The October List

Chapter 21 The Warrior

8:30 A.M., SUNDAY

1 HOUR EARLIER

HE HAD A SENSE THAT SOMEBODY WAS WATCHING HIM.

Frank Walsh was walking toward his apartment in the West Village, aware of a man in his forties, large, with curly blond hair sticking out from beneath a baseball cap, wearing a dark overcoat. The man was on the opposite side of Hudson Street, walking in the same direction. But it was odd, the way this guy was walking. Anybody else would have been looking down at his feet or ahead or at the windows to his left. This guy, though, was glancing pretty frequently at the sparse Sunday-morning traffic. Like he was worried about cars following him.

Worried why? That cops were after him, a mugger? A killer?

Or was Mr. Overcoat studiously avoiding looking at his own target: Franklin Walsh himself?

The thirty-year-old knew about stalking up on prey, about fighting, about attacking. About survival.

About blood.

His instincts told him this guy was trouble.

A fast glance but the man seemed to anticipate this and looked away. Frank got only a look at a round face and that creepy hair — tight blond curls, slick. But this was the Village and weird was the order of the day.

Then Mr. Overcoat paused to look in a window, head cocked with what seemed to be legitimate curiosity. So maybe he was just another local. Frank told himself to stop being paranoid. Besides, he knew how to take care of himself. He felt the knife in his pocket, tapped it for reassurance.

Soon his thoughts drifted away from Mr. Overcoat. They even skipped over what was coming a half hour from now: the knife work he’d been obsessing over for days.

And they settled on... what else? Shit. The weekend visit with his mother. She’d overfed him. She’d made him take her shopping at the most crowded mall on Long Island. And there hadn’t been much to talk about with her, of course — there never was — though the woman had managed to bring up Frank’s sister’s marriage at least a half-dozen times.

Part of that topic included the fact that Barbara and her husband would “surely have a baby in the next year or so.”

Which involuntarily had conjured an unpleasant image of his sister having sex, which put him off dinner last night, at least until dessert.

“Brobbie and Steve want four, you know. Ideally one year apart.”

What was his mother’s point? Did she think he could wave his wand (hmm, bad choice of word, that) and, poof, there was a wife popping out kids? Shit, didn’t she know he was doing the best he could? His life wasn’t like everybody else’s. Who, for instance, would understand his obsession?

The knives, the fighting, the blood...

Also, another thing: the practicality. Given his line of work, he didn’t meet many women.

Besides, he was holding out for one particular person.

Ah, Gabriela...

Tuesday, sure.

Her words, punctuated with a smile.

Frank was presently striding briskly back from Penn Station at Madison Square Garden. This was a pretty good walk, and guaranteed to burn off maybe a hundred calories, particularly in the chill autumn air. He’d purposefully taken off his jacket so his body would drop fat, burning calories in the chill — even though he didn’t like looking at his round figure in the storefront windows as he passed them. He shouldn’t have worn the knit shirt. It was clinging, revealing.

Well, don’t look, he told himself.

But he did.

Still, he kept the jacket off. Cold weather made you burn up to 50 percent more calories than you did in the heat. In the Arctic you could eat whatever you wanted and still lose weight. He’d researched it. Six thousand calories a day. He should spend a year there.

Frank glanced around again and noted that Mr. Overcoat was now on the same side of the street as he was, and the man’s pace continued to match Frank’s.

Stalking, attacking, killing...

Still, had to be paranoia.

What would this guy be interested in me for? And even if he is, how could he have found me here, on the street, striding south from Penn Station?

But, of course, Frank Walsh knew computers cold — the good side of machines, and the bad. He was well aware of phone tapping and datamining. He’d bought his ticket back to the city this morning with a credit card. He’d phoned his mother to tell her he’d made the train. If somebody wanted to, he could’ve found out what train Frank was on, when he’d be arriving at the station, even what he looked like — from the Motor Vehicle picture (even if the depiction was thirty pounds lighter than presently).

He then turned the corner onto his street in the Village and risked a fast look back, his hand on the knife in his pocket.

The curly-haired guy was gone.

Frank continued up the block and approached his eight-story apartment building. As he got to the door he stepped in quickly and looked around but the quiet, tree-lined street was deserted.

He stepped into the lobby and finally relaxed.

“Hi, Arthur.”

The doorman was old and when he walked he shuffled and he smelled of Old Spice. “Package for you, Mr. Walsh.”

“FedEx?” He was expecting the knife, the kukri. Those Nepalese were far more deadly than people thought.

Cheery Sherpas, my ass.

“No, it was a hand delivery. Some Hispanic fellow dropped it off yesterday.”

It was a plastic bag containing something rectangular and heavy. He took it.

“Thanks.” He hadn’t planned to give him a tip. Frank was plenty generous around Christmas. He looked into the bag and his heart thudded and he laughed as he read the note that accompanied it.

He handed Arthur five dollars.

The old man took it without thanks but with a raised hand that Frank chose to interpret as undying gratitude.

Frank unlocked his door and walked inside, tossing his jacket on his armchair in front of the big-screen TV.

The apartment, consisting of three rooms, was this: dark and insanely cluttered, yet comforting — if claustrophobic at times, depending on his mood. A kitchenette with a two-burner gas stove and oven big enough for a TV dinner or two. His microwave sat atop a table, sharing the space with books and magazines. But back in the day, in this locale of glorious bohemian art, you created your poetry or paintings, you smoked pot, you slept with as many women as you could and you drank to oblivion; cooking was secondary, if not wholly unnecessary.

Frank walked to the window and looked out at Westbeth, the famous artists’ community. He had a view of the very room where Diane Arbus had slashed her wrists in ’71.

At least that was what the real estate broker, sensing a hooked fish, had said. As if it would make this dive more appealing to be able to look out over the space where a very weird photographer had offed herself.

Then he shifted his gaze and scanned for men in black overcoats.

Not a single Matrix killer with slick, curly blond hair. He closed the curtain.

Frank then returned to the delivery he’d just received and, swollen with joy, lifted out the dark green box of Dom Pérignon champagne.

He peeled off the note.

He felt like he’d just scratched off the last number in Lotto and won a million dollars. He laughed out loud with pleasure.

Champagne! And he didn’t think this was the cheap stuff, either.

He pictured Gabby’s slim waist, her high, spherical breasts, the thick, straight auburn hair that she seemed to wear up in buns or ponytails most of the time. But occasionally she wore it down, which Frank loved.

God, was she pretty.

He recalled seeing her in a yellow swimsuit, sunbathing in Central Park. He believed he’d seen a scar on her belly. He wondered if it was a C-section or from an accident.

He wondered how he could find out.

Ask her, dummy.

Their coffee on Friday had been great. He must’ve passed a test of sorts, because look at this! He regarded the green box again. Reread the note. Then again, and once more.

Hell, Dom Pérignon. He Googled.

Shit! A hundred fifty bucks!

Frank began to fantasize about when she came over on Tuesday. He’d have the place spick-and-span.

Vacuumed. And air-freshened; he sniffed and something smelled off.

Clean sheets on the bed...

Frank glanced at his watch. Well, he’d have to think about their date later. Now it was time for the fight.

Time for death, time for blood.

His palms began to sweat.

In his musty bedroom Frank Walsh emptied his pockets onto his dresser: forty-three dollars in crumpled bills, coins, receipts, a Necco Wafer wrapper, a Kit Kat wrapper, and the knife he always carried, a two-inch Swiss Army model with magnifier, toothpick and scissors.

He opened the closet door. Inside were dozens of shoes, one suit, four combat jackets and a hat rack with a single piece of headgear, a Greek fisherman cap. This he grabbed and pulled over his ruddy hair. He sat down in his creaky office chair and booted up his computer, kicking his shoes off. Squinting at the computer screen, Frank moused up the volume and music trilled, otherworldly music from a different dimension.

The familiar logo filled the screen, giving him comfort, like seeing the Now Entering sign of your hometown.

Frank clicked on Resume Game and motioned to life his avatar, a lean, handsome warrior whose appearance was similar to its owner in hair color only. He directed this figure to the armory to select the Daratian knife from his arsenal of weapons. Frank then flew the avatar, via a winged horse, into Prospecia Woods, where he would meet and fight an avatar manned by a young player in Taiwan.

They’d scheduled this one-on-one battle to settle a dispute between their respective clans, as the rules of the game allowed.

A few moments later he arrived at the Judgment Circle, which was already surrounded by several dozen avatars from both clans. The people behind those creatures — none of whom Frank had ever met in person, or even had a real conversation with — directed the warriors and wizards to applaud and leap up and down, offering cries of support. The other side, of course, did the same, encouraging their warrior.

After a moment the opposing avatar appeared, a bizarre-looking creature with a tentacle for a tail. He surveyed the fighting circle and stepped over the barrier.

Frank instructed his avatar to do the same. The two animated creations faced each other.

He had a brief memory of Mr. Overcoat, but it faded quickly. He had a knife fight to win. He directed his avatar to crouch and, with the wicked blade forward, he advanced on his opponent, who dropped into a defensive position as his snaky face surveyed his enemy.

Frank feinted to the side and then leapt forward, knife swinging like an airplane propeller, and he clung to his strategy — pretending he was defending Gabby from being raped by the creature.

Blood flew and screams rose harrowingly, shooting from the Bose speakers, a month’s pay.

Frank advanced again.

Stalking, attacking, killing...

Chapter 22 Walking Alone

9:30 A.M., SUNDAY

15 MINUTES EARLIER

They sat together on the edge of the unmade bed, sheets warm and twisted, concentric, like hurricane clouds seen from space.

Their legs touched.

“We should check out soon,” Daniel Reardon said. He was looking down at Lexington Avenue as if Joseph or a crew of other killers searching desperately for the October List were stationed outside. His bag was packed.

“All right,” Gabriela said absently. She rose and began gathering up her clothes, stuffing them back into the gym bag. Dark blue with a red Nike logo on the side. Did Nike still use that logo? she wondered. And the tagline:

Just do it...

She’d brought very little with her, apart from the files, and she was soon finished. She was aware of Daniel looking her over. Blue jeans and a V-neck green sweater over a cream-colored silk camisole. A light gray L.L. Bean windbreaker. Daniel was in a new outfit as well — a suit, like yesterday. Dark gray. Italian. It was perfectly pressed. He wore no tie, a concession of some sort to the weekend. The scent rising from the cloth was astringent — dry-cleaning chemicals — but she sensed a subtext of aftershave, lotion and musk. Shoe polish too. He was fastidious about his shoes. The combination was, for some reason, extremely arousing.

Yes, they should check out, Gabriela reflected. But she didn’t want to. She wanted to stay here. Close to him.

Very close.

This was absurd under the circumstances. Yet, for the moment, the feeling of desire — and the possibility of a deeper, searingly hot connection — enveloped her.

It was then that he pulled her closer, his right hand easing like a silk scarf around her neck. She resisted but only for the briefest of moments. Lips yielding and surging, tastes joining, heat rolling from skin to skin. The more she relaxed, the harder he gripped her.

And she sensed that irresistible uncoiling within her.

Another embrace, bordering on pain. Then he was backing away. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.” Though he didn’t seem the least bit contrite.

Despite virtually seeing the name “Sarah” emblazoned in her mind, Gabriela said softly, “Yes, you should have.” And she kissed him once more.

“Let’s get breakfast and keep going through our homework.” A glance at the documents. “We’ve got a half-million dollars to find.”

She nodded but found herself tempted once more to pull him down on the bed next to her. She easily pictured what would follow. Daniel was sensual, with a taut body — she’d seen and felt enough of it already. A firm, unyielding grip. Lips the right combination of firm and soft. He’d have a playful tongue and he’d use it frequently; he was a man who would enjoy taste as well as touch. He would press her down on the bed, pinioning her, which despite her obsession with control she curiously enjoyed — never been able to figure that one out — and then he’d devour her, one hand on her thigh, one on her breast. He’d be unrelenting, possessive, domineering.

And the warmth and pleasure, like drugs, would continue, growing and growing until the end, which would be pretty quick for her.

God, she wanted that.

A string of mismatched lovers stretched out behind her.

Mismatched and worse.

But, as tempted as she was, she forced the fantasy away and ignored the warm sheets, the scents of him, the memory of his hands and mouth.

Priorities.

Goals.

The name “Sarah.”

Chapter 23 Fashionista

9:45 A.M., SUNDAY

15 MINUTES EARLIER

“Okay,” Kepler said, looking up from his phone. “The address is Madison at Eighty-Eight.”

“And what’s that supposed to be?” Surani asked.

“Charles Prescott’s girlfriend.” He looked down at a sheet of paper. “Sonia Dietrich.”

“This is all very fucking complicated,” Surani griped.

“You’re been cussing a lot lately,” Kepler said. “Not like you.”

“Not like me? Because people of South Asian heritage — that’s Indian to you, but not your kind of Indian — don’t swear? People who work in call centers don’t swear?”

“That’s racist,” Kepler said indignantly. “What do you mean, ‘my kind of Indian’? I don’t go to the casinos.”

“Casinos?” Surani riposted. “My point exactly. There you go.” His gray-complexioned face turned to his partner with a look of smug triumph. He took off his suit jacket and hung it over a chair.

Kepler was continually surprised at how his partner could be so slim, yet so muscular. The man played soccer most weekends. Cricket sometimes, a game Kepler simply couldn’t get his head around.

Thinking he really should get serious about the golf, Kepler waved his hand, which meant the argument was over.

A figure appeared in the doorway of the operations room.

“Ah, it’s Rookie Three-name,” Kepler said, eyeing the name badge.

“Fred Stanford Chapman reporting for duty,” the young blond officer said; his tone evidenced a bit of attitude, Kepler thought.

“And if you’re interested, for the record I swear all the fucking time,” said the kid, who’d apparently overheard the conversation. “Anyway, swearing isn’t swearing anymore. It’s different.”

Attitude...

Kepler gave him a that’s-not-funny-so-watch-yourself look. Blondie shut up and decided not to offer what he’d been about to, whatever it was.

“All right, Fred Stanford Chapman—”

The rookie said, “Why don’t you call me Stosh? It’s—”

“Naw, you’re definitely a Fred Stanford Chapman,” Kepler said, like he was bestowing an honorary title.

“Definitely,” Surani echoed.

“Now. Listen up.” Kepler briefed the Patrol officer on the Charles Prescott Op and, even though he remained a little smart-ass around the eyes, the kid seemed to get it. And even made a few good suggestions.

Then Kepler said, “Let’s get some breakfast. Something big.”

