by A F Carter
UNCORRECTED PROOF
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NOT FOR RESALE
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ALL OF US
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ALL OF US
A Novel of Suspense
A. F. CARTER
The Mysterious Press
New York
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Copyright © 2020 by A. F. Carter
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Scanning, uploading, and electronic distribution of this book or the facilitation of such without the permission of the publisher is prohibited. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
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or [email protected].
first edition
Published simultaneously in Canada
Printed in the United States of America
First Grove Atlantic hardcover edition: June 2020
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is available for this title.
ISBN 978-0-8021-4943-5
eISBN 978-0-8021-4945-9
The Mysterious Press
an imprint of Grove Atlantic
154 West 14th Street
New York, NY 10011
Distributed by Publishers Group West
groveatlantic.com
UNCORRECTED PROOF • NOT FOR RESALE
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PROLOGUE
When Sergeant Louis Brady pulls up to the intersection
of President and Nevins Streets in Brooklyn, he
finds three unmarked Ford Escorts, practically his entire
squad, haphazardly parked, nose to the curb. Already pissed, he parks his ancient Grand Marquis next to a fire hydrant
and gets out. The contrast between the unusually crisp July
air and the smoke-saturated interior of the Grand Marquis
strikes him immediately, though he’s not sure which
atmosphere he prefers. He does know that his Vice Unit is
out of business in this neighborhood with no arrests to show for the effort. Lieutenant Cathcart will not be happy.
Brady holds up a hand when Patrolman Anthony Ribotta
approaches. Brady actively dislikes Ribotta, a Holy Name
Society type with a rosary hanging from the rearview mir-
ror of whatever unit he happens to be driving. For cops like Ribotta, a simple prostitution sting can become a crusade
to rid the world of impurities. Brady, by contrast, doesn’t
hate, doesn’t even dislike the women and the transvestites
he arrests. Take the man’s pay, do the man’s job, in twenty
years comes the magic pension. Brady’s entire career is based on this understanding of his role in the war against crime.
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Brady waves at the four cops standing by their units. “Tell
those bastards to get back to work, Anthony. We can’t stay
out here all night.”
He doesn’t wait for a reply but instead approaches the
Ford with the woman in the back seat. She’s sitting forward
on the seat with her knees raised on the seat back in front of her. Her already-short skirt has drifted up, probably when
she backed into the car. Now it rides almost at her hips,
while her green blouse, sheer to begin with, is unbuttoned
far enough to reveal a lacy pink bra that Brady wishes he’d
given to his wife last Christmas.
Brady stops a few feet from the car, the sight so wonder-
fully erotic he wants to prolong it as long as possible. He’s assuming the woman is too preoccupied with her situation
— she’s not handcuffed, but the doors can’t be opened or the windows rolled down—to realize she’s being watched. But
then she turns her head to him, turns it slowly, smiling a
sly smile, her green eyes pushing past his baby blues, push-
ing right down into his brain. Does she find what she’s looking for? Brady doesn’t know as he watches her turn away,
watches her settle onto the seat again, waiting now for whatever comes next.
Brady walks back to where Patrolman Ribotta leans
against a streetlight. Ribotta’s wearing jeans and a T-shirt with a pocket. He’s stuffed a pack of cigarettes into the pocket, a nice touch for an undercover working a sting. Ribotta might
be a model for Joe Workingman out for a touch of the strange before heading home to his wife.
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“Alright, Anthony, let’s hear the story. And keep the
bullshit to a minimum.”
Ribotta lifts his Yankees cap and runs his hand over
his half-inch buzz cut, pushing a little wave of sweat front to back. Then he puts the hat back on and raises his chin,
another habit Brady dislikes.
“It’s quiet, okay,” he begins. “Like so quiet I’m thinkin’
the whores know we’re out here and they’re working some
other stroll. But then this woman”—he points to the woman
in the back of the car—“she comes walkin’ down Nevins
Street likes she owns it. Ass and tits, everything moving. I don’t know what to think because she doesn’t look exactly
like a hooker. She’s too something I can’t put my finger on.
But she marches straight up to where I’m standing, no hesi-
tation, Sarge, and propositions me.”
“What’d she say?”
“I can’t remember exactly. Somethin’ about if I have a few
hours, I could do her any way I want. Then she said some-
thing about eggs.”
“Eggs?”
