He took new clothes out of one of the cases and disappeared into the bathroom. She looked at the second piece of luggage. It seemed expensive. The label bore the name Joanna Phelps and an address in Baltimore. Felicia opened it and found that it was full of new jeans, skirts, shirts and underwear. They were all the right size, and must have cost more than she earned in an entire month.

When he came out he was wearing a dark business suit with a white shirt and elegant silk red tie. He was no more than 40, handsome, Italian-looking, with a sallow skin, clean shaven, rough and red in places from the razor. He had dark, darting eyes and long hair wet from the shower, slicked back on his head, black mostly, with gray flecks. His face seemed more lined than she felt it ought to be, as if there had been pain somewhere, or illness.

He had a phone in his hand.

“In an hour, Joanna, we will go to Fiumicino,” he said. “There will be a ticket waiting for you at the first class Alitalia counter. You show them your passport, check in and go straight to the lounge. I will meet you there. I shall be behind you all the way. Do not stop after immigration. Do not look at me. Do not acknowledge me until we have landed and I approach you.”

“Where are we going?”

He considered the question, wondering whether to answer.

“First to New York. Then to Washington. You must know this surely. How else would one get back to where you live from Italy?”

She said nothing.

“Where do you live, Joanna?”

She tugged at the label of the case he had provided for her. “I live at 121 South Fremont Avenue, Baltimore. And you?”

He smiled genuinely. In other circumstances, she might have thought she liked this man.

“That is none of your business.”

“Your name is?”

He said nothing, but kept on smiling.

Felicia walked quickly to the second case, before he could stop her, and grasped the label.

It was blank. He laughed at her, and she was unsure whether this was a pleasant sound or a cruel one.

“So what do I call you?” she asked.

A theatrical gesture: He placed a forefinger on his reddened chin, stared at the hotel bedroom ceiling, and said, “For now, you may call me Faust.”

3 - JAMES GRADY

3

JAMES GRADY

The jetliner glided out of the night to touch down at Washington’s Dulles Airport 29 minutes early and 47 minutes before Harold Middleton killed a cop.

As soon as the plane’s wheels grabbed runway, Middleton text-messaged his daughter.