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“It’s Poe, Raymond. I’m in a relationship with Auguste Poe.”
“Right,” said Pike. “Or whoever he really is.”
After that, they were quiet for a while. They followed the tracks down the trail and around a bend. In a few minutes, the lodge appeared in a hollow straight ahead, about fifty yards away.
“I can make it from here, Raymond,” said Grey, his arm dropping from hers as she turned to face him again. “You didn’t have to cloak-and-dagger it all the way out here. You could have just called.”
“I know,” said Pike. “Maybe I wanted the exercise. And the practice. Or maybe I wanted to see your smiling face again.”
Grey started down the trail on her own. She waved over her shoulder. “See you, Raymond.”
“I’ll stay close.”
“I’m sure you will.”
“Do me a favor,” he called out from behind her. “Tell your friends not to try to solve this on their own. It’s a lot bigger than the three of them.”
Grey kept her eyes on the trail ahead. “I don’t control them, Raymond,” she called out. “I just live with them.”
No reply.
After a few more steps, Helene Grey stopped and turned around.
Nobody there.
She smiled. He’s still got it.
CHAPTER 25
AGNES MATTS BENT over the stainless-steel sink in her prison cell and splashed cold water on her face. She patted herself dry with a small towel and walked over to the bars of her tiny enclosure to wait. It was her library day. All she needed was a guard to escort her.
Her inmate wardrobe consisted of forest-green pants and a matching shirt—her janitor’s uniform, she called it. For a touch of color, she wore a long-sleeved burgundy T-shirt underneath. As she waited, she stamped her boots on the concrete floor, trying to get her blood moving. She could never get warm enough in this damned place.
“Morning, Agnes.”
Matts checked her watch and shook the bars. “About time.”
It was Gwen, her favorite correctional officer, stout and cheery. The two of them had bonded over their mutual affection for BritBox TV shows. Dr. Who. Prime Suspect. Catch Me a Killer. Matts had seen every episode. Her only physical fight in prison had been in the common room over an episode of Father Brown. She enjoyed the twisty plots and pretty locations, and the characters gave her a taste of home. Some of the accents reminded her of her Yorkshire roots.
“Have you seen the new David Tennant series?” asked the CO.
“Starting it tonight,” said Matts. “So, shut up. No spoilers!”
Gwen made a motion like zipping her lips. She unlocked the cell and held it open as Matts joined her in the corridor. It was just a short walk to the library in the next wing. When they reached the main door, Gwen held it open. “See you in an hour.”
Matts stepped inside. To her, this felt like the only bright spot in the whole prison complex. The metal shelves and neatly labeled books reminded her of the library in her British boarding school. Like St. Swithun’s, Bedford Hills was an all-female institution, but the residents here were a lot more intriguing than English schoolgirls. Many of them, like her, seemed to seek out the peace and quiet of the stacks.
A pleasant-looking redhead at the reading table looked up from her magazine and waved. She had drowned both of her children in a bathtub. The tall Black woman thumbing through the biographies had laced her lover’s oatmeal with rat poison. The short brunette in pigtails had robbed a bank in Albany with her boyfriend, shooting a teller in the process. Avid readers, every one of them.
Matts walked right up to an attractive library assistant, who was busy reshelving nonfiction from a cart. When Matts tapped her elbow, she turned around. Her face lit up.
“Agnes! My English rose! The usual?”
“Same as always, Lydia,” said Matts. “E for ‘extradition.’”
This was her new mission. Her Holy Grail.
Agnes Matts knew that her appeal would take years, and that the odds of getting her conviction overturned were almost nil. Now, after several months here, she had become obsessed with getting herself transferred to an English prison. Any English prison. At this point, she told people, she’d settle for the Tower of London.
