Sidney Sheldon's After the Darkness (20 page)

B
EING IN
N
EW
Y
ORK AGAIN, EXPERIENCING
the sights and smells, was a homecoming of sorts for Grace. She felt safer in the city. Her new look helped, too: cropped, chocolate-brown hair, dark makeup, baggy, mannish clothes. One of the girls at Bedford had told her that altering one's walk could dramatically change people's perceptions. Grace had spent hours perfecting a longer-strided, less girlish gait. It was still unnerving, catching sight of her “old” face whenever she passed a television or a newsstand. But as the days passed, she grew more confident that the combination of her disguise and the crowded anonymity of the city would protect her, for a while at least.

Her second day in the city, she'd braved a hole-in-the-wall Internet café and sent a message to the Hotmail address Karen had given her using the specified code: “200011209LW.” Grace hoped this meant “please send $2,000 to zip code 11209 in New York in the name of Lizzie Woolley,” but she still felt certain that something would go wrong. Was $2,000 too much to ask for or too little? She realized belatedly she had no idea how much money Karen's friend had, or was willing to send her. On the other hand, she didn't want to have to risk doing this every other week, not with half the country's police departments out searching for her.

In fact, the pickup had been as smooth as Cora told her it would be.
There was a Western Union outlet in the pharmacy on the corner. A fat, depressed man in his midforties had glanced at Grace's ID and, not even bothering to make eye contact, still less examine her features, handed her an envelope full of cash and a printed receipt. “There you go, Ms. Woolley. Have a nice day.”

Grace began to focus less on being captured and more on her impending meeting with Davey Buccola. Davey had been researching the alibis of everyone she and Lenny had invited to Nantucket that fateful weekend. It still didn't seem fully real to Grace, the idea that the Prestons or the Merrivales or even one of her own sisters could have done such a terrible thing—stolen all that money, killed Lenny, caused her to be imprisoned and gotten away with it. But what other explanation was there? She hoped that when she saw Davey's research in black and white, it would make things clearer. Everything depended on that meeting.

Alone in her tiny studio room, Grace pulled a stack of newspaper clippings out of the desk drawer and arranged them on the bed. There they were: Honor and Jack, Connie and Mike, Andrew and Maria and, of course, John and Caroline. Among them, those eight faces held the keys to the truth. Next to them, set slightly apart, Grace placed a ninth picture: Detective Mitchell Connors, the man whose job it was to catch her. He was definitely attractive. Grace found herself wondering if he was married, and if he loved his wife as much as she had loved Lenny.

He would catch her eventually, of course. Her luck wouldn't hold out forever. But eventually didn't matter to Grace. What mattered was doing what she had set out to do.

Closing her eyes, she spoke to Lenny, her words half promise, half prayer:

I'll do it, my darling. I'll do it for both of us. I'll find out who took you away from me and I'll make them pay, I promise.

She slept and grew strong.

 

“M
ORE TEA
, D
ETECTIVE
? M
Y HUSBAND SHOULD
be back any minute.”

Honor Warner was visibly nervous. Mitch noticed the way her hands
shook as she lifted the silver teakettle from its tray. Hot brown liquid spilled all over the white upholstered coffee table.

“No thank you, Mrs. Warner. It was really you I came to see. Has your sister made any attempt to contact you since her escape?”

“Contact me? No. Absolutely not. If Grace had called, I'd have let the police know immediately.”

Mitch cocked his head to one side and smiled engagingly. “Would you? Why's that?”

He was intrigued by this woman. She was Grace Brookstein's sister. At one time, by all accounts, the two women had been very close. They even looked alike. Yet when Grace fell from grace, Honor Warner had vanished into the ether.

“What do you mean? I don't understand.”

“Only that Grace is your sister,” Mitch explained. “It would be understandable for you to want to help her. It wouldn't be wrong.”

