On Saturday morning, Lucy awakens early, heart pounding from a nightmare.
Jeremy snores beside her as she lies in bed staring at the ceiling, remembering . . . She was here in the apartment, at night, alone—but not really alone, because as the action went on, it shifted and she was playing hide-and-seek. Her opponent wasn’t just hiding, though—he was invisible. Lucy could hear footsteps, and breathing, and she felt his presence—knew he was standing right in front of her at one point. But she couldn’t see him.
Creepy.
She rolls over and closes her eyes, trying to fall back to sleep, but it’s no use. Once she’s up, she’s up; she’s always been that way.
With a sigh, she sits up—not too fast, though, because that tends to make her feel sicker. Right now, the nausea is there, but not raging. Yet. And she’s not the least bit crampy, either. Good.
Checking the clock, she sees that although it’s not noon, it’s not that early after all—well past eight. She’d have been out of bed long ago if this were a weekday—or an ordinary weekend morning if she weren’t pregnant.
Hard to believe, now that she’s so sluggish, that she used to wake before dawn without an alarm on Saturday mornings. She’d go for a long run, shower and change, and go back out for bagels and coffee to bring home to Jeremy—all before he raised an eyelid.
She misses having that kind of energy. She misses running, too, she thinks wistfully as she heads gingerly toward the bathroom, feeling like she’s going to throw up any second.
Yes, and she misses her old strong, lean body—a body she could count on not to betray her.
Always athletic, she kept up her morning runs—though at a much less intense level than usual—through much of her first pregnancy, with her doctor’s blessing. When she lost the baby, she questioned everything she had done—including exercise.
The second time she was pregnant, she didn’t run at all—and miscarried anyway, early on.
There was no question that this time, she would take it easy. Dr. Courmier—a fellow marathon runner—was empathetic, but absolutely ruled out vigorous physical exertion. She suggested that Lucy try yoga, which Robyn swears by—and brought up again last night when they were talking about how Lucy needed to relax.
“Do you not remember that I tried a couple of classes with you, and hated it?” Lucy asked.
“You might like it better now,” Robyn told her, but Lucy seriously doubts that.
She’s not a yoga person. She’s just not. Sitting there, stretching and chanting, not even breaking a sweat, she couldn’t seem to clear her mind as she was supposed to. She kept thinking about all the interesting, productive things she could—should—be doing instead. It stressed her out.
She flips on the bathroom light, wondering if she’s actually going to make it through the morning without throwing up for a change. She’s feeling queasy, but if she can manage to brush her teeth and get some food into her stomach . . .
As she starts to reach for her toothbrush, a sudden wave of nausea sweeps over her and she turns abruptly toward the toilet instead.
Vomit, flush, brush, rinse . . .
It’s all good. Pregnancy hormones.
Only about two months to go.
Back in the bedroom, she glances at Jeremy, still in bed asleep. She didn’t hear him come in last night. It must have been late.
His dark hair is sticking up in tufts here and there as though it got wet in the rain and dried that way, and his jaw is shaded with razor stubble. But he’s no longer snoring.
Is he asleep?
“Jer?” she whispers.
He doesn’t stir.
She pulls on a robe and walks out of the bedroom, quietly closing the door behind her.
Jeremy’s eyes snap open the moment Lucy leaves the bedroom.
“See? I told you he wasn’t really sleeping,” Chaplain Gideon gloats.
“I knew that. I could tell he was just pretending.” Sitting in front of her computer, watching the action in the Cavalon apartment a few floors above, she works the mouse, expertly zooming in so that the screen shows a close-up of Jeremy’s face.
His expression is troubled.
Ah, so maybe he, too, is a prophet.
Maybe he senses the coming apocalypse.
Or maybe he’s just thinking about his troubled past.
She zooms out on that image and zooms in on another: Lucy in the kitchen.
She’s just standing there between the counter and the stove, resting a hand on her rounded stomach.
Judging by the dreamy expression on her face, she isn’t thinking about the past, and she hasn’t a clue that the future will be anything but happy.
As she waits for the toast to pop up and the teakettle to whistle, Lucy allows herself to imagine what her mornings will be like this spring, after the baby is born.
Will she be so exhausted from late night feedings that she’ll want to sleep in?
Or will motherhood energize her to get up early and hit the winding pathways in Central Park?
That seems much more likely. When this burden of worrying and waiting has finally been lifted, she’ll be her old self again, raring to get up and go. Will she take the baby with her, strapped into a jogging stroller?
Probably not at first. It’s probably not good for a newborn to be out when the weather is still raw and chilly. Or do they need fresh air?
I don’t have a clue.
She hasn’t allowed herself to think beyond the pregnancy. She can’t bear to read the next chapter in What to Expect When You’re Expecting, let alone research what comes after the baby is born: motherhood, caring for an infant . . .
Maybe it’s time, though.
Maybe she can at least picture herself just like all those other moms she sees—moms who go contentedly about their daily lives with their healthy babies in tow.
The phone rings, breaking into her pleasant thoughts. It’s early for a Saturday morning phone call. Too early.
Lucy thinks of Ryan as she goes to answer it. He’d been in the back of her mind all day yesterday. And, after the phone call to Mom in Florida, Sadie had been in her thoughts as well.
Well, one thing is for sure—no college kid is going to pick up the phone to call family at this hour on a Saturday morning.
Not unless something is wrong . . .
Lucy picks up the phone and, in the next terrible moment, learns that something is, indeed, very wrong.
Not, however, with her sister. Not this time.
The moment she heard the ringing telephone blast over the computer speakers and saw the way Lucy’s expression transformed from peaceful to concerned, her heart started racing in anticipation.
Now, as she watches Lucy rush toward the bedroom clutching the phone, she edges her chair a little closer to the computer screen and rests her chin in her hand, like a courtside fan leaning in for a better vantage.
Though the other end of Lucy’s conversation was of course inaudible, she can tell by the look on Lucy’s face that this was no chatty morning call.
No, it’s clearly bad news.
