Next Time You See Me (24 page)

“Thank you—I wish you luck.” When he ended the call just as he had the very first time we spoke, I felt a little lift.

Mom had downloaded her photos onto her laptop. I found a beautiful picture of Jasmine standing in the kitchen wearing the cow-print apron with her arm around my mother, both of them beaming, and e-mailed it to Lucky Herman with a note:
Please just do the best you can
.

W
hile we waited to hear from Lucky Herman or the DEA,
anyone
, our lives rolled forward: Mac went back to work as an independent forensic security consultant, working from home; Mom found a new apartment and organized her move; and I decided to wait until fall before resuming my studies at John Jay so I could spend time with my family before picking up the pace again. Meanwhile Mac and I went into couples counseling together; we were basically okay but we’d been through a lot and there were some marital threads that needed sorting before they turned into knots. One of those threads was about trust (it was hard for it not to fray when your spouse had developed a habit of disappearing). Another thread was Diego. He
was
Mac’s son; a DNA test had confirmed that. And based on the evidence the prosecution was building up against him, it looked as if he was going to spend the rest of his life in prison—for the murders of Aileen and Hugh MacLeary—as was his mother. These were murky emotional waters for Mac, to say the least.

Five weeks went by, and then it was the middle of March: Yellow crocuses peeked above the melting snow in our backyard and some days the temperature rose to nearly fifty. Winter was unwinding with a great sigh of relief.

And then one day the doorbell rang. I saw the Federal Express truck through the front windows before opening the door and assumed it was another delivery for Mac, who had been receiving a steady stream as he set up his new business, MacLeary Forensic Security Specialists (the plural in Specialists was more hopeful than anything, as he was working alone). I signed for the envelope and was about to put it down on the front hall table when I noticed that it was addressed to me and then saw the return address—Miami Investigation Services—and my pulse took off like a rocket.

H
er given name was Jasmine Baez but she had not changed it to Alvarez for duplicitous reasons; it was the name of her ex-husband. Joe Alvarez was a ski instructor in Maine, just as she’d told us, and she had indeed grown up there. Her birthday
was
November 27. On paper she was pretty much who she’d said she was; good news, as it reality-checked my instincts and made me feel I hadn’t been so badly fooled. It also deepened the feeling that when Jasmine vanished, I had lost a real friend.

Paper-clipped beneath her life résumé was a nine-by-twelve manila envelope. Sealed. I thought it was strange that Lucky Herman had done that, which made me afraid to open it. What had he found?

“Mac?”

“Down here!”

I went to the spare room—now Mac’s office—where he was at his desk working on something. When he saw the look on my face, he put down his pen.

“What’s wrong?”

“This just came.” I handed him the sheet of paper.

“So she’s who she said she was.” He handed it back. “But it doesn’t say anything about the DEA—how long she’s been doing it, all that.”

“Which just tells us she’s a good agent.”

“True.”

“She bought a bungalow in Key West seven years ago.”

“Must be her getaway.” Mac stood up and stretched. Smiled. “We should do that.”

“We should. So . . .” I handed him the envelope. “You want the honors?”

He must have thought what I’d thought because he stared at it before answering. “Okay.” And then he tore it open and withdrew a photograph.

It was a picture of a house, a cottage really, painted blue, green, and pink. Attached was a handwritten note from Lucky:

Special Agent Alvarez’s Key West neighbors said she mostly visits alone but sometimes with boyfriends or ex-husband. However none of the neighbors have seen her since last winter. There’s been no activity at the house since that time. Utilities have been turned off due to nonpayment. Mail is no longer delivered.

(My apologies for the delay in supplying this information. My wife has been ill and my assistant returned to his family in Mumbai. I had hoped to find more for you, but alas . . .)

It read like a eulogy. No wonder Lucky had sealed the envelope.

“So I guess that’s it.” I slipped the photo and note back into the envelope and handed it to Mac. He opened a desk drawer and dropped it inside. A powerful feeling of loss blossomed inside my chest. “She’s really gone.”

“It doesn’t look good.”