This seemed to throw Honor completely. She looked around her, as if searching the room for a means of escape. Or perhaps she was scanning it for hidden microphones or cameras? Did she think she was being watched? Eventually she said, “Grace made a lot of enemies, Detective. She's in greater danger out of prison than she is inside. I'm thinking of her safety.”

Mitch fought back a smile.
Like hell you are.

“You didn't go to the trial.”

“No.”

“As I understand it, you never visited your sister in Bedford Hills either.”

“No.”

“Why was that?”

“I…my husband…we felt it was for the best. Jack's worked so hard to get to where he is today. For voters to associate him with Quorum…well. You understand.”

Mitch made no effort to hide his disgust. He understood perfectly.

Reading his thoughts, Honor said defensively, “My husband has done a lot of good for his constituents, Detective. A
lot
of good. Is it right that he should be tainted by Lenny Brookstein's greed? Grace made her own choices. I'm worried about her, but…” She left the sentence hanging.

Mitch got to his feet.

“Thank you, Mrs. Warner. I'll see myself out.”

 

I
T WAS THE SAME STORY WITH
Connie Gray.

“My youngest sister has never learned to take responsibility for her actions, Detective Connors. Grace believes she's
entitled
to wealth, to beauty, to happiness, to freedom. No matter what the cost to others. So in answer to your question, no, I don't feel sorry for her. And I certainly haven't heard from her. Nor do I expect to.”

With friends like Grace Brookstein's, who needed enemies?

Talking to Grace's compassionless, embittered sister, Mitch almost felt sorry for the woman whose greed had brought New York to its knees. Connie's anger was like a physical presence in the room, emanating from her body like heat from a radiator. The atmosphere was stifling.

“Is there anyone else you can think of? Anyone Grace might call, or lean on? An old school friend perhaps? Or a childhood beau?”

Connie shook her head regally. “No one. When Grace married Lenny, she got swept up into his world completely.”

“You sound disapproving.”

“Lenny and I…Let's just say we weren't close. I always thought he and Grace were a mismatch. In any event, there are no old friends. John Merrivale supported Grace for a while, I believe, until Caroline got him to see sense. Poor John.”

“Why ‘poor John'?”

“Oh, come on, Detective. You've met him. He worshipped Lenny. He was his bag carrier for years.”

“He was more than that, surely?”

“John? No! Never!” Connie laughed cruelly. “The media paint him as some sort of financial wizard,
a key Quorum insider.
It's farcical! He wasn't even a partner, after the best part of twenty years. Lenny used him. So did Grace. Even now he's stuck cleaning up the mess at Quorum. No wonder your colleagues at the FBI haven't found that money. Talk about the blind leading the blind.”

 

T
HE PRESS CONFERENCE WAS OPENLY HOSTILE.
People wanted answers and Mitch Connors didn't have them.

It was almost a week now since Grace Brookstein's dramatic escape from Bedford Hills and pressure was mounting on Mitch and his team to report some progress. The media seemed to have gotten it into their heads that the NYPD was withholding information. Mitch smiled.
If only that were true!
The truth was he had nothing. Grace Brookstein had walked out of that jail and vanished into thin air like David friggin' Blaine. She had contacted no one, not family, not friends. Yesterday, in a move that had been widely and correctly interpreted as desperation, the NYPD put out a $200,000 reward for anyone who provided information leading to Grace's capture. It was a mistake. Within two hours, Mitch's team had received over eight hundred calls. Apparently Grace Brookstein had been spotted everywhere from New York to Nova Scotia. A couple leads looked like they might pan out, but both ended up coming to nothing. Mitch felt like a kid trying to catch hold of bubbles, not knowing which way to turn and destroying everything he touched. And to think, he'd thought this case would be a slam dunk.

“That's it for today, folks. Thanks.”

