212

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

10:20 P.M.

Tanya Abbott let the paperback drop to the floor beside the sofa. The mystery novel had kept her occupied for the entire day since she’d found it in the nightstand drawer, but now it was over. She wasn’t ready to sleep yet either. She was stir-crazy.

She’d walked out of St. Vincent’s on Friday night, knowing that once the hospital dug further for insurance information, they’d realize the real Heather Bradley was buried in Arizona. She thought about going to Penn Station and catching the first train down to Baltimore, but she knew herself too well. Once she was back home, she’d crash with Mark. Or Trent. Or maybe Saundra. Either way, she’d fall into her old ways. Drinking too much. Floating bad checks. Taking cheap dates. Feeling lucky not to get busted.

So instead she’d come here.

When she’d moved to New York last spring, it was supposed to be a truly fresh start. New name. New place. New age. None of the same bad habits. She had an entire summer before classes started so she could adjust to her new life.

But the money hadn’t been enough. Maybe it would have been fifteen years ago when the Bandons first set up the college fund. But college tuition had outpaced the interest on the account. The fund would barely cover tuition through graduation, not the cost to live in New York.

She thought about going to the Bandons for more, but knew it was no use. They’d always been good about helping her in a jam, but a few bucks here and there wasn’t the same as a lump sum. The one and only lump sum had been paid with the college fund. She’d found that out for sure when the bank sold the house. Maybe Paul was willing to do more, but her mother had always made it clear that Laura’s family was the one with the real money. Fair enough. She had, after all, made a deal.

And so Tanya had supplemented her income, the same way she always had. Craig’s List made it easy to jump back in, even in a new city. It was still a new life, only with a bit of a transition from the old one.

She tried to look at the bright side: but for the dates, she wouldn’t have had this apartment to hunker down in for the weekend. Granted, she also wouldn’t have been at the 212 that night and therefore wouldn’t need this place, but that was another issue.

She’d dated Henri twice a month since May, but still didn’t really understand what his job was. An equity something-or-another. He lived with his wife and two children in Paris, but worked in his New York City office every Thursday and Friday and kept an apartment in Hell’s Kitchen. Every other week, he delayed his return trip until Saturday morning. His wife thought the extra nights were for business dinners.

They were not.

She’d shown up for their date on Friday as planned, making up an elaborate story about a horse-riding accident to explain the bandages. Henri had been sweet. Even tender. She did find a way of pleasing him, even under the circumstances.

And as the time came for him to leave for JFK in the morning, she’d complained from the shower that the bandages were slowing her down. He trusted her to close the door behind her. Instead, she’d helped herself to the extra key in the top drawer of the kitchen, leaving only for a quick dash to the Gristedes on Eighth Avenue—and for that one ill-fated attempt to find the blond detective on her own.

Only two more nights until Henri returned. She needed a plan.

When four months had passed after that awful night at the 212, she thought she might have actually pulled through. No cops. No questions. Even after that maniac attacked her and Megan on Friday morning, she had wanted to believe it was whoever wrote those creepy Internet posts. It wasn’t until the next day, when the news anchor said that the woman killed at the Royalton had led a double life as a call girl named Miranda, that she realized she was in danger.

She flipped on NY1 to catch the mid-hour headlines. She’d been watching incessantly for anything new—about her, about Megan’s death, about any connection to last May’s murder.

The correspondent was breathless with the pressing report: a twenty-one-year-old male Columbia student was on a building roof at Seventy-eighth and Park, reportedly threatening to jump. He did not know the source of the man’s despondence, but detectives looking for the missing woman Tanya Abbott were apparently on the scene.

By the time he promised to keep viewers apprised of any new developments, Tanya was already out the door.