Hush

21

OH GOD, SHE thought, tell me this isn’t happening. After checking with the restaurant’s hostess just to make certain she hadn’t missed a tall blond woman coming in alone, Lake dug her BlackBerry from her purse and called the number Melanie had phoned from. Voice mail. She left a message saying that she understood Melanie might be running late and that she would continue to wait for her-that Melanie should just get to the restaurant whenever she could. But it was obvious what had happened: Melanie had developed cold feet and decided not to come.

Lake ran her hands through her hair. She’d been banking so much on this meeting, believing that she was close to extricating herself from the horrible mess she was in. But she should have known from Melanie’s skittish tone that there was a chance she’d be a no-show. Lake decided to hang around for another twenty minutes just in case Melanie heard her message and changed her mind. But deep down she knew it was hopeless.

“Would you like to see a menu?”

It was the waitress, a pretty girl with an Australian accent. Lake had drunk nearly two glasses of wine without having eaten. Not only was her stomach growling but her head felt light, buzzy. And yet the idea of eating had no appeal. She smiled wanly and shook her head.

As she waited, she calculated what her next move should be. Certainly Archer would be interested in knowing that Melanie had asked for a meeting. That had to be significant. And he’d also be curious about the odd letters Lake had seen on the Turnbull and Kastner charts. Maybe Archer could tip off the police that there might be something fishy at the clinic to force them to take a closer look. But with nothing more than a hysterical woman’s word to go on, they’d never be able to gain access to patient records. Lake’s head began to throb, as if someone were squeezing it. She’d figure this out at home.

At nine-fifty she paid the check and slipped out of the restaurant. As she made her way down Front Street, the dull roaring and clacking of cars above her on the Brooklyn Bridge seemed to echo how agitated she felt inside.

At Dock Street, she turned left and headed down to Water. The block was deserted except for a young couple pulling their car out of a parking space. As enchanting as the area was, there didn’t seem to be any services along its streets-no delis or coffee shops or laundromats-and at this hour pedestrian traffic was nearly nonexistent. She thought she heard a sound behind her-the scuff of a shoe-and she quickly twisted her head around. There was no one there.

At Water she took a right. She wished she’d been able to find a parking space closer to the restaurant. Across the street an old brick warehouse with carved arches ran the entire length of the block. On her side of the street was a gallery, closed for the day, with an oversize carousel inside. The horses were paused in midgallop, their eyes blank in the small spotlight. The building after that, at the intersection, had apartments on the upper floors, and though some of them were lit up, there was no visible activity inside. It was as if she’d found herself in the back lot of a Hollywood studio after closing time. All she wanted was to be in her car heading home.

She heard a sound again, and this time she was sure it was a footstep. She spun around. Halfway down the block she saw a man walking alone at a steady clip. He was dressed in tight dark pants-jeans, she thought-and a sweatshirt and sneakers, and he wore some kind of trucker cap with the beak pulled low on his face. Her pulse jumped and she started moving faster.

Right away she heard the man pick up his own pace. His footsteps sounded louder and more urgent behind her. Still hurrying, Lake jerked her head around to look. He was walking with long, smooth strides, and though the cap hid his eyes, she could tell he was looking straight at her face.

She was in danger-there was no doubt about it. She turned back and started to run. Behind her she heard the man begin to run, too. The car was a block and a half away and it seemed impossible to reach it without the man catching up to her. “Help!” she screamed-and then again. Her voice was drowned out by the distant roar of subway cars passing over the Manhattan Bridge.

The last block toward the car was completely dark. To her left, just before the river, she could see a small café and she zigged in that direction, her heart nearly ramming against her chest. But as she sprinted toward the café, she saw the tables were stacked along the sidewalk and the inside lights dimmed. Gripping her aching right side, she turned back again. The man was gaining on her. Her only choice was the park. There would surely be people there still, looking at the water. She plunged into the same entrance she used earlier and raced along the path.

“Help!” she screamed again.

But the park was empty. Frantically she scanned the area to the right of the terraced steps for an exit but she saw only a chain-link fence. So she flew down the steps to the pebble beach and began to scuttle across it.