The grumbling press pack dispersed. Mitch crawled back to his office to hide, but it seemed there was to be no respite today. Detective Lieutenant Henry Dubray was no oil painting at the best of times. Today, squatting in Mitch's torture chair like a giant toad, he looked even worse than usual. His skin was blotchy and drink-ravaged, and the whites of his eyes were as yellow as sunflowers. The pressure of the Brookstein case was taking its toll on all of them.

“Give me some good news, Mitch.”

“The Knicks won last night.”

“I'm serious.”

“So am I. It was a great game. You didn't watch?”

Mitch smiled. Dubray didn't.

“I'm sorry, boss. I don't know what to tell you. We got nothing.”

“We're running out of time, Mitch.”

“I know.”

Dubray left. There was nothing left to say. Both men knew the reality. If Mitch didn't come up with a solid lead in the next twenty-four
hours, he'd be taken off the case. Demoted, certainly. Maybe even fired. Mitch tried not to think about Celeste, and the expensive private school Helen wanted him to pay for. In that moment he hated Grace Brookstein.

He stared at the whiteboard on the wall of his office. Grace's picture was in the middle. Radiating outward from it, like the points of a star, were various groups of other photos: Bedford Hills inmates and staff; Grace's family and friends; Quorum connections; members of the public who'd called in with the most promising leads.
How could so many sources lead to nothing?

The phone rang.

“Call for you on line one, Detective Connors.”

“Who is it?”

“Grace Brookstein.”

Mitch gave a mirthless laugh. “Yeah, thanks, Stella. I'm not in the mood for crank callers.”

He hung up. Thirty seconds later, the phone rang again.

“Stella, I told you, I got enough problems without—”

“Good morning, Detective Connors. This is Grace Brookstein speaking.”

Mitch froze. After listening to hours of recordings of Grace's court testimony, he'd have recognized her voice anywhere. He waved frantically to his colleagues in the outer office. “It's her,” he mouthed. “Trace the call.”

He made a conscious effort to speak slowly. He couldn't show his excitement. More important, he had to keep her talking long enough to make the trace. “Hello, Ms. Brookstein. What can I do for you?”

“You can listen to me.”

The voice was the same as the one in the court recordings, but the tone was different. Harder, more determined.

“I'm listening.”

“My husband and I were framed. I never stole any money and neither did Lenny.”

Mitch paused, trying to keep her on the line.

“Why are you telling me this, Ms. Brookstein? I'm not a jury. Your conviction has nothing to do with me.”

“It's
Mrs.
Brookstein. I'm a widow, Detective, not a divorcée.”

You're a fool. You should never have made this call. Just keep talking.

“I'm telling you because I saw you on TV, and you look like a good man. An honest man.”

The compliment surprised Mitch. “Thank you.”

“You look like a man who would want to know the truth. Are you?”

Actually I'm a man who wants to keep you on the line for the next ten seconds. Nine…eight…

“You know, Mrs. Brookstein, the best thing you could do right now would be to turn yourself in.”
Six…five…

Grace laughed. “Please, Detective. Don't insult my intelligence. I have to go now.”

“No. Wait! I can help you. If you are innocent, as you say you are, there are legal channels—”

Click.

The line went dead. Mitch looked hopefully at the guys on the other side of the glass, but the shake of their heads told him what he already knew.

“Two more seconds and we'd've had her.”

Mitch sank into his chair and put his head in his hands. Immediately, the phone rang again. Mitch leaped on it like a jilted lover, willing it to be her. “Grace?”

A man's voice answered. “Detective Connors?”

Mitch felt the hope drain out of him like blood from a severed vein. “Speaking.”

“Detective, my name is John Rodville. I'm the head of admissions at the Putnam Medical Center.”

“Uh-huh,” Mitch said wearily. The name meant nothing to him.

“We have a patient here, brought in last week with a knife wound to the back. He was in a coma till this morning. We didn't think he'd make it. But he pulled through.”

“That's terrific, Mr. Rodville. I'm happy for him.”

