The Vanished Man

by Jeffery Deaver

  "But, I'm not suspended?"

  "Suspended? No, you made detective. Didn't they call you? O'Connor was supposed to call you. Or his assistant or somebody."

  Dan O'Connor, the head of the Detective Bureau.

  "Nobody called me. Except your secretary."

  "Oh, well. They were supposed to call."

  "What happened?"

  "I told you I'd do what I could. I did. I mean, let's face it--there was no way I was letting you go on suspension. Can't afford to lose you." He hesitated, looked at the tide of files. "Not to mention, it would've been a nightmare to go up against you in a PBA suit or arbitration. Would've been ugly."

  Thinking: Oh, yessir, it would've been. Real ugly. "But the year? You mentioned something about year."

  "That's the sergeant's exam I was talking about. You can't take it again until next April. It's civil service and there was nothing I could do about that. But reassigning you to the Detective Bureau, that's discretionary. Ramos couldn't stop that. You'll report to Lon Sellitto."

  She stared at the golden shield. "I don't know what to say."

  "You can say, 'Thank you very much, Captain Marlow. I've enjoyed working with you in Patrol Services all these years. And I regret I will no longer be doing so.' "

  "I--"

  "That's a joke, Officer. I do have a sense of humor despite what you hear. Oh, you're third-grade, you might've noticed."

  "Yessir." Struggling to keep the breathless grin off her face. "I--"

  "If you want to make it all the way to first-grade and sergeant I'd think long and hard about who you arrest--or detain--at crime scenes. And, for that matter, how you talk to who. Just some advice."

  "Noted, sir."

  "Now, if you'll excuse me, Officer . . . I mean, Detective. I've got about five minutes to learn everything there is to know about insurance."

  *

  Outside, on Centre Street, Amelia Sachs walked around her Camaro, examining the damage to the side and front end from the collision with Loesser's Mazda in Harlem.

  It'd take some major work to get the poor vehicle in shape again.

  Cars were her forte, of course, and she knew the location, as well as the head shape, length and torque, of every screw and bolt in the vehicle. And she probably had all the ding-pullers, ball-peen hammers, grinders and other tools she needed in her Brooklyn garage to fix most of the damage herself.

  Yet Sachs didn't enjoy bodywork. She found it boring--the same way that being a fashion model had been boring and that going out with handsome, cocky, bang-bang cops had been boring. Not to put too much of a shrink's spin on it but maybe there was something within her that distrusted the cosmetic, the superficial. For Amelia Sachs the substance of cars was in their hearts and hot souls: the furious drumbeat of rods and pistons, the whine of belts, the perfect kiss of gears that turned a ton of metal and leather and plastic into pure speed.

  She decided she'd take the car to a shop in Astoria, Queens, one she'd used before, where the mechanics were talented, more or less honest and had a reverence for power wheels like this.

  Easing now into the front seat, she fired up the engine, whose gutsy rattle caught the attention of a half-dozen cops, lawyers and businesspeople nearby. Pulling out of the police lot, she also made another decision. A few years ago, after some rust work, she'd decided to have the factory-black car repainted. She'd opted for vibrant yellow. The choice had been impulsive, but why not? Shouldn't whims be reserved for decisions about the color of your toenails, your hair and your vehicles?

  But now she thought that since the shop would have to replace a quarter of the Chevy's sheet metal and it would need repainting anyway, she'd pick a different hue. Fire-engine red was her immediate choice. This shade had a double meaning to her. Not only was it the color her father always said that muscle cars ought to be but it would also match Rhyme's own sporty vehicle, his Storm Arrow wheelchair. This was just the sort of sentiment that the criminalist would appear wholly indifferent to but that would privately please him no end.

  Yep, she reflected, red it would be.

  She thought about dropping the Chevy off now but, on reflection, decided to wait. She could drive a beat-up car for a few more days; she'd done that plenty in her teen years. At the moment she wanted to get back home, to Lincoln Rhyme, to share the news with him about the alchemy that had transformed her badge from silver to gold--and to get back to work unraveling the thorny mysteries that awaited them: two murdered diplomats, alien vegetation, curious imprints in muddy ground and a couple of missing shoes.

