“Plus TV appearances and reality shows,” Hector said. “People will sacrifice a lot for fifteen minutes of fame.”
“Wayne must have known,” Kathleen said. “He would have drawn up NDAs for the adoptive parents. But I didn’t know about the baby, so why me?”
“Wayne must have told the father that Sharon called you that night and that you were asking questions,” Lauren said. “If the father is afraid of people following the bread crumbs to him, you would be a major bread crumb.”
“If Client 13 is a psychopath,” Emily added, “and the kind of guy who makes sure every angle is covered—like the kind of guy who would have his prostitutes sign NDAs—he’d probably want to get rid of you if you knew any piece of the story.”
“Here’s the problem with this narrative.” Kathleen paused, thinking it through. “I never saw Client 13 like that. A control freak, maybe. Sexually neurotic, probably. But not a psychopath. I always prided myself on being able to read people. And I don’t see it. I don’t want to ruin the guy’s life.”
“Psychopaths can be the most charming people,” Lauren said, “until they decide to kill you.”
“It would certainly destroy his political career,” Kathleen said thoughtfully. “He’d have a lot to lose.”
Emily leaned over and took Kathleen’s hand. “Political career?”
Kathleen looked around the room, meeting eyes with each of them. She breathed deeply, shifting herself on the couch, holding her bandaged shoulder to keep it from jerking. “Emily, Client 13 is the person who got you the interview at City Hall.”
“The mayor?” Lauren asked. “That’s why Mattingly went to the inauguration?”
“No, no. I don’t know the mayor,” Kathleen said. “Client 13 is Roger Merritt.”
“What?” Emily stood. “No way. Roger? No.”
Lauren and Kathleen spoke in tandem: “Why not?”
“I was at City Hall when the news came in about you getting shot.” Emily paced a few steps, thinking. She turned to them. “Roger was there when the news station played the surveillance video and I said it was you. I noticed Roger’s reaction. He was surprised. And upset. I could see it in his eyes. It was only a split second, but it stuck in my head, because it was strange that he seemed to care. I didn’t think he knew you. But of course he did. Yes, he may be the father of a terrorist, but he didn’t arrange for you to be shot. He had no idea.”
“There has to be another explanation,” Kathleen said.
“Carl hasn’t called back,” Emily said. “This is way more than we should be handling on our own for even another minute. I don’t want to call my NYPD contacts.”
“Carl needs to be the one to tell the FBI what we learned about Mattingly,” Lauren said, “especially because we’re involved.”
“My calls keep going to voice mail,” Emily said.
“He’s in court today.” Lauren gathered her pocketbook and water bottle. “He probably turned his phone off. I’m going to the courthouse. I know the name of the case he’s testifying on. I can be down there and find him in forty-five minutes. That’s the fastest way to get him.”
“I’ll walk you out,” Hector said. “I need to get Skye. My sister has to go to work.” Hector turned to Kathleen and added, “I feel bad about leaving you. Will you be all right until the bodyguards come?”
“Nothing will happen at home with Emily and Rusty here,” Kathleen answered.
Remembering the apartment fire, Emily wasn’t so sure of that. But Hector wasn’t armed or much of a deterrence anyway. Emily reassured him, “The security guys will be here soon, and my mom will get to Carl in under an hour. I’m sure we’ll be okay.”
As Hector rose to leave, his phone vibrated on the coffee table, skittering toward the edge. Emily saw the name: Freddy. Hector tapped the phone to decline the call from his old friend and put it in the back pocket of his jeans. Emily figured he would catch up with Freddy when he was free, not in a roomful of people dealing with a crisis. She hadn’t known he was still in contact with Freddy.
Before Hector left, he hugged Emily and said, “Call me if you need anything.”
CHAPTER
69
THE APARTMENT WAS quiet and tense after Hector and Lauren left. Emily looked at Kathleen and saw an uneasiness in her grandmother’s eyes. She felt the same.
“I’d like to call Roger, but I’m not sure what I’d say,” Kathleen said.
“I have your phone book.”