Mitch was at the point of hanging up when the man said cheerily, “Yeah, I thought you might be. Especially since he just identified his attacker as Grace Brookstein.”

M
ITCH BURST INTO THE INTENSIVE-CARE UNIT.

“Detective Connors. I'm here to see Tommy Burns.” He flashed his badge at the staff nurse.

“Right this way, Detective.”

The head of admissions had filled Mitch in on the van driver's story. According to Tommy Burns, he was a freelance gardener who'd happened to pick up a hitchhiker a couple miles outside of Bedford last Tuesday night. The woman went by the name of Lizzie. Tommy drove her about forty miles north before she suddenly pulled a knife on him, forced him into the woods, stabbed and robbed him, leaving him for dead.

“Some local kids found him. They were out hunting. A few more hours and he'd have bled to death for sure.”

“And he believes this Lizzie who attacked him was actually Grace Brookstein?”

“He seems certain of it. A few hours after he came to, he asked to have the TV turned on. Brookstein's face came on the news and he went crazy. We had to sedate him. He wants to talk to you but he's still very weak, so go easy. His wife and kids haven't even seen him yet.”

Mitch thought,
Wife and kids. The poor bastard's a family man. But of course Grace Brookstein didn't care about that. She picked him up, used him to get what she wanted, then left him to die in the woods, alone.
Painful memo
ries of his dad's murder came flooding back to him. Pete Connors's killer would never be caught. But Grace Brookstein sure as hell would be. Men like Tommy Burns deserved justice. They deserved to be protected.

Mitch approached Tommy Burns's bed full of compassion.

When he left the hospital fifteen minutes later, he found himself wishing Grace Brookstein had finished the job. Tommy Burns was about as likable as a bad case of hemorrhoids. He was also a rotten liar.

“Jesus, Detective, I already
told
you. I was the Good Samaritan, okay? I saw a chick in trouble and I did the right thing. One minute we was driving along, listening to the radio, nice as pie. The next minute,
bam
! The bitch has a knife to my throat. I never stood a chance.”

Mitch wanted to believe him. Badly. Right now Tommy Burns was the only witness he had. But he didn't believe him. Something about the guy wasn't right.

“Let's go back to when you first picked her up, shall we, Mr. Burns? You said she looked like she was in trouble?”

“She was half dressed. It was freezing out there, snowing. She had this thin blouse on. You could see right through it.” A half smile flickered across his face at the memory. Just then a pretty young nurse came in to refill the water pitcher. Mitch Connors watched Tommy Burns follow her lustfully with his eyes as she turned and left the room. A light went on in Mitch's brain.

“You didn't think to ask her why she was dressed like that on a freezing winter's night?”

“Nope. Why should I? None o' my business.”

“I suppose not. Still, out of curiosity…”

“I'm not a curious person.”

“Yes. I can see that.”

Tommy Burns's eyes narrowed. Something about Mitch's tone gave him the feeling he was being mocked. “What d'you mean by that?”

“I don't mean anything by it. I'm simply agreeing with you that you lack curiosity. For example, you don't seem to have asked yourself why, after going to all the trouble of trying to murder you, this woman didn't finish the job.”

Tommy Burns became agitated. “Hey now. Don't you go givin' me no ‘this woman' bullshit. It was Grace Brookstein. I saw her on the TV,
plain as day. You catch her, I'll be wanting that two-hundred-thousand-dollar reward.”

“Fine,” said Mitch. “Let's say it
was
Grace Brookstein who attacked you.”

“It was.”

“If it were me, I'd still be asking myself that question: ‘Why did she let me live? Why didn't she finish the job?' But then again, you see, I
am
a curious person. We detectives usually are.”

Tommy considered this. “I guess she thought she had. Finished the job, I mean. We were out in the middle of nowhere. Probably figured I'd die slow.”

Mitch pounced. “Really? Why do you think she would want you to die slowly?”

“'Scuse me?”

