Eran frowned. “I have to be real careful here, Brynna. I don’t have any reason to talk to this guy or detain him. If I keep showing up in his life, I’m walking on thin ice with regard to harassment. It’s not like he’s done anything wrong, at least nothing that I can actually hold up to a judge, or even my superiors.”
“There’s no law against talking to him,” Brynna said. “So I’ll go talk to him.”
“You need to be careful, too,” he pointed out. “Remember, he made it clear that he wants you to stay away from him.”
Brynna chuckled. “Funny—I usually have the opposite effect on men.”
“Ha ha,” Eran said. “Let’s just stay here for a minute or two and see what happens.”
“Okay, if that’s you want to do. I’m usually more for the proactive approach.”
“There’s a time for that, and there’s a time to sit back and wait. I think now is one of the latter times. If we had more of an idea about what we’re doing, it would be different.”
Brynna shrugged, then her eyes narrowed. “What’s he doing?”
Eran had been scanning the crowd, although he didn’t know what he was looking for. Now he focused again on Casey Anlon. The previous couple was gone and Anlon was standing between two other men, the tall, gawky-looking guy who had been talking to the man and woman only a minute earlier, and an older man with a sturdy build. Both men looked angry, but Casey had a mild, let’s-just-calm-down expression on his face. Eran and Brynna stared for a second, but before they could do anything else, the older gave an irritated wave of his hand and stalked away. Eran saw Casey reach out and give the younger man a companionable clap on the shoulder. The younger guy shrugged off the gesture, then walked off, too, but in the opposite direction.
“Uh-oh,” Brynna said.
“What?”
“I think we just missed our chance.”
“Are you kidding me?” Eran’s expression was astonished. “That was it? That was Casey’s big rescue?”
“The rescue itself isn’t the point,” Brynna reminded him. “Sometimes the smallest gesture can have a huge impact, and in this case, it’s what happens afterward that matters the most.”
“No way,” Eran said. “That just can’t be it. Not after all this effort.” When Brynna just looked at him, Eran said, “Fuck it. I’m going to go talk to this creep.” Eran stormed toward Casey Anlon, who was standing and staring at the stained glass display with an almost beatific look on his face. Brynna went after him.
Casey’s features dissolved into shock when he saw Eran and Brynna. “Wait—have you two been following me? Are you watching me—how did you find me? You must be following me!”
“That doesn’t matter right now. Who is that guy you were just talking to?”
Casey looked at him triumphantly. “You’re too late,” he said. “His name is Tate Wernick and I’ve already stopped the fight that would have killed him.”
“Great,” Brynna muttered. Louder, she said, “You have no idea what you’ve done.”
Casey’s head whipped in her direction. “And neither do you. Can you absolutely tell me that he was going to do something horrible?” At the look on her face, he said, “I thought not. You don’t know. You wanted me to let him die when you don’t know.” His mouth twisted. “Who died and made you God?”
Brynna was so horrified that she actually stepped backward. “God? Oh, n-no—”
Eran cut her off. “We’re talking about proof here,” he told Casey. “Two out of the last three people you’ve rescued—”
“There’s no proof,” Casey interjected. “There’s just a couple of coincidences.”
“There’s no such thing,” Brynna said.
“Of course there is.” Casey waved his hand in the air. “You act like there’s someone with a master plan somewhere, the big Excel sheet in the sky that has the info on everyone’s lives in a minute-by-minute format, and tying them all together somehow. That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. If it was all planned out, then why am I able to step in and stop this crap from happening?” he demanded. “Tell me that.”
When they stayed silent, the triumphant look returned to Casey’s face. “Yeah, I thought so.”
“Casey,” Brynna began. “You—”
He held up his hand. “No—just stay away from me, both of you. You might be the police,” he said as he looked at Eran, then cast a quick sidelong glance at Brynna, “and I don’t know who you are, but I havenfont sizt broken any law. If you don’t leave me alone, I’m going to pay an in-person visit to that station house you took me to, and I won’t leave until I’ve filed a formal complaint.” He turned and stormed off.
Brynna started to go after him but Eran put a hand on her arm. “Let him go. There’s nothing we can do.” When she looked at him quizzically, he added, “Time to move forward, right? I have the guy’s name, his latest save. Let me run it through and see what I come up with. Maybe that’ll at least give us a clue as to what we might be up against.”
BRYNNA HADN’T TAKEN HER purse into the museum when she and Eran had gone in there, and when she got back to Eran’s car, she automatically checked her messages. She’d gotten into the habit of doing that like any good career woman operating a business of her own. There was no one else to check those messages for her; if she didn’t follow up on calls, she didn’t earn a living. Although she might not need as much as most because she was splitting expenses with Eran, Brynna still liked to be independent.
The red light was blinking and she flipped it open and dialed the voice mail. She recognized Georgina Whitfield’s stammering voice instantly even though she’d talked to her for only a few minutes in that tailor’s store on Saturday.
