machine again. Who knew about it? You called your old buddy Ed Steinberg and pumped him for info on the case. He talked. Why not? Nothing was confidential. There wasn’t really even a case. When he mentioned the Citibank ATM, you realized that would be the clincher. Everyone would assume Aimee was a runaway too. And that’s exactly what happened. Then you called Aimee. You said you were from the hospital, which was true enough. You told her what she had to do to terminate the pregnancy in secret. You set up that meeting in New York. She’s waiting at the corner. You drive by. You tell her to pick up some cash at the machine. Your clincher. Aimee does as she’s told. And then she panics. She wants to think it through now. There you are, waiting to grab her, a syringe in your hand, and all of a sudden she runs off. She calls me. I get there. I drive her to Ridgewood. You follow — it was your car I saw that night follow us into the cul-de-sac. When she gets rejected by Harry Davis, you’re waiting. Aimee doesn’t remember much after that. She claims she was drugged. That fits — her memory would be fuzzy. Propofol would cause a lot of the symptoms. You’re familiar with that drug, aren’t you, Edna?”
“Of course I am. I’m a doctor. It’s an anesthetic.”
“You’ve used it in your practice?”
She hesitated. “I have.”
“And that will be your downfall.”
“Really? How’s that.”
“I have other evidence, but it’s mostly circumstantial. Those medical records, for one. They show you not only viewed Aimee’s medical records earlier than you indicated, but you didn’t even bring them up again when I called. Why would you? You already knew she was pregnant. I’ll also have phone records. Your son called you, you called your son.”
“So?”
“Right, so. And I can even show how you called the school and spoke to your son right after I left you the first time. Harry Davis wondered how Drew knew something was up before he confronted him. That’s how. You called and warned him. And you remember the call you made to Claire, the one from that pay phone near Twenty- third Street… first off, that was overkill. It was nice of you, trying to comfort the parents a little. But see, why would Aimee call from there — right where Katie Rochester had been spotted? She wouldn’t know about that. Only you would. And we already checked your E-ZPass records. You went into Manhattan. Took the Lincoln Tunnel twenty minutes before the call was made.”
“Hardly rock-solid,” Edna said.
“No, probably not. But here’s where you’re going down. The Propofol. You can write prescriptions, sure, but you also had to order it. The police at my behest already checked with your office. You did purchase plenty of Propofol, but no one can explain where it went. Aimee was given a blood test. The stuff was still in her bloodstream. You see?”
Edna Skylar took a deep breath, held it, let it loose. “Do you have a motive for this purported kidnapping, Myron?”
“Are we really going to play this game?”
She shrugged. “We’ve played it this far.”
“Fine, okay. The motive. That was the problem for everyone. Why would anyone kidnap Aimee? We all thought that someone wanted to keep her quiet. Your son could lose his job. Jake Wolf’s son could lose everything. Harry Davis, well, he had a ton to lose too. But abducting her wouldn’t help. There was also no ransom demand, no sexual assault, nothing like that. So I kept asking myself. Why would someone kidnap a young woman?”
“And?”
“You talked about the innocent.”
“Right.” There was resignation in her smile now. Edna Skylar knew what was coming next, Myron thought, but she won’t move out of the way.
“Who was more innocent,” Myron said, “than your unborn grandchild?”
She may have nodded. It was hard to tell. “Go on.”
“You said it yourself when we talked about choosing patients. It’s about prioritizing. It’s about saving the innocents. Your motives were almost pure, Edna. You were trying to save your own grandchild.”
Edna Skylar turned and looked down the corridor. When she faced Myron again, the sad smile was gone. Her face was oddly blank. “Aimee was already almost three months pregnant,” she began. Her tone had changed. There was something gentle in it, something distant too. “If I could have held that girl for another month or two, it would have been too late to terminate. If I could just put off Aimee’s decision for a little while longer, I would save my grandchild. Is that so wrong?”
Myron said nothing.
“And you’re right. I wanted Aimee’s disappearance to parallel Katie Rochester’s. Part of it was already there for me, of course. They both went to the same school and both were pregnant. So I added the ATM. I did all I could to make it look like Aimee was a runaway. But not for the reasons you said — not because she was a nice girl with a nice family. Pretty much the opposite, in fact.”
Myron nodded, seeing it now. “If the police started investigating,” he said, “they may have found out about her affair with your son.”
“Yes.”
“None of the suspects owned a log cabin. But you do, Edna. It even has the brown and white fireplace like Aimee said.”
“You’ve been a busy boy.”
“Yes, I have.”
“I had it pretty well planned out. I would treat her well. I would monitor the baby. I made that call to the parents hoping to offer some comfort. I would keep doing stuff like that — leaving hints that Aimee was a runaway and was okay.”
“Like going online?”
“Yes.”
“How did you get her password and screen name?”
“She gave it to me in a drug stupor.”
“You wore a disguise when you were with her?”
“I kept my face covered, yes.”
“And the name of Erin’s boyfriend. Mark Cooper. How did you get that?”
Edna shrugged. “She gave me that too.”
“It was the wrong answer. Mark Cooper was a boy nicknamed Trouble. That was another thing that bothered me.”
“Clever of her,” Edna Skylar said. “Still. I would have held her a few months. I would have kept leaving hints that she ran away. Then I would let her go. She would have told the same story about being abducted.”
“And no one would have believed her.”
“She would have the baby, Myron. That was all I was concerned with. The plan would have worked. Once that ATM charge came in, the police were certain that she was a runaway. So they were out of it. Her parents, well, they’re parents. Their concerns were dismissed just like the Rochesters’.” She met his eye. “Only one thing messed me up.”
Myron spread his hands. “Modesty prevents me from saying it.”
“Then I will. You, Myron. You messed me up.”
“You’re not going to call me a meddlesome kid, are you? Like on
“You think this is funny?”
“No, Edna. I don’t think it’s funny at all.”
“I never wanted to hurt anyone. Yes, it would inconvenience Aimee. It might even be somewhat traumatic for her, though I’m pretty good at administering drugs. I could have kept her comfortable and the baby safe. And her parents, of course they’d go through hell. I thought if I could convince them that she was a runaway — that she was all right — it might make it easier on them. But add up the pros and cons. Even if they all had to suffer a little, don’t you see? I was saving a life. It was like I told you. I messed up with Drew. I didn’t look out for him. I didn’t protect him.”
“And you weren’t going to make those same mistakes with your grandchild,” Myron said.
