Just after midnight, he got a text from Westergren. We found the car. Desmond stared at it, wondering if Westergren had forgotten that they’d already talked about the white van late that afternoon. Or maybe his phone repeated the message? No, the first one said van, the second one car. Desmond dialed his number.
“I hope it’s not too late to call, but I just got your text,” he said.
“No problem! I’m a night owl.”
“What’s this about a car being discovered?”
“Sorry, I should’ve explained better. We found Gary Cowan’s car.”
“Where?”
“It was in a camping lot not far from the house,” Westergren said. “But by not far, I mean a half-hour hike. Who would stay at a house in the middle of a wilderness and park so far away? It makes no sense.”
“Well, there’s one way it does,” Desmond said. “If somebody was waiting to park the car in front of the house once he was sure the people inside were dead. Only, he had to clean some things up first. I think I interrupted him before he could take care of that detail.”
Chapter 29
It was almost three in the morning when Desmond let himself into his room at the Grand Hyatt. He’d waited at Lighthouse Park, feeling more like a frozen fool with every minute that passed. Just a little bit longer, just a little more, he’d told himself. He hated giving up. What had it gotten him? Nothing, except frostbite and the suspicion that Tom Klepper was playing him. Annoyed, he’d hefted the bag—it may have been filled with recycled newsprint, but it wasn’t as if it had a tracker inside—and he’d walked the long, lonely hike back to Roosevelt Island’s sole subway station. The F train had been virtually empty, except for some homeless folks looking to keep warm on a brutal night. It snaked through Manhattan, finally spitting him out at Bryant Park, right beside the great library with the magnificent lions. The milky marble glowed at night, he discovered. It was the one good thing he’d seen so far, and he wished Dominique was beside him to share it.
He brushed his teeth and washed his face, then collapsed into bed. There were a million thoughts crowding into his head, just like people cramming into Grand Central at rush hour. Autopsy. DNA. Funeral. Strangle Tom Klepper for being the freaky little bullfrog he was. Desmond had mistakenly given the man too much of his trust. He wouldn’t make that error again.
When sleep finally descended, it was fitful and strained. He dreamed Dominique was a little girl again, arms outstretched, waiting for him. Where’s Daddy? she asked, and his heart sank down to the toes of his running shoes.
He got hurt, he told her. He can’t come back.
I don’t believe you, Dominique pouted, and she turned from him and ran.
Go after her. That was his grandmother’s voice, commanding and confident. That woman never doubted she was right. She needs you to be her daddy now.
Desmond didn’t argue. Instead, he chased after the tiny girl. No matter how fast he ran, she was always just out of reach.
Dominique! he called. Stop!
She wouldn’t.
“Dominique!” He sat up in bed, suddenly aware he’d been shouting her name. The clock on the bedside table said it was five-thirty-one. He crashed back on the pillow, groaning. The military had crushed his nocturnal ways and made an early riser out of him. It didn’t matter how late he went to bed, his body was determined to be up for reveille.
He lay there, forearms crossed over his face, but sleep had already parted ways with him. “Fine,” he muttered, pushing the covers back with resentment.
After he showered and dressed, he went downstairs. From the hotel’s lobby, he followed a quiet passageway into the hubbub of Grand Central Terminal. He bought a bagel with lox, devoured it in sixty seconds flat, and got another. That brought to mind Tom Klepper inhaling donuts. He’d deal with the bullfrog soon, but it was only seven in the morning, so that would have to wait. At that hour, there was one task that came to mind: going to his sister’s apartment. He had her keys in his pocket. It was the last thing he wanted to do, but his feelings didn’t count.
He walked down the wide boulevard of Park Avenue, past the viaduct and down to Twenty-Eighth Street. Dominique had been subletting a condo that faced onto Park Avenue South. It was a nice enough building in a decent area, but Desmond remembered the glamorous condo with the high ceilings and crown moldings she’d called home when she was with Gary. It was on Fifty-Ninth Street, right at the foot of Central Park. She’d loved it there, and the memory of her fragile happiness made it hard to breathe for a moment.
Desmond let himself into the building. There was no doorman, and that was cutting too many corners, in Desmond’s view. Even though the issue had nothing to do with his sister’s death, it troubled him, as if she’d been unwittingly courting danger. On the elevator ride up, he wondered if she’d been short on funds. She had a job she loved, but New York was a crazily expensive city. She never asked him for financial help, not after those early days when she was eighteen and he’d gotten her settled into the city. Now, he felt guilty for not offering. He’d showered presents on his baby sister—so many that his ex-wife had nursed a grudge over the issue—but he should’ve made sure Dominique was more secure.
He took a deep breath as he unlocked her door, expecting to be hit full force by the scent of roses and by a