“Why didn’t Billy know about the house in Key West?”

“Maybe he hadn’t ranked high enough yet.”

“Boyfriend-wise?”

Mac nodded.

“So, do we tell him?”

“Nah.”

“You’re right. What now?”

“We move on.”

I kissed Mac and he went back to work. And we did it: We moved on, all the way to summer. When, during the last week of June, as we deep-cleaned our house in preparation to host a Fourth of July barbecue—just like Hugh and Aileen had always done; we would keep that family tradition alive—I lifted the corner of the living room carpet to sweep beneath it and found a surprise: a slip of paper in Jasmine’s handwriting.

Chapter 21

I
t was a phone number, scrawled in blue pen on a ripped corner of a white paper—definitely Jasmine’s large loopy scrawl—which must have fallen out of her purse when it fell to the floor at Thanksgiving. I recalled the moment as if it was yesterday: I had rushed through the living room to answer Ben’s cry and accidentally knocked against the purse, dumping its contents on the floor. I could still see her plane ticket to Florida in my mind’s eye; but that was all the detail I could remember other than scooping stuff quickly back into the purse with Jasmine. This paper must have slipped under the edge of the carpet and gone unnoticed.

The area code was 305, which I recognized from my visits to Miami. It was probably nothing, but I was curious anyway. So I went to the couch, picked up the laptop from the coffee table, settled it on my knees, and typed in the phone number. A page of reverse directories popped up. I clicked on every link and learned that 305 was also an area code for Key West, where Jasmine had her cottage, and that it could be used for either a landline or cell phone. Every site charged about five dollars in exchange for a name and address, and I was about to get my credit card when I had a better idea.

Why not just call the number?

I put down the laptop and stepped over the broom on my way to the kitchen, where I lifted the phone from its cradle and dialed. My call was answered quickly.

“Hello?”

“Jasmine, is that you? It’s Karin!”

She hung up.

Still, I felt giddy a moment:
She was alive
.

Then my brain cranked into action: Why had she hung up? And why, if she didn’t want to talk to me, had she answered in the first place?

I remembered that Mac had had our phone number blocked from caller ID when he returned from Mexico the first time. He had also had our number unlisted from the phone book and every online directory he could find that published our information. Jasmine hadn’t realized it was me calling her just now. But why had she answered at all if she was being so selective? I recalled what it had been like to work undercover jobs back when I was a detective: Hiding in plain sight was tricky business. This cell number had probably been established specifically for the job; assumedly only certain people were supposed to have it . . .

Just as I was figuring it out, the phone, still in my hand, rang. Unknown caller. I answered immediately.

“Listen—you don’t know this number, okay?”

“I understand.”

“You gotta promise me, honey,
promise
me. It’s not like you’re not on their radar. If they find out you have this number, I’m seriously fried.”

She must have infiltrated the Soliz cartel, picked up where Mac had left off. That they had never found out she was an undercover agent felt like a miracle. I also assumed that Fred knew the number. Of course he knew all about this; of course he had never let on. It was treacherous work, and you didn’t risk anything you didn’t have to.

“I’m on board, Jasmine. Don’t worry.”

“Thanks.” I heard the retreat in her tone, her imminent good-bye; but then she asked, “How did you get the number anyway?”

“I was cleaning under the rug. It must have fallen out of your purse at Thanksgiving.”

“
You
were cleaning?” She chuckled. And then she hung up.

I smiled at the phone, the piece of plastic that had done a good deed: I now knew for sure that Jasmine was out there, doing her thing. It was all the certainty I required. Now I could stop lying awake at night worrying about her.

Mac walked into the kitchen, bringing his empty coffee mug for a refill. I told him about the number and the calls.

“That’s great!” He leaned against the counter, facing me. “Fred really knows how to keep a poker face, but hey, how many times did we do the same thing when people asked us questions from outside a job?”

“You have to.”

“Did she sound nervous?”

“She hung up on me, so I’d say yes.”

“I wonder if Fred should know the number’s been breached.” Mac poured his coffee, lifted it, and inhaled the aroma before taking a sip.