“Yeah, like I could have her sunny-side up or poached or
hard-boiled. Whatever I liked.”
Brady stares at his subordinate for a moment. Young, tall,
good-looking, you dress him up right, he could be working
an upscale narcotics sting in a Manhattan bar. “And what’d
you do then?”
“My fucking job, Sarge? I asked her how much, but she
wasn’t hearin’ it. Said I was enough reward for a weekday
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afternoon. I mean, what could I do? She don’t take money,
she’s not a hooker, right? She’s has to state a price and name an act, this for that. But she wasn’t dumb enough to go there.”
Here it comes. That’s what Brady’s thinking. What
Patrolman Ribotta should have done is take the lady’s
phone
number and send her on her way. That’s exactly what Louis
Brady would have done if anything that sweet fell into his
lap, which it never has. The woman in the car, though not
young, is a real stunner.
“So,” Ribotta continues, “I right away figured that some-
thing’s off here. In the middle of the afternoon you don’t
proposition a complete stranger on a street known for its
hookers unless you got a screw loose somewhere. I mean,
she wasn’t drunk and didn’t look to be stoned, so I just figured she was crazy. And ya know what? I was right. I ran her through NCIC, and she’s been locked away twice, once at
Creedmoor and once at Brooklyn Psychiatric.”
Brady asks two more questions. He wants to settle the
facts in his mind. “But she never asked you for money? She
never committed a crime?”
“No, Sarge, she’s not a hooker. Her name’s Carolyn Grand.”
Brady spins on his heel. What Ribotta should have done is
irrelevant. He, Louis Brady, has become responsible. It’s his baby now. He walks back to the Escort, opens the front door, flips the door lock button. Finally, he opens the back door and says, “Why don’t you come out of there, Ms. Grand?”
He says it nice, not threatening, because he doesn’t want
to pack this woman off to the psych unit at Kings County
Hospital for three days of observation. Not when the only
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crime she committed was being stupid enough to proposition
Anthony Ribotta.
Carolyn Grand turns her head first. She’s smiling, her
gaze frank and unafraid, even defiant. Of course, she has to turn her body, tuck in her knees and scoot along the edge
of the seat to clear the seat back in front. Which pulls her skirt up even higher. Brady doesn’t turn away, but he’s not
enjoying the show. He’s evaluating her readiness to assume
responsibility for her own life. Then she does something
totally unexpected.
“Please,” she says, extending a hand. “Help me out.”
Even as he shakes his head no, Brady takes her small hand
and gently pulls her to her feet. He’s thinking that she’s definitely going to try to screw her way out of her predicament, but she freezes instead, her eyes blinking rapidly as her hands flutter over her cheeks and mouth. Then she buttons the front of her blouse and smooths the miniskirt over her thighs, her breathing shallow, her fingers trembling. Finally, her cheeks the red of an overripe tomato, her mouth so tight her lips vanish, she manages to speak a single, barely audible word.
“What?”
Brady shudders. It’s like glancing into a mirror only to find someone else glancing back. This mousey woman with the
frightened eyes—her neck curled as though she’s afraid even
to raise her chin, fingers picking at a button on her blouse—
this is not the same woman who stared at him from the back
seat of the unit, not the woman who slid toward him, her skirt rising to her hips. This is someone else, the transformation rapid enough to leave him with his mouth open.
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So, it’s no good. No good at all. Brady’s first partner, the veteran who broke him in, had made it plain before he put
their unit in gear.
“Only one rule, kid, which you should carry with you
every day, every minute. Cover your ass. You know why?”
“Why?”
“Because, kid, in the cop world you joined, there’s always
a foot headed right for it.”
Brady recalls the advice even before he asks Carolyn
Grand the obvious question. “Why don’t you tell me what
happened?”
The woman looks down at her feet, hesitating for a
moment, but then finds her resolve. “I’m afraid,” she tells
him, “that I’ve forgotten.”
It’s the best she can do, and Brady admires the effort,
but it’s not enough. He puts her back in the car, then again approaches Ribotta. The woman’s nuts, that’s for sure, and
there’s no knowing what she’ll do next. Meanwhile, Ribotta
ran her name, so there’s a record that leads right back to
Louis Brady.
“Call in the EMTs, send her to Kings County,” he tells
Ribotta. “Let the shrinks figure it out.”