  Both of them right.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  My thanks to Jane Davis, who practices her own brand of unparalleled magic in overseeing my website, to my sister and fellow author Julie Reece Deaver, to my dear friend and thriller writer extraordinaire John Gilstrap, and to Robby Burroughs, who accompanied me to the performance of the Big Apple Circus at which the idea for this story was born.

  I also found the following sources extremely helpful in the writing of this novel: The Creative Magician's Handbook, Marvin Kaye; The Illustrated History of Magic, Milbourne and Maurine Christopher; The Magic and Methods of Ross Bertram, Ross Bertram; Magicians and Illusionists, Adam Woog; The Annotated Magic of Slydini, Slydini and Gene Matsuura; The Tarbell Course in Magic, Harlan Tarbell; Houdini on Magic, Walter B. Gibson and Morris N. Young, eds.; and Magic in Theory, Peter Lamont and Richard Wiseman.

  XO

  Jeffery Deaver

  Available in hardcover from Simon & Schuster

  Turn the page for a preview of XO. . . .

  Subject: Re: You're the Best!!!

  From: noreply@kayleightownemusic.com To: EdwinSharp18474@anon.com 2 January 10:32 a.m.

  Hey there,

  Edwin--

  Thanks for your email! I'm so glad you liked my latest album! Your support means the world to me. Be sure you go to my website and sign up to get my newsletter and learn about new releases and upcoming concerts, and don't forget to follow me on Facebook and Twitter.

  And keep an eye out for the mail. I sent you that autographed photo you requested!

  XO,

  Kayleigh

  *

  Subject: Unbelievable!!!!!

  From: EdwinSharp26535@anon.com To: ktowne7788@compserve.com 3 September 5:10 a.m.

  Hi, Kayleigh:

  I am totally blown away. I'm rendered speechless. And, you know me pretty good by now--for me to be speechless, that's something!! Anyway, here's the story: I downloaded your new album last night and listened to "Your Shadow." Whoahhh! It's without doubt the best song I have ever heard. I mean of anything ever written. I even like it better than "It's Going to Be Different This Time." I've told you nobody's ever expressed how I feel about loneliness and life and well everything better than you. And that song does that totally. But more important I can see what you're saying, your plea for help. It's all clear now. Don't worry. You're not alone, Kayleigh!!

  I'll be your shadow. Forever.

  XO, Edwin

  *

  Subject: Fwd: Unbelievable!!!!!

  From: Samuel.King@CrowellSmithWendall.com To: EdwinSharp26535@anon.com 3 September 10:34 a.m.

  Mr. Sharp:

  Ms. Alicia Sessions, personal assistant to our clients Kayleigh Towne and her father, Bishop Towne, forwarded us your email of this morning. You have sent more than 50 emails and letters since we contacted you two months ago, urging you not to have any contact with Ms. Towne or any of her friends and family. We are extremely troubled that you have found her private email address (which has been changed, I should tell you), and are looking into possible violations of state and federal laws regarding how you obtained such address.

  Once again, we must tell you that we feel your behavior is completely inappropriate and possibly actionable. We urge you in the strongest terms possible to heed this warning. As we've said repeatedly, Ms. Towne's security staff and local law enforcement officials have been notified of your repeated, intrusive attemp
ts to contact her and we are fully prepared to take whatever steps are necessary to put an end to this alarming behavior.

  Samuel King, Esq.

  Crowell, Smith & Wendall, Attorneys-at-Law *

  Subject: See you soon!!!

  From: EdwinSharp26535@anon.com To: KST33486@westerninternet.com 5 September 11:43 p.m.

  Hi, Kayleigh--

  Got your new email address. I know what they're up to but DON'T worry, it'll be all right.

  I'm lying in bed, listening to you right now. I feel like I'm literally your shadow . . . And you're mine. You are so wonderful!

  I don't know if you had a chance to think about it--you're sooooo busy, I know!--but I'll ask again--if you wanted to send me some of your hair that'd be so cool. I know you haven't cut it for ten years and four months (it's one of those things that makes you so beautiful!!!) but maybe there's one from your brush. Or better yet your pillow. I'll treasure it forever.