“She’ll let him know.”

“If she can.”

It was true: Working undercover, it was sometimes difficult to find a safe moment to call base. “You want to call him,” I said, “or should I?”

“You. I’m right in the middle of something downstairs, and I have a couple of calls to make while it’s still quiet.” Ben’s long mid-afternoon naps served as both breaks and prime work opportunities. Mac made all his work calls on his cell phone, so after he kissed me and went back downstairs to his office, I used the landline to call Fred at work but instead reached Hyo.

“It’s Karin Schaeffer,” I greeted Fred’s partner. “How are you? It’s been a while.”

“Good, good. You?”

“Fine. Nothing much is happening here.”

“Like I always say, no news is good news.”

We both laughed. From the point of view of an enforcer of the law, every day on which some horrible crime didn’t erupt was a good one. The little stuff, you swatted away.

“Fred around?”

“He just stepped out. Can I help?”

I told him about my phone call with Jasmine. “I’m worried I may have accidentally compromised her safety.”

Hyo wrote down the number. “I don’t recognize that one. I’ll run it by Fred when he gets back.”

“Thanks. And just so you guys know, I shredded the paper,” I said, ripping it into tiny bits over the garbage can as we spoke, “and I already forgot the number.”

“Fat chance.” Hyo laughed. “I don’t think you forget anything.”

“Sometimes I wish I could. But I mean it: I don’t want any part of this. I like my life, you know?”

“I hear you, Karin.”

We said good-bye and that was that.

I finished sweeping, did a couple of things in the kitchen, and then decided to run some errands before Ben woke up. Grabbed my purse and went downstairs to let Mac know I was going out. After filling the watering can in the tub, I left through the ground-floor door and took a minute to water the red begonias that were starting to fill out the huge blue enamel flowerpot I had recently bought to liven up the front of our house. I tucked the empty watering can inside the vestibule, locked the iron gate, and went on my merry way in the direction of Smith Street.

As a mother, running errands alone was practically a treat, especially on a gorgeous June day like this one. It was going to be a hot summer; you could feel it in the air. Sun shimmered through the dense green foliage of the sycamore trees that lined our block, throwing coins of shimmering light and long, cool shadows across the sidewalk.

I heard shouting and turned around. Far at the other end of the block, a Con Ed truck had barricaded access; the electric company was digging something up, embarked on one of its ubiquitous repair projects. Voices were arguing: A driver I couldn’t see was angry because he was unable drive onto the block. The Con Ed guy was shouting back. I tried not to let their agitation infiltrate my mood, but living in the city, constantly bumping up against other people’s conflicts, made it a challenge to keep your calm.

Something pinged loudly against the iron fence two feet away from me, and I jumped. I looked around to find out who had thrown what I assumed had been a rock but didn’t see anyone on either side of the street. I took a deep breath and resumed walking.

Suddenly I realized that I had forgotten to bring the list I had made. I remembered many of the items I needed but not all of them, so I turned around and headed home, thinking it was lucky I hadn’t made it all the way off the block . . . when to my surprise I saw Billy Staples running toward me.

“Karin!”

“Was that
you
arguing with the Con Ed guy?”

“Get back into your house!” His expression was tight, agitated.

“What’s wrong?”

“For once just listen to me!” He grabbed my arm and turned me toward the gate in the iron fence that separated my house from the sidewalk.

“You’re scaring me.”

He hustled me through the gate into the small bluestone area where we kept our garbage cans and the new blue flowerpot. “What did you do? Calling some phone number you find on the floor!”

The downstairs door opened and Mac stepped out, holding his phone. “Hyo Park just called—” and then he saw Billy. They locked eyes. And I knew something was very wrong.

Billy propelled me toward Mac, who pulled me into the vestibule.

There was another loud ping—
a gunshot
—and the big enamel planter blew apart in an explosion of flying dirt, blue shards, and red petals.

Billy stepped onto the sidewalk, holding his gun with both hands, pivoting his aim back and forth, up and down, frantically searching for his target across the street. “NYPD!” he yelled. “Hold your fire!”

