Tenley wanted to go home. Just go home. Home where all her stuff was, and where even Lanna’s goneness was better than living somewhere Lanna had never existed. It wasn’t yet time for her to leave. It wasn’t. There was only one home, no matter what she’d told Brileen, or how she had felt, or the anger she’d stored away over her parents, poisonous as nuclear waste. Her mother needed her now. They needed to be together.
A minute ago, her mother had called Ward Dahlstrom, made some excuse so at least Tenley wouldn’t get in trouble for missing work. Now Tenley curled up in the big chair in the greenroom off her mother’s office. She and Lanna hid out here when they were younger, with Lanna as babysitter and, later, companion. They’d painted each other’s toenails. Read comics. Lanna had even taught her to text. All in the little room with no entrance from the hallway, a room the size of a super-big walk-in closet that was connected to their mom’s office, where dignitaries and emissaries and deal makers could hide from paparazzi and nosy reporters. There was even a private bathroom. Five minutes ago her mom had stashed her here, ordered her not to come out, not to make any noise, until she returned. A police officer waited in Mom’s office. What was she telling him? What she’d told her daughter?
Tenley could almost replay the tape in her head. How absurd to be told of her own father’s death—his murder—in a tile-walled public bathroom at City Hall.
“We should go someplace private,” Mom had said.
“This is private,” Tenley’d replied, still on edge, still suspicious, still worried, by seeing her mother so upset. Still a little nervous she might get in trouble over the nonexistent video.
Mom had put a hand on each of Tenley’s shoulders, looked straight into her eyes. When had she become as tall as her mom? She remembered so clearly being little, her mother—and her father!—scooching down to come to eye level with her. Not anymore. She met her mother’s gaze on an equal level.
“Tenner, honey.” She’d heard the tremor in her mother’s voice. “It’s difficult, it’s awful, and I know you’ve—we’ve—already been through … through hell.”
Tenley’s eyes widened, remembering. She heard the rumble of the plumbing, the buzz of the fluorescent lights, the clack of footsteps in the hall. She tilted her head as if listening, mentally reenacting the scene, living it as if for the first time.
“What?” she’d asked. Was her mother sick? A whole scenario of potential disasters flooded Tenley’s imagination as fast as her brain could concoct them: cancer, hospitals, death, abandonment. Maybe divorce? Okay, right, that wouldn’t surprise her. Her father had ignored Tenley, ignored Mom, too, since Lanna. Divorce would end in abandonment, too. Everything did.
“It’s your father,” her mother began. She took one of Tenley’s hands, palm up, traced the lines on her skin as if she were a fortune teller. “I remember when you were so tiny, you couldn’t wrap your hand around one of my fingers,” her mother whispered.
Okay, this was scary.
“What, Mom? What about Dad?”
Her mother pressed Tenley’s hand to her own cheek. Tenley felt the clammy skin, damp from tears, felt the clutch of her mother’s grasp.
“He’s dead, honey,” her mom said.
The word didn’t even make sense. Tenley tried to capture it, think about it, remember what it meant. Her father? Her father who—was dead?
“Why?” It was the first thing that came out of her mouth. It didn’t make sense, she realized that as soon as she said it, so she thought of what else. “When?” Which also wasn’t exactly the right question, but somehow her brain wasn’t working, not at all. They were in the bathroom, a stupid bathroom of City Hall, and her mother was telling her an impossible thing. “How?” she asked. And then, “Are you sure?”
And her mother was sure.
What she could not handle, could not handle to the point of almost screaming, was that she had seen it. Seen it on the video monitor.
“Tenley Rebecca Siskel,” she whispered to herself. She pounded a fist on each of the chair’s padded armrests to punctuate her own stupidness. “Shut up.”
Because she hadn’t seen it, not really. The world was so dumb. She’d worried that she might get in trouble because she wasn’t looking at the screen when it—the murderofmyfather—happened. As it turned out that was a good thing. The universe spared her that, at least. Even though her brain insisted on remembering what she had seen, everything was kind of fuzzy, and you couldn’t really recognize faces.
Would she have recognized her father anyway? His stance, the funny way he held his arms, something about his walk? Had he been coming to see her? Or Mom? Why had he been in Curley Park? She hadn’t gotten to ask her mother about that.
She replayed yesterday morning. Her brain was a video game, starting and stopping, fast-forwarding and rewinding. She sighed, crossed her legs under her, burrowed herself into the curve of her chair. She was so tired. She closed her eyes and envisioned the scene yet again. She’d pushed Save on her computer. And then Ward Dahlstrom said something about the police.