“Don’t remind me.” Kathleen waved her away. “Anyway, I have his contact.”
Emily had told Kathleen about taking the photos of her phone book. Kathleen hadn’t been thrilled, but she’d only said, “What goes around, comes around,” which Emily assumed related to Kathleen spying on her as Sophie.
“We can leave it up to the FBI now,” Emily said.
“We won’t have a choice,” Kathleen agreed. “This is about to become a very different situation. Once people know Jackson Mattingly was Sharon’s son and that she was murdered after the attack, the days of no one caring about her murder will be over. I imagine we’ll have a houseful of FBI agents soon.”
“I need to call in to work to say I’m not coming this afternoon. I feel guilty for not telling Martha about all this. The scandal could blow back on the mayor. But we don’t know who’s implicated, and I’m sure Carl wouldn’t want me to talk to anyone, especially someone who works with Roger.”
“Yes, be careful what you say.”
“This is too big for Martha to do anything about anyway,” Emily said, half to herself, as she located Martha’s number in her contacts. “I hope she’ll forgive me.”
Martha picked up Emily’s call. After greetings, she asked, “How’s your grandmother?”
“She’s out of the hospital.” Emily looked over at Kathleen, smiling the way one did when talking about someone next to them. “Can you believe she’s out already, after what we saw on the video? The doctor said she’s lucky she was in such good health. Listen, I know I said I would come in to work this afternoon, but I don’t think I can come until tomorrow.”
“Okay, of course. Take whatever time you need.” Martha paused. “It’s weird, like something’s going around. Roger and Max left with a family emergency too.”
“That’s a big coincidence. Both of them?”
“Don’t tell me you don’t know,” Martha replied.
“Know what?”
“Max is Roger’s nephew. Max called me. Then Roger left.”
Emily felt as if the floor had been pulled from under her. Max? She could see Roger and Max in her mind’s eye now. The general shape of their faces. The dimpled chins and stark cheekbones. They did have a family resemblance. And she remembered the flash of anger in Max’s eyes the other day, the meanness to it. It had startled her, like seeing a whole other person living inside the guy she knew.
“But I thought a state senator got Max his job.”
“That’s his stepfather. He’s small stuff compared to Roger. I think Max keeps quiet about Roger getting him the job, or people wouldn’t take him seriously.” Martha lowered her voice conspiratorially. “It must have been Roger who suggested that. I can’t imagine Max wanting to keep it quiet … Anyway, I shouldn’t be gossiping about a subordinate, but you know Max. I don’t need to tell you.”
No, Emily thought, frightened. I do not know Max.
Emily hung up, and memories coursed through her mind. Max was Roger’s nephew. She’d told Max about Sharon, about seeing the man Sharon had gone with the night she died. Max had been interested in that, and so interested in Emily. She’d thought his interest was personal, sexual. And she still believed it was. That tension and his anger at her rejections were real.
But he’d also been the first one to see the video of Kathleen getting shot, as if he’d been waiting for it. Roger had been surprised. But not Max. She thought back to that moment; Roger had looked at Max. She’d noticed he’d looked upset but hadn’t thought about how he’d lo
oked at Max. She was pretty sure now that a communication had passed between them. She tried to dig in her memory: was it disapproval, anger? Roger had maintained a perfect poker face after that split second, but she was sure of it now: there was something freighted about his eye contact with Max.
Martha had joked with Emily once about Max wanting to be president of the United States someday. It had only been a half joke—he really did want to be president one day. That would never happen if Jackson was revealed to be Max’s first cousin, and if his political patron, Roger, lost his power too.
CHAPTER
70
CARL STEPPED DOWN from the wooden witness stand, the defendant’s eyes following him with a dagger glare. He knew he’d done well for the first few hours of testimony and reveled in his sense of accomplishment. The judge called for a fifteen-minute break before cross-examination. Carl wasn’t looking forward to the grueling cross he expected from the defense counsel. He exited the courtroom through double mahogany doors.
“Carl.”
He turned, surprised to see a slim figure walking toward him. It was Charlotte, the FBI techie on the Mattingly case. She wore smoky-blue eye shadow today and had a new buzz cut.
