“What is it?” she asked him gently.
“I haven’t”—he hesitated—“I mean, I don’t know anything. I know I love you, but I don’t know anything else.”
“That’s what I want,” she said.
She reached out and pulled him toward her, both of them falling back together onto the bed.
Later, between the crisp white sheets
, they lay side by side, their bodies touching but otherwise just … still. Wally thought it might be the quietest room she had ever been in. She wondered how deeply she would sleep, whether it would be easier or harder after so long in spaces that were not her own, that were full of the sounds of others.
“I think a lot …” Tevin began, and then stopped himself, organizing his thoughts. “I think about … after I’m gone. Like, who will remember me? Will anyone think that the world was a different place because I was in it?” He paused. “It sounds kind of dumb now that I say it out loud.”
“It’s not dumb.”
“I guess,” Tevin said, “what I’d like, when that time comes, I want to belong to someone. So at least one person will look back at the memory of me and think,
he was mine
.”
It made Wally’s heart ache to hear those words from Tevin. He had been alone in the world, set adrift by those who were supposed to take care of him, and now Wally and Jake and Ella were all he had.
“Could you and I belong to each other?” Tevin asked.
It was a moment before Wally answered.
“Yes,” she said.
For that night they did belong to each other. Wally was glad for it, glad for Tevin that he was able to experience that closeness with someone who loved him and glad for herself that she had something so powerful to give. Before very long he was sound asleep. Wally listened as his breathing settled into a deep, peaceful rhythm before she quietly whispered the familiar lullaby to herself …
Puskai prïdet pora prosit’sia,
Drug druga dolgo ne vidat?
No serditse s serdtsem, slovno ptitsy,
Konechno, vstretiatsia opiat …
Halfway through the last verse, she was asleep as well.
TWENTY-ONE
Atley was home alone
with three-day-old spaghetti, watching the Michigan–Ohio State game and trying to put the events of the previous twenty-four hours out of his mind. He leapt on his cell phone when it rang, glad for the interruption.
“Detective, this is Claire Stoneman.”
“Oh. Mrs. Stoneman … is something wrong?”
“No no, not an emergency at all, Detective,” she said hurriedly, hearing urgency in Atley’s voice. “Damn it. I’m sorry. It’s strange for me to call, I know. This was inconsiderate; I’ll call you on Monday instead—”
“You’re not bothering me. I’m enjoying a very low-key Thanksgiving this year.”
“Okay. I was just … I was hoping for news, anything.”
Atley wasn’t sure what to tell Claire Stoneman about her daughter and the Manetti murder case. Atley himself was on indefinite leave following the shoot-out in Charlene Rainer’s building, pending the outcome of an OIS report on the incident. If his superiors had asked Atley to grade his own performance during the gunfight, he would have said that he failed in every way, and it would be hard to argue: shooters were still unidentified and had escaped, Wallis Stoneman was still running free, and two women—including Dr. Charlene Rainer—were dead. Not Atley’s fault, but all of it happened on his watch.
The Sophia Manetti case was on indefinite hold, and the higher-ups in the precinct had decided that the two shooters in the Dr. Rainer incident had no connection to the Manetti murder. Atley disagreed. There was nothing random or arbitrary about the two shooters’ actions on that day. The men were obviously there for either Wallis Stoneman or Charlene Rainer—or both. The likelihood that in the space of ten days Wallis would be connected to two completely unrelated murders seemed very slim.
Now, on the line with Claire Stoneman, Atley was sure of one thing: he would not be mentioning the shoot-out to the distressed woman. She was desperate for news about her daughter, but even the tamest description of that violence would leave her with terrifying images of Wallis in danger. There was no point in that.
“I have nothing specific to tell you,” Atley lied, “other than that the investigation is ongoing.”
“I see,” Claire said, clearly disappointed. There was silence on the line for a few moments, and Atley could feel her anxiety over the line.
“We’re still working the case and we’re still determined to bring your daughter home,” Atley said. “No one is giving up.”
“I appreciate that,” she said. “I’m sorry for bothering you, Detective—”
“Tell me something about Wally,” Atley said, feeling that he had let the woman down. He didn’t want to end the conversation that way. “Anything about her.”
