Authors: Alison Gaylin
Jim typed:
Thank you
. Then he signed off. Brenna read the two short words on the screen—the last words she would see from Jim in a long time—and tears crept into her eyes. She felt someone nearby and looked up to see the stoic young nurse standing over her. Brenna hadn’t even heard her come in.
“Are you in any pain?” the nurse asked.
“You don’t wanna know.”
“Excuse me?”
Brenna swatted at her eyes. “Kidding. I’m good.”
The nurse frowned at her, but thankfully the phone rang at Brenna’s bedside before she had to explain anymore.
The nurse reached for the phone, but Brenna grabbed it first. “Hello?”
“Hey.” It was Morasco. “How are you feeling?”
“Not bad, I guess.”
“Listen,” he said. “I got the e-mail.”
“What do you think?”
“I think,” he said, “that I would very much like to nail Roger Wright’s ass to the wall.”
Brenna smiled a little. “Great minds.”
There was a short pause, and then he spoke again. “I’ve got a plan.”
“Am I in on it?”
“I’d like you to be. The thing is, it would mean checking out of the hospital and leaving, very early in the morning.” As he told her about the plan—a simple one—the remembered pain dissipated, replaced by a strange and very real excitement.
This could work
. “I’m in,” she told Morasco. “I’m in no matter what.”
“Y
ou look like a movie star, ducking the press after undergoing her fifth face-lift.”
Behind the oversized sunglasses she’d picked up at a Rite Aid near the hospital, Brenna rolled her eyes. That would teach her, she supposed, for asking Morasco how she looked. Doctors had removed the bandages at five this morning, and though the bruises were nowhere near as bad as she’d imagined they’d be, the sunglasses were a necessity, especially considering where she and Morasco were going and whom they were about to see. She had her hair pulled back, and she was all in black—black jeans, black boots, black turtleneck sweater (Trent’s idea of a change of clothes, which, considering what he could have brought, was a fine choice). Morasco, on the other hand, was wearing one of his tweeds, this one with actual shoulder patches, a rumpled white oxford, jeans. Very postgraduate Camus scholar. She imagined they made an interesting-looking pair.
It was 6:30
A.M.
, and they were in the unmarked car Morasco drove—brown Impala, because they figured such an obvious cop car would help their cause. When your goal was, after all, to make Roger Wright sweat, appearances needed to be seriously considered.
They were on Wright’s street now—a parade of turrets, Tudor and spiraling brick chimneys, all tucked away behind downy sprawls of green. “Fancy area,” Brenna said.
Morasco nodded. “You nervous?”
“A little.”
He pulled up to an enormous gate—Wright’s gate—and turned to her. “I can’t tell you how impressed I was by the way you questioned Gayle Chandler.”
“You’re just saying that to make me feel better.”
“No, I’m not. You use the memory to your best advantage. And your technique is just amazing.”
Brenna felt herself blushing a little, and was glad for the sunglasses. “Thanks.”
He spoke into the intercom. “Detective Nick Morasco. Tarry Ridge PD.”
A Spanish-accented woman’s voice replied, “Can I ask what this is regarding?”
“I need to speak with Mr. Wright, regarding an ongoing case.”
A full ten seconds elapsed before the woman said, “One moment.” Three solid minutes before the gate finally opened.
Morasco pulled up a very long driveway, lined with evergreens atop a lawn that could have easily doubled as a golf course. He drove past a thatch-roofed carriage house to an enormous, stately colonial—white brick, black shutters, Ionic columns that brought to mind the Tarry Ridge library, with its unwieldy librarian and screaming bake sale debutantes. Brenna blinked that scene away—hard to believe it had been only yesterday—as Morasco pulled in front of the house and removed the folder from the glove compartment, and they both slipped out of the car to find Wright—Roger Wright all suited up for his morning golf game, Roger Wright in his madras pants and his pink polo, his graying gold hair gleaming in the bright sun and his blue eyes surprising spikes of concern—Roger Wright striding toward them, because this was a man who didn’t simply walk, he strode. “Can I help you?” he said to Morasco.
Brenna spoke. “Mr. Wright. We’re looking for a former employee of yours by the name of Adam Meade.”
