One Small Sacrifice

by Hilary Davidson

  “Talking to you that evening was what made me start to remember going to the Bronx,” Alex said. “I was drunk, and I popped some pills. I know I wasn’t thinking straight when I went up there. Later, I had trouble remembering it. It was like a hazy dream. I know I stared into the car windows. I have a flashlight on my key chain, and I used it to look inside.”

  “Did you pop open the trunk?”

  “No. There’s only one set of keys, and Emily took them with her. Her brother keeps the other set. I couldn’t open the doors or the trunk.”

  “Would it surprise you to learn we found blood in the trunk of her car?”

  “Blood?” Alex repeated.

  “Yes.”

  “Emily’s blood?” Panic flooded through him.

  “We’re waiting on DNA analysis. It is type A positive.”

  “You think she’s hurt?” Alex’s voice was tight. “Have you checked the hospitals?”

  “We’re taking care of that, Mr. Traynor. I want to know what you think. How did that blood get into your girlfriend’s car?”

  “Maybe someone attacked her,” Alex said. “On her way out of town. Maybe . . .” His voice trailed off. “I don’t know what to think. But this means she’s in trouble. We’ve got to find her.”

  “Let’s go over your alibi again. You last saw Emily when?”

  “Friday, around noon, when I went to her office.”

  “And you had a fight. What was that about?”

  “Work,” Alex said softly.

  “You want me to arrest you right here and now?”

  “Emily works with some groups that help refugees and immigrants.” He searched the detective’s eyes for understanding. “Undocumented immigrants. I found some stuff that must’ve been related to that, and . . . I lost it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it was illegal.” He shook his head. “I can’t say more than that. I was worried about what she’d gotten herself into.”

  Sterling was silent for a bit. “Who would Emily know in the Bronx?”

  “I can’t think of anyone. She grew up in California. I’m the one who grew up in Riverdale.”

  “Well, then, who do you still know in the Bronx?”

  “Aside from my friend Will, no one.”

  The detective sat up ramrod straight, as if she’d been jolted by electricity. “Will Sipher,” she repeated. “Your friend who lived a couple of floors down from you, the one who was going through an ugly divorce?”

  “You remember him.”

  “Let’s just say he left an impression on me. He moved out of your building?”

  “Last January. He went to a better building in Hell’s Kitchen, closer to Central Park.”

  “He doesn’t have a place up in the Bronx anymore?”

  “His mother died in January,” Alex said. “Will inherited her house in Riverdale. She never left the area where Will and I grew up.”

  “What’s your fiancée’s relationship with Will like?” the detective asked.

  “She tolerates him, but she’s not a fan of his.” Alex paused. “Though she asked CJ for a favor on his behalf.”

  “What favor?”

  “You know Will was convicted of insider trading, right?”

  “Wasn’t that part of the reason his wife left him?”

  Alex nodded. “Will wants to get the conviction overturned. Emily asked CJ for help with that, but he said no.”

  “Why would Emily want to help Will?”

  Alex turned that over in his mind. When CJ first mentioned the favor, Alex had brushed it off. After all, Emily was always helping people, so how was this any different? But the truth was that it wasn’t the same, because Emily had never liked Will. Your friend is a thoroughgoing creep, she’d announced after Alex first introduced them.

  Will’s an acquired taste, like Campari, Alex had joked. He takes some getting used to.

  He makes these nasty little digs at you. They’re like poison darts, Emily had insisted. He’s jealous of you. He doesn’t like the fact that your work is known around the world.

  I doubt he cares. He has more money than I’ll see in my lifetime.

  Emily had been right about the undercurrent between them, but brothers often competed with each other. Alex let Will’s negativity slide off him. It had gotten worse when Will lost his job, his money, and his marriage, but how could Alex hold that against him?

  “Cat got your tongue?” the detective prompted Alex, bringing him back into the present. He was still inside that airless cell, even if his mind was traveling through space and time.

