HEMINGWAY PARKED in the garage and turned off the engine. The tired rattle of the big V-8 mimicked her own exhaustion and she sat there for a few seconds, trying to build up the steam she’d need to make it inside. After a few moments of nothing but the ticking of her motor offset by her own breathing, she grabbed the plastic bag off the passenger seat, checked both mirrors, and stepped out into the dark. She closed the door, leaving the truck with the kayak still strapped to the roof in the cool confines of the little garage behind her building.
She had owned this place for fifteen years. There was a bakery downstairs—one of those Italian bread places that had been there since the heyday of Ellis Island and was now in the hands of the fourth generation. Like everything else that the American Dream had changed, the children of the Arigo brothers didn’t see their future in flour and eggs. When Joe and Sal eventually retired or died, a McDonald’s or some other soulless corporate sound bite would move in and another piece of what had built America would be lost in the name of progress.
She walked out of the alley, around the building, her jeans sticking to her thighs with the humidity that had gotten worse in the past few hours. Tomorrow—today, technically—was going to be a stinker. One of those days where you wouldn’t be able to tell if you were sweating or if you had pissed yourself. She couldn’t remember it ever being so damp and wondered if this was one of those fabled hormone-fueled sixth-sense abilities that came along with her special condition.
No, special condition was a misnomer.
Life changer was more fitting.
Holy fuck. How had this happened?
At six weeks, her body had not yet changed, not outwardly. But the clockworks hadn’t felt right for a week or two. There were no monster cravings—at least not yet—and she wasn’t depressed or impatient or any of the other emotions she had seen chew her sister’s pregnancies into nine-month bouts of hysterics. But the humidity was bothering her, and it never had before—Mother Nature was finally fucking with her.
She passed the antique store on the corner, then the bakery, and came to her door. She paused for a moment, her forehead on the painted surface. The day had been one of the toughest she had experienced in a while. The discovery she was pregnant, a carjacking, and a boy with no feet seemed like a triple play dreamed up by an epic sadist.
She reached into her pocket for her keys and touched the stone she had picked up on the esplanade near the dead child. She pulled out her keys, unlocked the door, and pushed it open. Her hair blew back in a gush of air-conditioning. She stepped inside and headed up the wide wooden staircase in the dark, her shoes clacking on the hardwood.
Hemingway dropped the plastic bag containing her breakfast onto the island, pulled a carton of whole milk out of the fridge, and poured a glass. She walked over to the wall of arched windows that framed a wedge-shaped view of the West Side Highway to her left, a broad swatch of the Hudson beyond to the right, and Jersey in the distance. The sight of the river brought her back to standing over the Rochester boy. The awkward way his arm had reached out for the river, as if he were pointing at the secrets they would find out there. His bloodless complexion, punctured eyeball and legs that terminated in lopped-off bone only hinted at the madness he had endured.
Her damp clothes were getting cold and the milk almost cracked her teeth but she stood there, looking out at the world. She had been a cop long enough to know they might never know who had killed the little boy. The stars just wouldn’t align and they’d end up with a shelf full of boxes moldering away in the Pearson Place Warehouse Facility in Queens. Another cold case. Another child who would stay frozen in time forever. Another statistic.
The sound of footsteps echoed somewhere behind her in the vast space of the loft and she turned. Daniel came at her out of the dark, tired but smiling. “Hey, babe. Helluva day, huh?” He came over and kissed her. He tasted of toothpaste and smelled good.
“You have no idea.”
He put his arms around her and she buried herself in his shoulder. “I saw you on the news. The carjackers this afternoon. And I assume the kid they found on the East Side was yours, too.”
“Okay, so you have some idea.”
He squeezed her for a minute; she knew she could fall asleep leaning against him. “I picked up some shumai and a six of Sapporo. It’s in the fridge. Want me to heat up the dumplings and pour you a cold one?”
She thought about the baby inside her, about Tyler Rochester lying under the Queensboro Bridge, arm pointed out at the current, and decided that it was time to talk to Daniel. “Heat the dumplings but the beer can wait.” She held up the milk.
He held her at arm’s length and stared into her eyes. “Why don’t you take a shower? The dumplings will be ready by the time you’re done, then you can get some sleep.”
“I have to talk to you.”
He backed up and crossed his arms—they had had plenty of “talks” over the past two years and she had learned that his standard MO was to listen. Not that he was the strong silent type, but there was a certain fortitude necessary to deal with the kinds of problems she came with: the job; the way she dealt with the world; her family; the gun she kept under the pillow; the times she’d be gone for days on end, chasing down some depraved monster. Daniel’s way of dealing with her was to listen. The last one—Mike—had opted for throwing shit and screaming. That had lasted for precisely one argument before she had tossed his ass out. Before that it had been Mankiewicz and that had always been—what was the word?—broken seemed to be the only thing that fit. Their relationship had never been built on a healthy foundation.
Daniel looked at her, his head cocked to one side the way Phelps often did, and she wondered if it was a trait common to the men she ended up with in one capacity or another—the ones she worked with and the ones she loved. She looked into his eyes, saw the trust in them, and dug down into herself for the courage to tell him. He was incapable of lying and that innate ability she had to read people had never detected so much as petty jealousy in him. If anyone could take this—and let her deal with it in a way that made sense to her—it was Daniel.
“I’m pregnant.”
His mouth broke into a shy smile then quickly flattened out as he realized that her tone had not been as happy as it could have been.
She continued. “Six weeks.”
“And?” He reached out and took her hand. There was nothing possessive about it. It was simply his way of saying he was there.
“And tonight I had to talk to the parents of a boy who had his feet sawn off while he was still alive.”
Daniel kept his fingers pressed into her palm while he examined her. He didn’t look judgmental or angry or confused. But it was obvious he was waiting for her to say something.
“And I don’t know if this world needs another child. The good is bleeding out of our species and when I look at all the messed-up things that happen day in and day out, I wonder if it’s fair to foist this upon another human being. The notion of any kind of a god is laughable when I see what happens to good people all the time. Fuck free will. Any kind of a god who cared about us wouldn’t let the shit that goes on happen.”
She paused, waiting for Daniel to say something. All he did was look at her and in that instant, she realized that she had found him—the one for her. She thought Mankiewicz was the one but, like so many other things, that had ended when Shea put him in the ground. Daniel had asked her to marry him three times and she had turned him down. It had not driven him away, or made him bitter. He seemed content just to be with her. He gave her space, and he appreciated his. “I love you,” she said.
That made him smile. “I know.” And that was it. Nothing about the baby. Or about the shitty condition of the world. Or about her doubts. “You want those dumplings?”
She nodded. “Why not?”
Daniel went to the kitchen, turned on the lights, and opened the fridge.
“It’s not that I don’t want your input. I do. Just not now. I need to know how I feel about things before I ask you how you feel about them.”
With that he stopped and turned to her, the foil plate held in both hands. He looked like a long-haired Oliver Twist in a pair of boxers and a wifebeater. “Baby, you don’t have to explain this to me. But let me know where you stand before you do anything”—he paused, then added the word—“decisive.” He stared at her. “Is that fair?”
“You amaze me.”
He smiled, put the dumplings into the oven. “That’s me—amazing.”
“How long until the dumplings are warm?”
“Twenty—twenty-five minutes.”
“That’s just enough time.”
He pulled a plate from the cupboard. “Enough time for what?”
She headed for the bedroom. “You’ll see.”
He followed her. “At least we don’t have to worry about you getting pregnant.”
But at the back of her mind she couldn’t forget that somewhere out there a child killer was alone in his head. Thinking bad thoughts.
And planning bad deeds.