The Black Widow (17 page)

“
Pfft
. This brother right here has
no
problem meeting women.”

“You’re not dating anyone.”

“That’s beside the point. I meet plenty of women. I just don’t want to date them. What about you? I don’t see you going online to meet men.”

“I don’t go anywhere to meet men. I’ve met enough men to last me a lifetime,” Sully tells him. “But we’re not talking about me. Or you.”

“You’re the one who brought it up.”

“The point
is . . .”
She looks over at him for emphasis. “Most single people in this city are trying to meet someone. I bet this guy Carlos had an online profile. And I bet we won’t find one if we look. Same as with the other two.”

That’s the most troubling part of the case.

Both Jake Fuentes and Tomas Delgado had talked about using online dating services, and their credit card records showed payments to InTune, one of the more popular sites. But neither had a profile there.

An attempt to subpoena their records from the site led nowhere. InTune reported that both men had deleted their accounts almost precisely at the time they’d vanished, and had done so by logging in from their usual IP addresses. Unfortunately, the stored content hadn’t been preserved long enough for law enforcement to investigate their online connections.

With any luck, this time it will be.

Sully is convinced now that the three disappearances are connected, and that the missing men didn’t walk away from their lives of their own accord. She only hopes it’s not too late for them.

Human remains matching their descriptions have yet to turn up—but what are the odds that all three are being held somewhere alive?

“Not good,” Stockton tells her when she poses the question out loud. “But it happens. There was that case in Cleveland . . .”

“I know. I keep thinking of that. Those victims were found alive after a decade. But the motive there was rape, and we’re talking about young females abducted and held as sex slaves. These are grown men . . .”

“Who also could have been abducted and raped and held as sex slaves. They might still be alive.”

She nods. It’s possible, but not probable. Stockton knows as well as she does that when foul play is involved in a missing persons case, every hour that passes decreases the odds that the victim will be found alive.

“I think we may be looking at an online predator,” she muses. “One who could have posed as a woman on a dating site and lured these guys into a trap.”

“Or it could have been an actual woman.”

She shrugs. Again—possible, but not probable.

“Or,” Stockton goes on, “it might have nothing to do with Internet dating sites. Maybe they’re connected by occupation. Construction, architecture, design, engineering . . . these guys travel in the same professional circles.”

“That’s true.”

“Maybe they met someone at a conference or something like that . . .”

“Maybe. We need to check into that,” Sully murmurs, still musing about the online connection and the fact that the first two victims’ profiles have been deleted.

Her gut is telling her they’re going to discover that Carlos Diaz also has—rather,
had
—an InTune profile . . . and a hot date the night he disappeared.

The door buzzes just as Gaby finishes brushing her damp hair in front of the mirror in a bathroom still steamy from her second shower of the day. Last time, she hadn’t done a great job shaving her legs or under her arms—maybe as added insurance that she wouldn’t allow Ryan to get too close for comfort tonight, or because she already knew it wouldn’t be an intimate evening. She can’t remember, now, what she was thinking this morning. Already the memory has faded—along with Ryan himself—into a pre-Ben past she’d just as soon forget.

Technically, of course, it’s all post-Ben. But she’s chosen to consider this—today, tonight—the beginning of a new chapter in their relationship. The only way for her to go forward with him is to close the door on everything that came before.

Still wrapped in a towel, she hurries over to press the intercom button. “Ben?”

“Yeah.”

“Um—come on up.” She releases the electronic lock to let him past the building’s vestibule.

Wow. He didn’t waste any time getting here after their text exchange. She’d assumed they wouldn’t connect until later, but as he put it,
Why wait?

They didn’t even bother to make plans. He just said he’d come over and they could take it from there.

He must have jumped right into a cab, she thinks, as she quickly yanks open a couple of drawers and grabs a T-shirt and pair of shorts. She can always change later, but for now, being fully clothed is definitely a good idea.

A good idea later, too, she reminds herself, with one last glance in the full-length mirror before she hears a familiar staccato knock on the door.

Bump bah-dah bump-bump . . .

An incomplete knock that begs an answering
bump-bump
.

He’s always knocked that way whenever he took her out on a date or, later, when he arrived home at the apartments they shared. Almost always, anyway.

Throughout the happy years they were together, she’d offer a resounding
bump-bump
from the inside before opening the door.

Then, for a long time after they lost Josh, he knocked in the regular way—or not at all, slipping into the apartment late at night with his key and stealing past her if she was pretending to be asleep on the couch, or climbing silently into bed beside her.

After they started therapy, he made a couple of attempts at the old jaunty knock.

Bump bah-dah bump-bump . . .

She didn’t have the heart to thump her usual reply; barely managed to open the door to him at all.

Now, though, she does her best to swap the grim memory for a happier one.

Bump-bump
, she taps on the door before opening it to see Ben standing there, grinning, with a big bouquet wrapped in a paper cone and cellophane.

“Hi,” he says, grinning.

“Hi.” She can’t keep from grinning back, just as broadly.

For a long moment they just stand there like two happy fools—which is, she realizes, probably exactly what they are. Fools.

Only fools rush in . . .

“Is that for me?” she finally asks, indicating the bouquet.

“No,” he says, deadpan, and her smile fades.

“Sorry, I . . .”

He laughs and thrusts the bouquet into her hands. “Of course it’s for you! Who else would it be for?”

She laughs, too, a little uneasily, not wanting to think about possible answers to that particular question, even if it’s meant to be moot.

“I was planning to bring sunflowers,” Ben tells her, and she feels better instantly. Sunflowers are her favorite.

He remembered.

“But,” he continues, “the Korean market on my corner didn’t have any, so I figured it would be better to get what they had than to get sidetracked hunting for them. At least they’re the right color. And they smell nice, too. And I know roses don’t bother your allergies the way some flowers do.”

