by Anne McAneny
“Are any locksmiths open at night?”
“When I was in the lobby, I told Hal to find one for you. He will.”
“Thanks, Farnham. And please don’t take this the wrong way, but why are you doing all this for me? I’m not even an active case in your files. I’m a piece of leftover evidence from a crime committed thirty years ago in a town 250 miles away.”
Farnham smirked as he thought about it, then he shook his head. “You know, this should be the moment when I deliver some heartfelt story about a long-lost sister who wanted to be an archaeologist, or an unsolved case where you remind me of the victim, but I don’t have one.”
Zoey narrowed her perceptive eyes. “Then what is it, Farnham?”
“I have no idea.”
“Know what I think?”
Farnham pulled his head back a bit, as if fearful. “Not sure I want to.”
She flicked her eyebrows up and down twice. “I think you must be in the foretelling.”
He harrumphed. “Yeah? Which one am I? The guy yelling Keeks or the weirdo with the knife?”
“I have no idea who else is hidden in those woods.”
“Well, I’ll tell you one thing. If I am there, I promise to do my damnedest to keep you safe, because I fully expect to be made a godfather in nine months.”
Zoey grinned from ear to ear. Another welcome reception for the tiny life growing inside her.
Farnham walked over and opened the apartment door to reveal a black, mustachioed officer who dwarfed Farnham by a couple inches and twenty pounds of muscle. “Hey, Jonas, how ya’ doin’?”
“Great, Detective, thanks.” Jonas’ voice matched his stature.
Farnham turned to Zoey and gestured to her temporary guardian. “Zoey Kincaid, meet Jonas McCabe.”
Zoey reached out to shake McCabe’s hand. “Thanks for coming over.”
“Evening, Miss Kincaid. And don’t you worry.” He pointed to Farnham. “If I’ve survived this guy for ten years, I can take anything coming your way.”
Farnham murmured something to Jonas and then closed the door. He gave Zoey a grim look. “You gonna be okay here? I think it might be a good idea to stay somewhere else, just for tonight.”
Somewhere else? Suddenly, her pending meeting with Jake popped into her head, followed by an idea, but she didn’t reveal it to Farnham. “Thanks. I’ll think about it.”
He picked up her phone and handed it to her. “Keep your cell close and keep me posted on where you are. Call if anything comes up. I’ll stop by Hal’s desk on the way out. You should have those new locks soon.”
“I can’t thank you enough, Farnham. And good luck with your case tonight.”
“I’ll call in the morning. Hopefully we’ll know where Black is by then.” He gave a single wave and walked out.
Zoey locked the door behind him and listened to the murmur of voices as Farnham and Jonas chatted, then she faced her bedroom. The idea of entering it after a stranger had been in there made her uncomfortable, but she needed fresh clothes before she headed out for what might be termed a residential dig. Now that she’d finally opened the door to her own past, she needed to peek behind someone else’s.
Chapter 36
There he was again—in the lobby—that big guy with the nasty face. Real Herman Munster type. Definitely a cop. No doubt about it. When you spend your whole life avoiding a certain element of the population, you spot them like dark spiders on a white wall. Corbin Black squelched a chill as his recent, too-personal encounter with the cops in Richmond came to mind.
He concentrated on the big guy, this pathetic flatfoot who’d waited thirty minutes for the whore to finally arrive, rolling her suitcase behind her. Probably the same jerk who’d put out the word on his rental car.
Black cursed himself for having stopped at that rest area in Baltimore, but three Mountain Dews and what did he expect? At least his jaunt to the restroom had given him a chance to spot the three pigs watching his car from a distance when he came out. He hadn’t wasted any time. Never had, never would. Within one minute of spying them, he had his hands on the cashier’s car keys. She’d just arrived for her shift, so by the time she realized her cheap Hyundai was missing, he’d be in Philly. Which he was. He’d wasted no time ditching that heap of crap on a dead end in the south side of town, where he’d helped himself to this smooth-riding Buick sedan from a club parking lot. It even came with a couple sticks of gum and a pack of condoms in the glove compartment—not that he intended to use the latter. He never did.