Why would he mention the police?
She thought about Lanna, and what had happened to her in Steading Woods. And her father, and what her mom said happened to him in Curley Park.
Did that make any sense? Two violent deaths in the same family? Was that the random act of an uncaring universe, like she’d read about in school?
Or was there something else? Something that maybe meant she wasn’t safe either? Or her mother?
She wrapped her arms around her chest, leaned her head against the soft side of the chair, felt the nubby thick upholstery press against her cheek, and without making a sound, cried and cried and cried. And somehow, like the smoke from a tiny forgotten fire, Tenley felt her childhood vanish, vanish just like Lanna did, vanish like her father did, leaving her alone.
* * *
“Our man’s on the move.” DeLuca’s voice crackled through Jake’s two-way, interrupting Jake’s questioning of Catherine Siskel. Probably for the best. He was impatient with her evasions. His annoyance was about to escalate farther than was wise.
Jake heard motion, engine noises, acceleration.
“I’m in the van,” D’s voice came through again. “We’re on him. Can you move into second position? Everyone else is out of pocket.”
D paused again. Jake knew he was trying to talk on the radio and drive at the same time. Exactly what traffic cops gave civilians tickets for.
“Copy,” Jake said. But why did they need him? Wasn’t Angie on the way? “But Bartoneri?”
“Doctor’s appointment, she says.”
Give me a break. “I’ve gotta get the cruiser, so it’ll be five at least till I’m on the road.”
“Copy,” D said. “Stand by, let me get in position.”
There was no way Catherine Siskel hadn’t heard every word, but no matter. It wouldn’t mean anything to her. The amount of juggling Jake was about to pull off was ridiculous. The mayor had promised to beef up the BPD budget, but so far their staffing was still frustratingly tight. Everyone from cop to admin was exhausted, short-tempered, and bitter. And law enforcement certainly would suffer. Jake wanted to look on the bright side, but there wasn’t a bright side. He’d been without sleep for a solid twenty-eight hours now. That was supposed to keep the city safe?
“Looks like he might be headed toward the Pike now,” DeLuca said over the radio. “He goes west, he’s out of jurisdiction, so we’d have to call the staties or forget it. He goes east, we’ll nail him.”
There was no backup car for DeLuca. The motor pool was also gutted by budget cuts. Now Jake had to put aside the City Hall investigation to focus on whether Calvin Hewlitt was up to no good. Which left John Doe No. 2—maybe-tattooed guy—guarded only by a cadet outside his hospital door. If they’d had a budget for it, and a warrant, D could have tapped Hewlitt’s car with a tracking gizmo, see if he left town, see who he visited. But they barely had enough resources to follow the guy, let alone convince a judge to bug him. It was the old-fashioned way or nothing. But he’d be easy to trail on the eight lanes of straight-arrow Massachusetts Turnpike.
“Copy,” Jake said. “I’ll go with lights till I get in earshot.”
What if Calvin Hewlitt was the Curley Park killer, not the guy claiming to have captured him? Who did that make tattoo guy? What role, if any, had he played in Bobby Land’s death? A video would be one easy way to answer two of those questions. If there was video of the incident, Catherine Siskel had to know.
“I’ve got to leave,” Jake told her. He pulled a card from his wallet, placed it on her desk. The thick paper made a little tap on her leather-cornered blotter. “Two things, quickly. One, call me if you want to tell me more about your, ah, missing husband. And in approximately thirty minutes, call the Boston Police Department’s Missing Persons division, ask for Sergeant Naka. Kiyoko Naka.” He spelled it. “She’s the one who had you call me. You tell her I sent you. Tell her it’s been twenty-four hours. Got that?”
Catherine Siskel took the card, smoothed it between two fingers. She pressed her lips together, seemed to be considering. She nodded, looking at the card, without a word.
Was she crying? What was she not telling him?
“Two.” Jake checked his notebook. “Ward Dahlstrom, the surveillance supervisor. Does he have video of what happened in Curley Park? If he does, that’s our top priority. We need that. Right now.”
“Video?”
Jake strode toward the door, radio crackling, on his way to help track Hewlitt. Great. A potential fugitive on one end, a potential liar on the other.
Enough with her bullshit. “You already have a subpoena demanding it.” And even though this was his bullshit, he couldn’t resist. “And ma’am? Don’t leave town.”