“According to you, her motive was theft. She needed a ride and she needed money. That being the case, I could understand her wanting you dead. She wouldn't want witnesses, right?”

“Right.”

“But what reason would she have to make you suffer? To prolong your agony?”

“What reason? Hell,
I
don't know. She's a woman, ain't she? They're all fucked-up bitches.”

Mitch nodded slowly. “You're right. I mean, if a
man
had done this, he'd have taken the van, right?”

“Huh?” Tommy Burns looked well and truly confused.

“Once he'd gotten rid of
you,
he could have used the vehicle to get another forty, fifty, a hundred miles away from the crime scene before he dumped it somewhere. That'd be the smart thing to do, wouldn't it?”

“I guess it would.”

“But women aren't as smart as us, are they?”

“Damn right they ain't.”

Mitch leaned forward conspiratorially. “We both know what women are good for, don't we, Tommy? And it isn't their powers of reasoning!”

Tommy smiled stupidly.
Now
the cop was talking his language…

“Tell me, Tommy, do you regularly pick up hitchhikers?”

“Sometimes.”

“Are many of them as attractive as Grace Brookstein?”

“No, sir. Not many.”

“Or as good in the sack?”

“No, sir!” Tommy Burns grinned. “She was something else.”

It was a full five seconds before he realized his mistake. The smile wilted. “Hey now, don't you go putting words in my mouth! I didn't…I mean…I'm the victim here,” he stammered. “I'm the goddamn victim!”

 

I
T WAS LATE BY THE TIME
Mitch got home that night. If you could call the shitty two-bedroom rental that was all he could afford since Helen left him “home.” Helen got everything when they split: Celeste, the house, even the dog, Snoopy.
My dog.
Mitch could understand the things that drove men to hate women. Men like Tommy Burns. It would be easy to slip down that path. He had to guard against it himself sometimes.

It had been quite a day. The press conference, a phone call from Grace Brookstein herself, and finally Tommy Burns. Burns was Mitch's first, real, concrete lead. Mitch knew he ought to feel elated. Instead he felt uneasy.

After Tommy Burns's slip of the tongue this afternoon, they'd come to an understanding: Mitch would look no further into a possible sexual assault of Grace Brookstein. In return, Tommy would forget about the $200,000 reward and would tell Mitch everything he could remember from that night: Grace's clothing, her demeanor, anything at all she might have said or done that could shed light on her plans. Tommy's van had been sent to forensics. When Mitch spoke to them a few hours ago, they'd been hopeful. It should provide a treasure trove of new evidence.

So why do I feel like crap?

Mitch had walked into that hospital this afternoon full of righteous rage and loathing. Grace Brookstein was a criminal, a heartless thief and would-be killer who had violently attacked an innocent family man. Except that if Tommy Burns was an innocent family man, Mitch Connors was Big Bird. The e-mail finally came through after midnight. Mitch had run a check on Tommy Burns's record. Sure enough, he had a string of sexual-assault convictions stretching back almost twenty years. Two rape
charges had been thrown out for lack of evidence.
So much for the Good Samaritan.

Something had happened in that van. Burns was a sexual predator and Grace had defended herself. In this case, at least, that made her the victim. Mitch suddenly realized,
I don't want her to be the victim. I want her to be the bad guy.
Usually he was unequivocal about his cases and the people he brought to justice. To Mitch, they were all paler versions of whoever had killed his father: bad men, men who deserved to be brought down. But already, this case felt different. Part of him hated Grace for her crimes. Her greed and lack of remorse were well documented. But another part of him pitied her. Pitied her for having to deal with the likes of Tommy Burns. Pitied her for having that pair of heartless vultures for sisters.

Mitch closed his eyes and tried to imagine how Grace Brookstein must have felt in Burns's van. Alone, on the run, already desperate, and the first man she trusted turned out to be a psychotic pervert. Burns wasn't a big guy but he was strong, and presumably determined. Grace must have shown great courage to fight him off like that.