  “Sorry, I was just thinking about something Emily said. I don’t know why she’d help him, except that Emily liked to say you should never give up on a lost cause. Maybe she figured Will for one.”

  “Do you think Emily and Will had contact over the past few weeks?”

  “No,” Alex answered immediately. “I saw Will last night. He didn’t know Emily had left. It’s not like she would confide in him.”

  “What did you talk about?”

  “Emily, mostly. I told him about our conversation. I was still remembering pieces of my trip up to the Bronx to look for the car, so I mentioned that.”

  Her stern face shifted. “You mentioned the car to Mr. Sipher?”

  Alex nodded, wondering suddenly if that had been a stupid thing to do. It had been on his mind, and so it had come out of his mouth. Yet again, he’d acted on instinct instead of thinking things through.

  “Tell me about your relationship with your fiancée,” Sterling said. “You met her in a war zone, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, in Syria.”

  “Seems to me like you’re both attracted to danger.”

  “That’s probably true about me,” Alex said. “I wandered into my first war zone in Afghanistan thinking I was going to be a hero and become famous. But that’s not Emily. The only thing she cares about is helping other people. She’s the most dedicated, fearless person I’ve ever known.”

  “Does Emily know about the woman you killed in Syria?”

  Alex stared at the detective. He knew if CJ were there, he’d order him to keep his mouth shut and beat a hasty retreat. Telling the truth wasn’t smart; it could bind him up in seven hells’ worth of legal trouble. But at that moment, Alex understood something he hadn’t before: Sterling saw him as a stone-cold killer. If he didn’t make her understand, she’d continue wasting her time tailing him instead of finding Emily.

  “Yes.” He took a deep breath. “I tried to explain it to her. She thinks I shouldn’t feel responsible, but I know I am. If I’d acted differently, that woman would be alive.”

  “What was her name?”

  “I never knew,” Alex said. “I wanted photos. That was all that mattered to me then. Pictures.”

  Shame coursed through him, heating up his blood and making him sweat. He didn’t want to add another word, but Sterling was frowning at him, intrigued in spite of her loathing.

  “I’d been in Aleppo for weeks,” Alex said. “The government was bombing the rebels holding the city, day and night. Everything was already in ruins. Every block, the buildings were busted wide open. They had snipers they’d send in. More than once, I was walking down a street, and I saw someone shot dead ten feet in front of me. The whole city reeked of death.”

  “Why did you stay?”

  “I told myself it was to be a witness,” Alex said. “That was a good reason, a pure reason, to be there. To show the world the horrors going on. People wouldn’t believe how bad it was without evidence. But later, when I had a lot of time to think, I realized it was arrogance. I’d had so many close calls, but I always came out unscathed. I was famous for being this brave, intrepid war photographer, and I made a lot of money in the process.”

  “You got yourself shot,” Sterling pointed out. “If you had nine lives, you’re down at least one.”

  Alex didn’t laugh at that, but he smiled inwardly. The cop didn’t like him, but he admired her. Sterling�
�s toughness and grit and gallows humor reminded him of Maclean. Not your turn today, his friend had liked to say. It wasn’t flippancy, but a grim acknowledgment that one day your number would come up. Not many people got it, but he knew instinctively that Sterling would understand.

  “True,” Alex said. “But at least I’m still above ground.”

  “Winning,” Sterling answered drily. “Tell me about the woman.”

  “People still took shelter in the remains of the buildings. They had nowhere else to go.” He took a breath. The scene was playing out in front of his eyes, as if he’d been transported back to Syria. “When the next bomb hit, the building would crumble. People would be buried alive. That’s what happened. I was talking with some guys I knew, and a bomb landed down the block and turned a building into rubble. We all ran to it. They started pulling bricks and beams and shoving them aside. I stood there and took photos.”

  He was dizzy as he spoke. His throat was dry, lowering his voice to a croak. But he didn’t stop.