And I’ll bet I know what it’s about.
Someone must have found the body.
If Brandewyne gets on Meade’s nerves in New York—and she sure as hell does—he should have considered what it would be like to spend five hours with her in a car, stuck in traffic.
Then again, even if he had anticipated this living hell, there’s not much he could have done to avoid the situation. They had to drive up here to Bridgebury today, where they’re going to interview various prison officials who had survived the deadly earthquake.
“I would kill for a cigarette,” Brandewyne announces for what seems like the hundredth time, tapping her fingernails on the armrest between them as Meade stares in frustration at the brake lights strung out ahead of them on Interstate 95.
He thinks about pointing out that the exit is just a mile away. But at this rate, it could be an hour before they reach it.
Instead, he says, “Maybe you should just quit. It’s not good for you.”
“No . . . really?”
It occurs to him, hearing the sarcasm in her voice, that he might just get on her nerves the way she gets on his. Hard to imagine, but he supposes that could be true. When you spend a lot of time with someone, it’s inevitable. His long-wed parents bicker all the time, but their marriage works.
Then again, they love each other.
Meade and Brandewyne most definitely do not love each other. They don’t even like each other, unless Brandewyne is concealing a secret well of affection for him.
And yet . . .
And yet, like an old married couple, when they’re actually working together as a team, they do manage to get things done.
After the print match came back, they spent a sleepless night together at the precinct, digging up old press clips on the suspect, and tracking down the names and addresses of pretty much everyone who had known her personally. There’s a trove of information, and they might just get somewhere with it if they can pinpoint someone from her past who might have been willing to help her if she really did escape last year.
If she really did?
She did.
Absolutely. She must have. Fingerprints don’t lie.
And the quake is a clear-cut connection to Jollston, who wrote a book about it. There must be some motive for murder there—well, in the killer’s twisted mind, anyway, though Meade isn’t entirely convinced that’s all there is to it.
He lifts his foot from the brake and lets the car roll forward along with the cars in front of them, then jams the brake again as traffic stops moving abruptly.
“There are going to be people who need to be warned that she’s alive,” he comments to Brandewyne, still tapping her nails. “People she might go after the way she did Richard Jollston.”
“Well, I’m pretty sure he’s the only one who wrote a book about that earthquake.”
“No kidding.”
She shrugs. “Just saying.”
“Yeah, I know, but . . .” Meade keeps going back to the surveillance camera image of her fleeing the crime scene in that weird, flowing cloak. “I have a feeling things might be a lot more complicated than they seem.”
“Aren’t they always?” Brandewyne asks, and he nods in agreement, inching the car toward the exit up ahead.
Most days, Marin loses time.
She’ll be sitting right here in her favorite spot, in front of the window, and it’s as though she blinks and the sky behind the city skyline goes from sunny blue to starry black, or from starry black to sunny blue—or at least, milky gray, as it is today.
Sometimes, she’ll learn from the staff that a visitor was here with her, yet she finds that she can’t remember the visit—even though she was reportedly right here and wide awake the whole time. Scary, the way she forgets so easily; the way her mind plays tricks on her these days.
Sometimes, she swears she’s glimpsed Garvey here with her—though everyone swears that’s impossible. They say he’s dead. She’ll never see him again.
Deep down, she knows that’s a good thing—not that he’s dead, but that he’s out of her life forever. Yet there were times, even after all he’d done, when Marin missed him desperately. Garvey was always in control. He always knew what to do. When he was gone, leaving Marin alone to raise their children . . .
I just didn’t know what to do. Ever. About anything.
And now—there’s nothing she can do. Locked away from the world, she’s helpless.
Really, there’s only one person Marin longs to see . . .
Why doesn’t she come?
And why, when I ask for her, won’t anyone tell me where she is?
“So . . . which one was Miguel?” Lucy is asking gently, sitting on the edge of the bed beside Jeremy.
Which one was Miguel.
Not is.
Was, past tense, because Miguel, the baby-faced young man with the quick grin and missing teeth and fatherhood dreams, is dead.
According to Cliff Sutter, Jeremy’s boss, who just called with the news, Miguel’s body was found on West End Avenue just a few blocks from here—not far from the coffee shop where he’d eaten his last meal.
But of course, Cliff didn’t mention that part, because he didn’t know about it—yet.
Jeremy knows, though. He knows exactly what Miguel ate: cheeseburger, fries, Cherry Coke. He knows because he was there. With Miguel. He was there as Miguel ordered his food and ate and talked . . .
He was there right before Miguel died.
Numb, Jeremy pictures him, lying facedown on the sidewalk in a pool of blood . . . or was he faceup, his eyes fixed and vacant? Was there a pool of blood, or did it wash away in the rain?
So many questions . . .
How long before it comes out that Miguel spent his last hours with Jeremy Cavalon?
Is it better to tell someone now, or wait until the police come knocking at his door, asking questions?
Does he start with telling Lucy? Or Cliff? Or does he go straight down to the precinct and talk to the police? Where is the precinct? He doesn’t even know. How would he know?
Feeling Lucy’s hand on his arm, he flinches.
“Sorry,” she says, “I know this is hard.”
She has no idea how hard.
His thoughts are spinning, his stomach churning.
Who saw him with Miguel? The coffee shop waitress, the other patrons—it was pretty crowded last night. The whole damned neighborhood was crowded; it’s the last weekend before Christmas.
Out on the street afterward—it was late. Really late. Not as crowded. Who might have seen them together then?
Even if no one had seen them, there are Miguel’s phone records. They’ll show that he received a call from Jeremy.
He should have told Lucy last night when he got home that he’d met Miguel after work. But she was asleep. And even if she hadn’t been . . .
I wouldn’t have told her.
“Jeremy? Are you okay?”
“I need to get up there,” he tells his wife. “Up to the center. The other kids—they’re going to be upset when they find out.”
“You should go.”
He nods. He should go.
And yet, for some reason, he can’t seem to make his legs start moving. All he can do is sit here and think about Miguel and wonder what he’s going to tell the police when they come knocking.