Brady takes a final look at Carolyn Grand as he heads for
his own unit. The look of utter defeat tugs at his heart. He tells himself that if he’s wrong, if she’s not crazy, she’ll only spend a day or two at Kings County. No big deal, right? But
some tours of duty, as Brady learned many years before, are
worse than others. Some tours are worse than others and
some tours are fucking impossible.
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CHAPTER ONE
VICTORIA
I take a second to adjust my game face—I should say we,
because there are others watching—before I open the
door and step into Dr. Halberstam’s office. It’s four days
since we were discharged from a locked psych ward at Kings
County Hospital and our appearance is a condition of our
discharge. Do it or else.
I find our therapist standing behind his desk, his expres-
sion as composed as my own. He says, “Good morning, Ms.
Grand, please have a seat.”
I accept the chair he offers, though I would have preferred
another. The back of this chair is tilted. I can’t sit up straight unless I perch on the edge. Nor can I walk out of his office, which I and my sisters and my brother would most like to
do. I’m stuck here, forced into a posture, if not seductive, at least vulnerable. For the present, Dr. Laurence Halberstam
owns us. I know it, and he knows it.
I watch him sit behind his desk, his chair back far more
upright than mine. I watch him shuffle through the case file on his desk, our case file: thick, substantial, the history of our lives as told by the many therapists and psychologists
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and psychiatrists who’ve dissected us over the past twenty
years.
“Well, Ms. Grand—”
I stop him with a small shake of my head. “There’s no
Ms. Grand, Doctor, and there hasn’t been for many years.
There’s only us.” I can afford to be open here because I’m not telling him anything he doesn’t already know. “I want to be
frank,” I claim, “right from the beginning.”
His expression doesn’t change, but I didn’t expect it to.
Our therapist is in his midforties, with a slender body and a full head of neatly parted hair that I suspect to be his pride and joy. Every hair is in place, every strand uniformly black.
There’s not a hint of gray, or even a thinning on top when he bends forward to study his notes, taking his time about it. He wears a gray suit over a starched blue shirt and a muted red tie. The tie’s Windsor knot forms a perfect triangle beneath his chin, but the tie itself is slightly askew, an imperfection that somehow pleases me.
Without changing expression, he lifts his head and looks at
me, a technique we’ve encountered several times in the past.
Still, I have to concede Halberstam’s mastery of the silent stare.
His blue eyes ar
e piercing, even behind the glasses. Finally, he says, “Can I assume that I’m talking to Victoria?”
Presenting an acceptable public face is my job, my func-
tion. I represent the family, the four girls and one boy who share this body. In that capacity, I’m required to project, first and foremost, that our situation is under control. Which it’s not, of course, which it’s never been, as my siblings are quick to remind me when I’m too full of myself. Still, I’m wearing 2
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my demure best, a full, brown skirt that falls to within two inches of my knees, a white blouse with a scalloped collar
and a tan sweater. My shoulder-length hair has been swept
back to cover my ears. Except for a light coating of dark red lipstick, I’m not wearing makeup.
“And where are the others,” Halberstam asks, his tone
studiously neutral. “Right this minute?”
“Some watching, some wherever.”
“That’s interesting. Who would you say is watching? And
why?”
As I compose myself, I glance around Halberstam’s office.
We’ve passed time in many psych offices, enough to know
they fall into three general patterns. The warm and cozy, the ultrahip, the cool, calm, and collected. Halberstam’s office fits the latter category. Beige wallpaper, a lacquered desk that reflects my shins, hints of mauve in the chairs, porcelain and pottery in lit niches. LED lights frame the outer edges of the ceiling, while a desk lamp with an amber shade provides the
only real color in the room.
The décor advertises Halberstam’s approach. He will be
neither friend nor foe. He will play the part of the objective observer, his goal to help us help ourselves. Sadly, we’ve generally done better with the homey types, the huggers.
“Martha, of course, and Tina. They’re watching.”
“And the others? Where are they?”
I shrug. “Wherever.”
He’s not having it, and he gets right to the point. We
don’t exist and never will. “Where do you go, Victoria, when you’re not in control and not watching?”
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“Well, that’s the question, isn’t it? And I apologize for not having an answer, except to say we don’t relate well to clock time. It seems to me that I exist at every moment, but I know that can’t be strictly accurate.”
“And why is that?”
“Because there are periods of time I can’t account for,