One Small Sacrifice

by Hilary Davidson

  Breathe deeply, she reminded herself. It was the same thing she would’ve said to a patient, and she wanted to kick herself, because it wasn’t that helpful. There wasn’t much to see in the room, besides the faint bulb and a set of wooden steps that only led into the darkness. Emily turned her attention to what was behind the bars with her. Her jacket was gone, but there was a mangy blanket near the bars. She picked it up, inhaled the fragrance of wet dog, and wrapped it around herself anyway. There was a plastic sports bottle filled with water. The only other item in her tiny cell was a bucket. She cringed, looking at it.

  “Hello?” she repeated, quieter this time.

  There was no answer.

  She slid to the ground, pulling the blanket around her. She couldn’t remember what had happened in the park, but she knew what had happened before she’d gone out. He was so angry. She’d never known him to lose control like that. If he’s capable of this, he’ll do anything, she thought. At that moment, she wondered how long she had left to live.

  TUESDAY

  CHAPTER 19

  ALEX

  Alex had only visited Emily’s office a couple of times. She was busy, and he respected her work, but there was more to his avoidance than that. As a rule, he steered clear of anything that reminded him of the medical centers he’d encountered in the field. That wasn’t to say that a posh hospital on the Upper East Side had much in common with the rough medical encampments he’d seen in Iraq and Syria, places that were located in basements to minimize the effect of mortar shelling, in tents when no buildings could be found, or—in one memorable circumstance—in a cave. By comparison, the hospital complex where Emily worked was a white-walled palace with state-of-the-art equipment. But that didn’t make the balance between life and death any less frail. Alex could feel it as he stepped inside the automatic doors.

  He navigated the labyrinth within, retracing the steps he’d taken on Friday. He hurried past the receptionist with a cautious wave, just as he had when he’d seen Emily the week before. She gave him an uncertain look, and if she hadn’t been on the phone, he was sure she would’ve told him that Emily wasn’t there. That didn’t matter; it wasn’t Emily he was there to see.

  He found Yasmeen Khan’s office quickly; it was just up the hall from Emily’s, and the door was slightly ajar. No one was inside, so he stepped in and shut the door behind him. Yasmeen’s office was a lot like Emily’s: there was a metal desk and metal filing cabinets and off-white metal blinds over the windows. The one organic component was an anemic-looking snake plant that bent to one side, as if determined to eavesdrop on the doctor’s conversations. The pictures on Yasmeen’s desk were of her nieces and nephews. Alex remembered that she had divorced a year ago; he’d never met her husband.

  “Alex? What are you doing here?” Yasmeen asked from the doorway. He could smell the cinnamon chai she was carrying from his metal chair in front of her desk.

  “Sorry to bother you, but I really need your help,” Alex said.

  “Is there any word about Emily?” Yasmeen stepped inside and closed the door.

  “Nothing yet.”

  She took a deep breath and walked around the desk, taking a seat in the ergonomic chair behind it. “Something’s wrong,” she said. “There’s no way Emily would just take off like this.”

  “I know.”

  “The police asked me about you, you know,” Yasmeen said. “They were wondering if Emily ever felt threatened by you.”

  “I’m not surprised. The police don’t like me much. At least, Detective Sterling doesn’t.”

  “I told them no, because Emily never said or did anything that made her seem afraid of you. But I can’t help but wonder . . .” Her voice trailed off. She shook her head, and her cascading gold earrings made a soft rattle.

  “Please don’t think I’d ever hurt her, because I wouldn’t,” Alex said.

  “It’s not that.” Yasmeen squinted at him, her black eyes piercing. “Why didn’t you call the police yourself?”

  “Me?”

  “You live with Emily. You obviously knew she was gone, maybe as early as Friday night. Why didn’t you call them?”

  Alex studied her face. He had no doubt that her concern for Emily was real. So much for pride, he thought. “Emily broke up with me.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “When I came home on Friday night, I found a note from her,” Alex said. “She said she was going away for a few days, and she didn’t want me to contact her. She said she’d be back to pack her stuff.”

