I dialed Paula’s number again.
“Where the hell have you been?” she demanded after I said hello.
“It’s a long story. Did you go to the park anyway, and was Torrey there?”
“We did go to the park, but he wasn’t there. Where are you?”
“At my mother’s.” I quickly told her what had happened at Sleeping Giant.
“So they’re still out there somewhere?”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“Stay there,” she said firmly. “I’ll get someone to go with me out to Wooster Square, to your apartment to see if they’re there looking for you. A white Toyota?”
“With a dent in the passenger side.”
After we hung up, I tried Vinny again and left another message.
I found my mother’s brandy and poured a glass. Just as I took a sip, I saw the keys. The keys to the Mercedes. An idea began to take shape. Hell, I couldn’t just sit here and do nothing. I’d go crazy. Albert wouldn’t think to notice the preppy brigade driving a Mercedes. I downed the brandy and ignored the fact that I didn’t have my driver’s license on me. I was going to meet the fucking FBI.
As I stopped at the light at Chapel Street, ready to cross over to my building, movement to my right caught my eye. A couple seemed to be in the middle of a knock-down, drag-out fight on the corner of Olive and Wooster. It was a long light so I watched for a while, not expecting to see the skinny woman throw a punch and make contact with the guy’s face. I sat up a little straighter, wishing I had my cell phone to call 911, when he grabbed her wrist and held it tight. Her long hair was over her face, but when she turned, the street light caught her and I gasped.
It was Sarah Lewis.
Granted, I wasn’t surprised she was here, in my neighborhood, rather than over at the ivy-covered buildings at Yale, because this
was
where everyone came for pizza and Italian ice. But I was surprised that she was in a fistfight with some guy.
And when he turned into the light, I saw it wasn’t just some guy. It was the mole guy, Matt Minneo, David Best’s roommate, the guy who left me that threatening note.
The light changed and the car behind me honked because I hadn’t moved. I inched slowly across the intersection; let the guy behind me think I was some old person who couldn’t see. As soon as I got past the corner, I slid into an illegal parking spot in front of a fire hydrant, threw the door open, and moved down the sidewalk, making sure the building on the corner was blocking me from their view.
Not that they’d notice anyway.
He was yelling, she was yelling, I couldn’t make out what they were saying. I moved a little closer.
“Don’t do it,” he was pleading with her, and while I thought it meant he didn’t want her to hit him again, she didn’t look like she would. Her arms hung limply at her sides, her hair had fallen back across her face, her head hung low.
She answered him so softly that I had no chance in hell of hearing what it was he didn’t want her to do. He responded with something else, and all I could make out were the words “blow over.” But they were moving closer to my corner, so I closed my eyes, thinking that if I concentrated only with my ears I could hear better.
“It’s just a matter of time.”
Hell, it worked. Go figure. But in that second that Sarah’s words resonated in my head, a memory slammed into them, pushing them aside.
It was the voice. The voice of the woman who’d tried to abduct me.
My eyes flew open as I watched them walk along the sidewalk, coming toward me. I inched back a little, uncertain what to do about this. I didn’t have Vinny’s gun, I didn’t have my pepper spray; they were still in my bag at the Laundromat, if no one had stolen it yet. How could I confront them, it was two against one, and they’d already almost succeeded in taking me out.
Matt was rubbing his face where Sarah had hit him. My thoughts twisted around a little, wondering why he was still trying to talk to her, when she’d so obviously abused him. What a wuss.
They were just at the corner, and I scooted backward, behind the steps of the brownstone a few feet away. But instead of turning, they stopped. They were so close now I could almost hear them breathing. I held my own breath as I eavesdropped.
“Thanks for everything,” Sarah said, starting to cross the street. Matt stood where he was as she approached a white Toyota. It looked a lot like the one I’d been in just a couple of hours ago, but it was facing the wrong way and I couldn’t see if it had a dent in the side. As I stared at it, a question began to form. What the hell connection would there be between Sarah Lewis and Nicholas Curtin and Albert Webber? And if this was the same car, where were Nicholas and Albert?
As I was pondering that, Sarah paused a second and leaned down toward the driver’s side window, straightened up and turned around again, looking up and down the street, like she’d lost something.