She could sense the man right behind her like a force field, and she yelled, “Get away from me!” Across the East River, Manhattan throbbed with lights, and cars streamed down the FDR Drive, but she knew that no one in the world could hear her.

Suddenly her whole body was being jerked backward. The man had grabbed her pink jacket, twisting the fabric in his fist. She couldn’t see him but she could smell him-the reeking scent of aftershave. Struggling, she twisted around. The man let go of her jacket and yanked her arm tightly. Her brain seemed oddly separated from her body; she was thinking and assessing the situation even as her body felt limp with fear. I have to fight him, she thought. Her purse was on her free arm and she let the strap slide from her shoulder. Before the bag could drop, she caught it and wrapped the strap once around her hand. Then she swung the purse as hard as she could at the man’s head.

It caught him by surprise and he staggered backward. At the same time his cap flew off, and in the glow of the streetlamps she saw his face. It was a face she had seen before but couldn’t place in her frantic state. She screamed “Help” again but no one came.

She tried to dart around the man but he shot to the right, blocking her path. She dodged the other way, but he blocked her again, and this time an evil smirk took shape on his face. In desperation she looked behind her. There was only the river. As she turned back around, the man charged at her with his full force, toppling her to the pebbled ground.

He’d knocked the wind out of her, too, and she struggled to get a breath. As he lunged toward her again, she hurled her purse at him with all her strength. It caught the edge of his shoulder and then bounced onto the rocks. He smirked again and drew something from his jacket pocket. The light caught the object and she saw that it was a knife-long and glinty and terrifying.

Then there was a sound behind the man, coming from near the trees in the park. He jerked his head back to see. In those few seconds Lake scooted back on her butt a few feet across the rocks and then staggered to her feet. Grabbing another breath, she turned around and stumbled to the river’s edge. She could hear the man scrambling over the rocks right behind her, ready to grab her again, but before he could catch her, she took a huge step and waded into the river. She dragged her legs a few more feet and then suddenly there was no bottom. She dropped into the dark river water and it swallowed her up to her neck. Behind her she heard the man gasp in surprise.

The water was cold and all her muscles clenched in shock. She paddled a few more feet out from the shoreline and then twisted her body so that it faced the shore. The man was at the water’s edge, his hands clenched in frustration. She could still see the knife shooting out, the blade an extension of his right hand.

Would he come after her? she wondered. Treading water, she kicked off her sandals and worked her way out of her jacket. Then, with long, firm strokes she began to swim, parallel to the shore. She was going south and she could feel the pull of a sure, steady current-or rather the outgoing tide, she suddenly realized, because the East River was an estuary of the Atlantic Ocean. Her terror ballooned. What if she was dragged down the river into the harbor? She would drown surely-or be sliced in two by a freighter. The trick would be to stay as close to the shore as possible.

Just ahead she saw an area of large jagged black rocks on the shoreline, almost primordial-looking, and then, not far beyond them, wooden pylons beneath another small park that jutted out over the river. If she could make it there, she could hold on to one of them. After about twenty strokes she flipped her body around and peered back toward the shore where she’d started. In the glow cast by the park lights, she saw the outline of the man still watching her, his arms outstretched tensely by his sides. But suddenly he turned and sprinted across the pebbles toward the entrance and disappeared into the darkness. Was he going to try to catch up with her farther south along the river?

She continued to swim, passing the rocks. Finally, exhausted, she reached the pylons. They were slimy and reeked of a horrible snail-like smell, but she flung her arms around one and held on as tightly as possible. It was such a relief to rest. Though she hadn’t swum far, it had been hard to maneuver in her clothes. Farther out on the water a red tugboat steamed along, pulling a black-and-white freighter with Russian-looking words painted along the side. I can’t believe this, she thought in despair. I’m floating in the East River. What was beneath her in the bottomless water? Fish and snakes and garbage? Worse?

Where was the man? By now he might be trying to get into the park above her. She had noticed earlier that a chain-link fence surrounded it, one he could easily scale. At that moment she thought she heard a noise on the walkway above the pylons. She pulled herself farther underneath.

