“You know, it would be understandable if this case has stirred up bad memories for you,” Dorie said from behind her dark glasses as they drove westward through the streets of Boston, straight at the setting sun.
“I’m fine,” Ellery declared without looking over at her partner.
“Okay. It’s just—the turn for my place was two blocks back.”
Ellery muttered a curse as she checked the rearview mirror to affirm Dorie was correct. In Boston, the joke said that if you missed your turn you had to go back home and start over. There were no right angles and every street was one-way. In the crush of traffic, her mistake added at least twenty minutes to their journey. “Sorry.”
“Hey, it’s your gas money. And that sunset is incredible.”
The sky had turned the color of Mars, with the sun glinting lasers off the shiny buildings as it sank down to the horizon. Ellery said aloud the refrain she’d been telling herself since Chloe first turned up missing: “What happened to Chloe isn’t the same as what happened to me.”
“Sure. But she’s about the same age, right? Frantic mother, news vans camped everywhere … the whole city crawling with cops who aren’t getting anywhere fast. It would be natural for you to feel spooked.”
“I’m not spooked.” She felt hot and sparky, like a live wire twisting in the street.
“We’ve all got stuff is what I’m saying. This job, it’ll get to you one way or another. No one is immune. You’ll be cruising along like usual and then some weird case detail sends you down the rabbit hole. The feelings show up whether you want them or not.”
Ellery did glance at her now, curious. “You don’t have stuff.” Dorie had an easy grin, a steady home life, and a stellar career behind her. Conroy hadn’t been subtle when he’d paired them up: Dorie Bennett’s the best we got. If you want to stick around here, you’re advised to follow so close you could be her shadow.
Dorie wrinkled her nose and looked out the window. “Did I ever tell you why I joined up?”
“No.”
“I got jumped coming out of a bar in Allston. I was twenty, my girlfriend Nicola at the time was twenty-six. I liked her wild, curly hair and the fact that she could order booze for both of us.” She paused to give Ellery a crooked smile. “It was summer, probably right around this time. Humid nights with all the bugs chirping at you. The street seemed quiet when we left. Nicola looked gorgeous under the streetlamp, the light shining off her bare shoulder. I leaned over and kissed her cheek. We were usually pretty careful about that stuff in public, but it was one in the morning and I’d had a couple of beers. Plus … I don’t know … I was crazy about her.”
Ellery saw where the story was going. “But you weren’t alone,” she said.
Dorie shook her head slowly. “There were a couple of skinheads camped out, smoking behind the bar. They saw us go past and fell into step behind us. This was before everyone had cell phones. There was no one around. We had no way to call for help. The guys, they started taunting us. Calling us pussy lovers and faggots and whatever else slurs their pea-sized brains could dream up. We ignored them, walking faster toward the T, and that’s when they jumped us. The one guy broke Nicola’s jaw. I dislocated my shoulder and had fingermarks on my neck for a week.”
“God, that’s awful.”
“A cop on patrol saw what was happening. He was on his usual rounds, cruising by the bar as it was getting ready to close down for the night. There was one of him and two of them—big guys hopped up on testosterone and God knows what else. The cop didn’t blink. He jumped in and laid them out flat.”
“Good.” Ellery pictured the scene. The hard, mean place inside her hoped the cop cracked their skulls in the process.
“He knew immediately what had happened. Two women, coming from a gay bar. I half-expected him to say we’d asked for it, you know? The Boston PD didn’t have a great rep back then in the queer community. But he helped us to a safe spot, called for a medic. He pulled out a damn handkerchief and gave it to Nicola to stop the bleeding over her eye. Then he called for backup to take in the assholes who’d attacked us so that he could go with us to the hospital and take our statements. I was scared shitless to call my folks. They didn’t know I was out yet. The officer said he’d give me a ride home. ‘I’ll tell them you got mugged if you want,’ he said. ‘Your call.’”
Ellery pulled over by Dorie’s condo and idled the SUV. “And did you tell them?”
Dorie looked dreamy, lost in memory. “No, not then. But that’s the night I decided I wanted to be a cop.”
“And we’re all better for it.”
Dorie snapped out of her reminiscences and yanked off her sunglasses. “I’m telling you this because six months into the job, I pulled a teenager out of a window. He was breaking in, a smash and grab. I had him on the ground so fast I think his eyes rolled back in his head. Then I put my gun in his face.”
