“Your . . . mother?”
“My parents own this place.”
“And . . . your support group?”
“Narcotics Anonymous.” She was whispering now. “I kind of flamed out last year and went into rehab. That’s how I ended up living in my parents’ house and working here. This is life on the straight and narrow.”
“But you’ve been veering off that course. What were you looking for in my apartment?”
“A place to hang out.”
“It’s like you’re not even trying to come up with a good excuse,” Alex said. “You were looking for the prescriptions Emily had written.”
She squinted at him. “You found them? I hope you got good value for them. Those scripts are worth a lot.”
“Who gave you the key to my apartment?”
She was defiant. “Emily.”
There was only a tiny pause, but it was clear to him that she was lying. Alex leaned forward. “In that case, the police definitely want to talk with you. Emily’s missing.”
“Missing?” She stared at him. “Like face-on-a-milk-carton missing?”
“You can put it that way. You’ll need to have a chat with them.”
“No-o-o. Definitely not. Look, it wasn’t Emily who gave me the key, okay? I only met her twice.”
“How did you meet her?”
“I don’t know the backstory, but she came out here to make sure everything was set up properly,” Diana said. “She didn’t want any blowback. That’s why she was writing scripts for beta-blockers and other heart meds. It all looked legit.”
Alex’s heart sank. It was awful, having to acknowledge that Emily was knowingly mixed up in some scheme. Why would she do it?
“Who introduced you to Emily?”
“Cori’s boyfriend.”
Alex blinked. “Cori was dating a guy who treated her like shit. How the hell would Emily know him?”
“I thought Will was a friend of yours.”
“Will?” Alex stared at her. It didn’t make sense. A chill ran through him, and he realized he didn’t want it to make sense. It was as if he’d put together a puzzle only to discover it was an image stolen from his nightmares. “Will Sipher set this up?”
Diana’s expression was plaintive. “Please don’t tell him you found me. He’ll make trouble for me if he thinks I screwed up. If my parents find out I haven’t exactly been following my program, I’ll be homeless.”
Alex couldn’t process what she was saying. He was reeling. “I don’t believe you.”
“I’m serious. My parents—”
“No. About Will. He’s . . .” Alex was about to say He’s my friend, but stopped, realizing how ridiculous that sounded. “He wouldn’t do this,” Alex said, knowing that wasn’t true but wishing it were.
Diana stared at him, eyes wide in disbelief. “Will would stab you in the back and ask why you’re bleeding.”
“I’ve known him all my life.” It was a stupid thing to say, Alex realized, but it encapsulated how he felt. He knew Will had a manipulative, cunning streak, and he was aware of Will’s ongoing issues with drugs. But that wasn’t the same as discovering that Will had outright lied to him. Worse, Will had somehow snared Emily in one of his schemes.
“I don’t know what he was like back then,” Diana said. “But I know what he’s like now.”
Alex swallowed hard. “You pretended to know Emily. You had details about her. About me.”
“Will coached me in case the worst-case scenario happened. He was supposed to stand guard outside your building and text me if you came in, but he screwed up.”
Alex swallowed hard. “How did you know Cori?”
“I used to buy stuff from her.”
“Stuff . . . like drugs?”
“Keep your voice down!” she hissed. “You’re going to ruin everything for me! Will told me you were a psycho.”
“Excuse me?”
She shrank back a little. “He told me . . . he told me you’d been known to hurt women.”
“That’s not true.” Alex could feel his face growing red with shame at being accused of such a thing. It was not just a lie, but a particularly ugly one designed to go for his jugular. “I’ve got plenty of faults, but I’ve never abused anyone.”
“What about Cori?” Diana’s voice was barely a whisper.
“She was my friend, one of the few people I ever felt I could confide in.” For all of Cori’s complexities and rages, that was true. She was one of the rare people in the world who Alex felt never judged him.
“I mean . . . how she died,” Diana clarified.