“And expensive,” Surani added.

Kepler let drop, “We’ll charge it to Patrol. Our Viking warrior here’ll sign for it.”

The kid was silent for a moment. He’d be thinking that even on stakeout operations he had to buy his own food. “Me?”

“This case is so fucked up — excuse me, Gandhi,” Kepler said, with a look at Surani, who gave him the finger yet again, “that we need some Bloody Marys too. Or, hell, champagne.”

“Champagne?” The rookie was dying.

Kepler gave it a whole ten seconds. Then said, “We’re fucking with you, Fred Stanford Chapman.”

“Yeah.” And he tried to look as if he’d known that all along.

“We got time for coffee, that’s it. We go to... What’s the address again?”

“Madison and Eighty-Eight.” He added to the new member to the team: “That’s where Prescott’s concubine’s supposed to be.”

The young officer said, “A concubine is a woman who exists in a marriage-like relationship but’s unable to marry her lover, usually because of a difference in social class. You wouldn’t really have concubines in America. Fewer class issues, you know.”

Both the detectives stared at him.

The kid blushed. “I’m just saying.”

“Jesus Christ,” Kepler muttered. “Now you’re definitely buying.”

Surani, the more-or-less voice of reason, said, “Let’s get a move on.”

The detectives waited, continuing to stare at the patrolman.

“What?” The kid’s voice nearly broke.

Surani frowned. “You weren’t listening?”

“How’s that?”

“The briefing. Just now.”

“I was, yeah.” But he looked uncertain, as if he maybe hadn’t been listening as much as he ought to’ve been.

“Forget about that?” Kepler pointed to a bulletproof vest, sitting on a table near the door.

“I’ll pass,” the young officer said. “Sweat like a pig in one of those. Besides, what could go wrong?”

Chapter 24 Morning After, No. 2

10:00 A.M., SUNDAY

1 HOUR, 10 MINUTES EARLIER

Daniel and Gabriela had checked out and were sitting at a wobbly table in a coffee shop on the Upper East Side.

She nodded back to the hotel in which they’d spent the night. “You always take girls to dives like that?”

“Only the ones I think can handle it. You passed the test.”

She gave a wry smile and turned back to her task. Dozens of documents sat in front of them, business records, letters, copies of emails.

She examined the last few in the pile. She leaned back. “It looks like there’s close to a million dollars in quote ‘miscellaneous assets’ that my boss has. But there’s no clue where they could be. It’s so unfair! To know there’s money out there, enough for the ransom, but not know where it is. How the hell’m I going to get Joseph his goddamn money?”

Daniel had examined his half of the documents and he admitted he’d found nothing either.

Gabriela’s coffee sat untouched before her. Daniel was drinking tea. Two bags sat in the cup, dyeing the water ruddy brown. Not many people drank tea, she reflected. Her mother did. For the past six years, though, the woman mostly just stared at the cup of cooling English Breakfast on the table in the assisted-living home.

Forget that. Concentrate. This is important, this is vital.

Gabriela found herself sweating. She wiped her palms on her blue jeans. She’d peeled off the windbreaker, but the restaurant was hot and her wool sweater, which she’d knitted herself, was warm. The pale green garment was thick. She remembered picking out the yarn, searching online to find a good pattern for the collar and sleeves, an Irish chain.

She sipped coffee and picked at toast, for which she had no appetite. Then, with both hands, she gestured desperately at the documents and muttered, “Where do we go from here? Safe-deposit boxes?”

“The police will’ve found them all, locked them down.”

They were silent, surrounded by the sound of the milk steamer, Muzak from CDs offered for sale, a little conversation and a lot of clattering keyboards. Looking out the window, she noted the silhouette of the Queensboro Bridge, 59th Street. It was stark against an indifferent sky.

Gabriela had a sip of coffee, then another. It was bitter. She didn’t mind. The sharp flavor made her alert.

“Did you find anything about this mysterious Gunther?” he asked.

“Nothing, no.”

“What about family property?”

“What do you mean?”

“Your boss’s parents? Brothers and sisters? Someplace that was held in a different name than Prescott.”

Gabriela said quickly, “Yes, yes! There is.” Her eyes grew wide. “That could be it. When Charles’s father died last year, he and his siblings were going to put the family home on the market but they decided they had to fix the place up first. Charles would go up there every few months to work on it. It’s still being renovated.”

“Whose name was it under?”

“It was a trust the lawyers named something like One Oh Nine Bedford Road Trust.”

“The police might not have heard about it yet.”

She continued, “I’ve seen pictures. It’d be perfect to hide money — it’s old, two hundred years. And has dozens of rooms and a huge basement. How big is a million dollars?”

Daniel laughed. “I wouldn’t know. My clients use wire transfers. But it’s probably not as big as you’d expect. Where is the house?” he asked.

“Near Ridgefield, Connecticut. In the western part of the state, near the New York border.”

“I know it. We could get up there and back in time before the deadline. We can take my car. I garage it a couple blocks from here.” But then he frowned and asked, “Is the phone up there still working?”

“I don’t know. Why?”

“You better try it first, before we show up.”

“Why? You think Charles’s hiding there? The police traced him to the Caribbean.”

“No,” Daniel said. “I think the police might be there.”

“Oh. Of course.” She lifted her mobile.

But Daniel stopped her, pointing to a pay phone in the back of the shop.

“You think they’re tracing calls?” she asked.

“I’m way past paranoia at this point.”

She rose and walked to the phone, lifted the receiver and fed in some coins. Two minutes later she was back at the table, scooting the chair next to him.

She offered a rueful look. “Good decision, Daniel.”

“Who answered?” he asked.

“Detective Holloway. Connecticut State Police. I said it was a wrong number and hung up.” Gabriela sighed and her body seemed to collapse in on itself. Daniel wasn’t much taller than she was — maybe three inches — but she was so diminished at the moment that he seemed to tower over her. Her head was tilted downward. “That was our last chance... Oh, Sarah...” she muttered. “What am I going to do, Daniel? If we don’t get that money...”

But then she fell silent and cocked her head. “Wait, wait...” She plowed once more through the documents spread out before them.

“What? You look like a wolf going after a sheep.”

Her dark fingernail underlined some entries on a business form. “These are accounts of non-deductible expenses that Charles had. Personal accounts. I never paid any attention to them before because they didn’t have anything to do with the business.” Reading through the documents again, Gabriela pointed to some entries. “He spent close to a hundred thousand at jewelry and department stores last year. Some of the items he had delivered to an address on Madison Avenue, a woman named Sonia Dietrich.”

“Who is she?”

“I never heard of her. I know Charles dated some but he never mentioned who he was seeing. No woman ever came by the office.” Perusing the balance sheets and ledgers again. “Hell, he did more than buy her presents. He wrote dozens of checks to her too. A hundred thousand, a little more.”

“And maybe gave her some cash.”

“It could be,” she said excitedly. “She might have the missing million.”

Daniel asked, “Would she have left the country with him?”

Gabriela said, “Considering he’s a wanted man, Charles’s probably the last person she’d want to be seen with. Women like her have a sixth sense. Survival, you know.”

He’d noted a certain tenor. “Like her? I thought you didn’t know her.”

“Intuition,” she said drily.

“How should we handle it?” he asked.

“I could call and tell her...” She debated. “No, how’s this? I could tell her the police are looking for people connected with Charles. He wanted me to pick up anything he left with her, to keep her in the clear.”

“Including a large satchel of hundred-dollar bills? I don’t think that’ll work.”

“No, I suppose not. Well, how about this? I’ll tell her if I don’t get the money I’m going to the police and reporting that she’s been hiding stolen money for him. What do they call that?”

“Bagman.”

“I’ll tell those detectives she’s a bagman. Well, bagwoman. I get the five hundred thousand and she doesn’t go to jail.”

“I like that a lot better.”

Stuffing a crumpled napkin into his cup, Daniel asked, “But what if she’s not home?”

Gabriela thought for a moment. “Then it’s Plan B.”

“Which is?”

“I’ll break into her fucking apartment and turn it inside out.”

They stood on the corner of 88th and Madison, two buildings away from the one Gabriela pointed at. “That’s it. That’s where she lives, his girlfriend, or mistress, or accomplice. Whatever Ms. Dietrich is.”

“ ‘Slut’ was the most recent job description, I thought,” Daniel reminded in a whisper.

Gabriela dug through the documents in her purse. She then placed a call and held the phone to her ear. After a few seconds she put the unit away. She said, “Voice mail. I guess we assume she’s not there.”

“As opposed to assuming she’s not answering because she’s busy cleaning her shotgun?” He looked boyish, he looked charming... and he seemed a bit charmed himself as he scanned her face.

“Okay. We go with the alternative.”

Plan B...

“Wait here a minute,” she told him and walked into the lobby of the elegant brownstone, looking over the mailboxes. She returned to Daniel. “Brother, she’s got the whole second floor.” They gazed at those windows, which were dark. The rooms seemed to be unoccupied.

“Come on,” she said.

They walked into the alleyway beside the building. All the windows on the ground floor were barred with elaborate, scrolly grates. The second-floor windows, however, were not protected, and one was partly open.

“Help me.”

They wheeled a Dumpster below it.

Gabriela then turned and walked back to the street, with Daniel following. She surveyed the scene. The sidewalk wasn’t crowded. “The alley’s narrow,” she pointed out. “There’s no reason for anybody to look into it and see me.”

“You’re really going to break in?”

“Yep. I sure as hell am.”

She noted a closed antiques store on the corner. In front were two massive Chinese lions, secured to the sidewalk with massive chains. Who on earth would steal them? she thought. How could you fence eight hundred pounds of ugly sculpture?

“You wait there and, I don’t know — pretend to make a call. If you see anybody walk up to the building, call me.”

He gave her a quick kiss. “Good luck.” He retreated ten feet and took out his mobile.

Gabriela started back to the alley. She had just reached the mouth when, with a staccato flutter of urgent, official lights, an unmarked police car, followed by a blue-and-white NYPD cruiser, skidded to a stop in front of the building.

Daniel started forward but Gabriela subtly gestured for him to stay where he was.

The two detectives who’d stopped the pair yesterday, Kepler and Surani, climbed out of the unmarked police car. A uniformed officer, blond and young, exited the cruiser.

None of them looked Daniel’s way.

Kepler gestured toward where they stood on the sidewalk. “Come on over here, Ms. McKenzie.”

She didn’t move.

“Please. Now.”

She hesitated then joined them.

“Tell us what’re you doing,” Surani insisted, though politely.

“That’s my business.”

“Well, explain what that business is and why it involves an alleyway?”

“I wasn’t breaking any laws,” she shot back.

“No? Were you — just speculating here — thinking of maybe... breaking into somebody’s apartment?” From Kepler, of course, and delivered frosted with sarcasm.

“That’s ridiculous. A friend of my boss lives here.”

“ ‘Friend’?” Kepler asked sarcastically.

“We know about Ms. Dietrich,” Surani said.

Gabriela snapped, “I have every right to talk to her.”

Kepler asked, “About what?”

“And I have every right not to tell you that.”

Her eyes swiveled toward the antiques store, the massive lions. Daniel was standing behind some spectators, twenty feet away. He was close — he could hear the exchange, she could tell — but not so near that the cops noticed him. Her frown told him to stay there.

“What exactly were you going to do, whisper to Ms. Dietrich from below the window?” Kepler looked at the Dumpster. “Very Romeo and Juliet.”

“And what are you doing here?” she demanded.

Kepler laughed. “You got quite the attitude — for a burglar. In answer to your question, since you haven’t cooperated and since Charles Prescott is still wanted on suspicion of two dozen felonies, we’re pursuing other leads in the case. One of ’em sent us here. Tell us what you know about Ms. Dietrich.”

“Nothing. I was worried about Charles. I just wanted to ask her if she’d heard from him, how he’s doing.”

“Again, I ask: through the window?” Kepler offered and ignored her bitter glare. He added, “They make these things called telephones, you know. But we’ll have time to talk about it in detention.”

“What?”

“We searched your boss’s office again. We checked the inventory and found some things missing. Gabriela McKenzie, you’re under arrest for obstruction of justice.” He sounded as if he’d been looking forward to saying those words for some time.

She blurted, “No!”

As if he couldn’t resist himself, Kepler added, “And we’ll throw in an attempted burglary count just for the hell of it.” A glance into the alley. “A Dumpster? Really.”

“You don’t understand. My...” Her voice trailed off.

“Your what?” Surani asked.

“Please. I can’t afford to go to jail right now.”

Kepler laughed. “Sorry if it’s inconvenient.” He turned away to jot some entries in a notebook and gestured to the uniformed officer. His name badge said Patrolman Chapman.

He stepped up to her. “Set your bag down and turn around, put your hands behind your back.”

“Please!”

“Now. Turn around.” The officer reached for his cuffs, looking down to locate them. When he did, Gabriela lunged forward and ripped his automatic pistol from his holster.

The crowd gasped and scattered.

“Gabriela!” Kepler shouted. He moved in fast and gripped her arm. They grappled and Gabriela went down hard on her side, crying out in pain. But she broke free and swung the gun toward his face. He winced and ducked, waving his hand, as if to ward off the bullets.

“Now back off!” she screamed and aimed at the detectives. “You two! Throw your guns away! Now! Under those cars!”

Surani called desperately, “Don’t do this! You—”

But she regarded them with a cold look. And they tossed their weapons where she’d indicated.

As her gaze was momentarily drawn by the tumbling guns, wincing as if afraid one would fire, the uniformed officer surged forward, trying to tackle her. Gabriela broke away but stumbled. As she tried to right herself the gun discharged.

The young cop blinked, grabbed his chest and dropped to the pavement. “Oh, fuck. Oh.”

Gabriela gasped.

Surani ignored both her and the pistol, which she still held, and ran to the fallen officer, whose arms were flailing, feet kicking. The detective bent over him and shouted over his shoulder, “Call it in!”

Kepler said in a raspy growl, “You fucking bitch! Shoot me if you want but I’m getting him help!” He pulled out his radio.

Sobbing, Gabriela backed away. Then turned and ran. At the corner she tossed the gun into a sewer grating. She joined Daniel, who was looking equally shocked. She started to sprint again. But he stopped her. “Just walk. Look down and walk.”

“I—”

“Just walk. Slow. Walk.”

Gabriela nodded, inhaled deeply several times and took his arm.

They headed east.

Soon, only seconds later, the banshee call of sirens cut through the chill afternoon air from a dozen directions at once.