“H-hello, Ms. Malak . . . I hope this is you. I couldn’t really tell from the computer message. Um, anyway, my name is Gina Whitfield. You were in the shop where I work yesterday morning and you left your card and, well, you said you could find my husband? I wondered if you could give me a call. If you can, I really need your help.” She had sounded falsely cheerful at first, determined—like someone with a mission—but now she’d started to cry. “I really need your help, ma’am. I don’t know where he is, and I can’t go into details over the telephone. I—I’m just too afraid to do that. And I c-can’t have the police involved. So if you could please call me, if you could help me somehow, do, what you said you could do . . . my number is—”
The voice garbled out, but it didn’t matter. Not only had Brynna’s cell phone registered the number, hearing Georgina Whitfield’s voice had formed an irrevocable tie from her to Brynna, just as she had described to Eran. As with the sense of smell, she would now be able to identify and find the woman forever.
Eran climbed into the car, looking exhausted and disappointed. “Well,” he said, “I think that it goes without saying that was a failure.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Brynna said. “You did your best. That’s all anyone can ask. Besides, like Casey’s message said this morning, we don’t know that this man will be evil ohat something horrible will happen to someone else because he’s still alive.”
“No.” Eran’s face was tight. “But Casey’s track record hasn’t been so hot for being on the side of good.”
“That’s true. But it seems to be our lucky day for getting phone calls. I just picked up a message on my phone from Georgina Whitfield.”
Eran’s face jerked in her direction. “What? She called you?”
“Yep. She wants me to call her and help find her husband.”
“Have you called her back yet? Let’s get this going—maybe we can stop this whole mess in its tracks.”
Brynna grinned at him. “I don’t have to call her to find her.”
He nodded. “And besides, I already have her home address, remember? I got it the good old-fashioned way.” For the first time since they’d blown it inside the museum, he gave a short laugh. “With a computer.”
GEORGINA WHITFIELD LIVED IN a pretty
little three-flat on a side street in the Wicker Park neighborhood. It wasn’t a new area, but it was well taken care of. You could see the effort that the property owners had put into their places in the neat flower borders that were still blooming and well trimmed, even in September, the clean cars, the sparkle of windows that were kept clean on all the small apartment buildings. There was almost no trash in the streets and it was a quiet block with a homey feel to it.
As they got out of the car and went up the walkway to the front door of Gina’s building, they could smell home cooking on the air. Eran thought it was something Polish, like cabbage or pierogi. He felt a little ridiculous that it made his mouth water until he realized that neither one of them had eaten since last night. But there was no time to deal with mundane tasks like feeding themselves. They had bigger things to pay attention to, like possible disasters.
Unlike Mike Klesowitch’s place, there was no guesswork involved here. They knew her name, they knew her address, and her name was on the mailbox, with Hinshaw—the husband’s name—added underneath hers. Eran rang the bell and after a few seconds, a scratchy voice came over the intercom.
“Yes? Who is it?”
The voice sounded bright but feigned friendly, with an undertone to it that hinted at paranoia. “Georgina, this is Brynna Malak. You left me a message this morning. I’m sorry I didn’t get back to you sooner, but I’ve been tied up all morning.”
“I’ll be right down,” the voice said after a long pause. Eran could imagine her wondering just how the hell Brynna had gotten her address. Then again, maybe not. She might assume Brynna was working with the police despite her request that Brynna not do so. Or she might be assuming something entirely different.
Less than a minute later Georgina was coming down the stairs and opening the door, motioning at them to follow her. Her apartment was on the second floor and she held the door aside so they could enter. She gave Eran a glance but didn’t ask any more questions. When they stepped inside, it was like night and day from the appearance that Gina gave to the everyday world in that high-end tailoring shop. The place was dirty and smelled of trash that hadn’t been emptied. Mail was stacked on the coffee table in the living room, there were dishes in the sink, and clothing was draped on the furniture as if Gina had taken it off and just left it there. Her hair was mussed and stringy, just past time for a washing, and although her face was scrubbed clean of makeup, her shorts and shirt looked as though she’d slept in them.
She gestured at the small table in the nook off the kitchen but neither Eran nor Brynna made any movement to sit. Gina looked from them to the chairs, then it seemed to dawn on her that there was something piled on every chair—clothes, empty plastic grocery bags, a dozen commonplace items that most people would have put away. In a move that surprised both of them, the young woman simply swept the stuff off the chairs and let it all cascade to the floor. “There,” she said. “Fixed that.” Brynna glanced at Eran but neither of them said anything. Gina sounded exhausted, nothing like she had at the beginning of the message she’d left Brynna. She settled herself on one of the chairs and Eran and Brynna followed her cue.
Brynna waited. Finally, Gina spoke. “You said you could find my husband. Can you help me or not?”
Eran leaned forward. “Why don’t you start from the beginning?”
Gina’s head swiveled toward him as if she were seeing him for the first time. “Who are you?”