And they will.
They’re going to start asking questions, even just routine questions, and they’ll investigate his past, just a routine investigation . . .
And then the red flag will go up, and God only knows what will happen.
“Lu,” he says, turning to her—but she’s already up, on her feet, running. Running to the bathroom, where he hears her getting sick, and it’s his turn to call, “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” she calls back weakly, after another minute or two. “I’m fine.”
Then she gets sick all over again.
Jeremy sits there listening, and then he hears a high-pitched whistling sound and his blood runs cold. It takes him a moment to realize it’s the teakettle.
At first, he thought it was . . . sirens.
That’s crazy, of course, because the teakettle sounds nothing like sirens, and anyway, it would be hard to hear actual sirens from way up here, with these thick walls, and anyway, it’s not like they’d be coming for him . . .
Yet.
Ryan sits at the kitchen table in the house where he grew up, eating a bowl of Cocoa Puffs. If you took away his morning beard and the fact that the house is empty and silent, this could be unfolding fifteen or twenty years ago.
Except, fifteen or twenty years ago, Ryan Walsh didn’t know what it was like to feel so anxious and lost. And this gabled Queen Anne Victorian on Elm Street in Glenhaven Park was a happy, busy home back then, with a normal family living here.
Normal.
What the hell does that even mean anymore?
He doesn’t know what it means—but he does know what it doesn’t mean: a grown man eating Cocoa Puffs and wondering if the woman in his life actually even exists.
At times like this, Ryan desperately misses his father.
He needs a confidant. Someone who knows him well, a straight-shooter who won’t get all caught up in worry and emotion . . .
Someone like Lucy, really.
But not Lucy.
Because when it comes to him, Lucy gets all protective and territorial. And if he tells Lucy about his suspicions about Phoenix, and they turn out to be unfounded—then Lucy will always harbor a shred of doubt about her.
What does it matter? It’s not as though she’s ever going to meet her, right?
Right?
Ryan shoves the last spoonful of cereal from his bowl into his mouth and chews glumly.
Yesterday, he was absolutely convinced he had to break things off with Phoenix. Last night, he even thought about how he would go about it, and how he would pick up the pieces and move on.
But this morning, when he woke up in his lonely bed in his childhood bedroom, he had second thoughts.
If she really is who she claims to be—despite the fact that Ryan can’t find any trace of her in any Internet search engine, nor in the public records he accessed for a fee—then why break up with her?
Why not just work on getting over his own insecurities—insecurities that have obviously cost him the ability to trust another human being and have a healthy relationship?
After all, he’s not the first man to ever fall in love with a woman who seems too good to be true.
Ryan grabs the cereal box and dumps what’s left in it into his bowl, including the chocolaty dust from the bottom of the waxed-paper liner.
He needs to talk to someone else who’s been there—or at least, someone else who’s fallen in love with a woman, any woman.
So where is he supposed to turn?
He has casual male acquaintances, but none he would call a friend.
There’s always Sam, he supposes—but he’s too far away, and too close to Mom. Ryan doesn’t want to involve her in this.
And then there’s Jeremy—the closest thing Ryan’s ever had to a brother. Jeremy’s right here in New York. And Ryan has a feeling that if he asks his brother-in-law not to talk to Lucy about this—because he doesn’t want to cause her any undue stress while she’s pregnant—Jeremy won’t tell her.
Yeah. He’ll call Jeremy. At least it’s a start.
Riding the local train up to the Bronx, Jeremy stares absently at the overhead subway map and remembers what it was like when the man he knew as Papa—the man who had tormented and nearly destroyed him—died.
It was an awful lot like this.
Fifteen years ago, in the immediate aftermath, Jeremy had the same terrible feeling of guilt, the same panicky fear that he was going to be incriminated by the police.
That was different, though, in so many ways . . .
He was so young, then—just twenty-one, and living in California, in Papa’s house. He had no friends. Papa had seen to that.
For fourteen years, he kept Jeremy isolated from the world. For fourteen years, he abused Jeremy—physically, emotionally, sexually. Fourteen years of hell.
There was no one to turn to for help.
And that meant that when Papa died and the police asked questions, there was no one to protect but himself. Had they found out the truth and sent him to jail, he was the only one who would suffer.
Now he has Lucy, and a baby on the way. If the truth ever came out . . .
But it won’t now, after all these years, if it didn’t back then.
No one questioned Jeremy’s story. No one ever learned that Papa didn’t have to die that day out on the lake.
That’s the thing about drowning. It’s hard for anyone who wasn’t there to prove that it wasn’t an accident.
If, say, a person can’t swim . . . and that person rents a fishing boat and forces the young man he claims is his son to go out on the lake with him . . . and the person drinks too much and accidentally falls overboard . . . and the so-called son doesn’t jump in after him, or even throw him a life ring . . .
Well, the so-called son who didn’t rescue him is the only one who really knows what happened.
The irony that his grandmother Sylvie also drowned has not been lost on Jeremy. She was here alone, slipped, fell, hit her head. That’s what the coroner ruled, anyway, and there’s no reason for anyone to question it. Of course no one did.
But when it happened, Jeremy couldn’t help but worry, somewhere in the back of his mind, that someone might make a connection to Papa. That someone might question whether Sylvie’s death really had been an accident, or whether Jeremy might have had something to do with it.
He didn’t, of course. He loved her. He’d have no reason to harm her. No one would have reason to harm her.
Sylvie Durand’s death was an accident.
Papa’s was not.
He, however, deserved to die. He deserved to rot in hell for what he’d done to Jeremy for all those years—and, he suspected, to other boys. Boys who never came forward.
The train has arrived at Soundview Avenue.
Jeremy gets off, descends from the elevated platform, and heads toward the Bruckner home.
It was only about twelve hours ago that he made this trip in reverse, calling the number on Miguel’s note as he walked, and praying it didn’t belong to Carmen. Miguel, he knew, would be finishing up his shift at the warehouse where he works—worked—part time.
Miguel. Past tense. Miguel. Dead.