“What does Will think I did to her?” Alex asked. It was one thing to have the police be suspicious of him; that was their job. But discovering his friend believed the worst of him was devastating. “He wasn’t even there.”
“He warned me to be careful around you,” Diana said. “He told me flat out that you killed Cori.”
CHAPTER 39
SHERYN
“I knew you wouldn’t be able to do without me for long,” Sandy Reilly crowed when Sheryn showed up at his door. Since he’d retired from the NYPD three months earlier, she’d only seen him once. But as he pulled her into a hug, it felt like old times.
“You know I’m coming back out here soon with a bottle of scotch and my best poker face,” Sheryn said. “Because I’m going to clean you out.”
“Big talk, sure,” Sandy said, leading her inside the house. He was Staten Island born and proud of it, and his tiny bungalow was barely a mile from where he’d grown up. “Hasn’t that been your plan for the last decade? You’re like Wile E. Coyote.”
“Maybe I’ll start ordering from Acme.” Sheryn looked around. “Where’s Maureen?”
Sandy shook his head. “Since I retired, she’s threatened to kill me at least once a day. My wife likes the house the way she likes it. I’m messing it all up. I bought her a membership at the botanical garden over at Snug Harbor so she can go there with her friends and complain about me.”
“Sounds like my in-laws,” Sheryn said. “They both worked, but the house was still my mother-in-law’s domain.”
“Sexist, if you ask me,” Sandy said. “How’s Douglass and the kiddos?”
“Everyone’s fine. Fingers crossed, a certain pint-sized ballerina is aiming to be in The Nutcracker this Christmas. Consider yourself warned.”
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Sandy said. “Do sit down. Coffee?”
“No, thanks, I’m jumpy enough.” Sheryn sat at the kitchen table. “I told you I need to ask about the Cori Stanton case.”
“I remember it well,” Sandy said. “One of the only regrets of my career was that I never put the killer behind bars.”
“Alex Traynor. Here’s the thing. Looking back, we were certain that he did it. Why?”
“Well, him babbling out his confession on video at the station really helped,” Sandy pointed out. “And what he said to you about killing a woman in Syria . . .”
“In our illicit little sting operation. Right. But if he hadn’t said those things, would we have been so certain he was guilty?”
“I’m not sure I follow.”
“What I mean is we didn’t have any real physical evidence against Traynor,” Sheryn said. “The scratches on his face happened earlier that night. There weren’t any other wounds on him. No signs of a struggle on the roof.”
“He was as high as an elephant’s eye,” Sandy said. “He could’ve done anything that night. Remember, we had him at the station and had to send him over to Bellevue. He was in rough shape.”
“But Cori Stanton was just as high.”
“She had that blood on her hand, remember? Her right palm was cut.”
“But we never figured out how she got that wound,” Sheryn said. “We had theories, but nothing proved out.”
“Traynor lied to us about her being his girlfriend,” Sandy said.
“Did he? We knew Emily was his girlfriend . . .”
&n
bsp; “Fine, then Cori was his sidepiece.”
“Cori’s father insisted Alex Traynor and his daughter were a couple,” Sheryn said. “He swore up and down that was true. Traynor said they were just friends. I’m worried that we took the word of a distraught father at face value, and that it influenced us too much.”
“No, there was other evidence,” Sandy said. “Cori had a key to his apartment. When TARU looked at her phone data, we found she was practically living with Traynor.”
“Or with someone else down the block. That’s not conclusive.”
“She called her father, just before she died, remember? She told him she was bringing her boyfriend over to meet him the next day. Not the words of a girl who was about to kill herself.”
“If you trust Stanton’s version of the call. I don’t know that I do anymore. He’s been spinning some crazy stories the past couple of days, trying to get Traynor arrested.”
“Like what?” Sandy asked.
“He punched Traynor and tried to get Traynor locked up for assault,” Sheryn said. “When I wouldn’t play ball, he lodged a complaint about me with the lieutenant. Even showed up with a lawyer this morning.”
