Darby take a right onto Drummond Avenue. He wanted to follow her and see where she was going.

No. Too risky. She had seen him. He should leave, just to be safe.

Boyle switched the receiver to the listening devices inside the kitchen and limped his way back to his car. All he heard was the echo of footsteps.

The reception on the iPod grew dimmer. The receiver inside his car had a much broader range. The police were no doubt looking for a van, so he had opted for his recent purchase, an old Aston Martin Lagonda, the same car his grandfather/father had owned. The car’s engine and transmission were brand new, but the outer shell was in desperate need of a new paint job. The paint had started to fleck and peel in several places, especially around the pockets of rust.

Boyle picked up his new BlackBerry phone. Richard had given it to him last night. It was equipped with encryption technology so it couldn’t be overheard by the police or anyone trying to listen in on a scanner. The stolen phone had been reprogrammed so the calls couldn’t be traced by the phone company.

‘What’s Darby doing?’

‘She’s still walking,’ Richard said. ‘I wonder if she found the bugs you left in the house.’

‘I’m wondering the same thing. What do you want to do?’

‘I think we should assume she found them. Where did you buy them?’

‘I didn’t. They’re homemade.’

‘Good. She can’t trace them. Do you have any extra ones?’

‘I do.’

‘We should plant some of them inside Slavick’s house.’

‘Do you still want to go ahead with the plan?’

‘Absolutely,’ Richard said. ‘We need to throw them off the scent. I’ll call you later.’

Boyle started his car and drove away from the commotion to find a quiet street.

Twenty minutes later, he was driving through a more upscale neighborhood. No cars sitting on blocks here, no welfare mothers sitting on their porches. This neighborhood had lots of nice lawns and neatly painted houses.

As Boyle examined the homes, he recalled how he wasn’t that far away from where Darby used to live. He wondered if her mother was still living there. That was easy enough to find out.

There, the white house. The door behind the screen door was open. Someone was home.

Boyle drove to the end of the street. He put on a pair of gloves and reached under the seat for the padded mailer. He rolled the window down, turned the car around and tossed the mailer onto the porch steps of the white house.

By the time Boyle reached the highway, he felt relaxed and in control. The plan was in motion. Now all he needed to do was to get himself a FedEx or UPS truck and a body.

Chapter 27

Darby found Banville sitting in a red vinyl booth in the back corner, nursing a cup of coffee. No one else was around him. Taped to the window facing the small parking lot was a poster board holding Carol Cranmore’s picture.

‘I found listening devices inside Carol’s house,’ Darby said after she sat down. ‘I don’t think they’ve been there that long, since none of them are coated in dust.’

‘You said listening devices. How many did you find?’

‘At the moment, four – one in the mother’s bedroom, one in Carol’s room, the other two mounted on top of the kitchen cabinets. I don’t know the make or the model number of the bugs. That information is most likely stamped on the back, and I can’t examine them because each one is mounted by Velcro. There’s no way to rip the bug off without making any noise.’

‘And if we try to do that and he happens to be listening in, he’ll know we found the bug.’

‘That’s the problem. If I try to remove the bugs, he’ll hear us. If I dust it for prints, the fingerprint brush will make noise against the mike and he’ll hear us. And if I did happen to find a print, I’d have to use a tape lift to transfer it.

‘The other problem is the power source,’ Darby said. They run on batteries. He can’t leave them on all day, so there’s a good chance they’re remotely operated. He can turn them on and off to conserve battery power. If I had the device’s make and model, I could do a simple Google search and find the product specs. It would give us an idea of how long the batteries last, if it’s remote-operated, and the transmitting range. Some have a radius as much as half a mile, and almost every one of them can transmit through walls and windows with crystal-clear clarity.’

‘How do you know so much about bugs?’

‘One of the first big cases I worked on was a mob case. Thanks to the feds, I got a crash course in listening devices. Judging by what I saw at the house, I doubt these devices are that sophisticated. They may even be homemade.’

‘Funny you should mention the feds. I got a message this morning from the Boston office. The site profiler here in town wants to talk to me.’

‘What did he want?’

‘I haven’t talked with him yet.’

‘I think our guy took Carol out of the house and put her in the back of a van – only when he opened the doors, he found that Jane Doe wasn’t there. He searched for her, couldn’t find her, and at some point decided he had to leave. But before he did, he went back inside and planted the bugs in strategic locations so he could listen to us as we moved through the rooms. I think it’s safe to say he was listening to us last night. How many people do you have guarding Jane Doe’s room?’

‘At the moment, just one.’

‘Increase it. And make sure they check the ID of every person who comes inside the ICU.’