“What time’s your flight?” Matt called across the street.
She didn’t answer him, just opened the door and climbed in, giving Matt a little wave of her hand, sort of like the Queen Mother.
“Jesus, Sarah, don’t go.” But his words were lost as she started the engine and took off.
Matt turned back in the direction of Wooster Street. I pulled up from my crouch behind the stairs, uncertain whether to follow him or follow her.
But as I emerged from my hiding spot, someone else made my decision for me.
“You’re not getting away this time,” the rough voice whispered in my ear as he held my arms behind me and pushed me out onto the sidewalk. I felt something prick me just under my chin, and I tensed. He had a goddamned knife.
I managed to catch his profile and recognized Nicholas Curtin. He must have been waiting here for me to come home. And here I was, offering myself to him on a silver platter. Shit.
“So Albert fucked up and you have to take over?” I asked loudly, with much more bravado than I felt. I’d seen this guy’s eyes in the car, and I knew he was capable of much more than Albert.
He stopped, and I almost fell over, but then felt myself being shoved into a car. But this one I knew. It was my mother’s Mercedes.
“We’re not taking your car?” I asked as he pushed me across the seat, over the stick shift, and into the driver’s side.
The door slammed, and the knife gleamed in his hand. “You didn’t even see me while you watched them, did you? Some reporter you are.”
Jesus. He had a point. But it was no use crying over spilled milk now, I was seriously screwed and I had no clue how to get myself out of this. I glanced around the square and didn’t see anyone waiting to rescue me. Paula had told me to stay put, so no one knew I was driving my mother’s car, no one knew I’d decided to come home. They’d find me in a ditch somewhere, stabbed like Allison, and Dick Whitfield would get my job.
“Start the car,” he ordered. I could feel the knife under my right ear.
I started the car, I’d left the key in it, and eased away from the curb.
I had to do something. I couldn’t just be a sitting duck and make this easy for him. Anger surged through me.
Taking my chances, I leaned quickly to my left, away from the knife, slammed my foot onto the accelerator, twisted the steering wheel, and as the car lurched forward, the force of the movement pushed us both back into our seats. The knife skittered somewhere and I heard Nicholas Curtin yell, “You fucking bitch!”
I didn’t take my foot off the accelerator, instead gave it even more gas.
I heard the scraping of metal against sculpture as we skidded past the statue of Christopher Columbus and into the park, slamming headfirst into the Mooster Street cow. The airbags exploded and sucker-punched me, pushing me back into the seat, my face raw where the bag met my left eye and cheek.
I sat, stunned, for what seemed an eternity but was only a second or two, before the door swung open and a glaring light blinded me.
“Are you okay in there?” I heard a voice through the bullhorn. “This is the FBI.”
So they were there. Someone punctured my airbag and I fell to the ground before being lifted back up. I saw Nicholas Curtin being pulled out of his side of the car. The spotlight made Nicholas’s face look like a comic book character, his eyes wide, his mouth open. In seconds, three FBI agents had dragged him off somewhere.
“You okay?” Paula’s voice was heaven-sent.
I bit back tears of relief. “Yeah, yeah, I’m okay.” I felt my face.
“You’ve got a serious burn on your cheek,” Paula said softly. “But at least that’s all.”
I blinked at her. “How the hell did you get here? Didn’t you see him grab me?”
Paula shook her head. “We were on the opposite side of the park, figuring out our strategy. I happened to glance across the park and saw him push you into the car. I wish it hadn’t gotten that far, I’m sorry.”
I was sorry, too, but was just happy that they were there after all. “So you didn’t see Albert Webber?”
Paula shook her head. “Did you?”
“Only Curtin. But it’s funny, Sarah Lewis, you know, Melissa Peabody’s roommate, well, she was driving a white Toyota. Like the one I was in with Webber and Curtin.”
“Could it have been the same car?”
I shrugged. “Beats me. The other car had a dent in the passenger side, but I couldn’t see if this one did.”
I was brushing dirt off the dreadful slacks and then realized what I was doing and stopped. “Sarah was with that guy who left me the note. They were on the sidewalk. I think they were the ones who attacked me that night.”