Chapter 25 Rorschach

11:10 A.M., SUNDAY

25 MINUTES EARLIER

“The gun just went off,” Gabriela whispered, her voice the tone of hysteria. “I didn’t mean to do it.”

Daniel remained silent. He steered her quickly down the sidewalk away from the scene of the shooting.

She asked desperately, “He didn’t die, did he? What did you see, Daniel? What did you see?”

Still no response.

Sirens filled the air around them as they headed east from Madison Avenue. There were lights too, piercing white and blue flashers. And reflections of white and blue flashers in windows. Lights seemed to be everywhere. Daniel and Gabriela kept their heads down. They didn’t dare look up.

Then he directed her quickly to the side, a ninety-degree turn. She nearly stumbled but he held her firmly.

“What?” she gasped.

A car skidded to a stop, an unmarked police car. Two detectives in suits leapt out and headed into a crowded specialty food store, displaying their badges.

“Do they think we’re in there?” she asked.

“Just keep walking.”

Manic, Gabriela asked, “He didn’t die, did he? He was so young! Please, tell me!” Her grip must have hurt. He frowned. She relented.

“I don’t know, Mac. I’m sorry, but I don’t know. It’s possible.”

Walking as fast as they dared without drawing attention, they moved east, leaving the unmarked car behind. She glanced back. The officers didn’t appear. She and Daniel hurried south, then east again.

To anyone else’s eye, they resembled a typical couple. Not particularly jovial, not particularly conversational. Harried. A relationship limned by stress, money woes, child woes, sexual woes. Life in Manhattan, professionals. Yet every glance their way seemed tinted with suspicion.

But no one pointed, no one called out, no one seemed about to rip cell phones from holsters and speed-dial 911.

No one fled from the homicidal auburn-haired woman and her actor look-alike companion.

“I didn’t think, Daniel. There was the gun. It was just there. I grabbed it! It went off. I’ve never even touched one before. I was just... Oh, Jesus. What’ve I done?”

A look behind revealed a half-dozen pedestrians, but no police. Still, Gabriela focused on a man in a suit — a rumpled gray one, of thin cloth that seemed inadequate in the chill. He was walking in their direction. She noticed him because of his yellow shirt. His stride seemed purposeful though he wasn’t paying particular attention to them.

Gabriela nudged Daniel. “That guy? Yellow shirt? Look carefully.”

“Got it.”

“I’ve seen him before, I think. On Madison.”

“He followed us from the shooting?”

“I don’t know—” Gabriela winced, gasped, then stopped abruptly, her hand on her side.

“It’s bad?” he asked, gesturing down toward her ribs.

A nod.

“Can you walk?”

“Yes.” Though she frowned when they began again.

They kept their heads down, not looking anywhere but at the sidewalk. Suddenly Daniel took her arm and guided her quickly into a Korean deli, where they paused to examine the fresh-cut flowers and a tub of ice in which nested plastic bottles of orange and mango juice.

“What?” Gabriela asked in a whisper.

“Cops.”

A police cruiser sped past, silently, but its lights pierced as harshly as a siren.

Blue and white...

A moment later they took to the sidewalk again. They dodged through traffic and bicyclists and joggers and more pedestrians. When they hit the uptown — downtown street, another police car sped past.

She looked back and said urgently, “I thought I saw him again. The yellow shirt guy.”

When they reached the next intersection, another police car sped past. It didn’t slow, but the officers were looking around. He said, “We need to get out of sight. There’s a place we can stay.”

“Where?”

“The Norwalk Fund has an apartment, for out-of-town clients.”

“Norwalk... Oh, your company, right?”

He nodded. “It’s empty now. Off First Avenue in the Fifties.” He noted the cross street sign: 79th. “It’s a long walk,” he said. “But I’m worried about cabs. They have that new video system, the TVs. Your picture might show up on the screen.”

“I can walk, sure.”

After five minutes, he paused and examined her. “You can’t walk.”

She took a breath, then coughed. “Subway, okay.” She leaned against him again. “Is that man behind us, Yellow Shirt?”

“I don’t see him.”

He took her arm and directed her east.

She inhaled several deep breaths, let herself be led down the sidewalk. “On Madison Avenue? He wasn’t dead when we left. You saw that, right? He’ll probably be okay, don’t you think? He was so young.”

Daniel Reardon didn’t speak for a moment. He said, “I don’t know, Gabriela. It depends on where you shot him.”

“He was married. He had a wedding ring on. Maybe he has children.”

“Gabriela...”

“I didn’t mean to. I panicked. I didn’t want to hurt anybody. But they were going to stop me and I couldn’t let them. It was for Sarah... You understand. I had to do something.”

“People can get shot and still live.”

“The ambulance would be there soon, right? Probably minutes.”

At 74th and Lexington they dodged through traffic and paused at a light, next to a pushcart vendor, who called, “You want hot dog? Pretzel?” He glanced at them with some curiosity. When they ignored him he turned to another customer and fished a frankfurter out of the gray frankfurter water.

The light changed and they crossed.

She said, “People’re looking at us, Daniel.”

“At you, Mac. Not us.”

“What?”

“Because you’re beautiful.”

She gave a wan smile. She nodded at a souvenir shop. “Hats,” she said, pointing to a rack.

“Good.”

They stepped inside.

She grabbed the first one she saw. But Daniel smiled and said, “Maybe not.” It sported a Lady Gaga logo in glitter.

“Oh.” She picked a plain navy blue baseball cap. He picked a black one.

“Jackets?”

But all the store sold was brightly colored and sequined I ♥ New York gear, worse than the glitzy hat. Outer camo would have to wait.

They both also bought new luggage — small backpacks, hers black, his dark gray.

Daniel paid, cash, and they pulled on the caps and stuffed their gym bags into the new packs.

“Not much of a disguise but different enough.”

At the door Daniel gazed out, looking for police, looking for the man in the yellow shirt, looking for Joseph.

“Nothing.”

“But—”

She took his arm and grew serious. “Listen, Daniel. This isn’t right. It’s time for you to leave. Get out now. I don’t think they even saw you back there, when I shot him. Get away from me.” She choked. “This isn’t your problem.”

He bent forward fast and kissed her on the lips. “Okay, that’s it.”

She blinked in surprise.

“What?”

“Do you watch that show CSI?”

“I used to.”

“Well, now you’ve got my DNA on you. If they catch you, I’m going down too.”

She smiled. “Oh, Daniel...”

“It’ll be okay, Mac. I promise.”

“Mac?” She blinked, hearing him use this name.

“You’re more of a Mac than a Gabriela. And come on, with a last name like McKenzie, don’t tell me nobody’s ever called you Mac?”

“True.”

Gabriela didn’t tell him that she and her father used nicknames for each other, and the one he’d bestowed on his daughter was indeed “Mac.”

“You mind?”

She smiled. “I love it.”

“And I may just love you,” Daniel whispered.

She stiffened at the word, then let herself go and pressed against him, shoulders-to-thigh. And for a fleeting moment the horrors of the weekend vanished.

Chapter 26 Deacon Hal

11:35 A.M., SUNDAY

15 MINUTES EARLIER

In the trenches...

Think, figure this out, Hal Dixon told himself.

You work in the trenches. Improvise.

He looked around the streets, spotted someone he thought could help.

Dixon strode up to the hot dog vendor, who guided away the smoke of the coals warming chestnuts and pretzels in his cart with the wave of a hand. The smoke returned instantly.

The smell made Dixon hungry but he was on his mission and he ignored the sensation.

“Please, I need to ask you something,” he said to the skinny vendor in jeans and a Mets T-shirt. “A couple came by here, a man and a woman. Just a few minutes ago.”

The man glanced at Dixon’s wrinkled gray suit and bright yellow shirt and maybe came to some conclusion about the color combination. Then he was looking back at Dixon’s sweaty face. “Man and woman?” A faint accent.

Dixon described them.

The hot dog man was instantly uneasy. “I didn’t see anything. Nothing. No.”

“It’s okay. I’m a deacon.” Trying to calm him.

“A...?”

“In a church, Presbyterian,” the rumpled man said breathlessly. “In New Jersey. A deacon.”

“Uhm,” said the street vendor, who seemed to be a Muslim and would probably have no idea what a deacon was but might appreciate devotion.

“Religious. I’m a religious person.”

“A priest?” the man asked, becoming confused. He was again regarding Dixon’s old suit and yellow shirt.

“No. I’m just religious. A deacon’s a layperson.”

“Oh.” The vendor looked around for somebody he could sell a hot dog to.

Mistake. Dixon said, “I’m like a priest.”

“Oh.”

“A private person who helps the priest. Like helping the imam.”

“Imam?”

“Look.” Dixon reached into his breast pocket and took a small, black-bound Bible from it.

“Oh.” The man said this with some reverence.

“I was just on Madison Avenue.” He gestured broadly though the vendor would obviously know where Madison Avenue was.

“Yes.”

“And what happened was, I saw this woman commit a crime, a bad crime. The woman I just described.”

“A crime?”

“That’s right.”

The vendor touched his chest with his fingertips, perhaps a form of prayer. Dixon noted his hands were filthy. He decided he’d never get a hot dog from a street vendor again. The man asked, “All the sirens? Is that what’s going on?”

“Yes, all the sirens. Lots of sirens.”

Dixon pulled a napkin out of the holder, then two more. He wiped his face.

“You want some water, Father? I call you ‘Father’? Is that what you say?”

“No, I’m not a reverend,” Dixon said. “I don’t want any water. A deacon. It’s like a priest.”

“Okay, but if you do, just ask. A bottle. Or a soda.”

“Here’s what I need—”

“You don’t have cell phone and you want to borrow mine?”

“No, no. I need to find out where they went — she and this other man, a friend of hers, I guess. I’m going to talk to them, help them give themselves up.”

The vendor blinked, waved at the smoke again.

Dixon repeated, “She should surrender to the police. I’ll help her. But she has to do it now. If they run, the police will think they’re guilty and they may just shoot them down. They’re panicked. I know they are.”

“You’re... what do they call that, people in your bible? Who help other people?”

What? Oh. “Samaritan,” Dixon said, wiping more sweat. The pits of his shirt were grayish yellow.

“Yeah, that’s it.”

My bible...

“I guess I am. I don’t know. They came this way.”

The vendor was more comfortable now. “Yes, these people you’re talking about? I saw them. A few minutes ago. I saw them because they were walking fast. And they were rude too.”

Dixon’s heart beat a bit faster. “Where did they go?”

“They went into that store there. Do you see it?”

“On the corner.”

“Next to the corner. The souvenir store.”

It was only forty or so feet away.

“Did you see them leave?”

“No, I think they’re still in there. But I wasn’t paying too much attention. They might’ve left.”

“Thank you. I think you’ve saved some lives.”

Dixon started across the street, then paused. The couple slipped from the store. They were wearing hats and she had a different bag, Dixon believed. But it was clearly them. They gazed up and down the street, spotted Dixon and froze for a moment. Then they vanished in the opposite direction. He noted the woman seemed to be limping.

Dixon started after them.

“Be careful,” the vendor said, his voice deflating, as if he wanted to append the word “Father,” but was recalling that Dixon wasn’t one. “If they’ve done a crime they might not understand you want to help them. They might be desperate, dangerous.”

“I’ve made my peace with God,” Dixon called breathlessly as he broke into a trot, tapping his chest to make sure the small Bible was seated firmly in his pocket.

Chapter 27 No Good Deed

11:50 A.M., SUNDAY

1 HOUR, 10 MINUTES EARLIER

“I don’t see him.”

Daniel Reardon was referring to the man who’d been following him and Gabriela from the chaos on Madison Avenue — the man in the rumpled gray suit and a bright yellow shirt, the man with the eyes of a hunting dog.

Gabriela said, “Who the hell is he? I don’t think he’s a cop.”

“No. He would’ve called for backup. There’d be a thousand cars here if he was.”

They were moving quickly south on Second Avenue. The wind was now brisk, clouds were coagulating low in the sky. The cross streets were still in the high digits — fewer stores, more residences — so the sidewalks were less crowded than closer to Midtown. They looked behind once again. “Maybe it was just a coincidence we saw him a couple of times.”

“You really think that?” Daniel asked.

“No,” she gasped. “But, frankly, I don’t know what to think anymore.” She winced as she held her side and stopped.

“Still hurts?”

“Does, yeah,” she said. She touched away a dot of blood on her cheek.

“Doctor?”

“No. The police might’ve contacted the emergency rooms. Let’s just keep going.”

“If you broke a rib and pierced a lung,” he said, troubled, “that could be a real problem.”

“I’ll have to live with it,” she shot back. Then softer: “Until we have Sarah. I’ll live with it.”

They started again, making as much speed as they could away from the site of the incident just moments before. Daniel asked, “What could he want? That man?”

“In the yellow shirt?”

“Yeah.”

Gabriela shrugged, as if it was obvious. “If it isn’t a coincidence, he wants the October List. What else? Joseph can’t be the only one after it, I’m sure.”

Daniel was silent, head tilted. After another scan of the sidewalks behind them, he said, “There’s another possibility, about Yellow Shirt.”

“What’s that, Daniel?”

“He’s working for Charles Prescott.”

She frowned. “Working for my boss? What do you mean?”

Daniel continued, “Your boss sent this guy to track you down — to find out what you could have against him, information, evidence. To talk you out of testifying and going to the police.”

Gabriela shook her head. “Charles would just call me up and talk to me.”

Daniel replied, “The Charles Prescott you worked for, the Prescott you thought you knew might do that. But that’s not the real Prescott. After what you’ve learned about him, don’t you think he’s capable of calling somebody up to do his dirty work for him?”

“Dirty work?” She clutched his arm. “You don’t think he’d hurt me?” Emphasis on the verb, as if it was too difficult to say “kill.”

Daniel’s voice was soft as he said, “It’s a possibility, Mac. We’ve got to consider it. You’re the perfect witness. You can place Prescott at locations he doesn’t want to be associated with. You know his girlfriend. You can testify about all kinds of things. And now — you found the October List.”

And when she said, “No,” this time her tone suggested even she didn’t believe Charles Prescott was incapable of hurting her. Gabriela looked behind them, down the wide sidewalk. “Yellow Shirt... where is he? I don’t know where he is!” Her voice crackled with panic.

“It’s all right. We lost him in the crowds. I’m—”

“No! There he is!”

Daniel’s head swiveled too. “Right.” Yellow Shirt was a block away, dodging pedestrians, moving steadily forward.

“What are we going to do? If he stops us, Sarah’s gone. I can’t let that happen.” Her wide eyes, rimmed red, stared toward Daniel.