  “The guys kept yelling at me to help them,” Alex said. “I didn’t. I stayed back, behind my camera. I got every second of the rescue. Every detail. Their hands were cut and bleeding, but that never slowed them down. They found a young woman under all that rubble, alive and crying for her mother. She looked like she was wearing a white dress, because she was covered in ash. I remember thinking how a photo of her rescue would be in every newscast and on the front page of every paper. Then another bomb came down and ripped them all to pieces.”

  Sterling gasped audibly, but she didn’t say a word.

  “They called it a double tap,” Alex said. “The planes would come back and drop another bomb on the same site, so they could kill the rescue workers there.”

  “You told me you killed a woman,” Sterling said. “Those were your words.”

  “I did,” Alex said. “If I’d helped dig her out, she would have lived. Literally one minute would’ve made all the difference in the world. Thirty seconds, even. She died because of me.”

  “What about the men who tried to rescue her? Don’t you feel responsible for them too?”

  “It’s not the same,” Alex said. “She could’ve been saved. But those guys were going to search the rubble for other survivors. They had friends who’d died like that. Nothing I did changed what happened to them.”

  Sterling stared at him for an uncomfortably long time. He couldn’t read her dark eyes or stern expression, but it filled him with dread. It was like watching a storm on the horizon, one that you prayed would shift direction.

  “Am I under arrest?” Alex asked finally.

  Sterling didn’t answer that. “When did your PTSD episodes start?”

  “After that last trip to Syria,” he answered.

  “You think that was because of this woman’s death?”

  “I was kidnapped immediately after that,” Alex said. “They held me for months. Tortured me. My mind wasn’t the same after that.”

  “The night your friend Cori died, did you have a PTSD episode?”

  “No,” Alex said softly. “I was planning to kill myself. I asked Cori to bring the heroin over. At first, she thought I was crazy, but then she started talking about how much she hated her life. I told her how stupid that was, but she was angry and upset that nothing was working out for her. I should’ve listened to her. Instead, I shot up and checked out. I just wanted out.”

  “What’s the last thing you remember from that night?” Sterling asked.

  Alex closed his eyes for a moment. “The stars,” he said. “The night was cold and clear, and I thought . . .” His voice trailed off.

  “You thought what?”

  Alex opened his eyes. “That I was joining them.” He took a deep breath. In that warm, dark pocket of his mind, there was a faint echo, a memory about that night he’d cast off like a bottle hurled into the ocean, and yet the waves were ferrying it back to him whether he wanted it or not.

  “You’re free to go, Mr. Traynor,” she said. “Just don’t go too far. We’ll need to talk again. Soon.”

  CHAPTER 27

  SHERYN

  When Sheryn finally returned to the Manhattan North Precinct, she found Rafael literally spinning in his desk chair. “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “You’re going to drive me crazy—you know that?” he said, whirling around again.

  “When I went downtown, I thought you were coming back here to work,” Sheryn said. “Didn’t you tell me you had a lead to follow up?”

  “I did, and you missed it. It was pretty damn exciting for a while. I had a suspect . . . nah, I’m going to make you wait for it,” Rafael said. “Also, I need you to explain to me why you kicked Traynor to the curb.”

  “I didn’t, the detectives at the Seventh Precinct did,” Sheryn answered. “But it was the right call. The assault claim was bogus, and there was video.”

  “Okay, maybe he was pure as the driven snow this time. But what does that matter when you’ve got the guy you want in custody?”

  “Are we going to have one of those ends-justify-the-means arguments? Because I’m down for that,” Sheryn said. “And I’m not going to have a clean collar muddied up with false claims. I know Mr. Stanton lost his daughter, and that breaks my heart. I’m going to give him a pass on whatever went down because of that. But I’m not going to pretend black is white. Alex Traynor only punched back in self-defense.”

  “Correct me if I’m wrong, but you hate this guy,” Rafael said. “The detective who laid this case out for me wanted to put a stake in his heart.”