Last night, he answered his cell phone on the first ring. “Coach, can you meet me? I need to talk to you.”
“Did you go through the information I gave you?”
“Yeah.”
No, he hadn’t. Jeremy could tell by his tone.
“But I need to talk to you, Coach.”
“Maybe on Monday,” Jeremy started to say, “we can—”
“Monday will be too late. I need help. Tonight. Please.”
“I’m on my way home, Miguel.”
“I’ll come there. I’ll come anywhere you are.”
“You can’t come to my apartment, Miguel,” Jeremy said quickly.
“Then I’ll meet you someplace else. Where you living now? Upper West Side, right?”
Wondering how he knew that—then realizing the kids probably know a lot more about him than he realizes—he hesitated.
“Coach, come on, please. There’s no one else who can help me.”
“All right,” Jeremy said, against his better judgment, and told him about the coffee shop.
Miguel arrived five minutes after he did. By that time, Jeremy was angry—at himself for agreeing to be there, and at Miguel for talking him into it. Angry, exhausted, tense, emotional . . .
Had anyone in the coffee shop noticed his mood, or overheard what they were talking about?
Even if anyone had . . . it wasn’t necessarily incriminating evidence against him.
No . . . but it won’t help his case. If, during the investigation, the police make a connection between this and Papa’s death . . .
Jeremy’s cell phone rings in his pocket, startling him.
Checking the screen, he sees that his brother-in-law is calling. It’s unusual for Ryan to get in touch directly with Jeremy. Elsa must have called to invite him for Christmas.
But Jeremy can’t pick up the call. Not right now.
Whatever Ryan needs will just have to wait.
“So you agree that it is absolutely possible, then, that an inmate could have walked out of Bridgebury prison that night?” Meade looks from Brad Vecchio, the prison superintendent, to Damien Hammill, the corrections officer, who agreed to this interview with him and Brandewyne today.
The meeting is taking place in a depressingly damp Quonset hut that reminds Meade of his late grandfather’s Sears shed. It serves as temporary headquarters for prison staff, not far from the site they refer to as, not surprisingly, ground zero.
“It’s possible,” Vecchio says carefully, “but unlikely.”
“We’re not interested in likely,” Brandewyne speaks up. “We’re just interested in possible. And if it’s possible . . .”
“It’s possible,” Vecchio repeats reluctantly.
It might just be the circumstances, but Meade is having a hard time imagining the superintendent, given his ho-hum demeanor, mustering the slightest bit of enthusiasm for anything at all. With his gray crew cut, fleshy face, and no-neck physique, he’s the kind of man who seems decidedly ill at ease in the suit he’s wearing, ill at ease in the metal folding chair—which he also appears to be wearing—and naturally, ill at ease answering questions posed by a couple of NYPD detectives.
You can’t really blame the guy. It was bad enough that Bridgebury’s aging infrastructure was partly responsible for the deaths of so many inmates and staff members. But if one of those inmates walked away from that tragedy and murdered two innocent people—and goes right on killing—Vecchio is going to have a real problem on his hands, and he knows it.
Reminding himself that this is an interview and not an interrogation, Meade looks at the superintendent. “Tell me what you remember about this particular inmate.”
“Not a thing.”
“Did you know her?”
“Do you know how many inmates there were at Bridgebury, Detective Meade?”
“I do. And I’d say that she was among the most notorious, wouldn’t you?”
“They’re all notorious. That’s what I’d say. Wouldn’t you?”
Meade gives up on him for the time being and turns to the corrections officer, a fellow African American. Sometimes, the shared-culture thing helps to put a brother at ease.
“Officer Hammill.”
“Detective Meade.”
“You worked on Cellblock B, correct?”
“Correct.”
“And you remember this particular inmate?”
“I do. She was quiet—during the day. At night, though, she’d talk. A lot.”
“To the other prisoners?”
“Nah.”
“To herself?”
Hammill shakes his head. “To someone she called Chaplain Gideon.”
“Who’s that? The prison chaplain?” Brandewyne guesses.
“The prison chaplain’s name was Harry Connelly,” Vecchio speaks up. “He died in the collapse.”
“Then who’s Chaplain Gideon?” Meade looks from Vecchio, who shrugs, back to Hammill.
“Well, at first I thought maybe it was her nickname for one of the other inmates,” Hammill says. “They have nicknames for each other, you know?”
Meade nods.
“Crazy nicknames. Like there was this one hard-ass—built like a linebacker, if you know what I mean? And her cellmate calls her Tinkerbell. There’s another one, they call her Beanpole, and believe me, she’s no beanpole.”
“They used to call me Wino back in high school,” Brandewyne says unnecessarily. “And I didn’t even drink.”
Meade sighs inwardly. “So . . . Chaplain Gideon? Is that a nickname, do you think? Something she called one of the other women on the cellblock?”
Hammill shakes his head. “I looked in on her whenever she’d start talking to this Chaplain Gideon person, and there was never anyone there. Guess he was just a figment of her imagination.”
“Mrs. Cavalon? I have someone here to see you,” the lobby security guard announces over the intercom, startling Lucy for the second time in the space of a few seconds—the first time being when security buzzed up in the first place.
Her nerves have been on edge ever since Jeremy left, well over an hour ago, to head up to the Bruckner home to deal with the fallout from last night’s tragedy.
She’d have gone with him if he’d have let her, but he wasn’t about to do that.
“It’s work for me, Lucy.”
“But it’s going to be hard on you.”
“I don’t come with you to work when you’re facing a tough day,” he told her with a shrug, “and you don’t have to come with me.”
She could have argued that this was different, but she could tell he wasn’t in the mood for reason, much less company—or sympathy.
Nor was he in the mood to talk about what had happened to Miguel.
That’s how Jeremy is, sometimes, in a crisis. He simply shuts down.
She had no choice but to let him go, out the door, off to face what is bound to be a difficult day in a lifetime that’s been overloaded with difficult days.