“Just keep going. Faster.”

But only two blocks later, she pulled up abruptly and arched her back, wincing and moaning. Her knees sagged and only Daniel’s strong arm kept her from rolling onto the sidewalk. “It hurts, Daniel. My chest hurts... I have to rest. Just for a minute.” She looked around. “There. He won’t see us there.”

Daniel helped her out of the crowds into the shadowy space she’d indicated, between two parked trucks. Noisy traffic zipped past. Daniel looked out, back in the direction where they’d last spotted the man. “I don’t see him.”

Gabriela leaned against the hood of the Mercedes truck, a Sprinter, and cradled her chest.

Another glance behind them. “Nothing,” he assured her. “No cops either. We’ll give it a minute then keep going. We’ll get to the apartment. You can rest. Find out how badly you’re hurt.”

“He’s probably turned down a side street, don’t you think? We tricked him.”

Daniel said, “Could be.”

“Okay,” Gabriela whispered. “Then let’s go. I need to rest. I need to think.”

“There’s a Lexington line station a block away. Can you make it?”

“Sure. I’m better now.”

They turned to the sidewalk.

“Wait!” a man’s voice called. “I want to talk to you!”

They swiveled around. Yellow Shirt had appeared from the traffic side of the gap between the trucks. The skin on his fat face was sweaty. He walked up fast, starting to speak and lifting his hands in an ambiguous way — could be a greeting, could be a threat.

Then he was reaching into his breast pocket.

Gabriela reacted fast. She stepped away from Daniel, placed both hands on the man’s chest and shoved. As he stumbled back — into traffic — she said to Daniel, “Let’s go, run!”

But before they could start down the sidewalk, there came a squeal of brakes and a large delivery truck struck Yellow Shirt at close to forty-five mph. He tumbled beneath the wheels and a sickening, crumpled-box sound filled the air around them. No time for the driver to hit the horn, no time even for the man to scream.

Gabriela cried out, staring at the shattered figure. “Oh, Jesus. No, no, no!” A thick wash of dark blood spread out behind the truck, which had slammed into a cab trying to avoid the man. “No.”

Shouts, screams, people running toward the man’s crushed body, people running away. Cell phones appearing for 911 calls... and for pictures.

Daniel Reardon took her arm. “Mac! We have to leave. Now!”

“I didn’t... I didn’t mean to do it! I just reacted.” She stared, shaking.

“Listen to me!” Daniel gripped her face and turned it toward him, ignoring her wince of pain. “We have to go.”

“But—”

“He was a threat. He had to be a threat. He wouldn’t’ve followed us if he wasn’t. You didn’t have any choice. It looked like he was going to attack you. He was reaching into his pocket. Maybe he had a gun!”

“You don’t know that! Look, he’s still moving. His foot. It’s moving!”

She stared at the blood, choked a cry.

Daniel’s strong arm encircled her shoulders like a vise and he was walking her away. She half stumbled, half jogged beside him. It was as if she could barely remember how to walk.

His voice was tinted with panic too. “I know you’re upset. I know you’re hurting, but we have to move, Mac.”

“I—” she began, shaking. “I don’t think—”

But Daniel interrupted. “It’s all about your daughter. Remember what you keep saying, ‘Focus.’ Well, focus on your daughter.”

“My...” she gasped.

“Sarah.” He said the name firmly. “I’m sorry, Mac. It’s a fucking shame this happened. But it did and we’re not going to be able to help Sarah if you go to jail. There’ll be a time to deal with it — later.”

Her face a pale mask, Gabriela nodded.

“Keep moving.”

She followed as if she were a toddler unsure how to walk.

Suddenly he froze. “No, wait, go the other way. We’ll circle around the block to the subway.”

“Why, what’s wrong?”

“The way we were going, there’s a meter maid at the corner.”

“Meter maid?” she asked. “What difference does that make?”

Daniel leaned close and whispered, “Gabriela, everybody in New York City, from dogcatchers to the FBI, is looking for you now.”

Chapter 28 Frank’s Second Present

1:00 P.M., SUNDAY

40 MINUTES EARLIER

In his rhythmic, purposeful gait, Joseph Astor walked through the maze-like streets of this curious neighborhood like a tourist, eyes constantly moving.

He’d swapped the long black trench coat for black cargo pants, T-shirt and leather jacket. He was making his way back to the apartment he’d been to earlier this morning, though via a different route. This part of town was confusing. Avenues going every which-away. His GPS app was helpful but he wasn’t moving in the most direct route, of course. He was taking his time, doubling back, striking through alleys and vacant lots. This confused the smartphone app girl Siri but there wasn’t an option for picking routes to “avoid spots where some asshole is waiting to put a bullet in my head.”

The air was chill and clouds ganged on the horizon, sending bands of long, dim shadow over the sidewalks and streets and buildings here. The earlier sunlight was history. This was too bad because, believe it or not, bright light made witnesses’ accounts less reliable than overcast; glare could be wonderfully obscuring. Victims too might not even see you or the gun when you approached.

He looked around once more. The residences were small, many of them red brick or dirt-brown stone that had once been white or light gray. A lot of soot and grime. He passed a bookstore for the gay-lesbian-transgendered crowd, a Laundromat, apartments with elaborate wrought-iron security bars. You could look right into the minuscule, street-level living rooms, which would fit no more than four or five people. Who’d live like that?

Plenty, Joseph reflected, to judge from the number of the cells he passed.

Manhattan...

In his mind Joseph once more ran through the complex scheme he was orchestrating this weekend. Many parts, many challenges, many risks. But, being in a reflective mood, he was thinking that men are born to work. It didn’t matter how difficult your job, how filthy your hands got — in all senses of that phrase. It didn’t matter if you were a poet or a carpenter or a scientist or whatever. God made us to get off our asses and go out into the world and do something with our time.

And Joseph was never happier than when he was working.

Even if, as he was about to do in a few minutes, that job was murder.

The silent GPS sent him around the corner and he paused. There was the brown brick building where his victim lived.

Thinking of how the night would unfold, Joseph again pictured Gabriela, her beautiful, heart-shaped face, her attractive figure, all of which jarred with the edgy voice. He thought too of the man with her, Daniel Reardon. He’d seemed smart and his eyes radiated confidence, which diminished only slightly when Joseph had displayed the butt of his pistol.

He thought too of the October List.

A complicated night lay ahead. But nothing he couldn’t handle.

Now, no police in sight, he strode nonchalantly past the apartment building’s door, glancing in. Yes, the doorman he’d seen earlier was still on duty. Joseph was a bit irritated at the old man’s presence at the desk, which added a complication, but no matter. Anything could be worked around with enough determination and ingenuity. And Joseph was well fitted with both. He circled around to the back and counted windows, recalling the diagrams from the NYC Buildings Department of the structure’s layout. Yes, his target was home. He could see movement and the flicker of light, as if from a TV or computer monitor. Shadows. A light spread out and a moment later shrank and went out; probably from a refrigerator door, since the glow came from the kitchen.

This reminded him he wanted a long sip or two from his Special Brew. But later. He was busy now.

Work to be done.

Joseph went to the service door. It was locked, naturally. Verifying that he couldn’t be seen from any of the windows, he removed a screwdriver from his inside pocket and began to jimmy. This was all you needed 90 percent of the time; lock-picking tools were usually more trouble than they were worth.

He double-checked his pistol, then concentrated again on his task of cracking the lock, irritated that his target, Gabriela’s friend Frank Walsh, lived on the sixth floor. His breath hissed out softly as he reflected that the last thing he needed right now was a climb up that many stairs.

Chapter 29 Crime Scene II

1:40 P.M., SUNDAY

30 MINUTES EARLIER

Frank Walsh was standing in the tiny kitchen of his dim Greenwich Village apartment, thinking of the killing that morning.

It hadn’t been easy.

Using a knife never was.

The problem was you generally couldn’t stab somebody to death. You had to slash, go for the neck, the legs — the femoral arteries. The groin was good too. But stabbing? It took forever.

And add to the mix: If the person you were fighting was good at defense, as the victim that morning had been, you had to stay alert, you had to move, you had to be fast and you had to improvise; in knife fighting, advantages changed in seconds.

Solid — okay, pudgy — Frank pulled his Greek fisherman cap off and scratched his unruly red hair and the scalp beneath as he stood at the open cupboard door. With his left hand he absently pinched a roll of fat around his belly. He decided against the potato chips.

He continued to debate the food options. But was distracted.

Gabby was on his mind. As often she was.

Then his mind, his clever mind, slipped back to the fight that morning. Recalling the animal lust, the pure satisfaction — born somewhere, a shrink would probably say, out of revenge for the bullying he’d suffered as a teenager. He felt pride too at his skill with the blade.

He wished he could tell Gabby about the confrontation, though some things he knew it was best to keep from her. Felt a deep ping in his belly as he pictured her and thought of the present he’d just received. He wondered what she was wearing at the moment.

Then he turned his attention back to mealtime. His kitchen was a central hub of the apartment. The cabinets were white and the handles had actual release levers, as if the room were a galley on a ship that regularly sailed through gales. If the doors weren’t secured, Doritos, Tuna Helper and macaroni and cheese would fly to the floor in the swells.

Chips? No chips?

No chips, he decided. And continued to stare.

He took a breath and sensed something smelled off. Not spoiled food. What? He looked around. Noted the old scabby table, plumbed steady with folded Post-it notes under one leg. His hat sat on it. Was the hat gamy? He smelled it. Yep, that was it.

Did Greek fishermen really wear Greek fisherman hats? he wondered.

He’d have to wash it, he guessed. But would that take the good luck away? He’d worn it during the fight that morning. He slipped it into a Baggie until he decided.

Back to the Titanic cabinets and the fridge. No chips, but not doing the celery thing. Celery is evil.

An apple.

Frank snagged a shiny red McIntosh, huge, and a bag of Ruffles and loped back to his cluttered desk, snug in the corner of his bedroom. Just as he sat in the plush chair, he thought: Hell. Forgot the beverage. The. Beverage. He returned to the kitchen and got a Diet Coke from the chair beside the table, filled with magazines and books, piled high.

He glanced at the present Gabby had sent him. His heart stuttered. Man, he was in heaven.

Gabby...

How much have we lost? he wondered. Squeezing his belly. Six pounds in the past month. If he weighed himself after peeing.

He munched and sipped, wished the soda was cold. Should have fridged it. Why do I forget things? Frank Walsh knew he had trouble focusing, but he also took pride that it was a negative compensation for being so talented in other ways.

Like his knives.

He regarded his specimens of cutting-edge weapons, which took up two bookshelves.

When was the curved kukri going to arrive? He thought of the beautiful blade — the picture on eBay had depicted a classic Nepalese army knife.

Then he returned to reality.

All the fucking Post-it notes I keep buying. Have to remember to use them for more than propping up table legs.

Write: Put the soda in the fridge.

How hard was that?

He slowed down on the chips. Take your time. Write that down too. Don’t eat another until you’ve masticated and swallowed the one you’re working on. He noted that the soda — because it was frigging warm — had sprayed onto the Samsung monitor when he’d opened the can. He wiped the glass with an old T-shirt, aromatic with Windex he kept beside the computer. He’d have to wash the cloth soon. That was gamy too. Like the Maybe Greek Fisherman hat.

Write it down.

He would.

Frank didn’t write it down and returned to the computer, unable to stop thinking of the knife fight again.

Oh, it was beautiful. Choreography. Dance. Beautiful.

His knife sweeping down then stopping halfway as his victim went into a defensive posture — which Frank had anticipated.

And he’d then spun around backward and whisked his steel blade along the exposed neck.

Blood flew and sprayed and danced into the sky.

Then fast — you never hesitated — he leapt to the right and slashed again on the other side of the neck.

And the dying eyes stared, motionless for a moment. Then closed slowly as the pool of blood spread.

Wait, Frank Walsh thought. Was that his phone? He grabbed for it.

No.

He’d hoped Gabby would call.

Well, he knew she’d call. But he meant now. This moment. He stared at the phone, willing it to ring. It didn’t.

He thought more about the coming Tuesday.

A brief fantasy played itself out: The doorman, Arthur, ringing on the intercom and saying, “There’s somebody here to see you. Her name’s Gabriela.”

Frank Walsh would smile. “Send her up.”

And he’d be waiting for her in his black jeans and black shirt — his best look, his thin look — teeth brushed and hair sprayed and body deodorized. His fisherman cap would be in a Baggie, if he hadn’t washed it first, which probably wasn’t going to happen.

He’d pull out the present she’d just had delivered today.

She’d turn her beautiful, piercing eyes on him. And they’d crinkle with fun and flirt. She’d say, “I’ve never seen your bedroom, Frank.”

He looked at the note that accompanied the gift.

Oh, man...

Then Frank revised the fantasy. In the remake, a slightly more risqué version, they sat on the couch, knees touching, and watched an old movie on cable, instead of going to the film festival. The present — he found himself actually stroking the box now — would play a role in this fantasy too. A central role.

They’d pick something noir to watch, of course. Maybe The Asphalt Jungle. Or Pulp Fiction. It would be like Travolta and Uma Thurman dancing. He loved that movie (though he always wondered: If Travolta was such a brilliant hit man, why the hell did he leave his machine gun outside the bathroom, for Bruce Willis to find it, when he went to take a dump?).

They could watch that, or Reservoir Dogs or Inglourious Basterds.

Or hell, they’d watch anything that Gabby wanted to watch.

They’d talk, they’d fuck. He pictured her crying with pleasure, maybe with a little pain.

And then they’d talk some more. She’d learn all about him, she’d learn who was the real Franklin Walsh.

He flopped down on the saggy bed and sent her a text. He thanked her for the present and then — he couldn’t resist — described what he had in mind for their date next Tuesday. He included a few suggestions about apparel.

All very tasteful, he decided.

Then he replayed in his mind the knife fight. Once, twice, again and again. The blood, the screams, the body twitching.

Mostly the blood.

Chapter 30 Out of Sight

2:10 P.M., SUNDAY

5 MINUTES EARLIER

The sky had changed for the worse.

The spongy clouds, which had been floating so benign and frivolous in the azure sky, were gone. Taupe overcast stretched from horizon to horizon, as if the air itself were tethered to the raw edge of these past thirty hours. The harbor was choppy, the wind rude.

Gabriela and Daniel were emerging from the subway. After the screams, after the chaos on Second Avenue not long ago, the police had appeared in droves. She and Daniel had had no choice but to use the subway system to flee, despite the risk of getting spotted by Transit Authority police. But no one had noticed them and, on the streets now, they maneuvered among families, tourists, shoppers, and lovers, trying to find cover in the crowds — just as the two fugitives had lost themselves in the various subway lines for the past half hour. They’d ridden to Harlem from the Upper East Side, then headed crosstown and finally south to Midtown.