He let his hand run along the leather of the steering wheel. It felt cool against his hands. At least his dad’s job running a chop shop had paid off. Black could hotwire anything.
What was the pig telling the little guy in the lobby? Maybe to look out for suspicious rapists with facial scars. Ha! Black had brains enough to hide his scar when it counted. Always kept some cover-up handy, though he hardly ever used it. Little scar never hurt nobody. Just a line in the skin. He’d deserved it anyway. Pissing off his dad like that. Should have known better by age fifteen than to watch his dad going at it with that neighbor girl in the basement, but hell, she’d been his friend growing up, not his dad’s, and it sounded an awful lot like Dad might’ve been doing her wrong. Ha. Guess as a kid, he just hadn’t understood the sounds of ecstasy yet. No matter. Black had scored way better than that neighbor whore in the years since.
The cop exited the building and headed for his car. Typical pig-rig Chevy Caprice. What did he think—that every con with half an ounce of sense didn’t recognize it as a low-paid civil servant-mobile? And this guy was out to protect Black’s alleged daughter? She didn’t stand a chance.
He watched the cop take a good, long look around the building, probably assessing the surroundings, determining the weak spots. Hmph. Like he’d notice the clean cut guy in the stolen Buick.
After a few minutes, the big fool got in his car like some Hollywood tough guy and pulled out full throttle into the street, making an illegal U-turn a block later. Frickin’ cops felt so entitled. Black took special pleasure in giving a one-finger salute as the Chevy passed the Buick.
Hope you took a good look at the little whore when you left, Copper, ‘cause next time you see her—well, come to think of it, there won’t be a next time. Black checked his watch. He’d give her six more hours to set her life in order, and then, abracadabra, just like that, she’d disappear. He’d never wanted kids anyway.
Chapter 37
Zoey entered and surveyed her bedroom. Despite the fact that Farnham had checked every crevice, she still felt invaded, spied upon.
What could someone have taken without physically removing anything? Her computer was password-protected, so she didn’t worry about that, unless the intruder had been Cesar. Her full name and address was printed on the catalogs and mail on the desk, but the trespasser had been in the apartment already, so that would have been redundant. No personal correspondence on the desk, although a few printed emails sat in view: one from Jake about a new cell phone number he was keeping exclusively for work; one from a co-worker regarding a birthday party; and one containing details of an upcoming dig. So whoever saw this pile knew a few things on her itinerary, a couple names, and some phone numbers. Big deal.
But what if it was Cesar? What if he had found her and discovered Jake’s existence and become insanely jealous? No. Impossible. He’s still out there fishing for Kyra Collette via some blanket email.
That left Jake and Corbin Black. The idea of the latter left her weak-kneed. Could he have gotten into her apartment so soon? Fear gripped her and would not let go. She decided to trust it. She now desperately wanted out of the apartment that she’d been so excited to return to earlier.
She changed her outfit so she’d have on something decent to meet Jake. Meanwhile, she tried not to envision Corbin Black having pawed through her clothes with the same, rough hands that had violated her mother. What if he’d left his scent on her things? Without thinking, she pressed
the bra in her hand to her nose and sniffed it to see if she could pick up a foreign odor. Nothing. She envisioned him in the bathroom, peeking in her medicine cabinet, looking for weaknesses, drawing demented conclusions.
What if he had seen the pregnancy test? What sort of bizarre frenzy would that have sent him into? Would it fill him with pride, or with disgust? Or maybe nothing. Maybe Zoey’s existence meant nothing more to him than a link to the electric chair—a link he needed to eliminate. She pictured him now, a swarthy, dark presence skimming through people’s lives, injecting his poison, and slinking away. No regrets, no conscience, no emotion. Just emptiness. Then she chastised herself for succumbing to the terror-filled atmosphere that lowlifes like Black delighted in creating.