After he left, Lucy realized she was feeling crampy again. She’d been so caught up in what was going on with Jeremy that she’s not even sure when it started. She only knew that she felt it.
She made herself sit down and put her feet up, and it’s definitely subsided.
Braxton Hicks?
Please, God, let it be Braxton Hicks.
As she tries to process what the security guard’s voice is telling her—someone here to see you—the rest of her brain is preoccupied with what her body is feeling and with her husband’s latest challenge.
Miguel.
She’s heard the name before, but she can’t remember specific details about him, and Jeremy wasn’t in any frame of mind to share them when she asked.
One thing is certain: Miguel was little more than a child—a child whose short life had seen a lot of pain—and now he’s dead, just days before Christmas.
When Jeremy’s boss, Cliff, told Lucy why he was calling, he mentioned that one of the boys had been mugged and killed.
Lucy assumed it had happened in the South Bronx near the Bruckner home. When she discovered that Miguel had been slain right here, in their own neighborhood, she’d been shocked and dismayed.
“Mrs. Cavalon?”
Lobby security. Right. “Yes? I’m sorry . . . who did you say was here to see me?”
“Mr. Soto. Carl Soto.”
She gasps. How could she have forgotten all about the landlord’s visit this morning?
How, indeed?
“Carl Soto? Oh—that’s fine. Go ahead and send him up. Thank you.”
What?
Why on earth is Carl Soto here to see Lucy Cavalon?
She glares at the computer screen, where Lucy is hurriedly brushing her hair into a ponytail and checking her reflection in the mirror.
She seemed surprised when she heard his name.
Almost as surprised as I was.
Now what?
There’s no doubt that the landlord is going to discuss the apartment he forced the Cavalons to vacate. Why else would he be here?
Her thoughts racing, she wonders if there’s any way to intercept him on his way upstairs.
And what will you do to him?
Slit his throat right then and there?
“No risks,” Chaplain Gideon booms at her, and she winces, closing her eyes. He keeps on talking to her—talking at her, the way he always does.
“You know better. Last night was foolish enough—and the night before, at the hotel. You’re letting temptation get the better of you. If you’re not careful, you’re going to ruin everything.”
She takes a deep breath and opens her eyes. Onscreen, Lucy is smoothing her maternity top over her bulging belly.
They’re close, now . . . so close . . . to Judgment Day.
Chaplain Gideon is right. He always is.
“Don’t worry,” she whispers to him. “I’ll control myself this time.”
Opening the door to her former landlord, Lucy wishes Jeremy were here with her, or at least, that she’d had time to compose herself before the visit.
Carl Soto is wearing a dress shirt and dark slacks and leather jacket, and he reeks of cologne—decent cologne, probably, but to Lucy’s pregnancy-sensitive nostrils, pretty much any scent is unappealing.
“Hi, Mrs. Cavalon.”
She sees his eyes go straight to her stomach, and realizes he didn’t know she was pregnant. Well, of course not. How would he? They never saw him, and they didn’t tell him about it when they got the eviction notice.
If they had, Lucy realizes, it might have made a difference, because when the man looks up again, it’s with an expression of consternation.
“This—uh—this is for you.” He thrusts something at her—a cellophane-wrapped poinsettia in a tinfoil-wrapped pot, the kind you buy at the supermarket. It’s red and a little sickly-looking, but it’s the thought that counts, Lucy reminds herself, and thanks him for it.
“This is for you, too.” He hands her a package. “UPS left it for you at the apartment.”
“Thank you.” Checking the label, she sees that it’s a Christmas gift she ordered from a catalog a while back—a sweater for Jeremy’s sister Renny. It was out of stock at the time, and she forgot all about it. “I filled out a mail-forwarding form at the post office. I guess I should let UPS know that we moved, too. And maybe tell the downstairs tenants to keep an eye out for packages.”
“They left last night to go away for the holidays,” the landlord tells her, “but I’ll stop by again and make sure nothing else shows up this week.”
“Thank you. That’s nice of you. Come on in. I’m sorry Jeremy isn’t here,” she says, leading him into the living room, “but he, uh, got called into work.”
“It’s all right.” He looks around, clearly impressed. “Well, you two landed on your feet, didn’t you?”
Immediately irked, Lucy sets the package and the plant on the coffee table, hard enough so that several petals drop off.
“This is my husband’s grandmother’s apartment,” she informs him.
“Oh. Well, uh, it was nice of her to let you move in with her, huh?”
She shrugs, not about to bother to tell him that Sylvie happens to be dead. Better to just get this visit over with, security deposit back in hand, and put the whole experience behind her.
He looks at the sofa, clearly waiting to be invited to sit down. She was about to do just that before he made that comment about landing on their feet.
Might as well stay on my feet, she decides, and make him do the same.
Petulance isn’t usually Lucy’s style, but it’s been a rough morning already and Carl Soto rubs her the wrong way.
He clears his throat. “Mrs. Cavalon, I’ve been feeling really bad about what happened. About—you know.”
Kicking us out on the street during the holidays—especially now that you know I’m pregnant? Yeah, I’ll bet.
He shoots another glance at her stomach, and, feeling suddenly vulnerable, she resists the urge to wrap her arms around it.
“For what it’s worth . . . I didn’t know.”
Lucy shrugs.
“Really . . . I didn’t know you were expecting.”
“I believe you.”
“But anyway—it wasn’t my idea for you to move out.”
She raises an eyebrow and resists the urge to point out that it wasn’t exactly her idea, either.
“I’m not proud to admit this, but . . . well, someone wanted to move into the apartment before your lease was up, and I—I couldn’t turn her down.”
Lucy just looks at him, not quite getting it.
He takes a deep breath. “She offered me money—a lot of money—for the place.”
Okay, now she definitely doesn’t get it.
The apartment was decent—as urban duplexes go—but there are countless places just like it in White Plains. Better places.
“Sentimental reasons,” Carl Soto explains, as if reading her mind. “She said she lived there when she was growing up, and she wanted to move in again.”
