Come Home

by Lisa Scottoline

  Jill got an idea. “Funny, I saw someone in the lobby the other day, whom I think I know from college. Neil Straub. Tall, good-looking. I think he lives in 4-D.”

  “4-D?” Belle paused, thinking. “Oh, right, he’s a subletter. I don’t know him, but I sold that apartment a few years ago to a couple from London, and they moved back home. There’s only a few subletters in the building, and the board likes it that way. Don’t have the same controls, with a subletter.”

  “Do subletters have to get board approval?”

  “No.”

  Jill thought it explained how William had gotten past the board.

  “I know who you mean.” Belle leaned over, in a cloud of flowery perfume. “He’s quite the ladies man. My best friend still lives in 4-A, and we see what goes on with him. He keeps busy, if you know what I mean.”

  Jill did, unfortunately. “He hasn’t changed since college, huh?”

  “They never do, girlfriend. Like the kids say, he’s a playa.”

  “I guess he never got married.”

  “I’ve see him with the same girl a few times, but I doubt she knows about the others.”

  Jill doubted it, too. “What does she look like, this one?”

  “Thin, blonde, and young. What else?”

  “What does he do for a living, do you know? He used to be in the pharmaceuticals business.”

  “Don’t know, but it’s something that makes a lot of money. He drives a big Mercedes. Silver. I know because he took my parking space once.”

  “Doesn’t the building have parking?”

  “Yes, but it costs extra. He was out front, unloading.”

  “Where’s the garage, and how does the parking work? Are there numbered spaces?”

  “Yes, all marked by the apartment number.” Belle gestured behind her, to the north. “The garage is at the back of the building. Sometimes it’s easier to drop off your bags, then go park. Now, shall I show you the kitchen?”

  “Yes, thanks.” Jill learned nothing more and spent the next half-hour being led around an apartment she didn’t want, trying to piece together a puzzle she hadn’t seen coming. She bid Belle good-bye, left the apartment building, and stood on the sidewalk, revising her plan. It wouldn’t make sense to come back at five to see the night-shift doorman. He wouldn’t recognize Abby because she undoubtedly hadn’t been here.

  The garage is at the back of the building.

  Jill walked to the end of the street, heading for the garage, curious if William’s car was there. Runners trotted past her toward the river. She took a right onto the West Side Highway, and traffic had picked up, whooshing loudly in both directions, uptown and down. She turned right onto the next street, a skinny sidestreet of cobblestones, and kept walking.

  Midway up, Jill found a gate over a driveway, which had to be the garage to the building. There was a door next to the entrance, and she made a beeline for it. She tried the knob, but it was locked. She glanced behind her, to make sure no one saw her, when suddenly, she spotted a black SUV, parked at the curb behind a row of others, on the West Side Highway.

  Jill froze. The SUV hadn’t been there before, or she hadn’t seen it. It looked like the same model as the padiddle that had been following her. The headlights were off because it was daytime. She couldn’t see the license plate. Sunlight glinted off its chrome grille, and a man sat behind the wheel, a still figure in shadow.

  Jill told herself to stay calm. It would’ve been impossible to follow her here, so it probably wasn’t the same car, but there was only one way to find out. She turned on her heel and walked toward the car. Suddenly the black SUV’s engine roared to life, the SUV reversed, cut the wheels, and started to wedge itself out of the parking space.

  Jill broke into a run, almost tripping on the cobblestones. It couldn’t be a coincidence. The SUV had to be leaving because she was coming. She reached the line of parked cars just as the SUV pulled onto the West Side Highway, heading uptown. It had a Pennsylvania license plate that read TJU-something.

  “Wait!” Jill yelled, on the run. “Stop! Help!”

  And before she realized what she was doing, she was running down the West Side Highway after the SUV.

  Chapter Thirty-six

  “Stop that car!” Jill screamed, frantic. Heads turned. Runners stopped running. A cyclist braked, putting down his cleated shoe.

  Jill ran as fast as she could. Her legs churned. Her arms pumped. Her flats slapped the sidewalk.