“What?”
“He was unarmed. I had no cause. But I’d been scared going into the scene and then he had dark eyes, pale skin, and a bald head just like the guy who jumped me. So, I went off on him.”
“What happened?”
Dorie chuffed. “Nothing official. But my partner said I’d better get my shit together, because he didn’t want to work with a hothead. He said, ‘You pull your piece when you don’t need it and I’ll be the one getting shot.’” She looked pointedly at Ellery, who raised her hands from the wheel in defense.
“I haven’t pulled my weapon once since I started.”
“It’s not about your gun.” Dorie tapped the side of her own head. “It’s about where you’re at up here.”
“I told you. I’m fine.”
Dorie looked at her for a long time. “Okay, you’re sticking with that for now. All right. We all walk our own path. Just try to get some sleep tonight, will you? You look like a raccoon on a three-day bender.”
Three days. Ellery’s nerves tightened in a coil. “I’m just frustrated. We don’t know which dead-end alley to run down next.”
“Whichever one gets us to the person who hates Teresa Lockhart. This is about her, not Chloe.”
Ellery didn’t agree. “Funny, then, that she’s holed up in her mansion with a bunch of servants while her daughter’s locked in a cage.”
“You don’t think she’s suffering?”
“You know what Reed said. Teresa didn’t want Chloe in the first place. It was Martin who insisted they keep going to the point of using a donor egg.”
“That’s not what I took away from her story. I see a woman who lost one child in the most horrific way possible and was terrified to try again. Can you blame her?”
“Hell, yes, I can blame her. She used that fear to make a prison for her daughter. Chloe was already living her life in a cage, just a much nicer one. And for what? It didn’t keep her safe. Instead, Teresa forced Chloe to keep secrets and sneak around on her, which is how we ended up in this whole mess.”
“Teresa deserves this. That’s what you’re saying? You sound like the kidnapper.”
“I’m saying if this is her version of love, it’s not good enough.”
Dorie turned her face to the window. “Love never is.”
Ellery looked at Dorie’s wedding ring. “Michelle must love to hear you talk sweet like that.”
“She’s used to my style after twenty-two years together,” Dorie replied with a wry smile. “And as a veteran, I can assure you—love rarely arrives in the precise form we wish it to. You get imperfect, or you get nothing.” She reached over and patted Ellery’s knee. “Go home and hug your kid sister.”
“Wait,” Ellery blurted as Dorie started to get out of the car.
Dorie turned around. “What is it?”
“What happened with you and Nicola?”
“Oh. Her.” Dorie’s voice became tinged with regret. “We broke up before the bruises healed. We tried, for a while. But we each looked at the other one and saw the skinheads. I heard she moved to New York City. Good night, Hathaway. I’ll see you tomorrow morning and we’ll do it all again.”
Ellery watched as Dorie jogged up the steps to her condo and went inside to her wife and her dogs. She pulled the rearview mirror toward her so that she could evaluate her face the way that Dorie saw it, and the image showed gray skin, lips chapped from where she’d chewed on them, and wide, dark circles under her eyes. Almost like she’d looked after her time in the closet.
She shoved the mirror away. If she had any makeup, she could try to fix her appearance before Reed saw her. But then again, he’d seen her look worse. She swallowed with effort and dragged her hand up to put the SUV in gear. Reed. He felt destined for her because he’d been there at her origin. They’d been forged together. Only in the dark times did she remember who’d done the welding. If she was Reed’s and he was hers, it was because a monster made it so.
Ellery parked her car and picked up Bump from his neighborhood sitter. The five-minute walk took fifteen with a hound who needed to sniff every inch of terrain, despite the fact that he’d run his nose over it numerous times in the past. “Let’s go, I’m hungry,” she grumbled at him as he examined a maple tree. She hoped Reed had beaten her home and started dinner, but the fact that he hadn’t answered her latest texts suggested she would be doomed to disappointment. Takeout it is, she thought as she pulled open the door to the lobby.
Right away, a dark-haired woman in a navy business suit leaped up from the low couch by the windows and started striding toward her with great purpose. “Ellery Hathaway,” she said.
Ellery halted with the leash in her hand. The energy radiating from the woman wasn’t friendly. “Yes.”
“Where is my daughter?”