Resting a hand on the small of her back, Lucy absorbs that, and offers him an okay, whatever shrug, wishing he would just give her the check and go.
“I felt bad about it, but, you know, I really needed the money—who doesn’t?”
If this is an apology, Lucy thinks, he just needs to come out with it. She sneaks a peek at the antique Jeux d’Olympe marble clock on the mantel and wonders what Jeremy is doing right now; whether he’s okay.
“And you have to know, Mrs. Cavalon, I thought this woman really wanted to live there . . .”
He thought she really wanted to live there?
Something in his tone alerts Lucy that this isn’t just about an apology. She looks sharply at Carl Soto’s face.
“What?” she asks, seeing his obvious guilt along with an oddly anxious—perhaps even frightened—expression. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“She never moved in. I let her know you were out, that the place was all hers, and I never heard from her again.”
“But—what does that mean?”
“I don’t know.” He shakes his head. “You tell me.”
Lucy’s mind races through various possibilities.
That she didn’t really want to live there after all?
That she was just a kindhearted stranger who wanted to hand Carl Soto a lot of money—at Lucy and Jeremy’s expense?
That she wanted them out?
But why? It makes no sense. None at all. Unless they have an unknown enemy who’s trying to make their lives difficult . . .
“Who was she?” she asks Carl Soto. “What was her name?”
“It was Mary. That’s all I know.”
Mary . . .
The name triggers a memory in her brain—something she said to Robyn just last night.
It worked out pretty well for Mary . . .
As in, being pregnant and homeless at Christmas.
As in, no room at the inn.
Which, of course, has nothing to do with this.
“She didn’t give you a last name?” she asks, and Carl shakes his head. “What did she look like?”
“It was dark out. I didn’t get a good look at her face. She did give me a phone number, but I’ve been calling and texting her to let her know she can move in, and I haven’t heard a word.”
“Maybe it wasn’t even a real number.”
“No, it is. She did respond from it early on—before I let her know the apartment was ready for her to move into.”
“I guess she changed her mind.”
“I guess so.”
“It happens.” Feeling a tightening in her pelvis, Lucy knows she needs to sit down. But she definitely doesn’t want to ask Carl to sit now that he’s said what he wanted to say. “Listen, Mr. Soto—”
“Carl.”
“Carl. It’s okay. You made a mistake. It’s not like we’re out on the street—we’re doing all right here, so . . . no harm done.”
“I hope not.”
She frowns. “What do you mean?”
“There was something off about her . . .” He hesitates. “The more I think about it, the more I feel like she might have been . . . up to something. Something . . . bad.”
“You mean you think she wanted to hurt you?”
“Or you.”
His words send a chill down Lucy’s spine.
“Do you have her phone number?” she asks Carl.
“It’s in my cell phone.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out the phone. “I can give it to you if you want, but I doubt she’ll call you back, either.”
Lucy doesn’t bother to tell him she isn’t planning to call the number. She’s planning to see if it can be traced, just in case . . .
You know that’s crazy, though, don’t you? You know this is probably about Carl, and it has nothing to do with you and Jeremy.
Yes, she knows. Absolutely.
She’s just a little uneasy this morning, that’s all—what with Miguel’s death . . .
Which also has nothing to do with this.
Still, she writes down the number, and thanks Carl Soto for coming by. Twice. He keeps talking, though—talking about how sorry he is, and how he didn’t mean to cause them any trouble . . .
At last, he gets the hint and hands over the check for the security deposit.
Relieved, Lucy walks him to the door.
“Good luck with the baby,” he says, “and . . . everything.”
“Thank you.”
“Merry Christmas, Mrs. Cavalon.”
“You, too, Mr.— Carl.”
He smiles, shakes her hand, and disappears down the hall.
Whew—glad that’s over.
It went better than Carl expected, though. Mrs. Cavalon seemed to be very understanding, and not overly concerned, which put him at ease.
In the lobby, the security guard at the desk says, “Have a good day.”
The doorman who opens the door for Carl tells him the same thing, tipping his hat.
Wow—this is some place. Carl no longer feels so guilty about making the Cavalons move out on such short notice, whatever the reason. Baby on the way or not, they’re much better off here. Who wouldn’t be?
As he walks back down Broadway toward the subway station, he thinks again about Mary, wondering what her deal was.
Oh well—he has a feeling he’ll never see her again.
But five minutes from now—the last five minutes of Carl Soto’s life—he will learn that he couldn’t be more wrong.
Jeremy sinks into the chair behind his desk and exhales shakily.
His office mate, Jack, looks up at him from his own desk a few feet away. “That was pretty rough, wasn’t it?”
“Rough doesn’t begin to describe it.”
Telling a roomful of kids that one of their friends had been murdered last night may not be the absolute worst thing Jeremy’s ever had to do—not by a long shot—but it was horrible.
The boys’ reactions ran the gamut of emotions: disbelief, anger, sorrow, and even what appeared to be indifference on some faces.
Some of these kids are so damaged that they’re numb to loss.
Others are determined not to reveal a crack in the façade, terrified of what might seep through.
Trying hard not to bare his own emotions, Jeremy handled the questions, comments, and outbursts the best he could, with support from his supervisor, a couple of caseworkers, and a trained grief counselor brought in for the occasion.
“Miguel was a good kid,” he tells Jack, whose hands are steepled beneath his clean-shaven chin, eyes somber behind a pair of aviator glasses.
“He was a good kid.”
“I just can’t believe that after everything he’d been through in his life, something like this happened to him.”
Jack nods. “It’s unfair.”
Unfair—not a word that’s typically part of Jeremy’s own vocabulary these days—mostly because it’s not a part of Lucy’s.
In this world, some people are made to suffer far more than others, and she believes it’s useless to analyze or try to make sense of it.
It is what it is, she often says. You just have to deal.
Yeah. Jeremy’s dealing.
“What about Miguel’s family?” Jack asks.
“His aunt raised him after his mother disappeared. He didn’t have a father.”
“He had one,” Jack points out. “They all had one, somewhere along the line.”