  The SUV veered to the middle lane but couldn’t go forward. The cars ahead of it were stopped at a red light. Crosstown traffic flowed onto the highway, in force. There were traffic lights at almost every block, and it was the only thing that gave Jill a fighting chance of catching him.

  She ran harder, almost colliding with an older man walking a poodle. She kept her eyes glued to the SUV driver. He was looking this way and that, his head swiveling left and right. He was blocked in and knew it.

  A moving van pulled out of the cross street and stopped, blocking traffic. The light turned green, and the SUV and the other cars started honking.

  Jill raced ahead, gaining ground. Only half a block separated her from the SUV, then less. The moving van would go any second, pulling onto the far side of the highway, heading downtown.

  Jill tore down the sidewalk, glanced behind her, and ran into the street like a madwoman. “Don’t hit me!” she screamed, putting her hand up.

  The red Saturn behind her braked, then started honking. Van and limo drivers looked over, angry. “Honk!” blared a tractor-trailer, startling her.

  Jill struggled to keep up her pace. Her breaths were ragged. Her thighs burned. She closed in on the SUV. Eight cars, then seven, then six. She was almost there. The Saturn hung back, honking.

  The moving van inched forward. The SUV honked and honked, still blocked.

  Jill tried to run into the middle lane, but a battered pickup wouldn’t let her in, roaring past her as if she’d been in a car.

  “Stop that car!” Jill shouted. The SUV still couldn’t go. Her lungs were about to explode. Sweat poured into her eyes. Her purse swung wildly at her side. She clamped it down with a hand.

  She burst ahead, closer to the SUV. There were three cars left between them, then two, then one.

  Suddenly the moving van cleared the lane. The SUV accelerated and switched into the fast lane.

  Jill couldn’t keep up. The SUV found open road and was getting away. Her heart thundered. Her legs wobbled. She stumbled, almost falling.

  The Saturn driver leaned from his window. “Get outta the street!” he hollered, waving at her.

  Jill threw her purse at the SUV in frustration, hitting the back just as the driver took off, cut the wheel, and jumped the median, making a daring U-turn and zooming down the other side of the highway, going downtown.

  “Move, lady!” the Saturn driver yelled.

  Jill hurried to the curb, then doubled over, trying to catch her breath. A police siren blared behind her, but it sounded too far away to get here in time. She straightened up and watched a minivan run over her purse and BlackBerry.

  Cars and trucks whooshed past her, and the police siren sounded closer. She blinked sweat from her eyes and spotted the NYPD cruiser, driving toward her.

  She stuck out her hand to flag it down.

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Jill sat in a hard chair beside Officer Mulvane’s desk, and he was just finished typing his report on an old computer, with a grimy keyboard. The Greenwich Village precinct house had the same desks, mismatched file cabinets, and cluttered bulletin boards as the police station in Philadelphia, except for the moving tribute in its entrance hall, where six gleaming bronze plaques on a tan marble wall memorialized its six officers who gave their lives on September 11, 2001. Jill had paused at the memorial, saying a silent prayer.

  “Okay, that’s about it.” Officer Mulvane hit a key and the form printed at a cheap desk printer with a Yankees sticker. He was a beefy cop in his thi
rties, with bright blue eyes, a ready smile, and thinning blond hair. He extracted the form, picked up a pen, and handed both to Jill. “Wanna give me your John Hancock?”

  “Sure.” Jill skimmed the typed portion, which was her account of what had happened, then signed it at the bottom. Her flattened purse sat on her lap, and her BlackBerry was road kill, but she felt more like herself, having washed up in the ladies room. “So what do you think, Officer? Can you help me find Abby?”

  “Here’s how it goes.” Office Mulvane eyed Jill, pursing his lips. “I’d like to help you find your kid, I mean, your ex’s kid, but we don’t have jurisdiction. If your ex was murdered in Philly, it’s a Philly case. If the kid went missing in Philly, it’s a Philly case. Here, take this back.” Officer Mulvane handed over the photo of William and the mystery man in the blue shirt. “Neither of these guys are known to us, much less a Known Wanted. I can’t run a check on them using the images alone.”

