"Follow the money." Kyle turned his laptop so Zheng could view the screen. He had run a standard credit report on Parity. "The Charles River Yacht Club did a credit check on him on July seventh, 2003, and currently he's fifty-two days late on August 2004's fee."

Taking out his borrowed cell phone, Atticus dialed the marina. A machine answered immediately. "You have reached the Charles River Yacht Club," a cheerful female voice said. "We're either out on the docks or on another line. Please leave a message and we will get back to you." He hung up without leaving a message.

"It's just across the river. Ru and I can duck over and look to see if the boat is there. See if anyone knows anything."

"I think you're right in that they were heading for a boat, but you've got the wrong reason," Sumpter said. "There's tons of places they could have ditched the car and changed clothes without being noticed; you've got a list of sites right here that they know well. No, they need the boat to get someplace. An island."

Atticus hated when Sumpter finally got his head out of his asshole and used his brain; it made him so unpredictable. Would Sumpter be a raving idiot, or Sherlock Holmes's lost grandson? The most annoying thing was that Sumpter was completely right.

"With the number of ports they have to choose from, the question becomes why Salem?" Sumpter continued his brilliance. "Either it's the port nearest to the island or one that they know well."

"They had to know it fairly well to know you can easily reach the harbor from the parking lot," Zheng pointed out.

"How are they buying gasoline for cars? Cash or charge?" Sumpter asked.

"Charge." Zheng expanded the answer with, "They practiced identity theft on a large scale. After forging a change of address, they would apply for new credit cards to be delivered to a rented post office box. They've had at least twenty or thirty identities they can tap."

"Can you give a list of known credit card numbers to Johnston to cross-reference to marine fuel stations?" Sumpter asked. "If they're making frequent runs from the mainland to an island, it's going to show up in fuel purchases."

"I've got those here." Zheng took out her PDA and indicated she could transfer them to Kyle's laptop. "I'm meeting with the NSA to see what they have on the cult's wiretapping activities."

"Takahashi, it would be more efficient if you visit Boston DEA and ask them about local islands. Update them on the case and keep them in the loop."

Ru glanced to Atticus, who nodded.

"I need to go," Zheng announced as Kyle's laptop confirmed the receipt of her files. Her plate was clean. She took the last sip of her coffee to empty her cup.

Sumpter looked longingly at his nearly untouched steak and sighed. "I'll come with you."

CHAPTER TEN

Charles River Yacht Club, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Wednesday, September 22, 2004

The Charles River Yacht Club, as its name suggested, was on the Charles River alongside Memorial Drive in Cambridge. It required Atticus to hunt for a parking space and then walk across four lanes of fast-moving traffic. None of the fifty or so boats tied up seemed to be the Nautilus,so he detoured into the marina's office.

A young suntanned woman sat behind the counter, taking a detailed message, with a series of "uh-huhs" as she scribbled on a message pad. He judged her to be nineteen or twenty. She had her blond hair braided into two short pigtails, and she grimaced with her wide, mobile mouth as the caller continued to talk. She wore deceptively simple clothes whose quality material meant money, and a large diamond engagement ring.

She rolled her eyes, held up a finger to indicate he was to wait, and finished with, "Okay, I'll let her know. Thank you."

She ripped free the message, shoved it into a bin on the edge of the counter, and looked expectantly to Atticus. "Can I help you?"

"Thomas James DeMent rents a boat slip here," Atticus said, giving her Parity's real name. "Can you tell me the boat's current location?"

She wrinkled up her nose. "I-I-I don't know if I'm allowed to do that."

He pulled out his ID and showed it to her. "I'm not going to search the boat; I'm just trying to determine where it is."

"Oh!" She thought a moment, eyes focused over the water, her tongue tracing over her upper lip. Atticus wondered if she knew how erotic it appeared, and if it was the cause of the engagement ring. "I suppose that can't hurt."

A moment of checking books, and she found the information Atticus wanted.

"He's still renting slip number ten. His boat is the Nautilus." She hiked herself up onto the counter and leaned far out to study the pier. "She's not down there."

"She?"

"The boat. It's the second slip to the end." She pointed.

"Do you remember the last time it was tied up?"

"I'm not sure. I think it was there yesterday. The phone's been ringing off the hook this morning, and I haven't been paying attention. You can check with the dock staff."

***

Between the thick fog and the bitter cold, it came as no surprise that the docks were nearly empty. The only person in sight was a man waxing the flying bridge of a fifty-foot yacht.

"Nice boat," Atticus called up to him.

"Thanks," the man said without stopping. "It's a lot of work, though. It's taken me three days to wax the whole thing. Some vacation."

Atticus pointed down the jetty to the empty slip. "Do you know anything about the Nautilus?"

The man halted to look down at Atticus. "Who's asking?"

Atticus produced his ID. "DEA."

The man shook his head. "I keep my nose out of other people's business."

"Look." Atticus held out Parity's photo. "The kid who owns the boat is in trouble. He fell into the wrong crowd and last weekend his parents' house was firebombed and he's gone missing. It's possible he's dead. The Nautilusmight be the only clue we have to finding him—helping him."

The man frowned at the photo. "He wasn't one of the men who took the boat out this morning."

"This morning?"

"Yeah, there were, like, five men and a woman. They pulled out maybe an hour ago."

Atticus took out his PDA and brought up the scanned copies of the artist sketches for the cult. "Are any of these people the ones who took the boat?"

The man clambered down off the boat to study the PDA screen. "Yeah. This one. And him. Maybe him. And she's the woman. I really didn't get a good look at the other two men." He'd picked off Ice and the cultists named Mouse, Link, and Ether. "They seemed to have scuba gear with them."

"Did you see which way they headed?"

The man waved toward the fog-shrouded river. "They would have gone downriver. The Nautilusis too tall to fit under the Harvard Bridge."

Atticus took out his business card. "Do me a favor—if they come back, call me. Don't try to approach them—they're quite dangerous."

The man looked dubious but took the card.

The river water gurgled quietly under the wooden planking as Atticus walked down the dock to the empty boat slip. While it was doubtful that the cult left any clues to where they were headed, they might have slipped up somehow. Wedged in the cracks of the decking, Atticus found a hypodermic needle filled with a clear liquid, its tip capped with wax. He recognized veronol, a powerful barbiturate sedative, from traces of drug on the outside of the syringe.