were placed in the ammo bag, which was shoved under the front seat.
The V-8 engine roared to life. Sidney hit the door opener that was
clipped to the visor and backed the Land Rover out of the garage.
Carefully searching the street for any people or vehicles and finding
none, Sidney eased the two-ton truck out of the driveway and onto the
road, rapidly gathering speed as she left the quiet Stamford
neighborhood.
Within twenty minutes she had reached Interstate 95. Traffic was heavy
and it took her a while before she left Connecticut{ behind. She sliced
her way through Rhode Island and made the loop around Boston by one in
the morning. The Land Rover was equipped with a cellular phone;
however, after her informative talk with Jeff Fisher, Sidney was
reluctant to use it. Besides, who would she call? She stopped once, in
New Hampshire, to grab some coffee and a candy bar and to fill the gas
tank. The snow was now coming down full-tilt, but the Land Rover easily
plowed through it, and the flapping sound of the windshield wipers at
least was keeping her awake. By three in the morning, however, she was
nodding off at the wheel so frequently that she had to pull over finally
at a truck stop. She wedged the Land Rover in between two Peterbilt OTR
semis, locked the doors, slid into the backseat, gripped the loaded 9mm
with one hand and fell asleep. The sun was well up by the time she
awoke. She grabbed a quick breakfast at the truck stop and within a few
hours was well past Portsmouth, Maine. Two hours later she saw the exit
she was seeking and turned off the highway. She was now on U.S. Route
1. At this time of year, Sidney had the road pretty much to herself.
In the blur of heavy snow she passed the small sign announcing her
arrival into the town of Bell Harbor, population !,650. While she was
growing up, her family had spent many wonderful summers in the peaceful
town: private, wide beaches, ice-cream sundaes and juicy sandwiches at
the innumerable eateries in the resort town, a show at the town’s very
own playhouse, long bike rides and walks along Granite Point, where one
could observe, up close, the ominous power of the Atlantic on a windy
afternoon. She and Jason had planned one day to buy a beach house near
her parents. They both had looked forward to spending summers up here,
watching Amy run along the beach and dig pools in the sand much as
Sidney had done twenty-five years before. It was a nice thought. She
hoped it was still capable of becoming reality. Right now none of it
seemed even remotely possible.
Sidney made her way toward the ocean, finally turning south onto Beach
Street, where she slowed down. Her parents’ house was a large,
two-story affair of gray weathered board with dormer windows and a deck
running the Width of the house on both the upper-level ocean side and
the street side. A garage occupied the basement level of the house. The
ocean wind funneling in between the close-together beach houses managed
to rock even the tanklike Land Rover. Sidney could not remember ever
being in Maine at this time of year. The sky looked particularly
unfriendly. When she glimpsed the endless darkness of the Atlantic, it
occurred to her that she had never seen snow falling into the ocean
before.
She slowed down slightly as her parents’ house came into view.
All of the other beach homes on the street were uninhabited. In winter,
Bell Harbor was akin to a ghost town. Added to that, the Bell Harbor
Police Department numbered all of one during off-season months. If the
man who had calmly killed in a stretch limo in Washington and tracked
her to New York decided to come after her again, he would be more than a
match for Bell Harbor’s finest of one. She grabbed the ammo bag from
under the seat and put a clip in her 9mm. She pulled into her parents’
snow-covered drive and got out.
There was no sign that her parents had arrived. They must have stopped