Eran hesitated, then he answered honestly, “I’m Detective Redmond.”
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The young woman’s eyes widened. “Oh no, I can’t have the police involved in this. I should have realized when you two just showed up here—I never gave her my address. I’ve been told—”
Brynna reached out and touched her hand. “It’s all right. He’s with me. And no one else knows he’s here, I promise. Gina, whoever has your husband . . . it won’t make any difference.”
Gina stared at Brynna, then her eyes filled with tears. “I know,” she whispered. “It won’t make any difference at all, will it?” She looked down at the tabletop, then up again at Brynna and Eran. “I got a telephone call,” she said. “Not too long after Vance and I got married. I can’t even tell if it’s a man or a woman. It’s just . . . a voice. And it said . . . it wanted to know things. Names.” She hesitated. “I—I see things,” she said, as though she suddenly realized she wasn’t making any sense. “Sometimes if I touch someone’s name that’s written down, I see things that are going to happen to that person.” Her brown eyes were big and bloodshot in her white face. “This person knew that, and wanted me to give it the name of someone who was going to do something horrible, but then was going to die instead. I don’t know how to explain it, but I can see those things. I know this all sounds crazy, but I’m not crazy, I swear to God, I’m not!”
“I know you’re not,” Brynna said. “I believe you.”
“Do you?” Gina asked. “And what about you, Mr. Detective? Do you believe me?”
“Yeah,” Eran answered. “Actually, I do.”
Gina’s gaze cut back and forth between the two of them, trying to figure out if they were lying.
“Then what happened?” Brynna prompted.
“I wouldn’t do it the first time the voice called. I thought it was a prank call or something. I wasn’t sure how this person knew I could do these things, so I thought it was a joke. But then . . .” Her voice faded away.
“Then?” Eran encouraged.
“Then I got the package in the mail.”
Eran’s mouth turned down. “Package?”
Gina nodded and pushed to her feet. Brynna could see the girl’s hands shaking as she tried to steady herself by holding on to the table’s edge. After a few seconds, she wobbled across the kitchen and reached for the freezer handle. Brynna’s heart sank. This was not going to be good.
The box Gina pulled out should have held jewelry, but Brynna knew they would never be that lucky. The young woman carried it back to the table and set it between Brynna and Eran, then pushed it toward Eran with one finger. “Here,” she said. “I can’t look at it again. I just can’t.”
Eran eyed the box, then bent over and pulled a tissue from a box of Kleenex that had ended up on the floor. “It’s a little late for that,” Gina said. “I’m sorry. I’ve handled that box too many times to count.”
“Well, just in case.” He used the tissue to hold the box in place and took another one to flip open the lid. Gina turned her face in the other direction as he and Brynna stared at the human finger inside. Brynna saw Eran’s gaze stop on the wedding ring that had slid close to the frozen knuckle, then move to the matching one on Gina’s left hand. “Damn,” he said. “How long ago?”
“A week and a half—two weeks. Let me think.” She scrubbed at her forehead. “It was . . . the week before last, on Thursday, I think. It was the strangest thing. Right after I opened the package, the voice called again. It’s like it knew I had the package, that I opened it. That it was watching me!”
Eran glanced at Brynna, who just tilted her head. Maybe, she thought, something was watching Gina. She thought again about the fancy tailoring shop where Gina worked, and how Lahash would love just such a place. “So you’ve never met the person behind the voice?” Brynna asked.
Gina shook her head. “No. At first I threatened to call the police. I got another call yesterday morning.” She laughed and the sound was high and shrill, teetering on hysteria. “But I knew . . . I just had a feeling that this would never end, and I wouldn’t do it—I wouldn’t give out another name.”
“And what did the person say?” Eran asked.
Gina’s fingers twisted together and she cracked her knuckles. The skin of her hands was almost bloody, as if she’d been doing that habitually. “The voice asked me if I’d like it if the next thing I got was his head.”
Eran could see the effort it took Gina to say those words without completely breaking down. He sat back. What could he do about this
? Monitor the phone lines, see if they could trace the call, or . . . He looked over at Brynna. Get Brynna to answer the phone the next time it rang?
“Do you want to hear what the voice sounds like?” Gina asked suddenly.
Brynna sat up straighter. “You have a recording of it?”
Gina nodded. “I don’t know why. I just . . . maybe I thought that despite everything I could get the police involved, that they could somehow help me. I pushed the record button on the answering machine this morning.”
Brynna looked ready to leap out of her seat. “And you still have that on your machine? May I listen to it?”
“Sure. The machine’s in the living room.”
Brynna got up to follow her, with Eran right behind her. Gina was already at the machine, punching the button. The voice that had made her so miserable came out of the tinny speaker and he could tell that Brynna recognized it instantly. She opened her mouth, then Eran elbowed her, hard, before mouth over mind made her say something aloud that Gina shouldn’t hear.
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