Second Honeymoon

Chapter 105

WHY WOULD SOMEONE do what she’d done? That’s usually the first question in the wake of a person’s suicide. But Martha Cole had told us everything we wanted to know about her motives. Not only why she took her own life but also why she took the lives of people she’d never even met.

It was those lives, especially those of the three newlywed couples, that left us with the real unanswered question. How? How the hell did she do it? Slipping in and out of the grounds of the Governor’s Club in Turks and Caicos to trap and then poison Ethan and Abigail Breslow in their sauna? Evading security at Kennedy Airport to poison Scott and Annabelle Pierce before their flight to Italy?

And finally, as if bored with poisons, or looking to show the breadth of her expertise, rigging a bomb aboard the boat that Parker and Samantha Keller had docked in Bermuda?

The answers to all my questions came soon enough. Or at least I got the sort of information that makes you nod your head and go, “Well, that might explain it.”

Within an hour of Martha Cole’s death, her military file had made its way to Dan Driesen, who e-mailed the pertinent information along to us.

“Here,” said Sarah, handing her phone over to me once she’d read the message.

We’d just wrapped up our “official” statements to Detective Harris as well as to two detectives from the nearest Brooklyn precinct.

I’d even made a call to Warner Breslow, who was in London on business. I told him the news, bittersweet as it was. The murders of his son and new daughter-in-law were more senseless than he could’ve imagined. Would knowing who did it bring him any closure, any sense of justice? For a man like Breslow, I was afraid the answer was no.

“We’ll talk again when I get back,” he told me. “You did a fine job, John. Thank you.”

Reading Driesen’s e-mail, I couldn’t help thinking about all those naysayers and conspiracy buffs who could never quite fathom how Lee Harvey Oswald managed to fire three shots from a bolt-action rifle in roughly eight seconds. No way—that’s too fast! There had to be a second shooter! Of course, what the conspiracy theorists always seemed to forget is that Oswald wasn’t some self-taught dope who was practicing on tin cans in his backyard. Oswald had received the very best training in the world—on Uncle Sam’s dime, no less. In the U.S. Marine Corps.

Martha Cole had been a sergeant in the army, having received training in a wide range of disciplines, including weaponry, explosives, reconnaissance, and sabotage. She was smart, athletically gifted, and an adrenaline junkie. This was according to her psych evaluation.

A hundred times out of a hundred, such a profile makes for an excellent soldier. And during her tour in Afghanistan, that’s exactly what she was. The problem began when she returned home. The unofficial term is redlining. Like a Ferrari stuck in fifth gear, she was unable to downshift back into the mundanity of civilian life. New York may be the city that never sleeps, but it was no match for the 24-7 danger of Afghanistan and the Taliban forces.

Ultimately, her relationship with Robert Macintyre paid the price. After that, her entire life exploded into rage and revenge.

So now we had the why as well as the how. The only question left was, what? As in, What now?

Cole was gone, but somewhere out there Ned Sinclair was still plotting my death. Tomorrow I’d worry about him. Tonight, I was too tired, my brain too fried.

Sarah was shaking hands with Harris, saying thanks and good-bye. The second he walked off, I made my way over to her. She smiled. I smiled back. Then I leaned over and whispered in her ear.

She thought it over for a grand total of one split second.

“Absolutely,” she answered.