One Small Sacrifice

by Hilary Davidson

  “I don’t believe that. Not coming from him,” CJ said. “Have you considered the other possibility?”

  “What’s that?”

  “That it was actually Will who pushed Cori off the roof? He never admitted to the police that he was there. Maybe he framed you for what he did.”

  Alex turned that over in his mind. His relationship with Will was irretrievably broken; there was nothing he’d put past him.

  “I wish I could believe that,” Alex said. “But even if Will’s lying, there’s one thing that’s true. Emily thinks I’m guilty. She’s been trying to protect me.”

  “She never told me you did it,” CJ said softly. He closed his eyes for a moment and pressed his fingers to his temples. “And now that we’re talking about this, I can’t believe I’ve been so stupid.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The police came here to question me about Emily. They were pressing me for details, and there was something that came to mind, but I couldn’t tell them.”

  “What?”

  “Emily told me she met a woman who was in trouble. She said the woman was an illegal immigrant, and a man was extorting money out of her by threatening to call ICE agents on her. She’d had to steal money to pay him. Emily wanted to report the man for the crime, but worried the woman would get deported. She wanted to know if she could report him after the woman somehow got a green card.”

  “What did you tell her?”

  “That the extortionist would go to jail,” CJ said. “But one of two things would happen to his victim: she would either be deported, or she would go to jail as well.”

  CHAPTER 45

  SHERYN

  “I’ve got to be honest.” Rafael shook his head in disgust. “You could smell the flop sweat coming off the super when we asked him questions. What are the odds that he’s mixed up in Emily Teare’s disappearance?”

  “He’s more mouse than man,” Sheryn said. “He’s nervous about his drug issues and thinks we’re going to bust him for that. Funny thing is, I believe he might actually care about her safety. But he’s definitely lying to us about something.”

  They were back at the precinct, both of them so keyed up that each time one of them sat down, the other got up and started pacing. It was stressful, but at least Sheryn had someone to share that burden with.

  “You think someone is paying the super off?” Rafael asked.

  “That’s a guy who’s been bought and sold a hundred times over. I did get the sense he’s in Will Sipher’s pocket. He loves that guy.”

  “How many buildings does he have access to?”

  “I remember from the Cori Stanton investigation that there are two, plus a couple of others on the side.”

  “We need access to all of them,” Rafael said. “Did you ever look at him for Stanton’s death?”

  Sheryn shook her head. “Nope. Bobby Costa was in Philly for Thanksgiving.”

  “How’d he get down there?”

  “He drove.”

  “You ever check into when he left for Philadelphia?” Rafael asked. “Because I’m wondering if he drove down there after Cori Stanton died, just so he wouldn’t be on the premises.”

  “We didn’t look at him that hard. We didn’t look at anyone else that hard. We thought it was Alex Traynor, and we didn’t dig deeper.” She rested her head in her hands. “When I saw Sandy today, I asked him why we were so quick to jump to conclusions. He said it was because there was so much evidence. But you know what the truth was? Neither of us liked Alex Traynor. It was a gut instinct that went sideways.”

  “You had enough evidence to damn him in most people’s eyes.”

  “Maybe, but some of that evidence . . .” She grimaced. “Like the smashed-up burner phone. That seemed like such a slam dunk. Only, why was there a smashed-up burner phone under the table next to the door? I mean, you take all the trouble to break it to pieces, but you don’t finish the job by putting it down the chute?” She spread her hands wide. “His prints weren’t even on it. Either someone brought it over because they didn’t want to dispose of it in their own building, or someone was framing him.”

  “Twenty-twenty hindsight,” Rafael said.

  “No, it’s worse than that,” Sheryn said. “You remember when I told you about how I had no trouble believing Traynor has PTSD, that I’d seen it before, up close? That was because of my father. He served in the army, but it . . . it broke his mind. He had hallucinations. He self-medicated with booze and dope. And he got violent. Seriously violent. My mother got the brunt of it. She finally left him after he almost choked her to death.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “The worst thing is I don’t look at it like my father tried to kill my mother. I look at it like my father was wrestling with his demons and my mother got in the way. I know he wasn’t a bad man.”

  “Wasn’t. He passed away?”

  “When I was in college.” Sheryn paused, swallowing hard. She liked her partner, and there was a fragile trust growing between them, but she wasn’t ready to tell him everything about her father, especially about how he’d died. It wasn’t an easy subject for her to think about, never mind speak of. “Look, all I know is this: you send a man into a war zone, and what comes home isn’t the same person. Maybe he’s better and stronger for it. But, more often than we ever admit, what comes back is a badly broken shell.”

