I put a flashlight into my shoulder bag and as an afterthought added a multi-tool, in case I had to unscrew, scrape, or pry open some part of the well. It was a cool night with a light breeze, so I pulled a woolen sweater over my T-shirt and grabbed a Windbreaker from the coat rack in the hallway on my way out of the cottage. I climbed into Bill’s car, started it, and noticed for the first time how quiet the engine was. As I backed out of the driveway, I thanked Mr. Barlow silently for taking such good care of the ordinary, everyday cars his neighbors entrusted to him.
Anscombe Manor glowed in the distance as I passed its long, curving drive, but the lights were out in Bree Pym’s redbrick house and Ivy Cottage was cloaked in darkness. I pulled into Jack’s driveway, taking care not to bump into the sawhorses and the building materials Mr. Barlow had left behind. I took the flashlight and the multi-tool from my bag, slipped the multi-tool into my pocket, turned the flashlight on, and got out of the car. I closed the door by nudging it with my knee.
I thought I was familiar with the terrain around Ivy Cottage, but it had changed since I’d last been there. The implementation of Emma’s master plan made it much easier for me to navigate the property than it had been for Peggy Taxman, Charles Bellingham, and the rest of the well’s nocturnal visitors.
Staked strings lined a grassy path from the driveway to the back garden’s tumbledown stone wall and colorful plastic ribbons tied to various plants and shrubs for identification purposes helped me to avoid low branches and grasping vines. The broken pergola had been removed altogether. I stepped cautiously through the gap in the stone wall where the pergola had been and followed another stake-and-string-lined path to the well.
The wishing well loomed over me, looking faintly sinister in the darkness, like something out of a ghost story instead of a fairy tale. I wanted to scold it for causing so much trouble among my generally kind and helpful neighbors, but the thought of a live microphone silenced me.
The garden wasn’t silent. Leaves rustled in the breeze, an owl hooted nearby, the well’s oak bucket creaked eerily as it swung from its jute rope, and a faint slithering sound in the undergrowth sent shivers down my spine. I told myself not to be a ninny, but I couldn’t help wondering what kind of wildlife might be lurking in the refuge Hector Huggins had created.
I calmed my nerves by focusing on the well. I examined the wellhead’s smooth river stones, the shingled roof, the crank, the spindle, the lid, and the wooden posts, but nothing obvious presented itself. I removed the lid and bent over the well, as if I were making a wish, but though I shone my light up and down inside the well, I saw nothing that looked like a recording device.
Stymied, I straightened impatiently, bashed my head on the oak bucket, and gritted my teeth to keep myself from saying words I didn’t wish to have recorded. I rubbed the rising bump on my head vigorously, then froze to stare, transfixed, as the flashlight’s wavering beam caught a black gleam coming from deep within a split that ran the length of the right-hand post. I steadied the flashlight, leaned closer to the post, and saw that a black-coated wire had been cunningly inserted into the split.
I placed the flashlight on the lip of the well, pulled the multi-tool from my pocket, opened its longest blade, and working my way upward, used it to tease the wire from its hiding place. When I’d loosened as much of the wire as I could reach, I pulled the rest of it free from the post with a gentle tug and watched as a microphone tumbled from a notch at the top of the post to swing like a pendulum from the end of the wire. I could hardly believe my eyes.
I left the microphone dangling and used the multi-tool’s blade to chip away the mortar at the base of the post. It took me less than a minute to lay bare a tiny transmitter. My sense of disbelief gave way to outrage as one thought seared across my mind.
Jack MacBride was the puppeteer.
Jack had led Bree and me to the back garden. Jack had pulled the curtain of ivy back to reveal the wishing well to us. Jack had “accidentally” told Peggy Taxman about my wish, knowing full well that she would spread the news throughout Finch. Jack had lured the villagers to the well, listened to them, laughed at them.
I didn’t care why he’d done it. I didn’t care whether he’d felt an Australian’s need to take a dig at the old country or whether he’d wished to punish my neighbors and me for ignoring his uncle or whether it was simply a young man’s sick and twisted idea of a joke. His betrayal of our trust had been unconscionable.
I yanked the wire out of the transmitter. No longer afraid to speak, I slipped the multi-tool into my pocket, picked up the flashlight, and turned to face Ivy Cottage.
“Where there’s a transmitter,” I muttered, “there must be a receiver.”