What would her next move have been?

She wouldn't hitch another ride. Not if Burns had just raped her. She'd take off on foot. Which means she couldn't have gotten far that night. A couple of miles maybe. Five tops.

Pulling out a map, Mitch pinpointed the spot where Burns's van was abandoned. With a red Sharpie, he drew a circle around the van at a five-mile radius.

There was only one town inside the circle.

 

T
HE OLD MAN WAVED HIS FRAIL
arms excitedly. Mitch Connors fought back the urge to laugh.
He looks like Yoda having a seizure…

“I told 'em! I told 'em she wuz here, but they jus' pooh-poohed me. Reckon an old man like me don't know what he saw. Dead of night she shows up,
dead of night.
No suitcase! I told 'em. I said, she din' have no case. That ain't right. But did anybody listen to me? No, sir.”

It turned out Richardsville only had the one motel. When Mitch called and mentioned Grace Brookstein's name, the proprietor of the Up
All Night had gone ballistic.
Yes
,
Grace had been there. He'd already told the police. Didn't those bozos speak to each other?

“I hope you gonna fire that officer. McInley. Arrogant little piece of
S-H-I-T
, 'scuse my language, Detective. But I told 'em.”

Mitch turned to the technician sweeping the room for prints. The technician shook his head. “Clean as a whistle, boss. Sorry. If she was here, she did a good job covering her tracks.”

The old man looked like his grizzled head might explode. “What do you mean ‘
if
she wuz here'? Ain't no
if.
She wuz
here
! How many more times do I gotta tell you people? Grace. Brookstein. Wuz. Here.”

“I'm sure she was, sir,” said Mitch.
But she's not here now. Another dead end.

“How's about my reward? Man on the TV said two hundred thousan' dollars.”

“We'll be in touch.”

 

T
HERE WERE MESSAGES WAITING FOR
M
ITCH
back at the station.

“Your wife called,” the sergeant on the desk told him.

“Ex-wife,” Mitch corrected her.

“Whatever. She was yelling something about your kid's school play. She wasn't a happy camper.”

Mitch groaned.
Damn it. Celeste's play. Was that today?
Mitch had sworn up and down he'd be there, but with all the excitement of the last forty-eight hours, he'd totally forgotten.
I'm the worst father in the world
and
the worst cop. Someone should give me a medal.
Guiltily he began punching his old home number into his cell when the desk sergeant interrupted him.

“One more thing, sir. A guy was here earlier. He said he had information about Grace Brookstein; said he knew her. He wanted to talk to you but he wouldn't wait.”

“Well, did you get his details?”

She shook her head. “He wouldn't tell me anything. He said he'd wait for you in this bar until six.” She handed Mitch a dirty piece of paper with an address scrawled on it.

Mitch sighed. It was probably another crank. On the other hand the
bar was only a couple blocks away. And anything was preferable to facing Helen's wrath, or hearing the disappointment in Celeste's voice.

The clock on the wall said ten of six.

 

A
T SIX O'CLOCK EXACTLY
, M
ITCH WALKED
into the bar just as a good-looking, dark-haired man with a hawklike nose was walking out. When Mitch saw there were no other customers, he ran back onto the street and caught up with him.

“Hey. Was it you who wanted to see me? I'm Detective Connors.”

The dark-haired man looked at his watch. “You're late.”

Mitch was irritated.
Who does this dickhead think he is?
“Look, buddy, I don't have time for games, okay? Do you have information for me or don't you?”

“You know, you might want to be a little more polite to me. Your ass is on the line, Connors, and I can save it. For a price, of course. I know where Grace Brookstein's going to be at noon tomorrow. If you're nice to me—real nice—I'll take you to her.”

 

C
ELESTE
C
ONNORS CRIED HERSELF TO SLEEP
that night.

Her daddy never called.