  Yasmeen frowned. “She never said anything about leaving you.”

  “The note was on the coffee table, along with Emily’s engagement ring.”

  “I don’t believe it.” Yasmeen shook her head. “She was upset after you came in. But not . . .” Her voice trailed off for a moment, as if she were replaying the scene in her head. “She wouldn’t tell me what had happened, but she made it clear she was upset with herself, not you.”

  “Did she talk about leaving?”

  “Sure, but not like this. She said she thought it was time for her to go back into the field. I told her it might be too soon. On a practical level, the hospital is good about allowing doctors to take time for work like that, but when you come back, they expect you to be here awhile.” Yasmeen gave him a long look. “I don’t think she’s stopped feeling guilty about cutting her last tour short.”

  “Because of me.”

  “After she came home last November, she never went back because she thought you were going to kill yourself with drugs,” Yasmeen said.

  “She was right,” Alex answered. “I came close enough.”

  “I know she loves you, and she wanted to save you. Save you from yourself, as she put it. But since she’s come home, she’s . . . I don’t know exactly how to put it into words, but Emily’s different. Burdened.”

  Maybe that was from the stress of living with him, Alex thought. Living with a recovering addict who can’t sleep and hallucinates about dead people will do that to you. “Because of me.” It wasn’t a question, the way he said it. Just a statement of fact.

  “No, Alex. I’m not blaming you,” Yasmeen said. “Emily’s the toughest person I know. Also the most determined. She made the choice to come home early. You didn’t force her to do a thing. Anyway, this isn’t about blame, it’s about . . . Emily. Haven’t you felt that she’s been different lately?”

  “She’s been stressed, but I thought that was my fault,” Alex said. “She wakes up when I have nightmares. My problems have become her problems.” He knew Emily loved him, but sometimes he wondered why. He cleared his throat. “Is there any chance she just re-upped and is already off in a war zone with some group?” Even as he voiced the words, he saw what a stupid idea that was; Emily would’ve told him flat out. Her secrecy was what made this situation so strange.

  Yasmeen shook her head, and her earrings chimed again. “You don’t just show up on a whim.”

  “Not like being a photographer, where any idiot can walk into a war zone. Okay, can you think of anywhere she would go?”

  “The police asked me the same thing,” Yasmeen said. “I can’t think of a single place. I know she wouldn’t just leave her patients in the lurch either. Something’s happened to her.”

  “Emily doesn’t let anything just happen to her.”

  “That’s true.” Yasmeen smiled. “It’s what makes her such an incredible battlefield surgeon. She’s completely prepared and has a course of action, but she can change in a heartbeat if she needs to. And she’ll have steady hands all the while.”

  Alex ran one hand through his hair. “That’s what makes me feel crazy asking this question, but . . . there’s no way Emily has a drug problem, right?”

  Yasmeen’s face registered shock. “Emily? No.” Her earrings clattered as she shook her head. “Definitely not.”

  “Look, I know you’re Emily’s friend. I know you’re loyal to her. But something’s been bothering me.”
>
  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’ve been questioning my judgment,” Alex said. “You know I came to see Emily here last Friday.”

  Yasmeen nodded.

  “The reason I came into the office last week was because I found a batch of prescriptions Emily had written.”

  Yasmeen frowned. “New York State doesn’t allow written prescriptions anymore. Everything has to be submitted electronically. Maybe she was making notes on old prescription pads?”

  “No.” The word came out louder than he intended. He lowered his voice to a whisper. “They were scripts for fentanyl and tramadol and a bunch of other drugs.”

  “Fentanyl?” Yasmeen looked incredulous. “No. She wouldn’t do that. Tramadol and some sedatives, maybe . . .”

  “You know something, don’t you?”

  “Emily isn’t using drugs. There’s no way.”

  “Tell me. What happened?”