  “Thanks.” Jill stuffed the picture into her broken purse. “But here’s what I don’t understand about jurisdiction. My ex is renting an apartment a few blocks from here, under a fake name, with fake identity. Doesn’t that give you jurisdiction?”

  “No. Your ex-husband could be guilty of fraud in connection with the apartment, but not all fraud is criminal.” Officer Mulvane nodded hello at another cop passing his desk, a radio attached to the cop’s thick belt and flopping against his side. “If your ex-husband entered into a contract with the co-op membership under a false name, it’s not enough to involve NYPD.”

  “But what if he’s impersonating someone? Isn’t that criminal?”

  “Criminal impersonation is somebody pretending to be somebody famous, to get favors or money. Like we got a guy, he’s in here all the time, pretends he’s Robert De Niro to get a free meal.” Officer Mulvane picked up a Styrofoam cup of coffee with two thick fingers, as if he’d crush it otherwise. “Your ex-husband isn’t doing that.”

  “So you need jurisdiction—”

  “No,” Officer Mulvane interrupted, setting down his cup. “I don’t need jurisdiction. I can’t act unless I have jurisdiction. I’m not looking for things to do, I got plenty.”

  “Okay, what about the fact that I think I’m being followed by a black SUV, on the West Side Highway?”

  “You don’t have any real evidence that you are, and you don’t know it’s the same car.”

  “The license plate has the T, and he drove away when he saw me coming.”

  “Dr. Farrow.” Officer Mulvane smiled, sympathetically. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I saw you, and you looked drunk and crazy. No wonder the guy hightailed it. And lots of plates start with T.”

  Jill tried another tack. “What if I were a friend of Neil Straub’s, and I come to you and tell you that he’s missing. I tell you he lives a few blocks away and I’m worried about him. What if he’s dead in his apartment, right now? That would be criminal, and you’d have jurisdiction, right?”

  “Right, but that’s not what you said.”

  “It could be.” Jill saw her opening, but Officer Mulvane frowned, shifting heavily away from her, in his chair.

  “It isn’t. I stopped for you because I thought you were a knucklehead about to get run over.”

  “Now you know I’m a knucklehead trying to find my daughter.” Jill managed a smile. “You want me to go out, come back in again, and tell you the new story?”

  “It’s not a game, Doc.”

  “I know, and I’m not playing. I really need help. No one’s looking out for Abby but me. You understand, you have a child.” Jill gestured at the photo on his desk, of an adorable little boy in a blue baseball uniform, resting a bat on his shoulder. “What if your son were out there on his own, after you were gone?”

  “Oh, don’t do that to me.” Officer Mulvane looked pained, and Jill thought of the 9/11 memorial in the entrance hall. She realized that cops went to work every day, knowing that they might not come home. She flushed, feeling terrible.

  “I’m so sorry, Officer. That was thoughtless of me.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” Officer Mulvane sighed. “Okay, you win. There’s one thing I can do for you, in these circumstances.”

  “Thank you so much,” Jill said, grateful.

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  “They’ve been up there forever, haven’t they, Mike?” Jill paced the lobby in William’s building, waiting for Officer Mulvane and his partner, who were upstairs with the super, a bald and surly little man named Ivan Ronavic.

  “No. You need to relax.” Mike peered at her over his glasses. He was sitting at the desk, turning a page of the newspaper. “It’s only been twenty minutes. They’ll be down soon.”

  “I wish I could’ve gone with them.”

  “You heard them. No way. The cops aren’t even allowed in the apartment, they gotta wait in the hall while my boss checks it out.”

  “Is Ivan your boss?”

  “Yes.” Mike chuckled. “You asked him so many questions, I thought he was gonna hit you.”

  Jill snorted. “I’ve met surgeons with less ego.”

  Mike laughed. “He didn’t like you much, either.”

  “Ask me if I care. I should fix him up with my boss, Sheryl.”

  Mike cocked his head. “You’re a doctor. You shouldn’t have a boss.”

  “That’s what I think.” Jill let it go. “You’ve seen the apartment, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “What does it look like?”

  “Not for me to say. You’ve gotten me in enough hot water for one day.”