He glanced at Brenna. If he remembered her at all as Candy Bissel from outside the golf course, he wasn’t letting that be known. “I . . . I’m not sure I’m familiar with the name.”
“He worked for Wright Industries from 1996 to 1999,” said Morasco.
Wright stared Morasco in the eye for a long time, saying nothing. His gaze moved from the detective’s face to Brenna’s, as if he might find more help there, a more sympathetic set of features, perhaps even a different question. But she stared right back, silent as Morasco. Waiting.
“Adam,” Wright said finally. “Was he the orderly from the Bronx VA?”
Her eyes widened. “Yes.”
Wright exhaled hard. “I met Adam probably fifteen years ago. The Teasdale Foundation gives money to the hospital and I was there with my wife and mother-in-law, touring the facility. I spoke to Adam. He wasn’t happy with his job. He said he was looking for something in security, and a few months later I wound up hiring him.”
“Just like that?” Morasco said. “Someone you never heard of.”
Wright aimed his eyes at him—sharp, defiant. “I’d heard of his father. A true hero. Born right here in Tarry Ridge.”
“Why did you fire him?” Brenna said.
“I didn’t.”
She stared at him.
“The head of security did. He had his reasons, I’m sure.” He gave her a flat smile. “Perhaps you can understand the fact that I don’t become directly involved with every firing and/or layoff that takes place within my corporation. Now if you’ll excuse me . . .”
Morasco said, “I’d like to show you a few photographs, Mr. Wright.”
“I’m sorry—I really don’t have time—”
“Golf, right? No worries, this won’t take a minute.” Morasco moved closer to him, and opened the folder he was carrying—a folder full of crime scene photos. Brenna watched him, the way he stared into the open folder, his jaw going slack, the color slipping from his face.
“Dear God,” he breathed.
“This is what happened to Carol Wentz,” Morasco said.
He showed him another picture, then another. “Here is what happened to Nelson Wentz, her husband.”
“Please, I . . .”
“Graeme Klavel. Private investigator in Mount Temple.”
“Why are you—”
“Timothy O’Malley. Some face, right? He’s in critical condition. Hanging on by a thread.” Morasco looked up from the folder and into Wright’s face. “Ex-husband of Lydia Neff.”
Wright’s face went red. He backed away. “Why are you showing me these?”
Brenna said, “We believe Adam Meade is responsible for all of this.”
“No,” Wright said. “No, Carol Wentz was killed by her husband. He killed himself. I’ve been following the news.”
“You can follow whatever you want, Mr. Wright,” said Brenna. “That won’t change the truth.”
“Can you find Adam Meade?” Morasco said. “Can you tell us where he is right now?”
“I don’t know where Adam Meade is.”
Brenna stared at him, her jaw tightening, anger building. She heard herself say, “Carol Wentz e-mailed you the night before she died.”
“No she didn’t.”
“Before that e-mail, she’d spoken to Mr. Klavel and Mr. O’Malley.” Brenna took a step closer to Wright, who appeared to be growing smaller by the minute. “So if you honestly don’t know where Adam Meade is right now, I suggest you find out, as he seems to be doing quite a bit of damage on your behalf.”
“I need to leave,” Wright said quietly. “I have an appointment.”
Morasco held out his business card. “If you think you might know where Mr. Meade is, give me a call.” He smiled. “Sorry to interrupt your morning. Have a nice day.”
Morasco and Brenna slipped back into the Impala with Wright staring after them, headed down the sprawling driveway without saying a word. Once they were back on the street, Brenna removed the microcassette recorder from her bag, played back the entire conversation while staring out the window at the lush scenery, mansions parading by . . .
After it was through, she asked Morasco, “What did you think?”
“He’s definitely lying about getting the e-mail from Carol.”
“That’s a given.”
“But unless he’s either a great actor or incredibly self-deluded, I get the feeling he has no idea where Meade is, or what he’s been doing.” He pulled back onto Main Street and made a left, heading back toward the 287.
“I vote for self-deluded,” Brenna said.
“Me too.”
N
o matter what the truth was about his connection to Meade, Wright had clearly been lying when he said he hadn’t received Carol’s e-mail. When Brenna had mentioned it, she’d actually seen the discomfort, creeping up from his collar and into his face as if it was a solid thing.