Her cell phone rang. It was lying on the bed where she’d tossed it. She answered.
“Zoey, it’s Jake.” She could hear the buzz of his office in the background. He must be at the 15th Street hub. His voice brought her more relief than she wanted to admit, especially considering that it could have been him slithering around her apartment earlier. “Listen, I got another call on my story. Guy’s a real piece of work and I’ve got to meet him at eight, but it should only take fifteen minutes, I promise. Why don’t you just go to my place, then I’ll meet you and we’ll walk to Carney’s together?”
“Okay, sure,” she said.
“I’ll be there 8:30 at the latest, okay?”
“Fine, yeah. See you then.”
Actually, it was fine. It was perfect. It would insure that her residential dig would be undisturbed.
As she finished changing, she heard the arrival of the locksmith. It took him less than five minutes to change the locks and only ten more to install a deadbolt. When he handed Zoey the new keys, she felt she’d turned a leaf of sorts. No one else had a key to her place, not even Jake. Was that a leaf she was ready to turn?
She asked for the bill but the locksmith told her it had been taken care of by some guy named Farnham.
“Oh, boy,” Officer McCabe said with a grin. “You must have some kind of sway over him, Ms. Kincaid.”
Zoey smiled and thanked the locksmith, then reassured Officer McCabe that she’d be fine for the rest of the evening. She locked herself in and finished getting ready. On a whim, she called down to the lobby and asked Hal to call her a cab so she wouldn’t have to waste time searching for an ever-elusive parking spot near Jake’s condo. “And Hal,” she said, “could you have him pick me up in the rear of the building? That way, we’ll be headed in the right direction.”
“Will do, Miss Zoey. Good idea.”
In deference to Detective Farnham, Zoey also asked Hal to come up to her apartment and take the elevator down with her so she wouldn’t be alone. He sounded excited to be her protector.
Hal arrived quickly and out of breath, having decided that sprinting up eight flights would not only be good exercise, but also faster than the elevator. Together, they took the slow ride down, and Hal took the opportunity to spritz the plant he somehow kept alive inside the elevator. “Too bad about that tree down the block,” he said.
“The huge one?” Zoey said. “The oak?”
“Yeah. Be dead in a couple years.”
“What are you talking about, Hal? That tree is healthy as a horse. Lifting up sidewalks left and right.”
“Nope. Gonna die.”
“Everybody’s a psychic,” Zoey bemoaned.
Hal grinned. “Not me. Just a gift I have. Been able to do it since I was four. My wife? She thinks I’m hypersensitive to colors and smells in plants. I can tell if a tree is dying two seasons before it shows any symptoms. And I can tell if a rose bush has been overwatered from across the length of a football field.”
Was Zoey the only one without a superpower? “Tell me, Hal, what does impending death smell like?”
He shrugged. “Different for every plant. I don’t know why everyone finds my gift so strange. Are we fascinated when a dog sniffs out drugs wrapped in plastic and buried in a suitcase full of coffee grounds? Or when a bloodhound tracks a suspect through a swamp?”
“Or how about when an animal can tell a person is about to have a seizure?”
“Exactly,” he said. “Why do we think all these things are normal for animals, but odd for humans? I think we’ve all just got to keep our brains open to the possibilities.”
They arrived in the lobby and immediately headed out the back door, where Hal said a cab would be arriving momentarily. Zoey leaned against the railing while Hal picked some dead leaves off the plants he kept on the steps. Three of the plants were early-blooming roses that helped block out the mild scent of urine; the latter had unfortunately become the signature scent of the alley-like street that bordered the rear of the building.
“Hal,” Zoey said in a quiet voice, “what do you think about people who can predict the future?”
Hal looked at her like she hadn’t been paying attention. “Well, I’m one of them, aren’t I?”
Not the answer Zoey had expected.
“I just told you, Miss Zoey, I can predict that a tree’s going to die years in advance.”