From here they’d walk to the apartment that Daniel had told her about — the one his company, The Norwalk Fund, kept for out-of-town clients. It was presently empty and they could hide out there.

He now looked around carefully. “No police, no Joseph, no anybody else after us.”

Gabriela was solemn. “All the blood, Daniel. Did you see it?”

Of course he had. He squeezed her hand tighter. The pressure seemed to have meaning. But what? She couldn’t tell.

“Look!”

He too noted the blue-and-white patrol car speeding their way, the lights flashing urgently. Gabriela shucked the backpack off her shoulder and they veered, stepping closer to a store, putting a stream of passersby between them and the street.

The NYPD cruiser, though, sped quickly past, heading in the direction of the incident.

The blood...

Daniel directed her east. “The apartment’s that way. About eight, ten blocks. Not far.”

But before they started walking Gabriela took his arm and said, “Wait. Let’s ditch the hats and get some better camouflage.” She tapped the dark, logo-free baseball cap she was wearing. “We need more than this to fool them.” Nodding at a discount clothing store up the block. “Let’s go shopping.”

Five minutes later they were out, wearing jeans — his blue, hers black — and sweatshirts and windbreakers, also dark. His top said, NYU. Hers was bare of type or images. The clothes they’d been wearing were in shopping bags.

She grimaced and clutched her rib cage, coughed. Then wiped a spot of blood from her lip.

“Mac!”

She said dismissingly, “It’s all right. I can handle it.”

They continued walking.

Her phone pinged, a text. She glanced at the screen. A smile, dampened by a wince, appeared.

“The Complication.”

“What did he say?”

“He got his present.” Gabriela decided not to tell him the rest that Frank Walsh had texted.

They were at the corner when a dark sedan sped by — clearly an unmarked police car. This one, unlike the squad cars a moment ago, slowed as it grew close. Then sped up and continued on, vanishing around the corner.

No other police cars or uniformed officers were in the area. “I think it’s clear,” Daniel said.

Into his backpack he stuffed the shopping bag containing the gray Canali suit and shirt he’d changed out of at the store. Gabriela examined the contents of her bag and noticed spatters of blood on her sweater and windbreaker. “I’m dumping these. Shit. I loved that sweater.”

She went through the pockets and kept only the money; everything else — receipts, bloody tissues and a Bic pen — she left in the bag. She looked around and noticed a Department of Sanitation truck, filled to the brim, en route to the processing facility on 14th Street at the Hudson River.

She slung the shopping bag into the back of the truck as the driver waited for the light to change.

Gabriela gripping his arm, Daniel set a good pace and they wove through the herds of pedestrians filling the streets on this blustery Sunday afternoon.

Chapter 31 Gabriela’s Wednesdays

2:15 P.M., SUNDAY

1 HOUR EARLIER

Detective Brad Kepler watched his boss read the media release once, twice, again.

Captain Paul Barkley looked up at the NYPD press officer, a wobbly young man with persistent acne, who sat before him in this hellhole of an operations room. Then, without saying a word, he looked down and read once more.

Barkley’s stomach made a Harley-Davidson noise that everyone in the room pretended to ignore.

Kepler knew that most Sundays, this time of day Barkley was tucking away his wife’s roast beef, along with — when she wasn’t looking — massive forkfuls of buttered mashed potatoes. The detective was aware of this routine because he’d been invited to dinner a few times. He had three repetitive memories of the occasions: Barkley telling the same quasi-blue jokes over and over. The roast beef being very good. And Kepler’s spending the entire time trying to figure out if there were any possible scenarios for telling Barkley’s know-it-all college-student daughter to shut the fuck up. Which, of course, there were not.

Kepler himself read the release again.

Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera...

“How many calls?” Barkley asked the youngster.

“From the press? A hundred.”

Barkley snapped, “That’s an exaggeration.”

Kepler thought: Probably isn’t. His partner, Naresh Surani, seemed to concur.

“I wanted to keep it quiet,” the captain said.

“A shooting?” From the PA youngster.

“Yes, a shooting. In goddamn Manhattan. I wanted to keep it goddamn quiet. But I guess that didn’t work out, did it? This was a leak the size of the Titanic.”

Kepler corrected, The Titanic wasn’t a leak. The Titanic was a ship that got fucked because of a leak.

But, of course, the edit was tacit.

Barkley snatched up a pen and began to revise.

Which gave Kepler the chance to look around their new digs. This was the second room the Charles Prescott Operation — the CP Op — had been assigned to in the past two days. Sure, this happened to be a busy time for bad guys and little operations like the CP Op didn’t mean very much, in terms of chalking up cred, so they had to take whatever room was free at the moment. But this one was the pits. The twenty-by-thirty-foot space did have a few high-def monitors, but they were off, and they didn’t even seem hooked up. The walls were scuffed — nothing new there — and the government-issue furniture was cheap. Nearly a third of the floor space was devoted to storage. Something smelled off too, as if a take-out turkey sandwich had fallen behind one of the filing cabinets a long, long time ago.

At least it couldn’t get any worse.

Barkley slid the press release back like an air hockey puck. “Fix it. And by the way, no comment from me, other than the investigations continue. Stop at that. Nothing more.”

The press officer tried again. “But a hundred calls, sir.”

“Why’re you still here?” Barkley made a sound like a disagreeable transmission. This one came from his throat, not his belly.

“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.” The Public Affairs officer scooted out.

Why the hell does that kid wear a sidearm? Kepler thought.

Barkley turned to the two detectives, sitting at a battered fiberboard table, and barked, “Jesus.” He nodded toward Kepler’s copy of the release.

Fred Stanford Chapman, 29,... gunshot wound...

Then the boss changed direction. “Now, her.”

He didn’t need to say Gabriela. There were no other women causing them so much anxiety at the moment.

“I told you yesterday I wanted her under surveillance. Twenty-four seven. What the hell happened? You were at her place, right? Cameras, microphones.”

Her.

Brad Kepler shrugged. “She tipped to us. I don’t know. And then started using evasive tactics.”

“The hell does that mean? Sounds like something from a bad cop movie.”

“But,” Kepler said, “we’re still on her.” A glance at his partner. “Right?”

Surani called Surveillance, had a discussion, then clapped his hand over the mouthpiece and said to Barkley and Kepler, “We’ve got officers close. It’s righteous.”

Which sounded like something out of an even worse cop movie.

Righteous?

The captain asked, “How’d you manage the tail, if she slipped you at her place?”

Surani explained, “Brad got a GPS on her.”

“How the hell you do that?” The captain gave one of his broad frowns that he used for emphasis, a gesture several of his detectives had developed pretty good imitations of, Brad Kepler included.

“She was distracted. It was chaos, weapons, screaming, diving for cover. I got the thing into her jacket pocket.”

Barkley was pleased, Kepler could tell, but his nature required him to ask, “You think that was a safe idea?” The captain could never just say, Good job.

“Safe idea?” Kepler asked. He didn’t know what that meant. “I frankly didn’t think about it. It was just something I had to do: Get the tracker onto her then back off.”

Surani, his gray complexion even grayer under the inhumane lights in the dismal operations room, said, “It was pretty good, pretty smooth. She doesn’t have a clue.”

“Microphone?” The captain brushed his trim white hair — senior congressman’s hair — twice, then a third time. He seemed to look Kepler up and down, as if approving of his impressive tan. Or disapproving.

“No, just a tracker. We lost her for a bit in the subway.”

The New York City metro system was huge and fast and efficient, and that meant it could transport Gabriela anywhere within a several-hundred-square-mile area. And GPS trackers wouldn’t work there.

“But then she surfaced. CCTV got a facial recognition exiting a station in Midtown. The signal’s been solid since then.”

“Unless she decides to hop on the A train again.”

“She can’t live in the MTA,” Surani said. “The food sucks down there. And the showers? Forget about it.” This drew a hard glance from Kepler because the joke was beyond stupid. It wasn’t even a joke.

“And she was with the guy?”

“That’s right.”

“Stay on her. But I want everybody tailing to be invisible. You follow me? If Surveillance gets made, then people could get killed. That’s not happening on my watch.”

And why not? Kepler wondered of the dramatic pronouncement. You can protect all the innocents in New York City, can you now, boss? A lot of people have died on your watch over the years, when you think about it.

But Surani said only, “We’ve told the teams to stay back. They’re near but not too close.”

One of the deputy chiefs stuck his head in the doorway. “Hey, sorry, gentlemen. Need to commandeer this room.”

“What?” Barkley snapped. “Move again? You gotta be kidding me?”

The white-haired, rotund brass shrugged, looking only slightly contrite. “Got a terrorist tip and we need an ISDN line. They’re not up and running in the other rooms.”

“Terrorist. We get a thousand terrorist tips a year. Why’s this one a big deal?”

“Bureau’s running it. Pretty serious. And could be going down in two, three weeks. Infrastructure target, that sort of thing. You got ten minutes to find new digs.” He disappeared. Kepler glanced at Surani and knew that his partner was just barely refraining from giving the empty doorway the finger. They swapped smiles.

Sighing, Barkley looked over sheets of paper on the table. One was headed Charles Prescott Investments.

The other was another copy of the press release.

Surgery to remove a bullet lodged near his heart is planned for later today...

“We’ll make this work. I know we will.” This flimsy reassurance came from Kepler.

Just then Surani got another call. He listened. He disconnected. “Surveillance. Gabriella and Reardon’re on the move again. Near Forty-Eight and Seventh, moving west. There’re a couple unmarkeds in the vicinity, but they’re staying out of sight.”

Vi-cin-ty.

Jesus, Kepler thought.

Barkley slid the Prescott file away as if it reminded him of a bad medical diagnosis. He asked, “Is the tracker a good one?”

Kepler said, “Yeah. Battery lasts for days and it’ll pinpoint the location down to six feet.”

Surani added proudly, “And she’ll never spot it. It’s inside a Bic pen.”

Chapter 32 Scent Memory

3:15 P.M., SUNDAY

15 MINUTES EARLIER

“What happened back there, with that man,” Gabriela whispered, wiping tears. “I... I don’t know what to say.”

Daniel fell back into his waiting state: observing, not speaking. His eyes swept the overcast, afternoon streets of Midtown, east. “Looks clear. Come on.”

They walked another block.

“There. That’s the place, Mac. Let’s get inside.” Daniel was pointing out a narrow dun-colored apartment building down a cul-de-sac on East 51st. It crested at four stories high, and many windows were hooded as suspicious eyes.

“We’ll be safe there.”

She gave a brutal laugh. Safe. Yeah, right.

Daniel squeezed her hand in response.

As they approached the structure, Gabriela looked around, scrutinizing shadows and windows and doorways. She saw no police. Or other threats. Daniel let them into the lobby, which was painted in several shades of blue and lit by brushed-silver sconces. The decor was tasteful, though hardly elegant. A painting — by a Picasso wannabe, it seemed — of a ballerina, possibly, hung from the wall near the mailboxes. They took the stairs to the second floor, where there were doors to two apartments.

Daniel directed her to the left, which faced the front courtyard.

The key clicked, the hinge creaked. It made a funny sound, musical. The first two notes of “The Star Spangled Banner.”

O — oh, say can you see...

After they’d entered the dark rooms, Daniel closed and double-locked the door, flicked on the overhead lights.

Gabriela dropped the new backpack, which contained her gym bag, on a battered coffee table in the living room. Daniel set his belongings beside it and sat heavily in a solid chair at the dining room table. He went online via his iPad and she walked to the window, looked out over the courtyard and cul-de-sac.

Gabriela found the smell of the rooms troubling. The aroma reminded her of a funeral parlor. Old, stale chemicals, though here they would just be cleansers, not preservatives for dead flesh. She recalled just such a smell from six years and two months ago. Her stomach twisted, hurt grew, anger grew. An image of the Professor arose.

Then she thought of her mantra.

Sarah.

Your goal. Focus on your goal.

Sarah.

It’s just a random smell, she told herself, that’s triggering hard memories. Still, she couldn’t quite flick it away. She stepped into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator, which was mostly bare — a container of coffee, butter, a shriveled lemon, hard as horn. And in the crisper an onion. It too was past prime but not rotten. Green shoots were growing from the end, eerie. She thought of Joseph’s unruly hair, slick, greasy. She found a knife, dull but sharp enough to slice the vegetable if she sawed with pressure. When she’d produced a small pile of rings, she found oil in the cupboard, which she poured into a dusty frying pan, without bothering to wipe it clean. She turned up the heat and cooked the rings and shoots, stirring them absently in a figure-eight motion with a wooden spoon.

The sweet scents rose and soon they’d mitigated the smells that had bothered her. The thoughts of past death faded.

Daniel Reardon walked to the doorway of the kitchen. She sensed him watching her closely. She glanced at his handsome face, felt that ping of attraction. Thought of Friday night, two days ago. A year, forever.

“Hungry?”

“Probably. But I don’t want anything to eat. I’m just air freshening.”

“With onions?” A laugh. He had a wonderful laugh — just like the actor he so closely resembled.

Her voice shivered as she said, “Every night when she’s with me, Sarah and I cook. Well, not every night. But most. She likes to stir things. She’s a great stirrer. We sometimes joke, we...” And she abruptly fell silent, inhaled deeply, looking away from him.

She touched her chest, wincing, and Daniel stepped close, taking a tissue and slowly wiping the blood from the corner of her mouth. Then he embraced her. His hand trailed down her spine, bumping over the strap of her bra beneath the thick sweatshirt and settling into her lower back. He pulled her close. She tensed and groaned slightly. He tilted her head back and, despite the residue of blood, kissed her hard on the lips. She groaned, frowning, and he released her.

“Sorry,” he whispered.

“Don’t be.”

He pressed his face against hers once more, pulling her body into him. And then stepped back, as if forcing himself to. She shut off the stovetop gas and they returned to the living room.

She looked around the apartment. It was sterile, worn in the way of faded elegance, like rich folks downsizing, retiring. The bland furniture had been top quality ten, fifteen years ago but was dinged and scuffed. The cushions had suffered from too many asses, the carpet from too many leather heels.

Ugly, yes.

But it was quiet. And secluded.

Safe...

The decorations were largely nautical. Prints of ships in turbulent waves, as well as seafaring memorabilia and lanterns and fishing gear.

Gabriela regarded the wooden display rack of knots on the wall. “Yours?”

