Honeymoon

Chapter 106

WHEN I WALKED into Susan’s office a few minutes later, she was standing at the window, staring out on what was a drizzly afternoon. It was hard not to notice the symbolism of her having her back to me.

“How bad was it?” she asked without turning around.

“It was really bad.”

“Scale of one to ten.”

“Eighteen, nineteen.”

“No, seriously.”

“A nine, maybe,” I said. “I won’t know anything for a week.”

“Until then?”

“They chain my ankles to my desk.”

“They really ought to chain something else.”

“For the record, that’s now the second dick joke I’ve gotten today.”

“What’d you expect?”

“I don’t know, but I’d appreciate it if I didn’t have this entire conversation with your back.”

Susan turned around. She was a tough cookie and almost always unflappable, though you’d never know it to see her face at that moment. The concern and disappointment were unmistakable.

“You made me look bad, John.”

“I know,” I said quickly. A little too quickly.

“No, I mean, really bad.”

I gave a good, long stare down at my feet. “I’m sorry,” I said softly.

“Hell, you knew that working this through my department was bending the rules to begin with.”

I said nothing. To know Susan as I did was to know she was trying to get it out of her system. The anger, the frustration, the letdown. I figured she probably had one more good primal scream left in her before she could move on.

“Damn it, John, how could you be so fucking stupid!”

And there it was.

When the foundation of the building stopped shaking, she resumed her calm, stoic demeanor. There was still the matter of a serial killer on the loose and the need to catch her. Unfortunately, the reports from the field continued to offer little cause for optimism. Even the media coverage yielded nothing. Nora seemed to have completely disappeared.

“What about our people in the Caymans?” I asked.

“Nothing,” said Susan. “The Caribbean, the entire town of Briarcliff Manor, her apartment here in the city, and all points in between; she hasn’t been spotted anywhere.”

“Christ, where is she?”

“That’s the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question.” Susan glanced down at a piece of paper on her desk—scribbled on it was the amount of money frozen in Nora’s account. “Or should I say, the eighteen-million, four-hundred-and-twenty-six-thousand-dollar question?”

It was a staggering number.

“That reminds me,” I said. “What about the tax attorney, Keppler?”

“The one you strong-armed?”

“I prefer the term cajoled.”

“Either way, Nora hasn’t contacted his office.”

“Maybe I could pay another visit to the guy and—”

She stopped me. “You’re chained to your desk, remember? And who knows what’s going to happen after.” She managed a slight smile. “On the bright side, if you are suspended, perhaps you’ll have more time to spend with your boys.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “That all depends if their mother will let me.”

Susan turned around again and gazed out the window. “You know, if you were as good a husband as you are a father, we never would’ve split up.”