Yeah, and some of these kids probably wouldn’t be here if their fathers hadn’t bailed out on them somewhere along the line—if they even were aware of their sons’ existence in the first place.
Jeremy thinks of Miguel, wanting so badly to do the right thing for his own child.
Last night, they talked about what would happen if he succeeded in talking Carmen out of an abortion. It didn’t look likely. Miguel was even thinking of going to her father and telling him she was pregnant, knowing he’d forbid her to terminate the pregnancy.
“I’d already have done it,” he told Jeremy, “if I didn’t think he might kill me.”
Those words have been ringing in Jeremy’s ears ever since he found out about Miguel’s death. As far as Miguel knew, Carmen’s father didn’t know she was pregnant—but he could have been wrong.
And last night, after they left the restaurant, Miguel seemed a little jumpy. He kept looking over his shoulder, as though he thought they were being followed.
Probably just an old habit, Jeremy thought. A lot of kids who emerge from a world where violence is prevalent—a world of drugs and street gangs—are hypervigilant.
Jack breaks into Jeremy’s grim thoughts. “So did someone get ahold of the aunt and tell her?”
Jeremy nods and tells Jack that Miguel’s aunt had reacted, predictably, with hysteria and self-recrimination. She was a single mother with three kids of her own, and she couldn’t handle her nephew once he reached adolescence and got himself into trouble—but that didn’t mean she didn’t love him.
“I wonder who the hell did this to that kid. I thought he was through with gangs and drugs,” Jack comments, “but maybe not. Maybe it wasn’t a random mugging.”
Jeremy shrugs. Time is running out. Even now, he knows, the police are investigating the murder, looking for witnesses. They’re going to come across someone who saw something, because someone always does.
And when that happens, they’re going to come to Jeremy wanting to know why he didn’t tell anyone that he was with Miguel last night.
They’ll think he might be guilty—of something other than bad judgment.
They’re going to start probing his own façade, and God only knows what might seep through.
“Jack,” he says, before he can change his mind, “I need to run something by you.”
“What’s up?”
“It’s about last night.”
Lucy hadn’t planned on doing anything at all today, but after Carl Soto left, she realized she’d better take the check to the bank. It might take a few extra days to clear with the Christmas holiday this week, and the sooner they have access to the money in their checking account, the better.
She pulls on her coat, grabs her purse, and heads out the door.
On a Saturday morning, there’s a little more evidence of life in the corridors of the Ansonia. On the way to the elevator, she exchanges greetings with a pair of men juggling grocery bags as they unlock their apartment door, and when the elevator stops on the way down, a family of four are already on board: mother, father, and toddler wearing a Santa hat and pink-swaddled infant in a double stroller.
“Hi!” the toddler says. “Hi!”
Lucy smiles. “Hi.”
“Hi! Hi!” He squirms and strains against the seat buckle. “Out! Out!”
“No, Cameron, you have to sit, like Emory is. See?”
“Out! Out!”
“Sorry,” the mom tells Lucy, as her husband ignores the kids and taps away on his BlackBerry. “Terrible twos.”
“It’s okay.”
“When are you due?”
“Oh . . . um, February.”
“Not too far to go then.”
“No . . . not too far.”
“The last few months are the hardest. I’m Laurie, by the way.”
“Lucy.”
“Nice to meet you.”
“You too.”
The elevator reaches the lobby and Lucy trails the family out, out, past the security desk. She can’t help but think that if she didn’t have a belly sticking out in her coat, Laurie might not have been as sociable.
This isn’t the first time lately—well, since she started showing—that Lucy’s been engaged in friendly conversation by fellow pregnant women or moms of young children. It’s almost as if she’s been welcomed into a special club—one that she’s been longing to join.
As she heads out into the overcast Saturday morning—almost afternoon—she notices that Broadway is positively teeming with women and children. Again, she allows herself to imagine her future—pushing a jogging stroller, or holding a small hand in the crosswalk.
The nearest branch of their bank is only about ten blocks south of here. Good thing, because there’s a tremendous commotion at the subway station at Seventy-second Street. Police cars and ambulances surround it with lights flashing, and a pair of uniformed officers are stationed at the entrance, turning people away.
Lucy will just have to walk down.
She shoulders her way past the scene on a sidewalk crowded with bystanders who are speculating about the situation. The mass consensus seems to be that someone committed suicide on the tracks. She overhears the word “jumper” a few times, and one person says, “It’s that time of year.”
Her thoughts turn to Miguel, and to Jeremy.
Poor Jeremy. Poor Miguel.
Suddenly, the world seems like a precarious place.
As if to punctuate the thought, the baby kicks.
It’s all right, little one, Lucy tells her child. I’ll take care of you. I promise.
“So now at least we know that she’s nuttier than a fruitcake,” Brandewyne comments, and takes a deep drag on her cigarette as she and Meade head back to the car. “Talking to people who don’t exist. Classic.”
“Hallucination is an indicator for all kinds of conditions.” Meade ticks them off on his hand. “Schizophrenia, psychosis, psychotic depression . . .”
“Nuttier than a fruitcake,” Brandewyne repeats, exhaling a film of smoke into the foggy New England air. “That’s my diagnosis. Perfect for this time of year, don’t you think?”
Ignoring the smoke and her question, Meade goes on, “That doesn’t mean this guy, this Chaplain Gideon, doesn’t really exist. Maybe he wasn’t there talking to her in her jail cell—”
“He wasn’t there.”
“No, I get that! But he might be real.”
Brandewyne raises a bushy eyebrow. “Why do you think that?”
“Gut feeling.”
She doesn’t question that. As a fellow detective, she gets it—that sometimes, you operate purely on instinct.
“Okay.” She stubs out her cigarette in the dirt with the toe of her scuffed black shoe. “Then let’s get back to New York and check it out.”
Jeremy finds his supervisor’s office door open. From the threshold, he can see Cliff sitting at his desk in front of the computer, staring into space.
He immediately jerks to attention at Jeremy’s knock. “Come on in.”