  “I don’t want to make a big deal out of this,” Yasmeen said slowly. “A few months ago, we got a call from a pharmacy in Yonkers about a prescription. There’ve been a few calls like that. Nothing problematic. Just . . . we don’t have much call for certain drugs here. Certainly not methadone.”

  “Methadone?” That caught Alex by surprise. He couldn’t remember seeing a script for that. “Did you ask Emily about it?”

  “I did. She told me she was helping out a clinic. Which made a certain amount of sense, but . . .”

  “But what?”

  “She wouldn’t tell me anything about this clinic, so I dropped it. But then I did a search. You know the pharmacies all scan prescriptions they fill, right? It’s all on record for two years. Anyway . . .” She gulped. “There were quite a few prescriptions. Nothing dramatic, some Vicodin and Seconal. Methadone too. All to different people in different places. And if it was all connected to a clinic . . . well, why are some of the prescriptions being filled upstate and in Connecticut and New Jersey? It doesn’t track.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I talked to Emily about it, mostly because I thought a con artist had hacked our system and was forging prescriptions in her name. But she didn’t deny it.” Yasmeen sank back in her chair. “She told me not to worry, that it wouldn’t happen again. And it didn’t. I know, because I’ve checked. But it all bothers me. Emily must’ve had a good reason. It’s not like she was working for an online pharmacy, supplying drug addicts with easy prescriptions.”

  “She wouldn’t do that,” Alex affirmed.

  “Definitely not,” Yasmeen agreed. But that didn’t make Alex feel any better. Something had happened to Emily. Maybe the stress she was under had nothing to do with him, but that idea only made him more afraid. Emily had vanished, and he had no idea where to find her.

  CHAPTER 20

  SHERYN

  Sheryn arrived at work early as usual on Tuesday. She gave Rafael’s empty chair the hairy eyeball and went about her business. It wasn’t like she didn’t have plenty to do. Emily Teare’s financial records were far less interesting than her phone ones; there just wasn’t much to go on. Dr. Teare wasn’t extravagant; she lived well within her means. Her student debt was paid off, and she had no credit card debt. Boring and responsible was a good way to live, Sheryn figured, but it was a lousy way to lay out bread crumbs for the cops who might be following your trail. The one useful thing was that the good doctor liked to use her credit cards for everything: drugstores, groceries, even lunch. From that, Sheryn deduced that she really liked salads. She’d bought one on Friday, and that had been the last time she’d used the card.

  Dr. Teare’s bank account was a little more revealing. Sheryn tracked back a year, looking at the pattern of deposits and debits. The doctor’s paycheck was deposited automatically. She paid her credit balances out of the same account. She normally withdrew a hundred dollars at a time, pocket money for whatever she couldn’t pay for with a credit card, Sheryn figured. Six months earlier, there had been a withdrawal for a thousand dollars. That had happened again a month later, and again three weeks after that. Some fifteen thousand dollars had vanished from the account in a short space of time.

  Sheryn made a note. It proved nothing, but it was suggestive. No one had hinted that the doctor had a drug problem, but that was one possibility. Another was that she’d been squirreling away money, maybe to leave her boyfriend. Sheryn wasn’t buying that, since the account was only in the doctor’s name. Something tugged at her memory, and she returned to the credit card files. That was it, she realized. Dr. Teare made regular, large contributions to certain aid groups. She hadn’t done that in the past four months. Her money had been going elsewhere.

  But where?

  Sheryn wanted to kick this around with her partner, but Rafael was nowhere to be found. At nine, she shot him a curt text. She didn’t hear from him for almost half an hour, when he finally called her.

  “Guess what I found?” Rafael’s voice was triumphant.

  “I hope for your sake it’s a time machine, because your sorry ass is late yet again.”

  “You’re going to have to be nice if you want me to tell you where Emily Teare’s car is.”

  “Her car?” Sheryn was nonplussed. “What are you talking about? She doesn’t have a car. We ran her name through the system.”