There was quiet on the line for a moment.
“Sometimes we’d have help come in,” Claire began. “When she was little and already a real handful, very defiant. So we’d bring in babysitters or nannies when I was down to my last nerve and just needed a few hours away. One of them was named Helen … she was Honduran, I think. Wally was a terror with her, of course, testing her like she tested everyone, but somehow Helen seemed to take it in stride. Late that first night, she was trying to get Wally in bed and Wally was fighting her with everything she had. I hovered at the bedroom door, curious to see how Helen would handle her. In the middle of Wally’s worst tantrum, Helen remained completely calm. She leaned in close to Wally until the two of them were face-to-face, and in this cold, powerful voice she said,
‘Listen to me now, little girl … if you do not behave, The People will come for you.’
Wally went absolutely silent, and I saw something on her face I had never once seen before: fear. Wally was terrified.”
The line went quiet for a moment. Atley could hear the tinkling of ice as Claire took a drink—he hoped there was something strong in her glass. As she continued, he could hear the quaver in her voice.
“I’ve thought about that night,” Claire continued, “again and again over the years, trying to imagine what thoughts haunted Wally at that moment, what faces she imagined.
The People
. Who did she think they were?” Claire paused, but Atley did not interrupt her. “I know that whatever her nightmares are, none of us can rescue her from them. I suppose it’s the same for all of us.”
Claire Stoneman went quiet again. For Atley it was almost too much to bear, the image of the woman sitting in her apartment, waiting, he assumed, with a full Thanksgiving meal for a child who would not be coming home. At least not today.
“I told you I would find Wallis,” Atley finally said. “And I will.”
“Thank you, Detective,” Claire said, genuine gratitude in her voice. “Happy Thanksgiving.”
“Same to you, Mrs. Stoneman.”
Atley had been pulled from the Manetti case and was technically on leave, but it was a holiday weekend and his time was his own. Department resources would be off-limits to him until his shooting case was cleared, but other avenues were available if he could dig up a lead to pursue. His first thought was Bill Horst—the FBI had its hooks into the city better than anyone.
TWENTY-TWO
Wally and the crew
slept late—the two couples in their own rooms—and then ordered a room service breakfast in the last hour before checkout. They were mostly quiet with each other as they ate omelets and drank orange juice, all of them experiencing some afterglow from the night before. Wally and Tevin were also a little awkward with each other, adjusting to the sudden change in their relationship.
For Wally—in the light of day—the new phase of her relationship with Tevin felt a little like an unwelcome complication. She did love Tevin, and their experience the night before had been important to her, but Wally was still driven by a powerful sense of purpose and didn’t want to be thrown off her quest. She knew this was selfish, but at the same time she didn’t want to end up resenting Tevin for distracting her. The choices in front of her were all so confusing.
They checked out of the room and walked back across Central Park, Ella and Jake in the lead with Wally and Tevin just behind. Wally could feel Tevin’s uneasiness, could sense that he was trying to play everything cool but didn’t quite know what Wally expected of him, or what she would allow.
“We’re good, right?” she quietly asked Tevin.
“Yeah, of course,” he answered. “Always.”
“What’s that?” Ella asked from up ahead, picking up on the curious change in chemistry between Wally and Tevin. Wally made a show of ignoring Ella’s question, but Ella seemed to know everything anyway and shot Wally a playful smirk. Apparently, Wally and Tevin becoming an actual couple was something Ella could really get behind. Wally didn’t feel ready for that level of sharing yet—she felt like it would just be more unwelcome distraction.
As they walked on, Wally began plotting the next step in locating Yalena. The events that had taken place at Charlene Rainer’s office had terrified her, but Wally’s level of determination was unchanged. She thought again about those terrible events—the deafening echoes of gunshots, Charlene’s blood splattered everywhere—and Wally suddenly felt guilty for her next thought: she was frustrated that Charlene had taken so much critical information with her into the next life.
Or had she? Wally thought about all the potential information contained in Dr. Rainer’s office: patient files, medical insurance forms, contact numbers, bookkeeping information. As they reached Central Park West, the crew headed north toward their new crash pad at the dry cleaner’s, but Wally paused at the corner of 88th Street.
“I’m gonna swing by the doctor’s office,” she said.
“The shrink’s?” Jake asked, surprised. “Why would you ever want to go back there?”
“I think I have to,” Wally said.
“It’s a bad idea,” Tevin said. “There’s going to be cops there still.”
“Uniforms, maybe, but not anyone who knows me, I’ll bet. If it looks wrong, I’ll just beat it.”
Wally could feel from the crew’s vibe that they were disappointed, the three of them realizing that her need to find Yalena hadn’t been diminished by the special time they had together on Thanksgiving day … and night.
“Please just come home with us,” Ella pleaded.
Wally bristled at Ella’s needy tone. They were going to make her feel guilty for doing what she needed to do.
“It’s not home, Ella. It’s an empty dry cleaner’s.” Wally’s tone was cold—even harsh—and she instantly regretted it.
“Wally …” Ella looked hurt.
“Ella, shit … I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“This mystery mom you’re working so hard to find,” Jake said angrily, “she threw you away. Don’t forget that.”
“Easy, Jake …” Tevin reproached him.
Wally opened her mouth to reply angrily, but stopped herself. They were having a bad moment already and she didn’t want to make it worse.
“You know I’m right, Tev,” Jake said. “And so do you, Wally.” He turned away and continued walking north. Ella gave Wally a sympathetic look, smiling a little to let her know that there were no hard feelings, but then hurried to catch up with Jake.
Only Tevin remained.
“Jake is being a dick, but he’s not wrong,” Tevin said to Wally. “I know you’ve got some idea in your head, how Yalena is some heroic person who made a huge sacrifice for you, but you need to be honest about it, Wally. She did leave you behind. And she said in her letter that you should go on with your life and not look back. Remember that the next time you put yourself in danger for her.”
Wally knew Tevin’s heart was in the right place, but at that moment his calm, reasonable tone just pissed her off.
“Yeah,” was all Wally said, and forced a little smile for him.
Tevin leaned in to Wally and gave her a gentle kiss on the cheek, then turned and hustled after Jake and Ella, leaving Wally behind on the corner of 88th and Central Park West. She suddenly felt chilled and deeply alone.
She forced herself to shake off the dark feelings and headed west, quickly covering the three blocks to Charlene Rainer’s office building. There was one police cruiser and a couple of workmen’s pickup trucks parked in front of the office building, including a locksmith’s truck. The front door was kept open with a doorstop, and workers were shuttling through the front entrance, carrying hardware and replacement doors for the wrecked offices upstairs.
Wally strolled inside with confidence, as if she owned the place. There was still no doorman in the lobby, and Wally noticed that the workers were using the elevators in the atrium to move their gear up, so she headed straight for the empty stairwell and climbed up to the third floor.
More workmen were on the third floor. Wally walked slowly as she approached the three office doors that needed repair. The closest of the three was the third office she and Dr. Rainer had entered as they tried to escape—the model builder’s studio—and that was the door the workmen were repairing first. The next door—the lawyer’s—had already been removed and was set leaning against the wall, at least ten splintered bullet holes clearly visible on its surface. The third doorway was Suite G—Dr. Rainer’s—and there was yellow NYPD crime scene tape stretched across it. A folding chair sat just outside the door, and Wally figured there must have been a uniform cop assigned to protect the crime scene. He was gone from his post … for now.
Wally headed for the second door—the lawyer’s—still walking casually as if she belonged in the building. Casual was the last thing Wally was feeling inside, though, as evidence of the violence two nights earlier was obvious in several places. The pool of blood from Charlene’s wounds had been mopped up but not very thoroughly, and blood splatter was everywhere on the surrounding walls, marked by circles drawn in red grease pen by crime scene investigators. There were smudges of black fingerprint dust on the walls, especially around the area of the doorways, and several sections of the wall plaster had been removed, for what reason she didn’t know. Looking up to the hallway above and across the atrium space, Wally could just make out evidence of blood splatter from the unlucky woman who had died first.