Mac tried to maneuver me into the house—holding me with one hand and dialing 911 with the other—but I couldn’t not see. I had to understand what was happening.

My phone call to Jasmine. Her call to me. What had that triggered? And so quickly. How could this be happening from two brief conversations less than an hour ago?

Who was shooting at us?

Or were the shots meant for only me? The first one had come close when I was alone halfway up the block. Missed me by a couple of feet. If not for the trees, that bullet might have found me.

I broke out of Mac’s grip and hid behind the latticed ironwork door, hiding and watching.

Billy’s body now appeared frozen, his aim steady and high: He had found his target. I shifted for a better view and barely managed to see someone crouched on a rooftop diagonally across the street. The top of a head in some sort of dark hat. The curve of a shoulder and part of a back clothed in dark brown. Bright sun glinted off something metal: the gun. The shooter appeared to be lying facedown atop the roof, allowing himself just enough visibility to aim and fire.

“Billy,” I hissed, “what is this?”

“I told you:
Get inside
.”

He held his ground, his unswerving aim. As did the shooter: keeping still, the nose of his gun glowing in our direction. Even as a car now raced wrong way up the street, neither Billy nor the shooter shifted.

The dark blue car jerked to a stop. The driver’s door swung open and Fred jumped out. He had shaved his beard since I’d last seen him.

“Hyo told me—” Fred cut himself short when he saw Billy, whose face I couldn’t see. I could imagine the ferocity of his expression, the mix of rage and terror you felt when you knew you could die any moment. “Up there?” Fred drew his gun.

Billy nodded. A vein of sweat trickled down the back of his neck, disappearing beneath the ribbed edge of his T-shirt, which was soaked straight down the center.

Fred stopped where he was and leveled his aim at the roof. “You try talking to him yet?”

“Therapy never worked for me.”

“Funny.” Fred didn’t laugh. “Federal agent! Don’t move!” he shouted at the rooftop figure, a shadow that appeared to recede at the sound of his voice. The hat, the shoulder, the back, the glowing gun: gone.

“I don’t see him anymore,” Billy said.

Behind me I heard Mac’s footsteps coming closer, felt his determination to pull me away. But I was all stubborn conviction to stay where I was, watching this. I would be a witness to whatever happened; when it was time for questions, I could help.

“Mommy.”

I glanced over my shoulder to see Mac three feet from me, turning to look at Ben, who was groggily making his way along the hall.

“
Shh
,” Mac said, hurrying to our little boy. He picked Ben up and covered his mouth with a hand . . . a gesture that broke my heart. Mac glared at me and whispered, “
Get inside the house.
Lock the door
.”

But I couldn’t. Or wouldn’t. Someone had to see this in case everyone—Billy, Fred, the shooter—ended up dead.

Mac retreated with Ben into our bedroom and shut the door. He had already called 911. It was just a matter of time before they swarmed the block.

Across the street, Mrs. Petrini—the white-haired lady who swept her stoop every single day about this time—appeared at her front door holding her broom. She stepped out and demanded, “What the heck is happening down there?”

Billy and Fred raced across the street and up the stoop.

“Police,” I heard Fred say as he pushed Mrs. Petrini aside and ran into the house. Every brownstone had an interior entrance onto the roof, accessed by either a stair or a roof hatch off the top-floor hallway.

The street was eerily quiet now. Just the blue car haphazardly abandoned, facing the wrong direction. And me and Mrs. Petrini staring into otherwise empty space. She cursed aloud and walked slowly down her stoop, not bothering to close her front door. It was a smart move, getting out of there; anyone in their right mind would have been afraid.

I hurried into my house, down the hall, and into the spare room that was now Mac’s office. His reading glasses sat on his open appointment book, a pen lay on a pad beside an unfinished sentence, a screensaver photo of Ben laughing flitted across the computer screen. I opened the closet door. Turned on the light. Crouched down, pushed aside some winter boots, and dialed open the safe. Tossing off envelopes and the clipped sheaves of our important documents, I picked up our handgun, inserted the cartridge, and ran back outside.