  “Sorry.” Jill felt a guilty twinge. “I can write Ivan a letter, apologizing.”

  “Nah, don’t worry about it. It’s good to shake things up. Get’s so quiet around here.”

  “I wonder what’s going on up there.” Jill sank onto a cushioned bench, suppressing her anxiety. She felt so out of touch without her BlackBerry and wondered if Abby had called her or Victoria. Or if Sam was home from the lab, Megan had had another panic attack, or Rahul’s bloodwork had come back. Jill stood up and started pacing again.

  “Here they come.” Mike rose, and the elevator pinged. Jill got to the elevator as its stainless steel doors slid open, letting out Ivan, Officer Mulvane, and Officer Yokimura, his talkative young partner.

  “Well?” Jill asked, and Officer Mulvane smiled in a reassuring way.

  “Nothing to worry about, and your kid isn’t up there. It’s all in order. Clean as a whistle.”

  “What did you see? What does it look like?”

  “It’s a typical guy apartment.”

  Officer Yokimura added, “A typical rich guy apartment.”

  Officer Mulvane didn’t comment. “There was nothing suspicious. Ivan did a walk-through, answered all our questions, and told us what we needed to know. Neat and clean. Refrigerator empty except for water and beer. Stack of newspapers and bills on the table.”

  “What name’s on the mail?”

  “Neil Straub.”

  “No other?”

  “No.”

  “Except for Current Occupant,” Officer Yokimura deadpanned.

  “Any mail from a business, like one he owned?” Jill asked.

  “Not that Ivan noticed.”

  “What’s the oldest date on the mail, do you know? Or the oldest newspaper?”

  “About a week ago, that Ivan saw.”

  Jill turned in frustration to Ivan, who had walked to the front desk. “Can’t you please tell me more about him, like what you have on file, from when he subletted?”

  “No, I can’t.” Ivan’s thin lips made a flat line. His wiry frame seemed lost in his blue jumpsuit, and he had mournfully dark eyes. “Like I told you, I do what the board president tells me. He’s not givin’ out any info without a warrant.”

  “But Neil Straub is only a subletter.”

  “Makes no never mind.”

  Jill turned back to Officer Mulvane. “We can’t get a warrant?”


  “No. No probable cause. No crime. No nothing.”

  Jill knew when she’d lost a fight. “Was there any sign of a woman living with him, like things in the bathroom, medicine chest? Or stray jewelry? He has a young blonde girlfriend, and it would help if I knew her name.”

  Officer Yokimura grinned. “Hell hath no fury, eh?”

  Jill turned to Officer Mulvane. “Well?”

  “Ivan did see some things that belonged to a woman. Clothes in the closet, that sort of thing.” Officer Mulvane crossed to the front desk. “Hey, Mike, how does the mail get upstairs?”

  “When the resident is out of town, we bring it up every few days. We always do that for Mr. Straub because he’s usually gone so long, it clogs up his mailbox. About ten percent of the building is absentee; they got second and third homes in Florida, or they’re foreign. We’re white glove here. Bring up the dry cleaning, water the plants, too. Whatever they need, we do.”

  Officer Yokimura smiled. “Must be nice.”

  Officer Mulvane asked, “When was the last time Straub was here?”

  Mike consulted a log book on the desk. “I found the entry, when you were upstairs. Last Monday, he left at 10:20 A.M. I was on the desk, I remember, because I filled in for Enrique. He didn’t say when he’d be back.”

  Jill felt her gut tense. Monday was the day before William died. Neil Straub wouldn’t be back, because William Skyler was dead. “Was he alone?”

  Mike hesitated.

  Officer Mulvane asked, “Was he?”

  “Yes,” Mike answered.

  Officer Mulvane patted the desk, as a farewell. “Thanks for your trouble.”

  Jill came over. “Officer Mulvane, can we check out his car, too? I just want to see if it’s here.” She’d asked before, but maybe he’d forgotten. “He has a silver Mercedes, but we can’t get into the garage unless they let us in.”

  Ivan looked over at Jill, annoyed. “You’re an instigator, you know that?”

  Jill smiled at him. “Hardly, but are you single? Because I’ve got the girl for you.”