“That’s right. I tied them. A hobby.” He looked over the short pieces of rope bound into nautical knots, two dozen of them. “They have names, each one.”

Another wall was devoted to photography. He spotted the direction of her eyes. “Not as good as yours.”

“You’ve got an Edward Weston and an Imogen Cunningham, Stieglitz.”

“They’re just reproductions, not originals.”

“Well done, though. Quality work. And picking those pieces in particular. Weston was a groundbreaker. Cunningham too, though I think she needed more of an edge.”

“And there — something your daughter would appreciate.” On one wall was an antique riding crop and a pair of spurs.

An indelible image of Sarah came to mind.

Sarah...

She sensed Daniel was about to bring up a serious topic. She was right.

“Mac, I’m going to have some people help us.” He nodded toward his iPad, on which he’d presumably been sending and receiving emails.

“Help us?”

“They’re good folks. And we need them.”

“I can’t ask that.”

“You didn’t ask.” Daniel smiled. “Besides, I owe you big time. You’re the one who came up with the Princeton Solution. I don’t know what would’ve happened if you hadn’t been there. It would’ve been a nightmare.”

“I’ll bet you could’ve handled it.”

“No. You saved my life,” he told her.

Gabriela offered a modest smile. “Who are they, these people?”

“A couple of guys I’ve worked with for years. Smart. We need smart.” Daniel regarded her ambling eyes. “She’ll be okay, Mac. I promise. Sarah will be okay.”

And Gabriela thought: Promise. What an odd verb. A word you can’t trust. Or shouldn’t.

Like the word trust itself.

Don’t be so cynical, she thought.

But that was hard. Gabriela was cynical in the grain. She’d learned to be that way, because of the Professor.

She saw the man’s still face, waxy, surrounded by satin. A material she had come to despise.

“They’ll be here soon.” He squinted, looking her way. “What’re you thinking? Something important. I can tell.”

In a soft voice. “No.”

“No you’re not thinking, or no you’re not telling? It’s got to be door number two because you can’t not be thinking something. That’s impossible.”

She tried to formulate the words so they didn’t come out foolish. This wasn’t easy. “Too many people turn away when something bad’s happening. They’re afraid, they’re worried about the inconvenience, worried about being embarrassed. But you’re not willing to let Joseph get away with this and you’re doing it for me, for somebody you’ve known for only a couple of days.”

Daniel Reardon wasn’t able to blush, she assessed. But he was embarrassed by her words. “You’re giving me a complex.” He looked around and noted the bar. “I need a drink. You? Wine? Anything stronger?”

“No. Just... not now.”

He opened a bottle of cabernet and poured the ruby liquid into a glass. A long sip seemed to exorcise her cloying gratitude. He had another. “Now. We should think about our next steps. Andrew and Sam should be here soon. First, I guess we ought to call the complication. Make sure he’s home.”

Complication...

She smiled at the word. Then scrolled through her phone until she found Frank Walsh’s name and called. “No answer.” She sent a text. “But I’m sure the list is safe. There’s no reason it wouldn’t be.”

Daniel’s face remained calm. Though of course he’d be thinking: Without that list your daughter’s dead. And the man who’d kill her, that prick Joseph, will be after you too before long.

And he didn’t need to add that Joseph would be looking for him too.

But then her phone buzzed and she glanced at the screen. A text had appeared. She smiled briefly. “It’s Frank. He’s not going out tonight. Everything’s fine.”

“That’s one less worry we have. But I don’t know how I feel about Mr. Frank ‘Complication’ Walsh on your speed-dial list. I’m thinking I’d rather take his place.”

“I could move you up to number two.”

“Only two?”

“Mom is first.”

“That’s fair enough.”

Daniel walked to a tall glass-fronted mahogany entertainment enclosure, circa 1975, she guessed, though it contained newer components. He turned the radio on to a local station. After five minutes of bad music and worse commercials it was time for the news. She strode to the device and abruptly shut it off.

Daniel looked at her as she stared at the receiver. She told him, “I don’t want to hear about it. About what happened today — any of it! It has to be on the news. I’m all over the news!” Her voice had grown ragged again.

“It’s okay, it’s okay...”

She started at the buzz from the intercom. It seemed loud as an alarm. “Daniel?” came the voice through the speaker. “It’s Andrew.”

Daniel nodded reassuringly and whispered to Gabriela, “The cavalry’s arrived.”

Chapter 33 Misfire

3:30 P.M., SUNDAY

30 MINUTES EARLIER

Detectives Naresh Surani and Brad Kepler were sitting in yet another operations room in the NYPD Big Building, main headquarters. The third one in three days. Government. Fuck.

Third — and the worst. The view here was of a pitted wall of City Hall and a smooth wall of a bank, pigeons, a sliver of sky, pigeon shit. And whatever had been rotting behind the file cabinets of the last room didn’t come close to the chemical weapons here.

Kepler muttered to his partner, “Are they ready?”

Surani hung up the phone. “They’re ready-ish.”

Which sounded flippant and wrong, given the circumstances, Kepler thought. You know, people’s lives are at risk here.

Maybe Kepler’s face revealed that he was pissed off; Surani seemed to understand. He added in a graver tone, “They’re assembled and staging. That’s the last I heard. It’s like they’re too busy to talk to us.”

He was referring to the NYPD’s tactical team, the Emergency Service Unit boys — and probably a girl or two as well. All the fancy weapons, machine guns, helmets, Nomex, boots.

Ready to swoop in, nail the perps.

“Too busy to talk to us?” Kepler repeated, his voice gravel. “The FCP Op didn’t originate with them.”

The name of the operation had, in the past few hours, morphed from the official “Charles Prescott Operation” down to “the CP Op.”

Then, thanks to the complications that had surrounded the case, the inevitable modifier, commencing with the sixth letter of the alphabet, now preceded the name. Cops. Naturally.

FCP Op...

Kepler continued, “It’s our investigation. We should be all over it like... like...” His voice faded.

“Couldn’t think of a good metaphor?” Surani offered.

Kepler rolled his eyes, grimacing. “They’re sure where Gabriela is?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Don’t worry. They’re tracking her.”

Wait, Kepler thought: Like beetles on shit, like frat boys on kegs, like frat boys on coeds...

But too late.

“Call Surveillance again. Make sure there’s a signal.”

Surani sighed. But he did as requested. Had a brief conversation. He disconnected and turned to Kepler. “Yeah, they have a good signal on her. A humongous signal. A hard-on of a signal. Is it okay if I say that, or do my people not refer to erections?”

Kepler didn’t even bother. “Where exactly? Do they know exactly?”

“Yes, they know ex-act-tily. Which is where, like I said before, ESU is staging. They’re ready to move in for the takedown as soon as we give the word.”

But, of course, it wasn’t we who would give the word; it was he. Captain Barkley.

Kepler grumbled, “I’d like to see pictures. I’d like to be on the ground. They have fucking cameras, ESU does. They should be beaming us pictures.”

“It’s been hard enough to track her—”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

“—track her in the first place. You’re not going to get high-def video, for Christ’s sake. Oh, is it okay if someone of my persuasion says—”

“Enough with that.” Kepler noted the grimy windows, the clutter, the bile-green paint, the smell: food once more. But, unlike earlier, this time he was anything but hungry.

Surani glanced down and brushed at his brown suit jacket, which, Kepler thought again, clashed badly with the man’s gray complexion. His own skin tone was a hard-earned tan, but his suit, unlike his partner’s, was wrinkled and — he now noticed — bore an embarrassing stain on the sleeve. In the shape of Mickey Mouse ears.

He sat forward in the truly uncomfortable orange fiberglass chair, and thought: So is this how it ends? I’m balls-deep in an operation where people may get dead and no one knows exactly what’s going on. And if it goes south, the brass’ll need a scapegoat. Hello, Detectives Surani and Kepler.

There are of course a thousand different ways an operation can go bad, but in the end you don’t need to worry about a thousand different ways because it only takes one to fuck everything up. And usually it’s the one you never see coming.

The two men didn’t jump to attention when Captain Paul Barkley strode into the room — NYPD detectives didn’t jump at much of anything. But Kepler lifted his feet off a neighboring chair and Surani put down the coffee he was loudly slurping. For detectives with the kinds of lives they had and the cases they ran, this was about all they could muster in terms of respect.

Especially today, in the throes of the FCP Op.

“You have her location?”

Surani said, “Yep. And she has no clue we’re on to her. ESU’s in position. They’re assessing risk exposure.”

The captain uttered a snort. “ ‘Risk exposure’? Forget bad cop movies — that sounds like something a banker’d say. Now, you seen the latest?” Barkley turned to a computer, logging in. “I saw it ten minutes ago. Jesus.”

What was the old man referring to? Kepler had enough miles to show impatience with his boss and he did so now, though silently and in the form of a frown, his tan brow V’ing severely.

Kepler thought an official document or report or surveillance CCTV video was going to appear. But what they were looking at on the screen was the New York Post online edition, updated recently. Kepler sighed as he read the story, a follow-up of an earlier one. The first headline had included the word “injured.” This one featured the verb “died.”

Both articles included this sentence: “Crushed beneath a delivery truck.”

Surani said, “It’s out of hand, I know.”

“And that’s not acceptable. I want to move in. I want perps being processed in Central Booking now. It could turn into a bloodbath if we don’t move fast.”

“It already is a bloodbath,” Surani muttered, looking at the photo of the body.

Gesturing angrily at the computer screen, Barkley muttered, “Look at the press. Fucking mobile phone cameras. That’s the problem nowadays. They’re everywhere. Assholes with a Samsung or iPhone are on the scene faster than first responders. Shit. Crime Scene’s on it?”

“Yeah, but they’re not getting much.”

They all stared at the screen. Blood’s pretty vivid in high definition.

“And Gabriela’s with that guy?”

Surani said, “Yeah.”

“That woman,” the captain intoned, “has a lot to answer for.” The comment, devoid of obscenity, seemed particularly ominous. Barkley debated, or at least he cocked his head as if he was debating, and stared out the window.

Bank, City Hall, pigeon shit.

“Okay, I’m making the call. Send ESU in. Now.”

“That could fuck everything up,” Kepler said. “I think we should wait, find out who the players are, what the risks are. What—”

“Send ESU in now,” Barkley growled, as if he wasn’t used to repeating himself. Which, Kepler knew, he was not. “We’re not waiting any longer. Whatever else she’s done in the last couple of days, if she ends up like”—a nod to the truck crush article—“it’s gonna be bad for a lot of people.”

Meaning him, meaning us, meaning the city.

Especially bad for Gabriela, too, Kepler wanted to say but refrained.

Surani snatched up the phone. He leaned forward, tense, as he said, “It’s Surani. Your teams’re green-lighted. You can—” His gray-brown face froze. “What? What?”

Kepler and Barkley stared at him. Barkley was hard to read, but undoubtedly what he felt was the same dismay Kepler was experiencing.

“What?”

The repetition was infuriating. If he said the word again, Kepler was going to grab him by the collar, take the phone away.

But Surani’s next words were, “Oh, shit.”

Kepler’s eyes went wide and he lifted his palms. Meaning: Tell us something fucking specific.

Surani was now nodding intensely. “Sure, I’ll put him on.”

“What?” Barkley asked, apparently not noticing he was echoing his detective.

Surani said, “The ESU tac op commander has somebody he thinks you should talk to.”

“Who?”

“A Department of Sanitation driver.”

Barkley gave his deepest frown so far today. “What the fuck does a garbageman have to do with the operation?”

“Here.” Surani handed him the phone as if it were a box of unstable ammunition.

The captain snatched the unit from his hand and spoke to the driver. He disconnected and sat back. Finally: “We’ve got a problem.”

Chapter 34 The Judas Pour

4:00 P.M., SUNDAY

1 HOUR, 50 MINUTES EARLIER

In the living room of the apartment Daniel Reardon made introductions. “This is Gabriela McKenzie.”

“Andrew Faraday,” said the older of the two who’d just entered. The other man offered, “Sam Easton.”

Hands were shaken. Sam was tanned, balding and had a craggy face, quick eyes. Andrew, pocketing the keys to the apartment, was in his mid-sixties. He had thick white hair, streaked with black strands, swept back and razor-parted on the side. Businessman’s hair. Politician’s hair. Andrew was leaner than Sam and Daniel and not particularly muscular. No more than five-nine. But Gabriela’s impression, an immediate one, was that he was more imposing than the others. And not because of the age.

A natural-born boss...

Daniel said, “These are the people I was telling you about. I’m a client of theirs. Have been for years.”

Gabriela and Daniel sat down on the decades-old couch, which released a more intense version of the musty odor she’d tried to eradicate from the apartment with the kitchen trick not long before.

Funerals, she thought. Funerals...

Daniel poured some more of the red wine. He lifted the bottle to her again. She declined. Andrew and Sam both took glasses. They sipped.

“Daniel was telling us about the situation,” Andrew said. His voice was comforting, baritone.

She said with a frantic slope to her voice, “I don’t know what to do! It’s a nightmare. The deadline’s in two hours! Joseph said I have until six and no extensions this time. After that...” She inhaled, exhaled hard.

The men seemed troubled by these stirrings of hysteria, as if not sure how to reassure her. Finally Andrew Faraday said, “Well, we have some thoughts.”

Sam deferred with his eyes to Andrew. He was secondary or tertiary in hierarchy, she saw at once. She assessed he was dependable and loyal.

Daniel eased against Gabriela on the couch and she felt the warmth of his thigh against hers. He gripped her arm briefly with his long fingers. And she felt the strength she’d noted earlier.

“May I call you Gabriela?” The question was from Andrew. He seemed the sort who would ask permission. Proper, old-school.

“Sure, yes.” She smoothed frazzled hair. Then stopped her busy hands.

Andrew continued, “First, so I can understand, Gabriela: Just to get the facts. This man who’s kidnapped your daughter — Joseph, you were saying. That’s his name, right?”

“Yes.”

“He wants the document Daniel was telling me about. The October List?”

She nodded.

Andrew took in her hollow eyes. “And Daniel said you don’t know what it means.”

She shrugged. “Names and addresses. Maybe criminals. All we really know is that people are willing to kill for it.”

Andrew said, “And no idea what the word refers to, ‘October’?”

Gabriela glanced to Daniel, who offered, “It could be something that happened in October, in the past: a meeting, an event. Or,” he added darkly, “it’s something that’s going to happen — next month. Given what we’ve heard, it might be something pretty bad. But, on the other hand, it could be nothing more than a name. A company, even a person. Or maybe a code. Number ten — the tenth month.”

