Twice

for him.”

More silence.

“From what we saw on the camera as they left, she looked pretty out of it. He was holding her by the arm. We didn’t know who it was at first. He was wearing a wig. Then he looked up to the camera and smiled.”

“Oh, God,” he said quietly. He said a silent prayer for Rebecca; one he was coldly sure would go unanswered. “Did you call the FBI?”

“They’re here already.”

“Okay… I’ll be there as soon as I can,” he said, looking up to the bedroom door. As sick as it was, part of him was glad to have something to think about other than his and Lydia’s sadness. Of all the emotions, it was the hardest to deal with because there was an essential powerless to it, a lack of energy. It entered your system like a barbituate, slowing you down, making you weak, forcing you to feel its effects. Fear and anger were like speed, forcing you into action, pumping adrenaline through your veins. No reflection, just movement.

“Also,” Craig said, “Ford McKirdy called a couple times today, said it’s very important that he talk to you. And Eleanor Ross has called about a thousand times, she’s threatening to fire you if she doesn’t get a call back today.”

“Okay, okay. I’ll deal with it when I get there.” He hung up the phone and released a sigh.

“Jesus,” came Lydia’s voice from the top of the stairs. She held the cordless extension in her hand. “You’re outta commission for a few days and the whole world falls apart.”

He recognized the tightness that her voice took on when she was trying not to sound afraid. She looked pale and weak, and seemed too wobbly to be standing at the top of the stairs.

“Don’t even think about it,” he said, sternly. “Get back into bed.”

“But Rebecca”

“You’re no good to Rebecca or anyone else all hopped up on painkillers.”

She headed tentatively down the stairs, her abdomen still painful from the laser surgery. She wore a pair of purple silk pajama bottoms and a gray oversized NYU sweatshirt, her black hair pulled back into a ponytail at the base of her neck. She walked over to the couch and sat down there as if the effort had drained her.

“I know,” she admitted. She closed her eyes and seemed to squeeze back tears. “But Rebecca. Oh, God.”

She tried to push away the visions of Jed McIntyre’s victims and pray instead that somehow Rebecca would manage to escape that fate. But she lacked the energy to control her thoughts, even to pray. Holding the phone to his ear with his shoulder, Jeffrey grabbed a chenille blanket off the couch and covered her with it.

“You need to get over here,” Jeffrey said into the phone, presumably speaking to Dax. Without another word, he hung up.

“Naturally, you can’t leave me here without my babysitter,” she said. But she didn’t have it in her to put up any kind of real protest. She was more just complaining out of habit.

“Please, Lydia,” said Jeffrey with a sigh. “Spare me a little worry for the afternoon, will you? Just stay here with Dax. And when you’re feeling stronger, we’ll talk about getting back to work. In the meantime, I’ll deal with the Ross case.”

“I feel like I’ve been in bed for a month.”

“You’ll be on your feet again soon.”

She nodded and looked away, out the window into the flat gray afternoon sky. He followed her eyes and saw tiny flurries of snow out the window. In the loft across the way, he saw a towering Christmas tree, lights glowing green, red, blue, tinsel glittering on the branches. He looked back at Lydia.

“You have to deal with this okay? Don’t just bulldoze over it.”

She nodded again and he saw the sadness in her eyes, how they were rimmed with dark smudges. He sat beside her and took her into his arms.

As if, she thought, resting her head on his shoulder, I had any choice but to deal with this. Even when her mind got up to its old tricks of pushing things she didn’t want to deal with so far inside that she could almost forget them, the pain of her body was a harsh and constant reminder. She felt hollow and empty, as if something she didn’t even know she wanted had been wrested from her. For all the ambivalence she’d felt about her pregnancy, she grieved the loss. She was trying hard not to feel like it was a punishment, a message from the universe that she wasn’t worthy of motherhood. But the shadow of that belief hovered in her consciousness.

And the fatigue-physical, emotional, spiritual-was so powerful that it pushed everything else out… Julian Ross, Rebecca, even Jed McIntyre. If he were to come for her now, he wouldn’t get much of a fight. She held on to Jeffrey, felt the strength of his body and his spirit, and it gave her comfort. She released him and lay back.

“I’m okay,” she said, wiping the tears that had sprung to her eyes. “I’m going to be fine.”

“I have no doubt,” he said with a smile.

“It’s Rebecca we should be worrying about now.”

The buzzer for the door rang. “Was he waiting downstairs?” said Lydia with a roll of her eyes.

“Who is it?” said Jeff into the intercom.

“Land shark,” said Dax.

“Very funny,” said Jeffrey, pressing the buzzer.

As he hulked through the elevator door, Dax’s head was not visible behind the gigantic bouquet of Stargazer lilies he’d brought for Lydia. The sight of them made her heart sink a little further. He placed the flowers down on the coffee table beside her, leaned in, and gave her a little kiss on the head. He smelled like musky cologne and snow, his cheek pink and cold against her own.

“How’re you doing there, girl?” he asked, his green eyes sincere, concerned. No wisecracks, no insults. It was awful. If Dax felt like he had to be nice to her, things must be worse than she thought.

chapter twenty-five

Rebecca was a strong girl, with big, tight thighs. She may even have had some martial arts training and Jed McIntyre had some bruised ribs and a black eye to show for it. But in the end none of that had done her much good. Even the toughest women had throats with skin as soft and easily torn as silk. That had always been his favorite end for the women in his life. It was so intimate, so final. To feel their mortal struggle against his chest, panic radiating off their skin like a perfume, the pain as they tried to scratch at his arms, the music of the death rattle in their throats. Then the peaceful moments when life left them to sag into his arms. Then silence. Frankly, sex didn’t even compare to the release. Yes, Rebecca was a strong girl. But he was stronger.

Nobody paid attention to the homeless man pushing his shopping cart up Central Park West, making a right at Eighty-sixth Street onto the path that led into park. Most people would rather stick their face in a public toilet than get too close to the man who shuffled, mumbling to himself, his clothes stiff with filth, his nails long and caked with dirt. He’d piled his red hair into a stocking cap and pulled it down over his ears, wore an old pair of sunglasses he’d found in the tunnels. They were missing one plastic arm and hung crooked on his face. He’d found a pair of old scrubs in the Dumpster behind Mount Sinai Hospital and he wore those over thermal underwear and under a bright red bathrobe. Combat boots from the Salvation Army were a lovely finish to the ensemble. In his current capacity, he found it necessary to abandon vanity. It was truly liberating. And where else but New York City did you have to make an utter spectacle of yourself to disappear completely?

The right front wheel of his cart was making an irritating squeal and the temperature had dropped significantly in the last few minutes. His hands were going red in the cold and his load seemed to grow heavier with each passing second.

He wasn’t exactly sure what he was going to do. He was waiting for inspiration, which he hoped would come soon, sometime after dark and sometime before rush hour when the park would fill with commuters and joggers. Then he’d be forced to wait outside for hours just to get a little privacy. This was another thing about New York: You could never find anyplace to be alone.

He’d developed a special affection for Rebecca over the last few days. She’d brought him closer to Lydia, and more important at this point to Jeffrey Mark, than he’d ever dreamed he would get. Of course, she struggled valiantly to keep the little details of their lives from him. It was the hydrochloric acid that had changed her mind.