Sarit, Ellery’s brain supplied as the face clicked into her memory bank. Oh, shit. She’d never met Reed’s ex-wife but had snooped around on her social media enough to recognize her. “Um, I don’t know.” Reed hadn’t told her what his plans were for Tula today, and Ellery didn’t consider it her business to ask.
“You don’t know? Do you realize how ridiculous that sounds? She’s staying here with you, is she not?”
Ellery vaguely remembered she wasn’t supposed to admit to this. “You should call Reed.”
“I have. Several times.” She held up her cell phone to illustrate. “It goes straight to voice mail. I checked at the hotel and they rang the room, but no one answered. I decided to wait here until I could get information out of someone, and yet here you are with nothing.”
“Sorry. I’ve been at work since seven.” It was nearing eight now. Ellery moved toward the elevator, and Sarit followed her, her low heels clicking on the tile floor.
“And you’ve received nothing from Reed about where they might be? No word all day?”
“She might be with my sister,” Ellery said as she hit the button.
Sarit’s brown eyes went wide with horror. “The teenage runaway?”
“She’s not a runaway,” Ellery replied, irritated both by this characterization of Ashley’s behavior and by the fact that it wasn’t entirely wrong. Sarit already thought Ellery was some sort of irresponsible psycho and now she was lumping Ashley in the same bin. “She’s visiting me for a few days.”
“After running off from her parents and riding a bus overnight. Tula has informed me of all the exciting details.”
The elevator doors slid open and Ellery cast a beleaguered look at the empty car. She wouldn’t even get one elevator ride’s worth of solitude. “Would you like to come up?” she asked finally.
Sarit stepped around her into the elevator like she was bypassing hot lava. “Thank you.”
They did not speak as the slow trip got underway. Ellery glanced at her companion and saw her staring at the scars on Ellery’s arms. She knows, the voice in her head whispered. She knows what he did to you. Sarit had co-authored Reed’s book. As a journalist, she was the writer, not him.
Ellery leveled a cool gaze at Sarit. “I read your book,” she said pointedly. Neither of them had bothered to consult her first.
Sarit had the grace to look chagrined. To presume to write someone else’s story without ever consulting them took a special type of arrogance. Reed had apologized and amended his behavior; Sarit, she knew, hoped for a sequel.
The elevator dinged its arrival and Sarit trailed Ellery down the hall to her apartment door. To her credit, she did not make the slightest face as Ellery opened all three locks. Bump bounded in ahead of them, making a beeline for his dish, as though some good fairy might have visited during their absence and left a T-bone in his bowl. Sarit took slow, cautious steps into the apartment, looking around at the framed posters on the wall and the high beams across the ceiling like she expected them to have spikes or nails coming out of them. The folded blankets on the couch and the air mattress on the floor told the story of who’d been bunking with her, so Ellery didn’t bother to equivocate. Any chance that they might go unnoticed disappeared when Bump, finding his dish empty, used the air mattress as a doggie trampoline before collapsing, belly-up, and writhing around on it as he moaned his frustration at the bowl situation.
“He’s, uh, very vocal,” Sarit said over the din.
“He’s hungry. So am I.” She went to consult the takeout menus clipped to her refrigerator. “Do you want something? I can order pizza, Thai, burgers…?”
“No, thank you.”
Sarit probably served home-cooked meals full of green vegetables. Ellery phoned in an order for pizza and dumped some food into Bump’s bowl. He let loose a joyful howl and came trotting over to eat it. Sarit stood near the windows in the living room as though she was afraid to touch anything.
Ellery took off her holster. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go change.”
Sarit eyed the gun. “Do you have a lockbox for that? It’s not safe around children.”
“It’s perfectly safe in my room.” She retreated to the bedroom, her face flaming because she knew Sarit was right on this point. With a kid around, the gun should be under lock and key. Tula was never supposed to have set foot in the apartment. Ellery changed into casual clothes and put the gun in its holster on top of her high dresser. Then she locked the door behind her on the way out; she could get back in later with a bent paper clip. “There,” she said to Sarit, “all locked up.” Why she was trying to impress this woman, she did not know.
“That’s an unusual way to keep your knives.”
Ellery looked to the kitchen. The industrial-style loft came with a magnetic strip over the sink to use as a knife holder, and Ellery’s displayed a carving knife, a butcher knife, and several paring knives. “I like to keep them handy,” she said. “Easy reach in case I need them.”
“Oh, do you cook?”