“Poor man has lost his mind,” Sandy said. “Traynor also had that sneaky, snaky lawyer. You know who I mean. That Chinese fellow.”
Sheryn rolled her eyes and sighed. “How many times do I have to tell you . . .”
“I’m just being descriptive,” Sandy said defensively. “It’s not like being Chinese is a negative thing. Leeward, that’s his name. Thought he was a big shot. He just came in and took over.”
“That’s what convinced you of Traynor’s guilt? You didn’t like his lawyer?”
“Why is this important all of a sudden?” Sandy asked.
“Because Emily Teare is missing.”
“Emily?” Sandy sat back in his chair. “That wonderful woman.”
“I figured you for being a bit sweet on her.”
“Who wouldn’t be?” Sandy asked. “Beauty and brains and devoted to saving the world. The wonder of it was that she had anything to do with that Traynor character. No accounting for taste.” He shook his head. “How long has she been missing?”
“Since Friday night. That’s the last time anyone saw her.”
“That’s terrible. You think Traynor did something to her?”
“That’s what I started out thinking,” Sheryn admitted. “Now, I’m not so sure. Do you remember Will Sipher? Traynor’s friend who also lived in the building. You know, the Caucasian investment banker.”
“Ha ha.” Sandy didn’t sound amused.
“What? I’m just being descriptive,” Sheryn said. “Anyway, he gave us a statement that night, which was basically that he saw no evil, heard no evil, et cetera. But it was pretty clear that guy likes his drugs. Why did we accept his statement at face value? How likely is it that he was home that night, sleeping soundly, and not part of the drug extravaganza?”
“No one ever put him on the roof. His ankle was busted up, remember? Traynor himself said Sipher wasn’t there. Emily Teare said she didn’t see him.”
“Right, but Dr. Teare was on the street,” Sheryn said. “I never believed she could see much of anything that happened on the roof.”
“You think Sipher was involved in Cori’s death?”
“I don’t know,” Sheryn said. “I can tell you he’s been an asshole to deal with. My new partner and I went to his building last night, and he wouldn’t even open his door.”
“Sounds like you feel about him the way I felt about Leeward,” Sandy observed. “Just because someone’s a bastard, it doesn’t mean they’re guilty.”
“I know. But it feels wrong. He should care about finding his friend’s girlfriend, right? But he clearly doesn’t.”
“He may have been smoking or snorting a substance he knew he’d get arrested for,” Sandy said. “There are other reasons he might not answer the door.”
“There’s someone else I wanted to talk to you about: Kevin Stanton.”
“What about him?”
“Do you think he’s all there, mentally speaking?”
“I only met the man after his daughter died,” Sandy said. “Of course he seemed mad as a hatter. How could he not be? Her death broke his heart. I’m sure he’s not the same man he once was.”
“I know. But I think there’s something off about him.”
“If anyone harmed one of my kids, I’d hurt them too.”
“That’s exactly what I’m thinking,” Sheryn said. “He hates Alex Traynor. What if he did something to Emily Teare as revenge?”
Sandy pondered that and shook his head. “Stanton’s not a killer. I’m sure of that.”
“How do you know?”
“Because he told me he thought of a thousand ways to kill Alex Traynor, and he couldn’t follow through. He said it wouldn’t be true justice.”
Sheryn shook her head. “What if he’s gotten tired of waiting for justice?”
CHAPTER 40
ALEX
Will wouldn’t answer his phone, no matter how many times Alex called. He wasn’t in his apartment, and he wasn’t in any of his usual watering holes. There was one other place Alex could think of to look, and that was Mrs. Sipher’s house in Riverdale. Alex hailed a cab and headed north. It was a long drive in rush hour traffic. When he finally arrived at his destination, twilight was settling into dusk.
He stood in front of Will’s house for a minute. He had a lot of warm memories there. After his own mother had died, he remembered Mrs. Sipher saying, You know, I always wanted to have more children. Come live with us. It will be good for Will to have a brother.
