The Serpent’s Curse. Tony Abbott

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      “I hasten to say that I have every reason to believe that right now your mother is safe,” Terence said earnestly to Darrell. “Step by step, here’s what we think …”

      The voice blurred in Darrell’s ears, then faded away.

      Something had cracked inside him when his mother’s suitcase was opened, and it was still cracking. Seeing her clothes like that was like looking at stuff belonging to somebody who was dead. His throat tightened. He threw himself back on the sofa to be able to breathe, but just as quickly bent over the suitcase again. His ears were hot, like something was screaming into them. His stepfather was on his feet now, looking away.

      When Lily patted him awkwardly on the arm, Darrell realized that the room was quiet and everyone was waiting for him. To do what? He glanced up to see them all staring at him; then he brushed his hand over his face. Oh, right. To stop crying. He wiped his cheeks. “Sorry. Go on, Mr. Ackroyd.”

      “No need to be sorry,” the man said, glancing searchingly at Julian.

       Uh-huh, and what was that look?

      “To continue, when I realized that Sara’s luggage had arrived here without her, I immediately examined it, without actually moving too much. All of her belongings, including her phone and wallet, everything seemed to be here and intact.”

      “As my dad told you on the phone in Guam, we didn’t contact the police because of what else we found,” Julian said. He was now sitting in a chair across the room, alternately looking down from behind the curtain, as if he was surveilling the street, and tapping the keys on a laptop.

      “Exactly,” said Terence. “We’ve discovered two things. The first is what I take to be a warning, hidden cleverly in the inner lining.” Terence carefully peeled back a portion of the patterned lining. It had been pried open and reclosed with a safety pin. Tucked into the space behind the lining was a charm bracelet.

      Roald lifted it out. “I know this bracelet. Sara’s had it for a long time, but …”

      One of its charms was wrapped inside a self-adhesive Forever postage stamp depicting the American flag.

      “May I?” Carefully unpeeling the stamp, Terence revealed the charm inside. It was a silver skull.

      “I don’t like the way this looks,” Darrell said. “Dad, a skull? Mom’s not a skull kind of person. And I don’t remember this charm. When did she get it?”

      Terence was about to speak when Roald said, “I think she got it last year at a conference in Mexico. It’s a standard icon there. ‘Day of the Dead’ and all that.”

      “But wrapped inside a picture of the American flag,” said Lily. “Is that like something against our country?”

      “No, no.” Terence shook his head vigorously. “Not at all. I attended that same conference. It was, in fact, where I met Sara for the first time and decided to donate my manuscripts to her archive in Austin. I believe this part of the clue was actually meant for me. It is a direct reference to a silly thing I wrote about in my first novel—”

      “The Zanzibar Cryptex,” Julian said from across the room. “Not one of your best, Dad. The ending on the ocean liner?”

      Terence smirked. “Everyone’s a critic. But seriously, in that book there was a similar clue, an item wrapped in a stamp. And it meant something very specific, which Sara well knew. You see, the skull represents, well, death, or at the very least danger. The flag quite simply means the authorities. The message in the novel—and here—is plain: contacting the authorities will put Sara in more danger. At least she thought so. She must have been threatened or somehow understood that bringing the police in—”

      “Or the CIA or FBI,” Julian added.

      “—would not help,” Terence said. “For the moment, then, finding her should remain a private matter. But not without resources.”

      “Sara’s in danger but she’s sending us codes and clues?” Lily said. “What a mom.”

      “You better believe it,” Wade whispered.

      The elevator chime rang behind them, and Terence hopped up. “Ah, Becca. Your doctor.” A middle-aged woman entered, smiling, and Becca went with her to the dining-room table, where they chatted softly, so Becca could also listen.

      Roald stood anxiously. “All right, so Sara is telling us to be cautious. Terence, you said you found two things.”

      “That’s my cue,” Julian said, leaving his chair by the window after one last look at the street and setting his laptop on the coffee table. “Three hours ago we received a heavily encrypted video from our investigators in Brazil. I’ve just been decoding it and cleaning up some of the images.” He adjusted the screen, and hit the Play button.

      A fuzzy nighttime video image appeared, showing an old station wagon creeping slowly along what appeared to be a utility road behind a large building. There were words on the side of the building: Reparação Hangar 4.

      “Hmm. An airline-repair hangar,” Terence whispered, shooting a glance at his son. “In Rio de Janeiro.”

      In the video the car stopped abruptly. Behind it, a set of double doors slid aside on the hangar, and two shapes emerged from it. The driver and a passenger climbed from the car, opened the back of the station wagon, and began to tug something out, while the two men from the hangar assisted. It was a coffin. The four men carried it like pallbearers into the hangar. A few minutes later, the two from the station wagon reappeared, closed the rear door, and drove off. The video ended.

      Darrell stared at his stepfather, not wanting to believe what he saw, but his lips formed the words. “Mom is dead?”

      “No, no,” said Terence, rising and putting his hand on Darrell’s shoulder. “What we have just witnessed means precisely the opposite. The shipment of coffins is a well-known but poorly policed method of moving people from country to country without documents. The time stamp tells us that СКАЧАТЬ