“Hey, Carl. How’s it going?”
“Good. It went well in there. Are you testifying on a case today?”
“No, no. I wanted to talk to you. Your ASAC said your phone would be off.”
Carl smiled with anticipation. “Don’t tell me you had a break on the Bitcoin trace?”
“Unfortunately, no. I’m actually here about murder-for-hire sites.”
“Oh, yeah, on the dark web,” Carl said, mystified about why she’d want to talk to him about that. “Are any of those sites the real thing?”
“Not usually. The website owner takes an order for a hit. The person who orders the hit pays a sizable deposit. The website takes the money in Bitcoin. Most of the time, no hit happens. It’s a con. The person ordering the hit doesn’t even know who he paid. Can’t exactly go to the police to complain. Easy money for a con artist.”
“Rough camp for a would-be murderer.”
“Sometimes the sites are real, though. Mostly mercenaries for hire. We’ve infiltrated one of the sites and came across something surprising.”
For some reason, Carl found himself bracing for bad news.
“Someone has an interest in paying for a hit on someone you know,” Charlotte revealed. “We found out she’s related to your wife. Her name’s Emily Silverman.”
“What? That’s impossible.”
“Looking at her profile, we thought it was odd. She works at City Hall, assigned to the Mattingly case, but the public doesn’t know about that, and it’s not much of a reason for her to be targeted. There does seem to be a lot of smoke coming from her direction, though. Literally. Her building was recently the target of arson, and the arson suspect was the target of an attempted hit. Do you know anything about it? It’s hard to believe it’s unrelated.”
* * *
Emily turned to Kathleen when she got off the phone with Martha. She said breathlessly, “Do you remember my coworker Max? The one who I told that I saw Sharon the night she died?”
“Yes. The gossipy one.”
“He’s Roger’s nephew! I think he had Sharon killed and maybe Wayne, and maybe he tried to have you killed. He has a motive and enough money to wage a war.”
“Roger’s nephew.” Kathleen thought for a moment. “He wasn’t the person Sharon went with or you would’ve recognized him, and he didn’t shoot me. So, he hired people?”
“Had to be,” Emily said. “Max is from a billionaire family. Maybe he’s a billionaire himself. Different rules apply. Anything can be bought. Right?”
“Sharon’s baby disappeared at birth,” Kathleen said. “No record of his adoption at all. It was as if he never existed. A family with that kind of power, money, and intention, it’s no doubt they could and would hire killers. And they have a lot more on the line now than they did when the baby was born. You didn’t tell Max where we’re staying?”
“No, no. Thank god.”
Emily’s phone buzzed. Hector.
Emily answered. “Hector, you won’t believe this.”
Hector interrupted her. “Em, I just heard from Freddy. He called to warn me—someone put a hit on you. They tried to send Cesar’s boys after you. They backed out when they saw it was you.”
Emily’s phone vibrated. She frowned, looking at it. “Hold on Hector, hold on. Carl’s calling. I’m going to tell Carl.”
CHAPTER
71
LAUREN PLANNED TO drop off her car before heading downtown by subway, the fastest mode of travel on a weekday. She drove up Cabrini Boulevard toward the entrance to the parking garage at the complex of buildings where she and Carl lived. As she drove, she thought about how she wasn’t worried about just Emily anymore. She wavered between concern for Kathleen and flashes of fury that came over her without warning. She wondered whether Kathleen had struck on the truth. Maybe her rage did relate to the idea that, if she could forgive her mother now, she’d missed out on all those years with her for no reason.
Lauren’s phone rang. She pulled the car over at the entryway to the garage and took out her phone. Two green circles were lighting up. Emily and Carl were both calling. Lauren took Carl’s call first, relieved to be saved from the delay of going downtown to fill him in.
