I know who’s behind it!” Patrick said, his voice fired up. “And why.”
My cell had rung and I’d picked up expectantly. I’d been trying to reach him for the past hour, to no avail. “Who?”
“It’s that state senator from Connecticut whose wife fell into the river in South America. Landry. He’s the one up in Hartford Charlie’s working for. I know what he’s done and what it is he wants to keep quiet.”
I wanted to interrupt him and say, “Patrick, I’ve got something you have to hear!” I was desperate to tell him about Brandon. But I found myself answering almost involuntarily, “What is it?” And “How did you find out?”
He told me about his neighbor, Mrs. O’Byrne, the one who’d lost her house and husband, and the murder of her daughter, twenty years ago. How Landry had been there as a kid on Staten Island, and the nickname he was called by back then. Streak. The only name her murdered daughter knew him by and had written in her diary.
How an interview on TV after his wife’s death had brought it all back.
“They were using Deirdre’s diary to extract the money from Landry with Mirho as the go-between. That’s what he’s really looking for, Hilary—that book. Or at least the pages from it that tie Landry to that murder. Just raising the possibility of it could cause people to investigate and blow apart any chance of him becoming governor.”
“Patrick, that’s good. It really is. But there’s something you have to hear . . .”
“This has to come out, Hilary. Whatever happens, the money doesn’t matter anymore. Because it doesn’t end with that murder. There’s more . . .”
“What do you mean, there’s more . . . ?”
Patrick paused. “There’s what happened to Landry’s wife in South America.”
I thought back on what I knew about that horrifying accident. A man watched his own wife fall out of his hands, into a river, and over a fall. His kids nearby. And then the reality of what Patrick was suggesting came clear to me, like something icy pressed to my skin. “Oh God, you’re saying he killed her. That it wasn’t an accident? What kind of monster could let his wife fall to her death in front of her own family?” My stomach turned at the thought.
“The same kind who can kill an innocent eighteen-year-old girl who was heading off to start her life. Someone who doesn’t think or feel like you or me. Who doesn’t have an ounce of remorse or sympathy inside. Someone psychopathic. That’s an animal out there. I’m sorry. I’m going to turn this over to the authorities now.”
“Patrick, wait!” My voice rang with panic. “We can’t bring this to the police! Something else has happened . . .”
I told him about Brandon not showing up for his doctor’s appointment. And how I hadn’t been able to reach Elena. For the past couple of hours. “That man’s got him. I know he has. The one who tried to kill me. Charlie. I can feel it, Patrick. I’m going out of my mind. He’s just an innocent boy. The man mentioned my son when he was trying to find me at the yard. I know he’s got Brandon.”
“Hilary, we don’t know what’s happened. It could be any number of things. Maybe her phone isn’t working. Maybe she lost it. She could be—”
“No! She would never have missed that appointment. We’d just spoken about it earlier in the day. She’s never ever done anything like this before. So we can’t bring in the police. At least not yet. Not until we know. We have his money. We can give them back the missing pages. We can—”
I heard a beep. My phone vibrated. Another call coming in. I checked the screen. My heart surged in relief.
Elena.
“My God, it’s her! Thank God!” The panic of a moment ago now turned to elation. “I’ll call you back in a minute. Let me talk to them. Then we’ll decide what to do.”
“All right. Call me right away.”
I pressed the green answer button and the call switched over. I didn’t give her a second to answer. I shouted, “Elena! Elena, I was so worried. What happened? Why didn’t you go to Dr. Goodwin’s?”
But in that very second my elation collapsed. Another voice answered me, a voice I’d heard for the first time only yesterday calling out for me in the darkened shed of the boatyard. And all he said was, about as calmly as a person could say such words:
“Do you ever want to see your son alive again?”