“Nope.” She went to fill Bump’s water bowl. As she stood at the sink, she saw her reflection distorted in the knives. She called back to Sarit, “Reed says you’re moving to Houston.”
Sarit’s gasp was loud enough to make Bump tilt his head. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Houston,” Ellery repeated as she turned around with the water. “You’re job hunting there?” She set the bowl down on the floor.
“He said that—to you?”
“I believe Tula said it to him,” Ellery replied, and Sarit stammered in response.
“I n—never—I didn’t mean … nothing is settled yet. That’s why I haven’t brought it up to Reed.”
“Yeah, I don’t think Tula got that memo.”
Her parenting under judgment, Sarit recomposed herself and folded her arms. “My partner, Randy, has a job offer in Houston, and he’s asked us to join him there. If I can also find work, it could be a great opportunity for all of us.”
“Not for Reed. He would be far away from Tula.”
“I will never stop him from seeing his daughter. But it’s funny that you’re the one making this argument to me and not him.”
“He loves her.” She hesitated. “I would hate to see him punished because you have a problem with me.”
Sarit sniffed. “It’s not about you.”
“Tula didn’t get that memo, either,” Ellery said steadily, and Sarit’s expression turned guilty.
“Look, you have to understand—Reed has a bit of a savior complex. Yes, his instinct to help people is an admirable quality, but he takes it too far. He doesn’t know when to say when.”
“Meaning me,” Ellery said, her voice hard.
Sarit shrugged in a you said it; I didn’t kind of gesture. “You have to admit you met under difficult circumstances—historically dramatic, even. Adrenaline running high on all sides, I’m sure.”
“You seem to know a lot for someone who wasn’t even there. For your information, we barely exchanged any words back then. He wasn’t my case manager. He wasn’t my doctor or my shrink. He wasn’t anything to me.”
Sarit clucked at her. “Now who’s kidding themselves? No normal woman could ever hope to compete with you where Reed is concerned. I used to wonder, you know, what it would take to keep him from running out the door after the next missing kid or suspected serial killer. You’ve found the formula, I guess. You are his obsessions brought to life.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I know him better than you do, apparently. Do you really think he’d be here with you if not for your shared history? Do you really think you’d pick him above all men—a workaholic who’s twice your age and comes with a seven-year-old daughter?”
“He’s not close to twice my age.”
“Sure,” Sarit said, now sweetly magnanimous. “Quibble about the margins. We both know I’ve drawn up the essence of it correctly.”
Ellery slumped, exhausted from the long day and this conversation. “Think what you want,” she muttered, walking away. “Hate me if it makes things easier for you.”
“I don’t hate you,” Sarit blurted, and Ellery halted with her back to the woman. “I quite admire you, actually. I can’t imagine what it would be like to live in the shadow of that monster. Whatever he did to you, whoever you’ve become as a result of that, it’s not your fault.”
Ellery clenched her fists. “Thanks so much for the absolution.” She turned around and locked eyes with Sarit. “Just because your name is on a book about me doesn’t mean you know who I am. You know the facts of the case. You don’t know me.”
“And you don’t know where my daughter is.”
“She’s not my daughter.”
“Exactly. She’s not yours. You don’t love her. And yet I’m supposed to let her come here where there are knives and guns and unsupervised teenagers, and that’s just what I know about. She’s my child, it’s my responsibility to keep her safe, and I will do whatever it takes to uphold that duty.”
“Even if it means taking her from her father.”
“Even that, yes. If he’s not looking out for what’s best for her.”
Ellery shook her head with sadness. “I would never do anything to hurt Tula.”
“That’s not enough for me,” Sarit said in a clipped tone. Then her face softened. “It’s not enough for Tula.”
A ruckus at the front door caused Bump to leap up and bark. The doorbell rang three times in quick succession, and Ellery heard Reed’s baritone reverberating in the hallway. “That’s them,” she said, going to open the door. She flipped the locks in turn and revealed Reed, Ashley, and Tula on the other side.
“Sorry we’re late,” he said. “We stopped for hamburgers.”
“You haven’t been answering your phone,” she replied as the kids pushed past her into the apartment.
“No service on the T.”
“Too bad. You could have had advance warning.”
“Warning?” he said, his expression troubled. “Warning of what?”
Behind her, Tula shrieked with delight. “Mommy!”
The color drained from Reed’s face as Ellery gave him a tight smile. “Your ex-wife is here.”