to extricating herself from the horrible mess she was in. But she should have known from Melanie’s skittish tone that there was a chance she’d be a no-show. Lake decided to hang around for another twenty minutes just in case Melanie heard her message and changed her mind. But deep down she knew it was hopeless.
“Would you like to see a menu?”
It was the waitress, a pretty girl with an Australian accent. Lake had drunk nearly two glasses of wine without having eaten. Not only was her stomach growling but her head felt light, buzzy. And yet the idea of eating had no appeal. She smiled wanly and shook her head.
As she waited, she calculated what her next move should be. Certainly Archer would be interested in knowing that Melanie had asked for a meeting. That had to be significant. And he’d also be curious about the odd letters Lake had seen on the Turnbull and Kastner charts. Maybe Archer could tip off the police that there
At nine-fifty she paid the check and slipped out of the restaurant. As she made her way down Front Street, the dull roaring and clacking of cars above her on the Brooklyn Bridge seemed to echo how agitated she felt inside.
At Dock Street, she turned left and headed down to Water. The block was deserted except for a young couple pulling their car out of a parking space. As enchanting as the area was, there didn’t seem to be any services along its streets-no delis or coffee shops or laundromats-and at this hour pedestrian traffic was nearly nonexistent. She thought she heard a sound behind her-the scuff of a shoe-and she quickly twisted her head around. There was no one there.
At Water she took a right. She wished she’d been able to find a parking space closer to the restaurant. Across the street an old brick warehouse with carved arches ran the entire length of the block. On her side of the street was a gallery, closed for the day, with an oversize carousel inside. The horses were paused in midgallop, their eyes blank in the small spotlight. The building after that, at the intersection, had apartments on the upper floors, and though some of them were lit up, there was no visible activity inside. It was as if she’d found herself in the back lot of a Hollywood studio after closing time. All she wanted was to be in her car heading home.
She heard a sound again, and this time she was sure it was a footstep. She spun around. Halfway down the block she saw a man walking alone at a steady clip. He was dressed in tight dark pants-jeans, she thought-and a sweatshirt and sneakers, and he wore some kind of trucker cap with the beak pulled low on his face. Her pulse jumped and she started moving faster.
Right away she heard the man pick up his own pace. His footsteps sounded louder and more urgent behind her. Still hurrying, Lake jerked her head around to look. He was walking with long, smooth strides, and though the cap hid his eyes, she could tell he was looking straight at her face.
She was in danger-there was no doubt about it. She turned back and started to run. Behind her she heard the man begin to run, too. The car was a block and a half away and it seemed impossible to reach it without the man catching up to her. “Help!” she screamed-and then again. Her voice was drowned out by the distant roar of subway cars passing over the Manhattan Bridge.
The last block toward the car was completely dark. To her left, just before the river, she could see a small cafe and she zigged in that direction, her heart nearly ramming against her chest. But as she sprinted toward the cafe, she saw the tables were stacked along the sidewalk and the inside lights dimmed. Gripping her aching right side, she turned back again. The man was gaining on her. Her only choice was the park. There would surely be people there still, looking at the water. She plunged into the same entrance she used earlier and raced along the path.
“Help!” she screamed again.
But the park was empty. Frantically she scanned the area to the right of the terraced steps for an exit but she saw only a chain-link fence. So she flew down the steps to the pebble beach and began to scuttle across it.
She could sense the man right behind her like a force field, and she yelled, “Get away from me!” Across the East River, Manhattan throbbed with lights, and cars streamed down the FDR Drive, but she knew that no one in the world could hear her.
Suddenly her whole body was being jerked backward. The man had grabbed her pink jacket, twisting the fabric in his fist. She couldn’t see him but she could smell him-the reeking scent of aftershave. Struggling, she twisted around. The man let go of her jacket and yanked her arm tightly. Her brain seemed oddly separated from her body; she was thinking and assessing the situation even as her body felt limp with fear. I have to fight him, she thought. Her purse was on her free arm and she let the strap slide from her shoulder. Before the bag could drop, she caught it and wrapped the strap once around her hand. Then she swung the purse as hard as she could at the man’s head.
It caught him by surprise and he staggered backward. At the same time his cap flew off, and in the glow of the streetlamps she saw his face. It was a face she had seen before but couldn’t place in her frantic state. She screamed “Help” again but no one came.
She tried to dart around the man but he shot to the right, blocking her path. She dodged the other way, but he blocked her again, and this time an evil smirk took shape on his face. In desperation she looked behind her. There was only the river. As she turned back around, the man charged at her with his full force, toppling her to the pebbled ground.
He’d knocked the wind out of her, too, and she struggled to get a breath. As he lunged toward her again, she hurled her purse at him with all her strength. It caught the edge of his shoulder and then bounced onto the rocks. He smirked again and drew something from his jacket pocket. The light caught the object and she saw that it was a knife-long and glinty and terrifying.
Then there was a sound behind the man, coming from near the trees in the park. He jerked his head back to see. In those few seconds Lake scooted back on her butt a few feet across the rocks and then staggered to her feet. Grabbing another breath, she turned around and stumbled to the river’s edge. She could hear the man scrambling over the rocks right behind her, ready to grab her again, but before he could catch her, she took a huge step and waded into the river. She dragged her legs a few more feet and then suddenly there was no bottom. She dropped into the dark river water and it swallowed her up to her neck. Behind her she heard the man gasp in surprise.
The water was cold and all her muscles clenched in shock. She paddled a few more feet out from the shoreline and then twisted her body so that it faced the shore. The man was at the water’s edge, his hands clenched in frustration. She could still see the knife shooting out, the blade an extension of his right hand.
Would he come after her? she wondered. Treading water, she kicked off her sandals and worked her way out of her jacket. Then, with long, firm strokes she began to swim, parallel to the shore. She was going south and she could feel the pull of a sure, steady current-or rather the outgoing tide, she suddenly realized, because the East River was an estuary of the Atlantic Ocean. Her terror ballooned. What if she was dragged down the river into the harbor? She would drown surely-or be sliced in two by a freighter. The trick would be to stay as close to the shore as possible.
Just ahead she saw an area of large jagged black rocks on the shoreline, almost primordial-looking, and then, not far beyond them, wooden pylons beneath another small park that jutted out over the river. If she could make it there, she could hold on to one of them. After about twenty strokes she flipped her body around and peered back toward the shore where she’d started. In the glow cast by the park lights, she saw the outline of the man still watching her, his arms outstretched tensely by his sides. But suddenly he turned and sprinted across the pebbles toward the entrance and disappeared into the darkness. Was he going to try to catch up with her farther south along the river?
She continued to swim, passing the rocks. Finally, exhausted, she reached the pylons. They were slimy and reeked of a horrible snail-like smell, but she flung her arms around one and held on as tightly as possible. It was such a relief to rest. Though she hadn’t swum far, it had been hard to maneuver in her clothes. Farther out on the water a red tugboat steamed along, pulling a black-and-white freighter with Russian-looking words painted along the side. I can’t believe this, she thought in despair. I’m floating in the East River. What was beneath her in the bottomless water? Fish and snakes and garbage? Worse?
Where was the man? By now he might be trying to get into the park above her. She had noticed earlier that a chain-link fence surrounded it, one he could easily scale. At that moment she thought she heard a noise on the walkway above the pylons. She pulled herself farther underneath.
