“Yeah, sorry. Can you give me his address?” She rattles off an address that I commit to memory. “Thanks, Ellie. I owe you that spa weekend.” I navigate around a lamppost, aiming for an exit through the trees up ahead. “I have to go. Keep me posted on that cat, okay?” I hang up before she can ask any more questions.

I make one more call, this one to Johnny Shaw, Uncle Gavin’s lawyer. He’s up all hours of the night, so he should be home and awake. Then I realize it’s not even ten o’clock yet. This has been a hell of a day.

Shaw answers the phone, his voice worn—he’s older than Uncle Gavin—but still blistering. “If you try to sell me an extended warranty on anything,” he says, “I will shove a lawsuit up your ass and light it.”

“It’s Susannah Faulkner, Mr. Shaw.”

“Susannah!” he says. “Haven’t seen you for a spell. I’m so sorry about your uncle. How you holding up?”

I leave the parking lot behind and enter another curving drive. “I’m okay,” I say. “Thank you. I heard about Gus. Is he all right?”

Shaw laughs, more like a seal bark than anything else. “Kid, it’ll take a lot more than some punks with bats and knives to take out Gus Cimino. The man’s tough as a rhino. What can I do for you?”

“Does Uncle Gavin still have that charter plane on call?”

“The Learjet? Sure. Where are you going?”

“Detroit. How soon could the plane be ready?”

“How soon do you need it? Are you in trouble?”

“No. Well, maybe. That’s not why I need the plane. I just have to get to Detroit.”

“Say no more. What name should I tell the pilots to be on the lookout for?”

“Alice James.” I like Alice. She’s a book collector, quiet but intense. Collects signed first editions of novels. I have a passport in her name, along with three others with their own aliases, but I haven’t been Alice in months.

“The plane’s at Peachtree DeKalb,” Shaw says. “Ought to be ready in two hours. Just need to find a pilot. I’ll text you his name and where to meet him.”

“Don’t do that until I call you again,” I say. “I’m getting a new phone. Thanks, Mr. Shaw.”

“Anytime, Susannah. I’ll wait to hear from you.”

I end the call, and as I come out of the trees and drive by a large retaining pond, I fling the phone into the water, then concentrate on the road, keeping an eye out for anything that might leap out of the dark.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE