The Betrayer (4 page)

He pressed down
hard on the page with each stroke, and when he was done writing, he removed the
page and left the blank notepad on the empty table.

Right there, in
plain sight.

Folding and
pocketing the page on which he had written his note, he returned the pencil to
the drawer, then put on his vintage leather jacket and headed for the door, shouldering
the backpack as he exited.

He was halfway
down the outside hallway when he found himself slowing to a stop and pausing
yet again.

He thought once
again about waiting, being here when Elizabeth showed up. He thought of her perfume
and the smell of her hair. Even just the memory of that was enough to cause a
tugging in his gut. He loved her deeply, though he’d never told her that, never
said it aloud, not in those exact words. He loved her for her kindness and the ease
with which she had come to care for him. A motherly kind of care — yes, he knew
that, saw all that, but it didn’t matter. She didn’t try to fix him the way
others had. She didn’t tell him — well, not till a moment ago — that he shouldn’t
feel what he was feeling. She had simply listened, always listened.

But if he
stayed now, and if she stayed the night, the root of his torment would still be
there when she walked out his door in the morning. He knew this. It would
always be there, driving him during his waking hours, haunting him in his
dreams as he slept.

His father was
dead because of him. There was no doubt about that. He was the reason a team of
thugs had been able to draw the man out. He was the reason they had been able
to abduct his father and bring him to an enemy who wanted him dead, who killed
him and disposed of his body in a brutal way.

But it wasn’t
just that he was the cause of his father’s death that he was unable to endure. It
was the man’s posthumous disgrace, the accusations — false accusations, Jeremy
knew — that his father had been corrupt, that instead of risking his life in a
series of undercover operations against organized crime, he had actually been
working for the men he claimed to have infiltrated, providing them with
information in exchange for cash.

Cash no one had
been able to locate.

A traitor — a
betrayer — was what the newspapers had called him.

If I accomplish
this, though, Jeremy thought, if I clear his name once and for all, then maybe
I can redeem myself in some small way. I can’t bring the man back, but I can
give him back his good name. I can do that much. Life had to get better then,
no?

And even if I’m
killed trying, well, either way I’d be free of this fucking guilt.

And I’d have
done what Coyles do.

He continued
forward, picking up speed as he reached the end of the hallway, then rushing
down the three flights of stairs and out onto West Tenth Street. He looked
around quickly, could see nothing to be concerned about. He’d been on his own
since he was fifteen, had always done whatever he’d needed to do to make his
way. He counted on his street smarts to get him through this.

Still, his
hands continued shaking, his heart pounding, his thoughts racing.

It was a warm night
for June, and despite the clear sky, dampness hung in the air. His motorcycle, a
beat-up Ducati Monster, was parked between two cars, perpendicular to the curb.
Despite the warmth, he knew that once he got the bike up to speed the wind chill
factor would make his leather jacket a necessity. His helmet was secured to the
bike’s trellis frame by a bicycle lock. He removed and pocketed the lock, pulled
his leather gloves from inside the helmet, and put the gloves on, then the
helmet. Mounting the bike and inserting the key, he turned the ignition.

The sound of
the exhaust echoed down the street, shattering the quiet. Shifting into gear,
he pulled away from the curb and was gone.

Elizabeth lived in Chappaqua, thirty
miles north of New York City. She knew there would be little traffic on the Saw
Mill River Parkway at this time of night, and that this would give rise to the
temptation to speed. It took all she had to keep her Volvo under sixty-five. Being
issued a speeding ticket — here, now, on a night when her husband was out of
town — was a risk she simply couldn’t afford to take.

She reached the
West Village in just under an hour but couldn’t find parking on West Tenth. Locating
a spot two blocks down, she pulled in and rushed back to Jeremy’s building on
foot. She noticed that his motorcycle wasn’t where he always parked it but
still hoped he’d be there. Maybe it was parked elsewhere, or in the shop, or
maybe he’d sold the damn thing like she’d asked him to. Entering his building
she climbed the stairs, then let herself into his place with the key he had
given her on their last meeting. His apartment was small — a narrow living
room, corner kitchen area, even narrower bedroom, and tiny bath — so within
seconds of stepping inside she knew he had not waited.

Out of breath,
she paused. It was strange to be in his place. She felt like a criminal. What
if someone had seen her enter? She began quickly searching through his things,
looking for anything that might tell her where he had gone. She started with
the kitchen table and drawers, then for some reason expanded her search to the
cupboards. Nothing. There was a notepad on the coffee table in the living room,
but nothing was written on it. In his bedroom she found only clothes, a few
books, most of which were memoirs of addiction and recovery, and a single framed
photograph of a woman she assumed was his mother. She knew Jeremy was greatly
affected by his mother’s death. He had been, from the way he talked about her,
clearly her favorite. Elizabeth was surprised by how much she resembled the
woman. Same thick dark hair, same build, same sharp, Anglo features. The more
she looked at the photo, though, the more she realized that she shouldn’t have
been surprised by this at all.

The more, too,
she realized the real reason for racing to his apartment the way she did.

That photo she
had sent him.

The least I
could do, she had thought at the time. A moment of weakness, one she knew she
shouldn’t give in to but then ultimately did anyway. No one had ever asked her
for such a thing. And the idea of him having it — seeing her in that way, and being
able to whenever he wanted — had deeply appealed to her.

She had taken
the photo with her cell phone camera — standing before her bathroom mirror,
holding the phone off to the side, framing it just right so he would see all of her,
her face as well as her fully naked body. All that was beautiful and all that
was flawed, laid bare. She’d sent the photo via text message to his cell, felt
a thrill once it was on its way to him, a tingling in her scalp and stomach, felt
her heart racing in a delightful and yet powerful way. Certainly he had taken his
cell phone with him tonight, so there would be no point in looking for it now. But
a cell phone photo could easily be transferred to a computer, no? And, from
there, printed out.