“Or,” Gabriela said, “Daniel was considering anagrams.”

“You can find some interesting words in ‘October.’ ‘Reboot,’ ‘boot,’ ‘core,’ ‘rob.’ But out of context, we just don’t know.”

“And there’s this man named Gunther. But no clue how he figures in.”

Andrew nodded, considering this. He leaned back and ran a single index finger through his hair. Gabriela now examined the newcomers’ clothing: The men were in suits — coiffed Andrew’s was dark blue, balding Sam’s black, both conservative and expensive as hell. Dress shirts, blue and white respectively. No ties. Bruno Magli or Ferragamo shoes. The clothing and accessories were, as Gabriela’s boss would say, “primo.”

She said to them evenly, “I know I should turn it in.”

“Turn it in?”

“If I had the courage, I would. I’d give it to the police, the FBI. They’d know what it means. That’s the only moral thing to do. But I can’t. The list is the only bargaining chip I have to save Sarah.” Her voice caught. “I feel awful, but I have to give it to Joseph. I don’t have any choice.”

Daniel said firmly, “You didn’t make this mess. Charles Prescott did.”

Andrew asked, “Charles Prescott. Your boss, right?”

“Former boss now,” she muttered. And inhaled hard, coughed. “Sarah.” She closed her eyes briefly. “I can’t imagine what she’s going through.”

“It’s a beautiful name,” Sam said, his first words since their greeting. There was a familiarity about him — the taut muscular physique, the casual angle at which he stood, calm eyes. Then Gabriela realized, with a shock, yes, the Professor! Though not familiar in life; at the funeral home, as he lay in the silk bedding of the coffin. And, of course, observed through the lens of tears — both then and now.

Andrew said, “Beautiful name indeed. Now, Daniel was telling me Joseph wants not only the list but some money too?”

Gabriela touched her fingers to her eyes. They came away damp. “That’s right. A fee he paid to Charles.” She inhaled deeply and said, “But I don’t have that kind of money, a half million, even if I mortgaged my co-op. I...” She fell silent.

Daniel turned his blue eyes her way, reassuringly. Sotto voce: “It’ll be okay, Mac.” The nickname was comforting too. Pressure of knee against knee, thigh against thigh, the pressure of fingers on her arm again. His hand retreated; his leg did not. She felt the strength and warmth of persistent muscle.

“So,” Andrew mused, “Joseph wants the list and he wants money.” His illustrious face grew coy. “Think about it, though: He’s taking a huge risk, possibly going to prison for the rest of his life, getting shot by hostage rescue teams. That tells us there’s more at work here than greed.”

“There is?”

Daniel filled in, “Joseph’s desperate. He may seem confident. But he’s scared. I’d guess he owes money to someone. Or he has to work off some other debt. A significant debt. Somebody’s got major leverage on him — to pay off something. Or maybe to deliver the list.”

“And that’s good,” Andrew offered.

“Good?” Gabriela asked.

Daniel explained, “It’s always better to negotiate with desperate people.”

“He didn’t act desperate,” she said darkly. “He seemed pretty damn confident to me.”

“You’ve got the list?” Andrew asked.

“Not with us. It’s safe, though. A friend of mine, Frank, has it in his apartment.”

Sam asked, “And you trust Frank?”

“He’s a little odd. But, yes, he’s dependable... when it comes to me.” Her eyes avoided Daniel’s. “But I’m not sure where this is going. You said ‘negotiate.’ I just want to give him what he’s asking for and get my daughter back. That’s all.”

After a moment Andrew said, “Well, Gabriela, I’m afraid it’s not as simple as that.”

“Why not?”

“Did Daniel tell you what Sam and I do?”

“No.”

“I have an insurance company. Our specialty is writing high-risk policies. If you want to build a factory in a known hot spot — say, a transitional country like Libya or Myanmar — we’ll underwrite your key executives and the facilities. One of our big moneymakers is kidnap coverage. When a businessman is abducted in a foreign country sometimes his company or family members go to the police. But sometimes — when they can’t or it’s too risky to involve the authorities — they rely on companies like mine to negotiate a release and pay the ransom.

“And that’s what I’m going to do with Joseph. Make sure he gets what he wants but under conditions that guarantee Sarah will be released unharmed.”

“You... you’d do that?”

Andrew smiled. “It’s all in a day’s work for me. And, as odd as it sounds, it’s really just like any other transaction. Kidnapping or bank loan or an acquisition or a joint venture, there’s not a lot of difference when it comes down to consummating the deal. You always pay in installments. Never everything up front. If you were to give Joseph what he wants right away, then he has no incentive to... keep anyone alive.”

“I have the October List,” she said. “But not the money.”

“Oh, you do have the money, Mac,” Daniel said.

Gabriela frowned.

Andrew explained, “Daniel’s providing the ransom and paying our fee.”

“What?” She spun to face him.

He nodded.

“I can’t accept that from you.”

Daniel said solemnly, “You can’t afford not to. Not at this point. There’re no options left. We’re not going to find your boss’s hidden treasure in time.”

“But...” She fell silent. Then turned and buried her face against his neck, sobbing. He gripped her hard. Even when she winced and gasped, he continued to hold her; in fact, he clutched her more tightly yet. Inhaled hard against her hair.

Andrew stirred and looked at the clock. “It’s four forty-five. We have an hour and fifteen minutes. How were you going to arrange to give him the list and money?”

“I was going to call him when I had the cash.”

“Okay. Here’s what I want you to do. You’ll call him and tell him you have everything he wants. But you’re not going to meet him. You have a friend who’s helping you with this.”

“You can tell him it’s the man he met yesterday,” Daniel said. “So he won’t think it’s a cop. Give him my name. He will’ve checked me out and knows I’m not a threat.”

Gabriela said firmly, “No. It’s my daughter who’s been kidnapped. I’ll do it.”

“Andrew and I’ll go. Andrew because this’s his business. Me because Joseph knows who I am, and that I’m connected with you.”

“It’s too dangerous. I can’t ask you to do that!”

Andrew added softly, “It’s not as dangerous as it seems. We have leverage. You’re in possession of this list he’s so desperate for, we have the money he wants.”

Daniel added, “And we’ve got that.” His gaze slipped to the plastic CVS pharmacy bag in the corner of the room. Small but impossible to ignore. The dark stains inside were obvious. “It’ll have some evidence that can be traced back to him. He knows that.”

Andrew continued, “Oh, yes, we’ve got some leverage. Not much, but enough, I think. Now, we’ll meet Joseph at six. As for the money... We’ll give him some of what he wants, a show of good faith. And part of the list — to prove we have it. And we’ll insist on seeing your daughter. Not a video or a recording. See her in person.” A broad smile. “Then we’ll agree to have the exchange tomorrow in some public place — the full October List, the rest of the money and the evidence.” He lifted his palms. “For your daughter.”

She nodded slowly.

Daniel said, “Could you call your friend Frank, and get a few names on the list? Or do you still remember the ones you saw?”

“I remember them. Not the addresses, but the cities they’re in.” She wrote these down and handed the slip to Daniel, who read and then pocketed it.

Andrew said, “That’s fine. Joseph’ll check them out, verify they’re real... Now, the money. We’ll give him a portion tonight. Half of what he’s asking is probably enough. It’ll show we’re willing to cooperate.”

Daniel said, “It’s easy enough to get two hundred fifty thousand together.”

Easy for some people, Gabriela reflected.

“Well, are we ready to give our friend Joseph a call?” Andrew asked.

Gabriela stared at the phone for a moment. Daniel leaned close. “You can do it, Mac.”

She looked at him, inhaled and then found the number and dialed.

“Put it on speaker,” the older man instructed.

She hit the button.

A moment later Joseph’s eerie voice came over the line. “Gabriela! Hello, hello! I was worried. The deadline’s getting closer, inching up. And I’m sure you remember what happens when you miss a deadline. Been on any good scavenger hunts recently? Found any good treasures behind Dumpsters?”

“That was the sickest thing anybody’s ever done,” she snapped.

“Oh, I’ll bet we can come up with a few nastier examples if we put our heads together, don’t you agree? But it was delicious, wasn’t it?” Another of his odd giggles.

Gabriela’s jaw trembled. “How’s my daughter?”

“Well, truth be told, she’s a little confused. ‘Where’s Mommy, why doesn’t Mommy call?’ If it’s any consolation she asks for you more than for Daddy Tim. Was he really that bad a husband?”

“Dammit! Answer my question! How’s Sarah?”

“She’s fine.”

“She isn’t fine, and she’ll never be fine thanks to you.”

Joseph said dismissively, “People handle all sorts of trauma and are none the worse for wear. I’m a case in point.”

“I hate you so much.”

“Pity,” he said, that singsong tone again infusing his voice. “If you got to know me, you’d feel different. Now, I notice we’re on speaker. I imagine your good friend Mr. Reardon’s in the room with you now, or somebody else, but not the police because after the excitement this afternoon you’re not going to be strolling into any station houses. At least not voluntarily. My, my, you sure made a name for yourself today, Gabriela. That was quite a mess... Glad you’re not my office manager. Now, who’s your avatar?” He laughed at this comment. “Is it Mr. Reardon?”

Daniel leaned forward. “That’s right.”

“Aka J. P. Morgan. You’re not a cowboy after all. You’re a hotshot venture capitalist. I checked you out. The Norwalk Fund. The article in front of the name’s a little pretentious, but it’s an impressive outfit. Assets of two billion? If I had a retirement account, I’d let you handle it. And still you avoid fracking and unsustainable energy investments? How admirable. Surprised I’d do my homework?”

“Not really.”

Joseph asked, “So, J. P., you’re representing our Gabriela?”

“That’s right.”

“Well, I guess the burden’s on you to deliver the goods then, in a little over an hour. You told me you have the list. How’re we coming with the cold, hard cash?”

Daniel explained their proposal, the partial payment and several entries from the October List so he could check them out, verify they were real. Then a public meeting for the complete exchange.

Joseph paused then said, “I like dealing with Gabriela better. Let me think, let me think... I’m coming down on the side of no.” Offered cheerfully.

Gabriela started to speak, but Andrew calmly gestured her silent. Daniel asked, “What’s your counterproposal?”

“All the money now. Five hundred K.”

“Impossible!” Gabriela blurted.

“Let’s ask little Sarah how she feels about impossibility, should we? Guess what I’ve been up to this afternoon? I’ve been trimming roses. Snip, snip. You know that it helps them grow to cut back nearly to the roots? Imagine that. It—”

“Stop it!” Gabriela turned to Daniel with terrified eyes. He nodded. Leaning forward slightly, he said into the speaker, “Okay. Full payment tonight. Five hundred K. But only three names from the October List. And we see Sarah in person.”

“That’ll work... Only, let me ask something first. Now, tell the truth, Gabriela, the list? You have it in your hot little hands?”

The foursome in the room glanced at one another. She said, “We have it. Somewhere safe.”

“Do you now? I hope so. Because, let me say this, I’m a very bad person to cheat. If you try to trick me, in any way, or you hold out on me, there’ll be consequences. I’m not going to threaten to kill your daughter because that wouldn’t be helpful for anybody. But fuck with me and I will make sure she disappears into the underground adoption circuit, and you’ll never see her again.”

“No!” she cried.

He continued, “And that’s not all, Ms. Gabriela. I have to say I find you quite attractive — sorry, J. P. Morgan. Don’t be jealous. She’s a good-looking woman, right? I know you agree.”

Daniel’s jaw clenched.

Joseph laughed, that giggling again. “If things don’t go just the way I want, I’ll find you and I’ll make sure we spend some quality time together. I have a house outside of the city. Very, very deserted. So, Gabriela, you understand what’s at stake here?”

She nodded desperately, then realized Joseph couldn’t hear her response. “Nobody’s going to cheat you! We’ll do just what you want, I promise!”

“All right, J. P. Morgan, there’s a place in SoHo... Elizabeth Street, two buildings north of Prince. On the east side of the street. A warehouse.” Joseph gave the address.

“I’ll be there at six. With an associate.”

“Who?”

“My insurance man.”

“Ah, that makes sense. But any heroics and you heard the consequences. Sarah ends up in a trailer in West Virginia with a born-again mommy and daddy, and Gabriela and I commence dating.”

Daniel seemed to be using all his willpower to control his voice. “Understood.”

The click of his disconnecting seemed like a gunshot.

Gabriela sank back on the couch. She looked too drained even to cry.

Andrew rose. “All right. Let’s get the money, Daniel. We don’t have much time. Sam, you stay with Gabriela.”

Sam Easton nodded. “Sure.”

Daniel turned to her and pulled her close. He whispered, “We’ll make it work, Mac. I promise.”

Then the two men were gone, the door closing with its distinctive two-note tone.

Chapter 35 Daniel’s Mausoleum

5:50 P.M., SUNDAY

40 MINUTES EARLIER

The warehouse was just as he’d left it on Friday, when he’d been here making preparations.

Damp, brick walls covered with scabby light green paint, redolent of cleanser fumes and oil and pesticide and rust, lit by unkind fluorescents. One began flickering and Joseph rose from the table where he’d been sitting, took a mop from the corner, the strands molded into a mass, sideways, like windswept hair, and with the tip of the handle shattered the offending tubular bulb. There was nothing sturdy enough to stand on to remove it. Shards fell, dust too. The crackle was satisfying.

This building was similar to the one where he’d done his little surgery last night, the warehouse west of Times Square. Here, in SoHo, there was a demand for industrial spaces to turn into private residences — at astronomical sums, of course. This particular building would probably never be converted. There were no windows. Bad for resale to chic-minded lawyers and brokers. Good for Joseph’s purposes, though. In fact, he could just make out a faint spatter of dark brown dots on the floor. Several months ago those discolorations had been bright red. The man had finally told Joseph what he wanted to know.

Solid brick walls. They absorbed the screams well.

Before returning to the chair, he walked to the heater panel, turned the unit up. Mold-scented air slipped out of the vents. Warmish. Still, he kept on his gloves — thin, flesh-colored cloth. Not for the comfort, though. Force of professional habit. Joseph recalled many times in the heat of summer when he’d worn gloves like these.

He sat once more, in the chair on whose back his leather jacket was draped. Pulling off his baseball cap and rubbing his thick golden ringlets, Joseph reached into the bag he’d brought with him and extracted the distinctive green box of Dom Pérignon champagne. He then removed from his pocket two mobile phones — his own iPhone, and the one lifted from the same apartment where he’d taken the boxed wine. His phone he set on the table. The other he scrolled through — clumsily because of the gloves — and noted the phone numbers and texts.