* * *
Max felt confident it wouldn’t be a problem getting into the apartment building. He strode toward the building’s outer door, double-timing it for a couple of yards to hold it open for an Orthodox woman wearing a wig and long skirt. No more than twenty-five-years old, she was pushing a stroller and trailed by several children. Max knew he was being filmed by building security cameras, ubiquitous in New York City. He reminded himself not to search the cameras out as he entered the building’s vestibule, or he’d give a full view of his face. If he resisted the impulse to look, he felt comfortable that his oversize hat would minimize his risk of identification while also making him fit in well in the neighborhood.
The woman didn’t seem to notice his lack of a beard, which an Orthodox man of his age would wear. She was too busy with her Pied Piper line of children. She didn’t blink an eye when he followed her inside and through the inner locked door of the building.
She herded her kids down a hallway and up a couple of carpeted steps toward a first-floor apartment. He paused, the air conditioning raising goose bumps at the back of his neck. Not wanting to run into anyone in the elevator, he entered a hallway leading from the opposite side of the lobby. He found a staircase door and climbed four flights, two steps at a time.
He walked down the hallway, looking at the numbers on the apartment doors. He’d only been able to get the building address from the GPS attached to Kathleen’s ankle. But having a hacker break into Kathleen’s Airbnb account to get the exact apartment number had been as easy as paying a guy to take his SATs as a teenager. He smiled, his heart beating fiercely with anticipation as he approached the apartment at the end of the hall.
* * *
Lauren hung up with Carl, unable to obey his direction to stay calm and wait for the FBI to get there. He’d said he’d given the same instruction to Emily.
Lauren’s car screeched as she pulled away from the curb and sped uptown on one-lane Cabrini Boulevard. She blew the stop sign on 187th Street, turning right. She honked at a slow car on the quaint block of one-story storefronts.
“Move it. Move,” she shouted inside her closed car before pulling into the opposite traffic lane, no cars coming.
Timing an oncoming UPS truck that was still a half block away, Lauren ran a red light and made a sharp left onto Fort Washington Avenue. A block ahead, a school bus with its stop sign out was unloading kids, the cars lining up there, waiting. She couldn’t get through. She swung the car to the curb in a no-parking zone next to the Chase bank, where her mother had been shot.
She pulled a lever unde
r her dashboard to pop the trunk and shouldered her way out of the car door. A car almost hit her door. It swerved and honked as it passed, then stopped behind the cars waiting for the school bus to finish unloading kids.
Barely registering the near miss, Lauren ran to the back of her car and flipped up the trunk. She leaned in and pulled Carl’s mini-safe toward her. She knew the combination to the box and how to use the gun. Carl had insisted she learn, just in case. She punched in the combination sloppily, her fingers trembling with surging blood pressure. It didn’t open. She punched in the numbers again and heard the lock disengage. She opened the box and pulled out a shining black nine-millimeter Glock.
Her heart thrashing triple-time inside her chest, she flew down the steep 187th Street staircase, running so fast she barely touched each step. Skipping steps in her panic, she nearly tumbled halfway down. She grabbed the handrail, catching herself, and kept running. At the bottom, she sprinted full out toward the building where Kathleen and Emily were staying.
CHAPTER
72
EMILY HUNG UP after trying to reach her mother without success. “Carl said to stay here and wait for him. He said we shouldn’t move. It will just be a few minutes until agents get here.”
Rusty jumped up from where he lay on the floor next to the couch. He ran to the front door and sat. He stared at the door, completely still. Emily had never seen him do that before.
Emily called to him, “Rusty.”
His ears only twitched, as if he were acting on a command by sitting there. Emily frowned, unsettled. Rusty had never ignored her before.
“What’s going on?” Kathleen asked.
A thought bloomed in Emily’s mind. “Rusty?” she tried. The dog whined expectantly.
Emily thought back to a training video she’d seen. It was a Homeland Security video on explosives-detection dogs. The dogs walked an aisle of suitcases with their trainers. If there was even a trace of explosives in a suitcase, they’d sit down in front of it. If they sat down in front of the correct suitcase with explosive materials in it, they got a treat. That was it: smell explosives, sit down, wait for a treat. That was the entire science behind bomb-sniffing dogs.
Gone by Morning Page 28