  Can't WAIT for the concert next Friday. C U soon.

  Yours forever,

  XO, Edwin

  Chapter 1

  THE HEART OF a concert hall is people.

  And when the vast space is dim and empty, as this one was at the moment, a venue can bristle with impatience, indifference.

  Even hostility.

  Okay, rein in that imagination, Kayleigh Towne told herself. Stop acting like a kid. Standing on the wide, scuffed stage of the Fresno Conference Center's main hall, she surveyed the place once more, bringing her typically hypercritical eye to the task of preparing for Friday's concert, considering and reconsidering lighting and stage movements and where the members of the band should stand and sit. Where best to walk out near, though not into, the crowd and touch hands and blow kisses. Where best acoustically to place the foldback speakers--the monitors that were pointed toward the band so they could hear themselves without echoes or distortion. Many performers now used earbuds for this; Kayleigh liked the immediacy of traditional foldbacks.

  There were a hundred other details to think about. She believed that every performance should be perfect, more than perfect. Every audience deserved the best. One hundred ten percent.

  She had, after all, grown up in Bishop Towne's shadow.

  An unfortunate choice of word, Kayleigh now reflected.

  I'll be your shadow. Forever. . . .

  Back to the planning. This show had to be different from the previous one here, about eight months ago. A retooled program was especially important since many of the fans would have regularly attended her hometown concerts and she wanted to make sure they got something unexpected. That was one thing about Kayleigh Towne's music; her audiences weren't as big as some but were loyal as golden retrievers. They knew her lyrics cold, knew her guitar licks, knew her moves onstage and laughed at her shtick before she finished the lines. They lived and breathed her performances, hung on her words, knew her bio and likes and dislikes.

  And some wanted to know much more . . .

  With that thought, her heart and gut clenched as if she'd stepped into Hensley Lake in January.

  Thinking about him, of course.

  Then she froze, gasping. Yes, someone was watching her from the far end of the hall! Where none of the crew would be.

  Shadows were moving.

  Or was it her imagination? Or maybe her eyesight? Kayleigh had been given perfect pitch and an angelic voice but God had decided enough was enough and skimped big-time on the vision. She squinted, adjusted her glasses. She was sure that someone was hiding, rocking back and forth in the doorway that led to the storage area for the concession stands.

  Then the movement stopped.

  She decided it wasn't movement at all and never had been. Just a hint of light, a suggestion of shading.

  Though still, she heard a series of troubling clicks and snaps and groans--from where, she couldn't tell--and felt a chill of panic bubble up her spine.

  Him . . .

  The man who had written her hundreds of emails and letters, intimate, delusional, speaking of the life they could share together, asking for a strand of hair, a fingernail clipping. The man who had somehow gotten near enough at a dozen shows to take close-up pictures of Kayleigh, without anyone ever seeing him. The man who had possibly--though it had never been proven--slipped into the band buses or motor homes on the road and stolen articles of her clothing, underwear included.

  The man who had sent her dozen of pictures of himself: shaggy hair, fat, in clothing that looked unwashed. Never obscene but, curiously, the images were all the more disturbing for their familiarity. They were the shots a boyfriend would text her from a trip.

  Him . . .

  Her father had recently hired a personal bodyguard, a huge man with a round, bullet-shaped head and an occasional curly wire sprouting from his ear to make clear what his job was. But Darthur Morgan was outside at the moment, making the rounds and checking cars. His security plan also included a nice touch: simply being visible so that potential stalkers would turn around and leave rather than risk a confrontation with a 250-pound man who looked like a rapper with an attitude (which, sure enough, he'd been in his teen years).

  She scanned the recesses of the hall again--the best place he might stand and watch her. Then gritting her teeth in anger at her fear and mostly at her failure to tame the uneasiness and distraction, she thought, Get. Back. To. Work.