  “Her name, sure. Not her brother’s.” Rafael’s voice was laconic. He was obviously pleased with himself.

  “Her brother lives in San Francisco.”

  “And his ex-wife lived in New York until she moved to Singapore,” Rafael said. “She sold the car to her ex. He uses it when he comes to town.”

  “And he lets Emily borrow it.” Sheryn chewed on that. “Good work, partner.”

  “Shucks. I do it all for the head pats. Prepare to be even more impressed: I found the car this morning.”

  “The suspense is killing me,” Sheryn said drily.

  “It’s parked near Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx.”

  Sheryn inhaled sharply. “You find anything inside?”

  “We haven’t opened it up yet. Thought maybe I should wait for you, even though you’re making me late.”

  “Hilarious,” Sheryn said. “You’ve been waiting to say that to me since you transferred here.”

  “Guilty as charged. Meet me in the Bronx at East Two Hundred and Thirty-Ninth Street and Martha Avenue?”

  It took Sheryn a solid forty minutes to drive to the far northeast side of Woodlawn Cemetery. When she thought of the Bronx, she pictured the crumbling buildings of the South Bronx. The northern part of the borough was nothing like that. Woodlawn Heights, in particular, was a beauty, filled with large houses that ran the gamut from romantic Victorian to redbrick federalist. The lawns were well kept, and the blocks were leafy. Sure, it was in the shadow of a cemetery, but even that was a scenic spot.

  Rafael was leaning on a black Mercedes. He waved to her when she got out. “I figured you for a faster driver than that, Detective.”

  “You’re a bundle of laughs today,” Sheryn said. “Is this where Dr. Teare usually parks the car?”

  “Nope. It’s paid for by the month at a lot near a train station out here. Her brother has no idea why it would be left here.”

  “Too bad,” Sheryn said. “I was hoping we’d catch the driver crossing a bridge or tunnel. If the car’s normally out in the Bronx, we don’t have that.”

  “Sorry it didn’t come wrapped in a big bow,” Rafael said. “Let’s start with what we’ve got.”

  The uniform popped the driver’s side door open for them. Sheryn got in and sat in the driver’s seat, reaching over to unlock the passenger door for her partner. He got in. The two of them sat quietly, not moving for a minute, as if they were bound for a road trip but couldn’t figure out where the hell they were going.

  “So, is it just me, or is this the cleanest car you’ve ever seen?” Sheryn asked. “Aside from those handprints on the window, I mean?”

  They both stared at the driver’s window. There
were two human paw prints, as if someone had braced themselves against the car.

  “It’s been around the block a few times, but it’s in good shape.” Rafael looked around. “Someone keyed it on the passenger side. Wonder when that happened?”

  “No, I mean . . .” Sheryn paused for a second. “Everything about Emily Teare is so organized, isn’t it? It’s like her color-coded closet. Everything’s in its own box. Nothing out of place.”

  Rafael opened the compartment in front of him. “Let’s see, registration, map book . . . everything that should be there is there. Nothing more.” He flipped through the map book. “Looks like she went up to High Falls on a regular basis.”

  “That’s, what, ninety minutes north of here?” Sheryn asked. “I don’t think she went there this time.”

  “Something to check out, though.”

  There was nothing at all in the back seat when they looked. Sheryn pulled up the floor mats, but there was nothing hiding underneath.

  “Well, it was worth a shot,” Rafael said. “Let’s check the trunk.”

  Sheryn popped it open. As she walked around the car, the breeze caught her face. There was a hint of something metallic in it, and it made the back of her throat burn. Rafael stood in front of the open trunk, frozen. When Sheryn looked in, she understood why. There were bloodstains on the gray carpet inside.

  CHAPTER 21

  ALEX

  “I guess the police already went through Emily’s office?” Alex asked.

  Yasmeen shook her head. “Detective Sterling wanted to, but our administrator told her no. She said the police would have to come back with a warrant.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding. I can’t believe Sterling was shot down. She couldn’t have taken that well.”