He set the Samsung down then stretched out his legs, checking the time. He wouldn’t have long to wait. That was good. He was tense. You always were on edge at times like this. You had to be. He’d known plenty of men who’d relaxed when they shouldn’t have. They were dead or changed for the worse, much worse.

But adrenaline got you only so far.

He glanced toward a door at the back of the warehouse, secured with a thick dead bolt. It led to a small storeroom. From beneath the door warm yellow light flowed. You could hear the Dora the Explorer DVD.

“Hey, Boots! Let’s go over there!”

Joseph looked once more at the box containing the champagne. It was marred with a bloodstain on the side. Six dots in a row, like part of the Morse code for S-O-S. He knew the prestige of Dom Pérignon, though he’d never had any. This reminded him that he had a thirst. He rose and, walking stiffly from the chill, went to a cupboard in the corner of the warehouse, where he’d stashed a bottle of his Special Brew. He twisted off the cap and thirstily drank down nearly half of the contents. Felt the rush, felt the comfort.

Slow down, he told himself.

But then slugged the rest.

He wiped his lips on his sleeve. He set the bottle on the table. He’d take it with him when he left, of course, after slicking the glass with his telltale DNA.

Settling his heavy form back in the chair, Joseph winced at a sharp pain in his hip. He reached into the pocket of his jacket and removed the Glock 9mm pistol, dropped the mag and reloaded, replacing the two bullets he’d fired not long ago. He recalled the eyes of the victim staring at him in shock — too numb even to be afraid. Always curious, those moments just before the gun fired. People behaved in all sorts of mad ways. Heroic, pathetic, even blasé. He could write a book.

Joseph set the gun on the table and fished out the Gemtech silencer, checked to see that it was clear and then screwed it into the muzzle. Slipped the weapon into his waistband.

He glanced at his watch. The deadline was two minutes away. He wondered if—

A firm knocking resonated from the medieval door.

A glance through the peephole he’d installed yesterday. Daniel Reardon and a distinguished-looking businessman. Joseph tapped the grip of the pistol, to remind himself exactly where it hugged his body. Then undid the latch.

Chapter 36 Sam’s Last Drink

6:30 P.M., SUNDAY

She stood at the window of the Manhattan apartment, peering through a slit in the drapes. Her hands trembled.

“Do you see anyone?” the man across the room asked, voice edgy.

“I’m not sure. Maybe.” Her body pitched forward, tense, Gabriela tugged the thick sheets of cloth closer together, as if someone was scanning the windows with binoculars. Or a sniper rifle. “Of course, I didn’t see anybody earlier today, either. Until it was too late.” She muttered fiercely, “I wish I had a gun now. I’d use it. If anybody’s there, I swear to God I’d use it.”

Sam Easton asked, “But who would it be?”

She turned to him, stepping away from the window fast. “Who? It could be anyone. Everybody in the world, it seems, wants the goddamn October List!”

“How could they know you were here?”

Gabriela gave a bitter laugh. “I don’t seem to have any secrets anymore.” She hesitated, then, reluctantly, she looked out again. “I just can’t tell. I thought somebody was there. But the next minute he was gone. I—” Then she whispered manically, “The dead bolt!”

Sam stared, cocking his head.

Eyes wide in alarm, Gabriela asked, “Did I lock it?” She walked quickly out of the living room around the corner to the hallway and then returned. “No, it’s okay. Everything’s locked up.”

Sam now took her place at the window, looked out. “I see shadows, I see some movement. But I can’t tell for sure. Could be somebody, could be a tree blowing in the breeze. Damn streetlight’s out, the one in front of the building.” He glanced at her. “Was it working earlier?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I think maybe it was. How could somebody shut out a streetlight?”

Sam didn’t answer. He too stepped back from the slit between the drapes. He crossed the room and sat on a hassock near her. She’d noted earlier that he was in good shape but hadn’t seen clearly how slim his waist was, how broad his shoulders. His muscles tested his suit jacket and white shirt.

Gabriela raged, “Jesus, I hate this!.. Sarah, what’s she going through? What’s she thinking? What—?” Her voice choked. Then she breathed in and out slowly. “How soon, do you think, until we know?” Daniel and Andrew had left about a half hour ago to meet Joseph.

She wiped a dot of blood from her lower lip.

Sam said, “Hard to say. Joseph’s got his own agenda, you know. The... someone in his position pretty much has all the power.”

Gabriela could tell he’d been about to say “the kidnapper” but didn’t want to add that, maybe so that she didn’t become more upset.

She exhaled slowly, pressed her rib cage. Gave a faint wince. “I hate the waiting.”

Sam said awkwardly, “They’ll make it happen.”

“Will they?” she asked, in a whisper. “Joseph’s a crazy man. A wild card. I have no idea what he’s going to do.”

A fog of silence filled the dim room, a silence engendered by two strangers who were waiting to hear a child’s fate.

“When exactly did it happen?” Sam asked. His suit was unbuttoned, his tieless dress shirt starched smooth as Sheetrock.

“When did Joseph kidnap her?” Gabriela asked; she wasn’t afraid to use the word. “Saturday morning. Yesterday.”

Forever ago. That was the phrase that had occurred to her but she didn’t use the expression with this man, whom she’d only known a few hours.

“And how old is Sarah?”

Gabriela responded, “Six. She’s only six.”

“Oh, Jesus.” His long, matte-dry face revealed disgust, a face older than that of most men in their mid-thirties. A jowl quivered.

She nodded, a token of thanks for the sympathy. After a pause: “I hate Sundays.”

“I know what you mean.” Sam’s eyes regarded her again: the new black jeans bought on the run while she and Daniel were being chased through the streets of New York. They fit poorly. A bulky, unbecoming navy-blue sweatshirt. He’d been noting her mussed auburn hair, and a gaunt face whose makeup had long ago been teared away. He scanned her lean hips too, her abundant breasts, but clearly had no romantic or lustful interest. She reflected, Whatever his circumstances or preferences, I’m sure I look pretty bad.

She rose and walked to the corner of the apartment. There sat a black backpack, from which the price tag still dangled. She unzipped it, then withdrew a smaller gym bag and, from that, a skein of yarn, some needles and the piece she’d been working on. The strands were deep green and blue...

Echoing a line from a song.

One of her favorites.

Eyes red, demeanor anxious, Gabriela sat once again in the shabby plush purple chair in the center of the living room. Though she clutched the yarn, she didn’t begin the rhythmic, comforting motion, so familiar, with the red knitting needles yet. She touched her mouth with a tissue. Looked at the wad, which was white as fine linen, now blotched red. Her fingers were tipped with polish of a similar shade.

Then, tap, tap, Gabriela knitted five rows. She coughed several times, pressed her side, below her right breast, her eyes squinting shut momentarily. She tasted blood. Copper, salty, bitter.

Concern rippling his brow, Sam asked, “If it’s bleeding like that, shouldn’t you go to the emergency room? It looks worse.”

Gabriela gave a brief laugh. “That probably wouldn’t be a good idea. Didn’t Daniel tell you what happened this afternoon?”

“Oh. Sure. Wasn’t thinking.”

“I’ll live with it until I get Sarah back. Then I’ll have things taken care of. In the prison hospital, most likely.” A cynical smirk accompanied this comment.

She studied the apartment once more. When she and Daniel had arrived two hours ago she’d been too preoccupied to notice much. In addition to being filled with beat-up furniture, and exuding a sense of the temporary, it was gloomy, particularly now in the oppressive dusk. She supposed this atmosphere was mostly due to the tall ceilings, small rooms, gray wallpaper flecked with tiny pale flowers. Her eyes went to the wrought-iron coffee table in the middle of the room. Its spiky edges looked like a weapon from a science fiction film.

Pain...

The table set her nerves aflame. But she thought yet again, as she’d done so often in the past two days: Your goal. All you should think about is your goal.

Sarah. Saving Sarah is your only goal. Remember that, remember that, remember that.

Gabriela asked, “You work with Daniel much?”

Sam replied, “We’ve had a relationship with him and The Norwalk Fund for close to seven years.”

“How many people’ve told him he looks like the actor?” She was thinking back to Friday night — could it really have been just two days ago? — meeting Daniel Reardon for the first time. Then later that evening: recalling his damp brow, speckled with moisture, and beneath, his blue eyes, which were simultaneously easy and intense.

“A lot,” Sam said and again rubbed his bare, shiny scalp. “I don’t get that much: Are you this or that actor?” He was laughing. He had a sense of humor after all, maybe.

“And the head of your company, Andrew — what was his last name again?”

“Faraday.”

“He’s a fascinating man,” she said. “I’ve never heard of a specialty like his before.”

“Not many companies do what we do. He’s made a name for himself. Travels all over the world. Flies a hundred thousand miles a year. Minimum.”

She knit another row of blue and green. Tap, tap.

“And your job, Sam?”

“I’m a behind-the-scenes guy. The operations chief for the company.”

“Like me,” she said. “I run my company’s office and...” Her voice faded and she gave a sour laugh. “I ran the office. Before all this happened.” She sighed, dabbed at her mouth once more, examined the tissue and continued knitting, as if she was simply tired of receiving bad news. She gave him a wry look. “Operations chief also has babysitter in the job description?”

He opened his mouth — a protest was coming — but then he said, with a grin, “Was it that obvious?”

She continued, “It doesn’t make a lot of sense for you to be involved in this except for one reason: to make sure I stay out of their hair.”

“Daniel and Andrew are negotiating your daughter’s release from a kidnapper. What would you do if you’d gone with them?”

She shrugged. “Scratch Joseph’s fucking eyes out.”

“That’s what Daniel figured. Better for you to stay here.”

“And if I wanted to sneak off to the meeting, how were you going to stop me?”

“I’d probably beg.”

She laughed.

“What do you know about Joseph?” Sam asked.

The smile vanished like water in parched dirt. “He’s a monster, a sadist.” She cast a glance at the CVS drugstore bag, inside which they could see a bloodstain, paled by the white plastic.

Sam noted it too. “Daniel told me about that. Unbelievable. Who’d do something like that?”

She closed her eyes momentarily, brow wrinkling. “Joseph’s big and intimidating. A bully, a thug. But you know what’s worse? He’s got this weird side to him. Like his haircut. He has real thick, blond curly hair, and he greases it or something. It’s eerie. He grins a lot. And he’s got this, I don’t know, this tone when he talks. You heard him on speakerphone. Taunting. Giddy.”

“You know who he sounded like? That character from one of the Batman movies. Heath Ledger played him. Remember?”

“Yes, you’re right. Exactly. The Joker.”

Suddenly Gabriela’s fists closed around the knitting, as if she was going to rip the piece apart. A moment passed and she seemed to deflate, head forward, shoulders sagging. “God, what a nightmare — this weekend.” A pathetic smile bent her lips. “Two days ago I was a mother with a job I loved. I’d just met Daniel and, you know, things really clicked between us. And now? My daughter’s been kidnapped. Daniel and your boss might be on their way to get shot. The police are after me and I’ve done some... I’ve done some terrible things today. Oh, Christ...”

She nodded toward the window. “And apparently Joseph isn’t the only one to worry about. The goddamn October List? Why did it end up in my lap?”

“It’ll work out,” he said, though they both knew the reassurance was merely verbal filler.

After a moment she asked Sam, “Why would Daniel do all of this for me? Anybody else would’ve been long gone.”

“Why? He’s got an interest in what happens.”

“What?”

“You.”

“Me?”

Sam smiled. “He likes you. That’s what he told me... And told me not to tell you.”

She pictured Daniel’s close-cropped black hair, his square jaw, his dancing blue eyes.

The actor...

She felt the rippling sensation, low in her belly. Had a memory of his lips on hers, his body close. His smells, his tastes. The moisture on his brow and on hers. “I like him too.”

“Here’s the thing,” Sam said, sitting forward on the leather hassock. “No surprise: Daniel’s good looking and he’s rich and he’s a nice guy. A lot of women see that and they think, Jackpot. But they don’t care who he is, not inside. They don’t connect. Daniel said you and he hit it off before you knew he had the boat and the fancy cars and the money.”

“Yeah, our meeting was not the most romantic experience in the history of relationships.” She gave Sam a careful gaze. “Okay, he likes me. But he’s also doing this because of what happened in New Hampshire. Right?”

“He told you?” Sam seemed surprised.

“He did, yes. Sounded pretty bad.”

A nod. “Oh, yeah. Changed his whole outlook on life. And, true, probably that is one of the reasons he’s helping you. Kind of giving back for what happened. That was tough. You know, with his kids involved and all.”

“Yes.”

“Daniel doesn’t tell everybody about New Hampshire. In fact, hardly anyone.”

She stared at her knitting, the tangles of color. “God, it’s so risky, what he and Andrew’re doing. They downplayed it, but...” She pulled her phone from the sweatshirt pouch, glanced at the screen, slipped it back.

“Anything?”

“Nothing.” A sigh. She rose, walked to the bar and poured some red wine. Lifted her eyebrow. Sam nodded. She filled a glass for him and returned to the couch, handed it off. They sipped. No tap of glasses or toast, of course. Not now.

Gabriela sat and started to sip, but eased the wine away from her lips. She exhaled audibly.

“Are you all right?” Sam asked.

Frowning broadly, she was staring at a newspaper on the Alien coffee table. Scooting forward.

“My God,” she said.

“What?”

She looked up, eyes wide as coins. “I know what it is.”

He regarded her quizzically.

“The October List, Sam.” She slid the New York Times his way. He walked forward and picked it up. She continued, “I know what it means! The clues were there all along. I just didn’t put them together.” In a low voice, “It’s bad, Sam. What’s going to happen is really bad.”

But before she could say anything more there came a noise from the front hallway: a click, followed by the distinctive musical notes of the front door hinge, O — oh, high — low. Stale air moved.

Gabriela rose fast. Sam Easton, holding his wine in one hand and the newspaper in the other, turned to the hallway.

“Is my daughter all right?” she cried. “Please tell me! Is my daughter all right?”

A man entered the room quickly. But it wasn’t Daniel Reardon or Andrew Faraday, returning from their mission to save her daughter.

Joseph wore a black jacket and gloves and yellow-tinted aviator glasses. His glistening golden curly hair dangled to mid-ear.

In his gloved hand he held a pistol whose muzzle ended in a squat, brushed-metal silencer.

“No!” Gabriela gasped, looking toward Sam.

After scanning the room quickly, Joseph turned toward them, lifting the gun in a way that seemed almost playful.