“Can I close this?” Jeremy rests a shaky hand on the doorknob.
“Go ahead. Have a seat.”
Jeremy closes the door, sits, and takes a deep breath. Telling Jack about last night was daunting enough.
Telling Cliff—which was, of course, Jack’s immediate and predictable advice—is downright scary.
Jeremy’s supervisor is an intimidating guy—not just physically, though at six-foot-four and close to three hundred pounds, Cliff certainly cuts an imposing figure. But his no-nonsense demeanor gives him an air of authority that has been known to thwart even the toughest kids around here. Of course, he has a soft spot for them, or he wouldn’t be in this job.
But Jeremy isn’t one of the kids. He’s an employee, one who might be in trouble.
“Is this about Miguel?” Cliff asks, before he can say a word.
“How do you know?”
“What else would it be about?” Cliff shakes his head. “It’s a damned shame. I can’t stop thinking about that poor kid.”
“I can’t, either. Listen, Cliff . . . I was with him late last night.”
Cliff levels a look at him but doesn’t say anything, obviously waiting for him to go on.
“He’s—he was—going through some personal problems and he asked me to meet him. I bought him dinner at the coffee shop near my house.”
“What time was that?”
“I met him there at about ten. We stayed until almost midnight. I said good night to him on the street, went home, and . . .” Jeremy swallows hard.
“Did you tell the police?”
“Not yet. I thought I should tell you first.”
“What kind of personal problems was Miguel having?”
Jeremy tells him about pregnant Carmen. Of course Cliff immediately grasps the statutory rape issue.
“But if that’s what you’re worried about—that you didn’t report it—you know it’s not—”
“That’s not what I’m worried about,” Jeremy cuts in. “I’m worried that I’m going to become a suspect because I was with him.”
“But you’re innocent.”
That’s not a statement, Jeremy knows—it’s a question. He answers it with a vigorous nod.
“You know the cops are going to want to interview you.”
Yeah. Jeremy knows.
“They would have anyway, since you work closely with Miguel. They’re going to talk to me, too. All of us. It’s routine.”
“I know.”
“But if you’re worried about being a suspect . . .”
He gives Jeremy another questioning look, and Jeremy nods.
“Then you might want to have a lawyer present when they talk to you.”
Lawyer.
Just hearing the word brings Andrew Stafford to mind, and that makes him sick.
But Cliff is right.
First, Jeremy has to go home and tell Lucy, and then he has to call a lawyer.
Not Stafford, though.
Anyone but Stafford.
Back in the apartment, her heart racing, Lucy forces herself to sit as she dials her doctor’s office. Really, all she wants to do is pace—but moving around too much is probably why this is happening.
This . . . crampy ache, low down, in her pelvis.
She noticed it again as she was leaving the bank.
It’s probably just Braxton Hicks, but . . .
“Dr. Courmier’s office.”
“Hi, this is Lucy Cavalon.” She recognizes the receptionist’s voice. It’s Andrea, who’s new, and young. “I’m a patient, and I’m having . . . an issue. Is she there, please?”
“She’s at the hospital right now . . . is this urgent?”
“Not urgent.” I don’t think. God, I hope not. But . . . “Do you know when Dr. Courmier will be back?”
“She’s with a patient—doing an emergency C-section—so I’m really not sure. But I’ll transfer you to the nurse-practitioner if you want?”
“Thank you.”
Lucy waits, nervously tapping her foot. A more seasoned medical receptionist would undoubtedly have known better than to mention a fellow high-risk patient’s emergency.
She thinks about the poor woman enduring an emergency C-section, and she says a quick, silent prayer for her and her baby.
Then the nurse-practitioner, Gloria Rivera, is on the line. “Hi, Lucy. What’s the matter?”
“I’m not sure it’s anything at all, but it’s a new symptom, so I thought I’d better call.”
She describes what she’s been feeling—and then, in response to Gloria’s questions, what she’s been doing, and eating. She also answers a series of questions about other possible symptoms of preterm labor—lower back pain, spotting—none of which she has, thank God.
“Okay, first of all, you need to get off your feet,” Gloria instructs Lucy. “And I mean off. Lie down for the rest of the weekend and see what happens. If the cramping continues, or if anything changes at all, you need to call us. Meanwhile, I’ll have Dr. Courmier get back to you as soon as she’s available.”
Lucy thanks her, hangs up, and heads straight to her bed.
It’s been an hour now, at least, and yet she keeps reliving, over and over, the exhilaration of pushing Carl Soto to his death.
Standing on the edge of the crowded subway platform as the train roared into the station, he had turned his head in the split second before she put her hands on his back.
It was almost as though he sensed, in that final moment, that she was there, right behind him. Or at least, that someone was there.
Almost as though he sensed the danger—just as she had the night she felt the earthquake coming right before it hit.
There was no glimmer of recognition in Carl’s eyes when he looked at her. Of course not.
She had made sure he hadn’t gotten a good look at her that first night in the shadowy gas station parking lot, when she handed over the money in exchange for his eviction of the Cavalons.
She had been filled with rage up there in her apartment, sitting there at her computer screen, watching Carl, listening to Carl, as he told Lucy Cavalon what had happened.
Lucy didn’t seem overly concerned, and yet—
There was something about her reaction that set off a warning alarm. She was curious, and maybe a little bit disturbed.
Damn Carl Soto. Damn him to hell.
Chaplain Gideon was talking to her—shouting to her—about being careful. But she knew what she had to do.
When Carl Soto left the building, she followed him to the subway, down the steps, past the turnstiles, through the sea of people. Saturday morning in Manhattan. Christmastime. Everyone had someplace to go. Everyone was caught up in his or her own business.
She was positive no one noticed when she shoved Carl Soto, hard, as the train pulled into the station.
All they saw—if they noticed anything at all before the chaos erupted—was a man falling onto the tracks. A tragic accident, but one that happens once in a while, like elderly women slipping and falling and drowning in the bathtub.
And most likely, all Carl Soto saw—the very last thing he would ever see—was the face of a stranger.