It had been the same when Morasco had said the name out loud.
Lydia Neff
.
But what was it about that drawing?
After Morasco dropped her off at her apartment, Brenna opened the front door and climbed the stairs, her own daughter’s art flashing through her mind like a slide show. Two smiling heads on stick legs—one with curly hair, one with no hair. “Mommy and Daddy,” Maya had said, after handing Brenna the picture, drawn in day care, February 2, 1999. The picture of Brenna—the one in the mommy crown that she’d had reproduced for her key chain—April 12, 2000. A collage Maya had created on January 19, 2002; an imitation Picasso on March 3, 2005; a self-portrait—the teeth and forehead so much bigger than they were in real life, but still, as Maya’s art teacher had said, “exhibiting real talent”—from November 4, 2008. Even the portrait of Miles, the one she’d completed last night . . . All of these works of art so different, but with one thing in common: a signature. First in spidery block letters, then in cursive, then simply in initials, Maya, like most every child, signed her artwork.
But there was no signature at the bottom of the flower drawing, and it was an aberration. Iris had signed the framed pictures that hung in her mother’s house. She’d even signed the seat of her bicycle. But she hadn’t put her name on this one piece of art, the one her mother had stashed away in a secret place, along with her other dark secret . . .
Brenna unlocked her apartment door. With Trent not in yet and Maya at Larissa’s house, the place seemed emptier than usual—huge and still. She put down her bag and made for her computer, thinking,
What could that drawing mean?
Odds were, Lieberman had replied to her query about it—in the past, he’d always been quick with answers—and when she checked her e-mail, she saw he hadn’t changed. She expected a long response. Lieberman had a tendency to overexplain, which was fine. In the case of this drawing, Brenna thought, the more explanation the better.
Brenna opened the e-mail, and started to read. But while Lieberman’s response was indeed long, she couldn’t get past the first sentence. She read it twice, then three, four, five times, as if repetition might change the meaning of the words—or at least, make them easier for her to grasp . . . If anything, though, the process only confused and upset her more:
This drawing was not done by a child.
D
r. Lieberman had gone on at great length about straightness of the lines in the drawing, the light touch of crayon to paper, and the way the stick figure had been drawn—with hair and a skirt but with no face, more of a symbol than an actual rendering and rare, if not unheard of, for a six-year-old girl. While the sun that shone out of the upper left corner of the page might be considered typical for a first or second grader, the squares that surrounded the flower were drawn with far too much precision for a child that age. What’s more, the entire drawing had been created in an unusual amount of detail but in only one color —something he deemed “extremely atypical of a child” considering “the attention span required for such a work.” Lieberman concluded by saying he would put the age of the artist at “young adulthood at the very least.”
Brenna had to find Lydia Neff. With the possible exception of Meade and Wright, she was the only one who might be able to explain why this strange drawing—not done by a child—would elicit so much violence and death.
But how to find her?
Lydia Neff. The invisible woman. No credit card bills, no car registration, and even her best friend Gayle Chandler hadn’t spoken to her in two years . . .
But even invisible women have interests.
She thought about what Lydia and Griffin liked to do together—
out at a diner maybe
, Morasco had said,
walking through the shopping center
. But that didn’t give her much, seeing as the woman apparently hadn’t spent a dime over the past two years. No, Lydia’s interests were deeper than that . . .
Brenna could hear Gayle’s voice in her mind.
Every morning, Lyddie goes there to meditate by the fountain. She’s a very spiritual woman, you know . . .
Meditation . . . Not an easily trackable interest unless . . . Brenna recalled the meditation room in Lydia’s house. The painted plaques . . . She went to Google and typed in the words: “Conquer the angry man by love. Conquer the ill-natured man by goodness. Conquer the miser with generosity. Conquer the liar with truth.”
Several pages came up—some dedicated to famous quotations, others to Buddhist teachings. She typed in: “The greatest achievement is selflessness,” and got the same pages. She opened the first one and learned: All the sayings on Lydia’s wall were quotes from the Buddha.
Lydia was a Buddhist. She could have moved to Tibet, but that wasn’t likely. Trent had found no airfare for her. Plus, leaving town was one thing, but it was difficult to imagine any mother moving that far away from the spot where her daughter had disappeared.