“They’re beautiful. Thank you,” she tells him, smiling as she inhales the heady fragrance of a dozen yellow roses.

Sitting across from two NYPD detectives, toying with the half-full plastic water bottle she was drinking when they showed up, Ivy feels as though she’s in a scene from one of those crime dramas she loves to watch on television. She wonders, as she nervously waits for them to start asking her questions, whether they have guns, and whether they’ve ever had to use them. She considers asking but thinks better of it. According to the TV shows—which are very realistic—the cops are the ones who are supposed to be asking questions here.

The oversized man—Detective Barnes—is by far the more physically intimidating of the two. Yet somehow it’s the woman, Detective Leary, an elfin redhead, who seems to have the more commanding presence. She wastes no time getting down to business, quickly but thoroughly going over basic details about Carlos’s position at the company and Ivy’s professional relationship to him.

“How much do you know about his personal life?”

Under the scrutiny of the woman’s neon eyes, Ivy does her best not to shift her own gaze—or her weight on the chair—as she replies, “Not very much.”

Met with silence and a slight nod urging her to elaborate, she clears her throat and goes on, “I know that he’s divorced, and that he lives in Howard Beach. That’s about it.”

“Was he seeing anyone?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Did he use online dating Web sites?”

The uncapped water bottle slips from Ivy’s grasp, spilling on the parquet floor at her feet and splashing Snoopy, who protests with a loud meow.

“Sorry about that,” she says—mostly to the cat—and jumps up to grab paper towels.

“No problem, take your time,” Detective Leary tells her, pen still poised on her notepad, as is Detective Barnes’s.

Ivy hopes they can’t see her hands shaking as she bends over and sops up the puddle. She tosses the wet paper towels into the garbage but thinks better of throwing away the empty bottle. She needs something to do with her hands so the shaking won’t be so obvious.

Back in her chair, she clutches the bottle as Detective Leary repeats the question about whether Carlos used online dating Web sites.

“I really wouldn’t know about that.”

“Okay.”

Something about the way the woman says the word makes Ivy suspect she doesn’t believe the answer. Or maybe it’s pure paranoia.

But the detectives can’t possibly be aware of her snooping around in Carlos’s private files . . . can they?

Of course not. It’s not as if they’ve had her under surveillance. They didn’t even realize anything was amiss until a few hours ago; had presumably never even heard of her until she reported Carlos missing.

Detective Barnes asks, “Can you access your office e-mail from here?” and the bottle in Ivy’s hands nearly goes flying again.

“Yes, I can.”

“Okay if we take a look at the e-mails Mr. Diaz sent to you?”

“No problem.” Clearing her throat, she leads them over to her open laptop on the counter and clicks on her in-box, glad the password is stored so she won’t have to type it in front of them.

Not that they’d be able to find anything incriminating even if they were to memorize the password to sneak access to her account again later . . .

Still, she feels vulnerable as she scrolls through her electronic files to the folder containing Carlos’s initials, hoping they won’t notice that she’s saved all the e-mails she’s ever received from him. Or, if they do notice, they may just assume she saves all the e-mails she’s ever received from any employee, which is far from the truth.

“This is the e-mail he sent about his parents’ accident,” she tells them, opening the one that bears the subject line:
Terrible News.

Silently, they read it.

Ivy—I just found out my parents were in a terrible car accident in Costa Rica. My father was killed and my mother is badly injured. I’m catching the first flight out and I won’t be at work this week.

The message bears the signature line that contains just his name and the addendum:
sent from my iPhone.

“That’s all he sent?” Detective Leary asks.

“The first time.”

“There’s more?”

“Not much more. I wrote him back—you know, just making sure he was okay and asking about the funeral arrangements for his father. I wanted to send flowers—from all of us at the office,” she adds hastily.

“Did Carlos reply?”

“Not until a few days later.”

Leary rapid-fires the inevitable question: “Got that one?”

She nods, pulling it up and allowing them to read what Carlos wrote about the funeral being on hold with his mother still in intensive care. Pinned to the bottom of his note is the electronic trail that includes her response to his first e-mail. Not all of it is visible on the screen—it was rather long, she realizes in dismay—and they ask her to scroll down so they can read the entire thing.

She holds her breath as they stare in silence at the screen. Barnes makes notes of the dates and times on the messages.

“Okay. Then what?” Leary again, briskly.

Ivy blinks. “Excuse me?”

“What happened after he sent this?”

“I asked him if there was anything I could do, and he wrote back, ‘No, but thanks.’ That was the last I heard.”

Naturally, they want to look at that e-mail, too. Then they ask her to forward the files to an address within their department. She does, reluctantly, and is relieved when they turn their attention away from the computer at last.

“What made you decide to contact us today?” Leary asks.

Ivy hesitates. “I was worried when I didn’t hear back from Carlos—after all, it’s been two weeks—and I wanted to track him down at his parents’ house. You know, to make sure he’s okay and see when he expects to be back. Not that I’m callous—I mean, I thought he was going through a traumatic time with his family, but . . .”

“But you have a business to run,” Detective Barnes supplies.

“Exactly.”

“So you tried to track him down . . .”

“I called the emergency numbers in his human resources file.” She doesn’t specify how she got her hands on those numbers. “I wound up speaking to his ex-wife, and that’s when I found out that what he’d told me—what someone had told me—in that e-mail wasn’t true.”

“You don’t think he wrote it, then?” Leary asks sharply.

“I don’t know. If he did write it, it was a lie. And if he didn’t . . .”

“Who do you think did?”

Ivy hesitates.

Should she tell them?

No.

Not yet, anyway.

She’ll only get herself into trouble. If she loses this job, she loses . . .