  And what're you worried about? You're not alone. The band wasn't in town yet--they were finishing some studio work in Nashville--but Bobby was at the huge Midas XL8 mixing console dominating the control deck in the back of the hall, two hundred feet away. Alicia was getting the rehearsal rooms in order. A couple of the beefy guys in Bobby's road crew were unpacking the truck in the back, assembling and organizing the hundreds of cases and tools and props and plywood sheets and stands and wires and amps and instruments and computers and tuners--the tons of gear that even modest touring bands like Kayleigh's needed.

  She supposed one of them could get to her in a hurry if the source of the shadow had been him.

  Dammit, quit making him more than he is! Him, him, him, like you're even afraid to say his name. As if to utter it would conjure up his presence.

  She'd had other obsessed fans, plenty of them--what gorgeous singer-songwriter with a voice from heaven wouldn't collect a few inappropriate admirers? She'd had twelve marriage proposals from men she'd never met, three from women. A dozen couples wanted to adopt her, thirty or so teen girls wanted to be her best friend, a thousand men wanted to buy her a drink or dinner at Bob Evans or the Mandarin Oriental . . . and there'd been plenty of invitations to enjoy a wedding night without the inconvenience of a wedding. Hey Kayleigh think on it cause Ill show you a good time better than you ever had and by the by heres a picture of what you can expect yah its really me not bad huh???

  (Very stupid idea to send a picture like that to a seventeen-year-old, Kayleigh's age at the time. By the by.)

  Usually she was cautiously amused by the attention. But not always and definitely not now. Kayleigh found herself snagging her denim jacket from a nearby chair and pulling it on to cover her T-shirt, providing another barrier to any prying eyes. This, despite the characteristic September heat in Fresno, which filled the murky venue like thin stew.

  And more of those clicks and taps from nowhere.

  "Kayleigh?"

  She turned quickly, trying to hide her slight jump, even though she recognized the voice.

  A solidly built woman of around thirty paused halfway across the stage. She had cropped red hair and some subdued inking on arms, shoulders and spine, partly visible thanks to her trim tank top and tight, hip-hugging black jeans. Fancy cowboy boots. "Didn't mean to scare you. You okay?"

  "You didn't. What's up?" she asked Alicia Sessions.

  A nod toward the iPad she carried. "These just came in. Proofs for the new posters? If we get them to the printer today we'll definitely have them by the show. They look okay to you?"

  Kayleigh bent over the screen
and examined them. Music nowadays is only partly about music, of course. Probably always has been, she supposed, but it seemed that as her popularity had grown, the business side of her career took up a lot more time than it used to. She didn't have much interest in these matters but she generally didn't need to. Her father was her manager, Alicia handled the day-to-day paperwork and scheduling, the lawyers read the contracts, the record company made arrangements with the recording studios and the CD production companies and the retail and download outlets; her longtime producer and friend at BHRC Records, Barry Zeigler, handled the technical side of arranging and production, and Bobby and the crew set up and ran the shows.

  All so that Kayleigh Towne could do what she did best: write songs and sing them.

  Still, one business matter of interest to her was making sure fans--many of them young or without much money--could buy cheap but decent memorabilia to make the night of the concert that much more special. Posters like this one, T-shirts, key chains, bracelets, charms, guitar chord books, headbands, backpacks . . . and mugs, for the moms and dads driving the youngsters to and from the shows and, of course, often buying the tickets as well.

  She studied the proofs. The image was of Kayleigh and her favorite Martin guitar--not a big dreadnought-size but a smaller, 000-18, ancient, with a crisp yellowing spruce top and a voice of its own. The photo was the inside picture from her latest album, Your Shadow.

  Him . . .

  No, don't.

  Eyes scanning the doors again.

  "You sure you're okay?" Alicia asked, voice buzzing with a faint Texas twang.

  "Yeah." Kayleigh returned to the poster proofs, which all featured the same photo though with different type, messages and background. Her picture was a straight-on shot, depicting her much as she saw herself: at five-two, shorter than she would have liked, her face a bit long, but with stunning blue eyes, lashes that wouldn't quit and lips that had some reporters talking collagen. As if . . . Her trademark golden hair, four feet long--and no, not cut, only trimmed, in ten years and four months--flowed in the fake gentle breeze from the photographer's electric fan. Designer jeans and high-collared dark-red blouse. A small diamond crucifix.