  “Yep, you’re wrong.” Her tone was firm. “For the past year, I wanted him punished, but more than that, I wanted to make sure he didn’t hurt anyone else. But I just spent the last hour talking with him. He’s not a sociopath. He’s a borderline case with drug issues and PTSD. He’s basically a walking wound. That woman he told me he killed in Syria? He blames himself for taking pictures of her rescue instead of actually rescuing her.”

  “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “She died because she wasn’t saved fast enough. Alex Traynor has the guilt from that weighing him down.”

  “It sounds like the man made a convincing case for himself,” Rafael observed. “Clever. How much of his new story do you think is true?”

  “I don’t doubt what he told me. He’s never been a master planner. When he opens his mouth, he usually incriminates himself. I think this story has the ring of truth.” She exhaled loudly. “Which is kind of pissing me off, truth be told. For the past year, I’ve been rock-solid certain that Alex Traynor is capable of violence, at least in his fugue state. Everything fit together with a kind of heartless logic. But now . . . it feels like I missed part of the big picture. The more I poke at this case, the more I feel something isn’t right.”

  “A woman is missing,” Rafael pointed out. “That’s obviously not right.”

  “It’s more than that. When we were up in the Bronx this morning, there was something tugging at the back of my memory, something I couldn’t quite grasp. I realized what it was when I was talking with Traynor.”

  “What?”

  Sheryn made a dismissive noise in the back of her throat. “Nope. Your turn to writhe around in suspense, partner. Who’s this new suspect you found?”

  Rafael sighed. “Fine, I guess I deserved that. Please note that I expect applause.”

  Sheryn rolled her eyes. “Get to it.”

  “You’re going to be impressed. Wait for it. It’s . . . Emily Teare’s ex-husband.”

  Sheryn leaned so far forward in her chair that she nearly fell off. “What did you just say?”

  “You had no idea she’d been married, did you?” Rafael grinned at her. “Sorry, Grasshopper.”

  “You need to explain this, like, right now.”

  “Emily Teare got married when she was twenty-one,” Rafael said. “To a fellow Stanford student named Christopher Lee.”

  “Like the British actor?” Sheryn asked.<
br />
  “No relation, I presume, but yes. She was premed, he was prelaw. If you want to hazard a guess, I’d say her parents’ deaths played a part in it, on account of the timing. Anyway, the marriage only lasted a few months, but they stayed friends. He’s married and has two kids. Lives east of Gramercy Park.”

  “Does he have an alibi for the weekend?”

  “I dunno,” Rafael said. “I figured we could have a word with him together. Unlike some detectives, I keep my partner looped in.”

  “But you do it so passive-aggressively,” Sheryn said. “Okay, we’ll add that to our to-do list. We also need to talk to a friend of Traynor’s named Will Sipher.”

  “The name doesn’t ring a bell.”

  “He’s a shady character,” Sheryn said. “He and Traynor grew up together in Riverdale.”

  “That’s a real town? Not just from the Archie comics?”

  “Riverdale is part of the Bronx. A very ritzy section of the borough these days. Some of the houses up there sell for millions. There was lots of land in the north Bronx, and some people built castles up there. It’s a trip. You should go look sometime.”

  “Traynor and Sipher grew up in the lap of luxury?”

  “Traynor didn’t,” Sheryn said. “His mother passed away from cancer when he was in high school. I don’t know what happened to his father, but he floated out of the picture. Traynor moved into his friend’s house and finished high school while he lived there.”

  “These two are tight?”

  “Not exactly,” Sheryn said. “They followed different paths. Traynor dropped out of college and went overseas to work. Sipher graduated from Wharton and worked on Wall Street. I don’t know how close they were for years. But then the bottom fell out of Sipher’s life. He was charged with insider trading.”

  “Wall Street leeches never serve time.”

  “True, but he lost his job and was banned from his industry,” Sheryn said. “I know it’s not enough, but the point is he reconnected with Traynor around then. Even moved into an apartment in Traynor’s building. He was living there when Cori Stanton fell to her death. We got a statement from him that night.”