That idea had always stuck with him. He’d put up with Will’s grandiosity and superiority and everything else because he believed in that bond. His sense of betrayal was overwhelming. If we’re brothers, he’s Cain and I’m Abel, Alex thought.
The wrought iron gate around the property was locked, so Alex clambered over it. He rang the bell and waited. There were no lights on. If Will wasn’t there, he had nowhere else to look. But he wasn’t going to give up.
Alex walked around the perimeter of the house until he got to the back, where the kitchen was. Mrs. Sipher used to hide a key inside a fake rock next to the door, but it wasn’t there anymore. Of course, Will would never do that. But Alex didn’t need the help. He picked the lock in two minutes. As he opened the door, he thought he heard a scream but couldn’t tell if it was human or animal. He stood still and listened, but whatever sound he’d caught inside the house had ceased. He moved inside as quietly as he could and locked the door behind him.
The kitchen hadn’t changed at all in twenty years, except that in Mrs. Sipher’s day it had been spotless and smelled of citrus; now, there were empty liquor bottles and greasy wrappers and a stench that suggested something had died underneath the rubble. The maple cabinets and cozy breakfast nook were still there, but there was grime on the floor, like an animal had tracked mud inside.
This wasn’t like Will, he thought. He didn’t understand what had happened to him, and at that moment, he was so angry that he didn’t care. Before he could decide which way to go, he heard a woman cry out. That made up his mind for him. He raced through the kitchen and up the stairs.
The woman’s screams got louder; it sounded as if she were being tortured.
“Emily?” Alex shouted. “Are you there?”
The scream died instantly; there was total silence instead. Upstairs, all of the doors were closed, but light spilled out underneath one. Alex rushed at it, shouldering it open.
Inside, Will was sprawled on a mattress on the floor. The walls were lined with photographs of his ex-wife, but the only piece of furniture in the room was a giant flat-screen TV; it was paused on a naked woman with giant breasts, her mouth open in a scream. The air smelled like burning plastic.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Will’s deep voice was startlingly calm. He was holding a piece of aluminum foil a
nd a lighter in one hand and a glass straw in the other. He wore an untucked white dress shirt and suit pants, as if he’d come home from the hedge-fund job he didn’t have anymore. There was white tape over the bridge of his nose.
“What happened to you?” Alex asked, so astonished he set aside his anger for a moment.
“I had a little accident,” Will said. “Or maybe a big accident. My nose may be broken. But I’m fine, fine, fine. Come on—sit down. Don’t stand on ceremony. My mother isn’t around to judge you.”
Will had never really gotten along with his own mother. After Alex had moved in, Will had told him that Alex was the son his mother had always wanted. But Alex had no time to deal with Will’s demons; he had enough of his own. He strained his ears, listening for any noise. Had the screams all come from that porno?
“Where’s Emily?”
“How would I know?”
“If she’s in the house, I’ll find her,” Alex said, turning and heading out of the room. The dark rooms on the second story didn’t seem like likely prospects, but he checked each one out, stopping momentarily at the one with blue-striped wallpaper that had been his for a year. All of the rooms were devoid of furniture, though they had window shades that were pulled down. It was as if the house itself were in mourning.
“What are you looking for?” Will had gotten up and was standing in the doorway.
Alex didn’t answer. He headed down the stairs. The grand rooms on either side of the front door were empty as well.
“Where is everything?” Alex asked.
“What?” Will looked around. “Oh, that. Mother’s musty old stuff? Gone.”
“You sold it for drugs?”
“It’s not like I wanted all of that old lace and velvet,” Will said. “I don’t understand what you expect to find here.”
“What’s in the cellar?”
“Rats, probably.”
In the low light, Alex couldn’t see what, exactly, was on the parquet floor of the hallway, but it crunched underfoot. There was something feral about Will, now that he was in his den. It was as if he’d slipped out of a human disguise and taken a different form. “Why is it so dark?”
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