The noise quieted after a moment. If it had been him, he would have seen that there was no way to reach her from where he was. But now what? she asked herself. He may have gone back to the park to wait for her. She had no choice but to stay where she was and pray that he didn’t return there. Then she could swim back to the park and flee this place.

As she waited, she pictured the man’s face in her mind. Where did she know him from? It was recent, she knew, very recent, but she couldn’t think of where she’d seen him.

She shivered. Though the water wasn’t extremely cold, she knew that if she were stuck in it long enough she would develop hypothermia. She dragged her legs back and forth through the water, trying to make her heart pump harder.

The next few minutes were endless. Far out in the river she could see freighters moving along almost soundlessly, pulled by tiny tugboats. She clung to the pylon as tightly as possible. Don’t let me die here, please, she begged. She imagined Amy and Will, living their lives without her.

After about twenty minutes, she let go of the pylon and paddled a little back upriver, fighting the tide, until she could get a better look at the park again. There was no sign of the man. But she didn’t dare go back so soon. She swam back to the pylon and grabbed hold again. Her arms ached and warm tears ran over the cool wetness of her face.

When roughly ten more minutes had passed, she knew she had to go back. She had started to shiver and her arms were trembling from grasping onto the pylon so tightly. She took a breath and began to swim, quietly as she could, back to the pebble beach. The tide was still going out, and within a minute she felt exhausted from fighting it.

Suddenly, she heard noises coming from the shoreline. With a rush of fear, she dropped her arms and treaded water. The sound was definitely emanating from the park. Was the man back? After a few seconds, she figured out the sound was laughter. She raised her head and peered through the darkness. There were four or five dark forms sitting on the terraced steps, talking and laughing. It sounded like a group of teenagers.

She began swimming harder, fighting the tide as best she could. Finally she was at the beach. She didn’t try to hit the bottom, just propelled herself onto the rocks like some kind of otter.

“Hey,” she heard one of the people on the steps call out, then “Oh my God.” As she pulled herself into a standing position, her wet clothes sucking at her body, five people scrambled down the steps in unison and ran toward her. As they drew closer she saw that they were all probably in their twenties-three guys and two girls.

“Are you okay?” one of the girls called out. “What happened to you?”

“I-I was chased into the water. By a man,” Lake said.

All five of them stared at her in disbelief. It would probably have made just as much sense, she thought, to say she’d been on a reconnaissance mission for the U.S. government and had been diving in search of foreign submarines.

“He was attacking me,” Lake added, wringing out her skirt. She scanned the area behind them, looking for the man.

“We should call the police,” the same girl said. She pulled a cell phone from the pocket of her jeans skirt and flipped it open.

“No!” Lake said, startling them all. “I mean-I will, but I can’t now. I have to get out of here in case he comes back. You-you should leave, too. It may not be safe.”

A few of them looked around nervously.

“Yeah, we better go,” one of the boys said.

“Could you walk me to my car?” Lake asked. “It’s just a block away.”

“Sure,” the same dark-haired guy said. But no sooner had she said the words than she realized that she didn’t have her purse. Her eyes raced over the rocks. There it was-still lying where it had landed when she’d thrown it at her attacker. Barefoot, she made her way gingerly over the rocks and grabbed it. Though a small notebook had slipped out onto the rocks, everything else was safely inside-her BlackBerry, her car keys, her wallet. Turning back around, she found all five people staring wide-eyed at her, clearly still dumbfounded by her entire existence.

She urged them again to leave and together they all hurried out of the park. One of the girls nervously grabbed the hand of the dark-haired guy, though the guys looked more perplexed than worried. They think I’ve had a fight with my boyfriend, Lake thought, and done a drama jump into the river. She didn’t care. She was shivering and her stomach was cramping and she just wanted to be safe in her car.

As she hurried down the street with them, trying not to stub her bare toes on the cobblestone, she constantly surveyed the area. There was no sign of the man anywhere. Ten feet away from the car, with the strangers trailing behind her, she hit the unlock button on her car key and nearly flung herself inside. Before slamming the door shut, she thanked the five strangers for their help. Somewhere in the backseat was her gym bag, where she kept a pair of athletic shoes, but she didn’t dare take the time now to find them. She fired up the engine and pulled away. In the rearview mirror she saw one of the guys shrug, as if asking, What the hell was that all about?