She looked immediately
toward the small table in the kitchen, thinking maybe that was where his laptop
usually sat, but it wasn’t there. She saw no sign of it anywhere and began a
new search, this one for a single printout. It was a more frantic search. She felt
more fear than she had ever felt before. She looked first under his mattress,
then pulled out his dresser drawers and looked under and behind them. She
remembered her younger brother hiding photos he had cut out of dirty magazines
there when they were kids. But nothing. Growing more frantic, she checked every
conceivable hiding place but came away empty-handed.

He’d sent the
text containing his sister’s number, just as he said he would, but that had
come through as she was heading from her house toward the parkway. This was,
what, close to an hour and a half ago now? She checked her phone again, in case
he’d sent another, maybe at a time when she was out of range. Nothing.

When did he say
his meeting was? Midnight. How long had he said he thought it would take? An
hour, two at the most.

So what now?

Time passed slowly. She sat in
silence, her cell phone gripped in her right hand, listening for the sound of
his key sliding into his lock. At one point she heard someone in the hallway,
rose, and hurried to the door only to see through the peephole that it was a neighbor
coming home.

Sitting down
again, it occurred to her that her husband could have called the house after
she left. Still more fear rose in her at just the thought of that. She told
herself that this would be easy enough to explain.
I’d needed to sleep
through the night, so I turned the ringer off
. Certainly if he had tried
the house and got no answer, he would have called her cell. So far she hadn’t
received any such call. But if that were to happen, couldn’t that call be used
to prove that she wasn’t actually home? If he wanted to, he could easily check
the records. The phone was in his name. Her location at the time of the call
could be determined by which cell phone tower ultimately relayed the call to
her phone. That’s how it was done on all those TV shows.

The phone in
her tight hand suddenly felt like a bomb about to go off.

In the end, though,
her husband did not call, nor did Jeremy send a text. The two hours he’d said
it should take passed. She waited another hour, then nearly another. By then
she knew that something had gone wrong. It was time for her to do what she’d been
asked to do, but she thought it would be best to first get out of his place
unseen.

Slipping quietly
down the stairs and out into the night, she looked around before retracing her
steps to her Volvo. Once behind the wheel, she hesitated at the idea of calling
the number he had provided. If she really was going to do that, it couldn’t be
from her cell phone, that much she knew. So as she drove back toward the West
Side Highway, making her way through the maze of the West Village, she looked
for pay phones, saw none at first, then finally caught a glimpse of one on an
empty corner. Still, she didn’t pull over.

It would be
better if I made the call from somewhere outside the city, no? Somewhere
between here and my home, she thought.

She pulled onto
the West Side Highway and headed north. All lanes were empty, and she got lucky
for a few moments, caught several green lights in a row. Twenty minutes later she
was approaching the Henry Hudson Bridge. A toll bridge, security cameras
mounted at every booth. The E-ZPass transponder mounted on the windshield
tripped the system automatically. There was now a record of her first crossing
the bridge from the north just prior to one a.m. and then again from the south
four hours later. How could she explain that? She just had to pray she wouldn’t
have to.

Across the river,
she continued north, picked up the Saw Mill again. There were no pay phones
along the parkway — none that she could remember anyway — but she knew there
was one outside the Saw Mill River Motel. She told herself that was the one she
would use.

But when she
finally came to the exit she needed to take, she passed it by. Getting off at the
next exit — her exit — she passed the train station. Phones there, no? She
glanced at the well-lit platform but kept her foot on the accelerator.

Minutes later,
the Volvo was parked in her three-bay garage, the engine and lights off. Safely
back home, a familiar silence around her, she pulled up his text and looked at the
number it contained.

It was clear to
her now. Painfully.

She did not
have what it would take to make the call. All she could do was hope that despite
his silence, Jeremy was somehow safe.

And that she
was safe as well.

And would
remain so.

Deleting the
text, she exited her vehicle. The button controlling the garage door was mounted
on the wall near the kitchen entrance. She pressed it, and the heavy garage
door began to lower noisily. She waited till it was completely closed before
going inside and making her way upstairs.

Five minutes
later she was undressed and back in bed with the lights off. She tried to sleep
but couldn’t. Lying there, staring at the ceiling, wondering — this was all she
could do.

The sky beyond
her window was paling with the approaching dawn, and the cell phone on her
night table was as still as a stone.

Eventually she
got up, crossed the bedroom to her bureau, and opened the bottom drawer. Reaching
far into it, she removed the small tin box she kept hidden under a stack of
sweaters. Her husband was a less-than-curious man and would never look there,
but if for some reason he did and found the box and opened it, he would only
find the trinkets that his notoriously sentimental wife collected.

Select ticket
stubs (concerts, Broadway shows, movies) dating as far back as high school, her
old college ID, the keys to both her first car and first apartment, various
pieces of junk jewelry that reminded her of wilder times.

Among these was
yet another key, a mailbox key. Newer than the others, barely ever used, in
fact, it had been given to her by Jeremy for safekeeping.

In case the
worst happened.

Elizabeth took
out the key and, standing naked in her bedroom, looked at it. A part of her — the
sensible part of her — told her to get rid of it. Either dispose of it or, if
the worst had happened, get it to Jeremy’s sister, just as she had been asked
to do.

But the part of
her that was still wild — the part of her Jeremy had reawakened, the part of
her she had missed for a very long time — demanded that she keep it, here among
her other mementos.

If only to be
reminded of him during the many long nights of loneliness that lie ahead
of her.