“But that’s based on knowledge you glean from a scent or something.”
“Knowledge that others can’t glean. And if they don’t know how I arrived at my conclusion, and that tree dies, it’s spooky, right? And I’m credited with being psychic.”
“Yes, but you can explain your methods. What about people who can predict the future but can’t explain it?”
“Like I said before, I can’t exactly explain my thing. I just try to come up with explanations. And believe me, I’ve had plenty of skeptics who think I’m ready for the nut house.”
“What if you could predict something decades in advance? How would you explain that?”
“You’re pretty literal, eh Miss Zoey? You like everything wrapped up in a neat package with evidence sitting on top like a little bow?”
“It helps.”
“But think about it. There’s too much we don’t know. Like how the universe began, what happens after we die, why certain ratios show up in nature time and time again, and how that Uri Geller guy used to bend spoons. There’s even a million things we don’t know about our own brains. Like why Michelangelo could do what he did and the rest of us can’t. Or why my granddaughter is a genius at math. Things like that are so common, we take them for granted, but we can’t really explain them. So in answer to your question, if someone tells me they can predict the future, and it works a few times, I tend to believe it.”
The cab pulled up. Hal opened the back door for Zoey, but she hesitated before getting in. “Hal, can I ask one more question? It might sound a little nuts.”
“I love nuts. Cashews are my favorite.”
She leaned toward his ear and whispered, “Do you smell impending death on me?”
She thought she saw him flinch, but then he closed his eyes, inhaled, and followed it all up with a smile. “No, Miss Zoey, I do not. Ironically, I smell abundant life.” He touched her arm. “But I’m sorry you had to ask. I sense you have a lot on your plate right now.”
“Thanks, Hal.”
She got in the cab, but Hal leaned down before closing the door. “Take care of yourself, Miss Zoey. You have everything to live for.”
The cab took off, giving Zoey a quiet moment to think. If the last few days had been any indication, every event in her life seemed to be one more domino in a long line that had waited in place, gathering strength, for years. But did alternate routes exist on the domino path—the kind where one domino knocks down two, sending each on an individual course? And if so, could she choose the road less deadly?
#
After negotiating the street that was barely wider than a car-width, Zoey’s cab took a right, away from the building. As she gazed out the back window, the fringe benefit of having exited unseen by her mother’s rapist never even occurred to her.
Chapter 38
Within fifteen minutes of leaving her pl
ace, Zoey locked the door behind her as she entered Jake’s neat, professionally decorated condo. She’d always found it sterile and cold. Say what he would about Zoey’s untidiness, at least her apartment displayed a hint of personality and warmth. This place could serve as a hotel room, leaving a neutral impression on the guests flitting in and out daily.
Zoey laid her purse on Jake’s pristine kitchen table, which looked like it would be offended if someone actually ate a meal on it. Just who did live here? A guy with no serious family ties. A guy who never talked about his childhood except to say he’d wanted to be an investigative reporter since watching a rerun of Night Stalker. His one non-work activity was exercising like a demon—weights, sprints, even parkour—claiming he never knew when he’d need to run from the site of a grungy story. He actually mentioned that scenario often—the need to escape, the ability to flee—almost to the point of obsession. It wasn’t as if every story he did involved the mafia threatening to throw him off a cliff with concrete boots, but he sure acted like it did.
Zoey looked around, realizing she’d never been here without him present. She checked her watch: 7:15. Time for a little exposé on the reporter. What exactly did Jake think she’d discovered in Virginia, and why did it scare him so much? She made an initial scan of the living room and didn’t see a single picture of his family, a friend, or even her. How had she never noticed that before? As she went from wall to wall examining the sparse photos and paintings, she found a complete lack of humans in any of the pictures. Maybe Jake really did feel disdain for the human race, preferring cold, hard, metallic things, like the buildings, bridges and trains in his black-and-white prints. Not even a puppy in sight to lighten the mood.