“How do you know?”
“I recognized their voices.”
“Are you sure? Why would they attack you?”
“Beats me.” I thought about my conversations with Sarah: First she’d been so reluctant to talk to me; then that day on the street she was actually eager to tell me how Melissa wanted out of the escort service. I’d seen her in a white Toyota before, too, and now she was driving it. But damn, I still couldn’t connect the dots.
“There’s got to be something there,” I said after I filled Paula in.
Paula took my arm. “Come on. Why don’t you let us figure it out? We need to concentrate on what happened at Sleeping Giant today, and what happened right now.”
Another thought dawned on me. “How the hell am I going to explain to my mother that I crashed her car into a cow?”
We stared at it. Pieces of cow sat on top of the hood of the Mercedes, which, while it did not suffer much front end damage because of its sturdy German craftmanship, was scratched all to hell. The head of the cow stared up at us from the ground, its pathetic pizzas invisible in the shadows.
“You killed it,” Paula said softly, and I snickered a little, even though it wasn’t really funny.
P
AULA HAD A COUPLE
of FBI agents check out my apartment before she took me up there. My laundry bag and purse were on the sofa. I rummaged through the purse, found the gun and my pepper spray. The money I had in my wallet was still there.
“How did these get here?”
Paula shook her head. “No idea.”
But as she was answering, I saw the note on the kitchen table.
Your mother called me. I brought your things back for you but am checking on some stuff so I can’t stick around. I’ll see you later. Vinny.
“He’s got a crush on you,” Paula teased.
“He’s got a fiancée.” But I couldn’t keep my face from growing hot, and Paula saw me blush.
“Your mother told me about him.”
Jesus, she might as well put up a fucking billboard on the Q bridge. “He’s engaged,” I repeated. “End of story.”
The red eye on my answering machine was blinking, and I hit it to keep this conversation from going any further.
“Sorry to have to break our date, Ms. Seymour, but I’m indisposed.” Mark Torrey’s voice echoed in my small apartment, and my fists clenched. “You shouldn’t have tricked Albert with those tapes, and I’m disappointed, of course, with the turn of events with Nicholas. But you can’t win them all, can you?”
Are you okay?” Paula was asking.
I turned to her and finally allowed myself to breathe. “How the hell does he know? This all just happened. How does he know? Where the fuck is he?”
Paula went to my cupboard and found the brandy, poured me half a glass, thought better of it, and filled the glass even more. She handed it to me, and I took a deep swallow.
She hadn’t said a word, and her eyebrows were furrowed together the way they get when she’s deep in thought. Finally she asked, “Besides Melissa’s roommate and her boyfriend and Nicholas, did you see anyone else out there tonight? Besides us, I mean.”
“No.” I drank a little more of the brandy and felt a warm rush through my body. I wanted to get drunk and go to sleep for three days.
But it didn’t seem like Paula thought that was a good idea because she kept talking. “Tell me again what happened when you saw Melissa’s roommate.”
I took a deep breath and related everything I’d seen and heard.
Paula shook her head. “I don’t think it sounds like anything except a lovers’ quarrel.”
“But what if it was those two who mugged me that night?”
“Are you sure, absolutely sure that it was?”
I closed my eyes and thought about it, but now that I couldn’t hear their voices, I just wasn’t as sure. Maybe I wanted it to be them, maybe my ears had been playing tricks on me. I shook my head slowly. “I don’t know.”
“Listen, I need to get back to the office. It’s going to be a long night with Nicholas Curtin. I hope he’ll be able to point us in Torrey’s direction.” She glanced at my answering machine. “I need to take that tape. We might be able to find something on it that could help us.”
I nodded and watched her pull the tape out. “If you get another call, call me on my cell.” She patted the phone where it sat clipped to her belt. “Anytime,” she added as she opened the door. “Oh, by the way,” she said, pausing, “I’ll be here at eight-thirty to take you to the bank to get Hickey’s tapes.”
I glanced at the clock. Nine
P.M.
How had it gotten so late? I nodded. “Sure, okay.”
“I’ll have a cop downstairs all night,” she added, like it was an afterthought but I knew better. “Just in case.”