She could barely think straight as she drove. After making a right on a nearly deserted street, she sped out of Dumbo. When she finally reached a busier street, she pulled the car over and punched her address into the GPS so that she could find her way back to the Brooklyn Bridge.

But then she realized that she couldn’t risk going home. What if the man was waiting for her there? Plus, she couldn’t let the doorman see her this way. She could just imagine it turning up in a report in the custody case: “Doorman reports that mother once arrived home sopping wet and smelling of tanker oil and raw sewage.”

Still shivering, she flipped on the heater and tried to focus. Molly’s name flashed in her mind. She would go to her friend’s apartment in Chelsea, she decided. Molly would take care of her and help her decide what to do. Maybe now she would even tell Molly the whole story. She clearly had to start getting some help.

Once over the Brooklyn Bridge, Lake took the FDR around the tip of Manhattan and then headed north. Every few seconds she checked the rearview mirror but it was impossible to tell if she was being followed-all she could see behind her were swirling globes of light. At a red light she rooted through her purse for her BlackBerry and called Molly. She got only voice mail.

“Molly,” she said plaintively. “I-I need to talk to you. Please call me back, okay? As soon as you can.” She tried Molly’s landline next, but when there was no answer she just hung up.

Where is she? Lake wondered. Though Molly had a busy social life, she’d often told Lake she liked to be in bed before midnight. Lake checked her watch: 11:34. Knowing that Molly should be home shortly, or at the very least return Lake’s call in a lather of curiosity, Lake decided to drive to Molly’s apartment building. She’d wait outside until she finally heard back-and then she’d crash on Molly’s couch for the night. She considered the small chance Molly was on a hot date and wouldn’t be coming home tonight. But Lake had no other options.

She proceeded to West Twenty-first Street, frequently checking her rearview mirror. For one whole block there wasn’t a single car behind, so she was pretty sure she wasn’t being followed. The man who’d attacked her had obviously given up and left. She saw his face again in her mind’s eye. Finally, with a start, she remembered where she’d seen him. He was the man in the bar at the Waldorf, the one who’d checked her out after Archer left. He’d been watching her for days, then. Had someone at the clinic hired him? Had he killed Keaton with that knife?

She was so distracted that she missed Molly’s block and had to go around again. Once she was finally there, she double-parked just a few yards ahead of Molly’s apartment building so she’d be able to see her come in. She craned her neck, checking nervously behind her. A few cars came down the street but they all shot past her.

Lake had stopped shivering but she felt miserable in her wet clothes. Still watching the building, she fumbled in the backseat for the bag with her gym clothes and pulled out the shoes and a T-shirt. She scrunched down in the front seat, peeled off her jersey shell and bra and wriggled into the T-shirt. Then she put on the shoes.

Ten minutes passed. She tried Molly’s number again. Still no answer. As she eyed her incoming emails, she saw that Archer had sent her a message only a few minutes before. He’d returned from his trip sooner than he’d anticipated and wanted to catch up tomorrow.

Some movement on the block caused Lake’s eyes to shoot back up. A woman with long hair, her back toward Lake, was walking toward the building. Finally-Molly. But as the woman reached the doorway and stopped to speak to the doorman, Lake saw that it wasn’t Molly after all. What will I do if she doesn’t come home? Lake thought plaintively. Should she get a hotel room? She could imagine the face of the front-desk clerk when her stench blew into the lobby.

The doorman nodded a goodnight to the woman and she proceeded into the building. Two men walked past the building but didn’t stop. And then a cab lurched to a stop in front. Please let this be Molly, Lake prayed. She could see the passenger leaning forward in the backseat to pay, and after a few seconds Lake could tell that it was a man. He flung open the door and thrust his body out with assurance. The light of the streetlamp caught his face as he paused to stuff the change into his pants pocket.

Lake stared in disbelief. It was Jack.