  “You’re blaming yourself for bringing baggage to this job,” Rafael said. “As if every single one of us doesn’t do that. As if every bit of our perspective isn’t shaped by what we’ve been through.”

  “Yes, but it’s my job to stand back from that,” Sheryn said. “To keep an open mind.”

  “You ever hear about the philosopher who wrote that it’s the same thing to jump from a window as it is to be pushed out a window?”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Most people think I’m Latino because of my name, but my mother was French,” Rafael said. “She made me read all kinds of literature and philosophy when I was growing up. There was this one writer who fascinated me. His argument was that there’s no such thing as free will, that everything we do is determined by our natures and by what we’ve done before.”

  “Then how is anyone ever responsible for anything they do, if there’s no choice?”

  “He said that they weren’t, because no free will was involved.”

  “But people still know the difference between right and wrong,” Sheryn argued. “If they choose to do evil, they’re making that decision consciously.”

  “It’s something I keep in mind when I’m talking to people,” Rafael said. “It’s not easy to separate a person from their programming.”

  “I’ve been carrying this bundle of ugly feelings about Alex Traynor around for the better part of a year. What I hate are people who think there’s one set of rules for them and another for everyone else. I’ve been putting him in that boat.”

  “Then let’s look at this objectively. Set the Stanton case aside. What do you see on the Teare case?”

  “Kevin Stanton scares me,” Sheryn said. “He’s full of rage. I think he’d be capable of hurting someone if it meant Traynor would suffer too. I still want someone to get a look inside his house.”

  “Plainclothes cops at the Seventh are quietly keeping track of him,” Rafael said. “He left work with his gal pal, Magda. They went to her apartment.”

  “Okay.” Sheryn kept circling their desks like a distracted shark. “That’s good.”

  “You know what we never talked about?” Rafael asked. “Emily Teare writing prescriptions for painkillers. What are the odds she’s got an addiction problem?”

  “Low. I honestly don’t think that would escape the hospital’s notice.”

  “Maybe she’s a weekend user,” Rafael said. “Her habit might still be in check.”

  “I still don’t buy it,” Sheryn said. “She got Traynor through rehab and helps him fight his addictions. She’s going to sudden
ly start using the same drugs?”

  “Well, then, maybe she’s selling those scripts.”

  “That thought crossed my mind,” Sheryn admitted. “But I’ve been keeping it on a choke chain, because she’s the victim we’re trying to help. I can’t start eyeing her like a perp. Not until we find her.”

  “Yeah, I’m on that same page. But what if someone made her disappear because of those scripts?”

  “That’s like killing the golden goose. She can’t write scripts for anybody now. So, unless she chose to disappear . . .”

  “It doesn’t really track, does it?” Rafael said. “Whatever angle you look at, this case is screwy.”

  “Let’s go back to basics,” Sheryn said. “The blood evidence in Traynor’s apartment and in Teare’s car. We’ve checked and double-checked, and that car did not drive into, or out of, the city. It doesn’t add up. The apartment and car weren’t in the same borough, and yet there’s all this blood? To me, it’s starting to feel like a setup.”

  “As if someone knew we’d look hard at Traynor if his girlfriend disappeared and we found evidence suggesting a crime.”

  “Exactly,” Sheryn agreed. “He’s the perfect patsy.”

  “Here’s one thing I’m wondering about,” Rafael said. “We’ve got these men we’re suspicious of: Traynor, Sipher, Stanton, Leeward, and Costa, right? But we have that eyewitness account of a female walking away from Emily Teare’s car.”

  “I thought you didn’t believe that woman.”

  “I’m not sure if I do,” Rafael said. “But what Costa said about the hoodie and gloves was wild. I’m starting to wonder if Emily actually came back from that run she took, or if that was someone else. What if there’s another woman mixed up in this?”

  CHAPTER 46

  BOBBY

  It was weird, being haunted by Emily. Bobby had always liked her, but suddenly she was on his brain 24-7. He kept telling himself it was no big deal, those white lies he’d told; he was just making sure he stayed out of the cops’ crosshairs. People like him, they didn’t do so well with the police. But the stress was getting to him, gnawing away at his stomach like a rat. He was getting an ulcer over this—he was sure of it.

  Even though it was late, and all he wanted to do was sniff at some pretty underwear, he trundled up the stairs, breathing more heavily with each flight, until he got to the fifth floor. Then he knocked on Alex’s door and waited. No one answered, and when he pressed his ear against the door, the apartment was silent as a tomb.

  Suddenly, there was a bark, and Bobby’s head turned back so fast his neck made an unhealthy crack, like a twig snapping. He knew that sound: it meant that ugly mutt was over at Mrs. DiGregorio’s and that Alex was out for the evening. Bobby was tempted to let himself into the apartment, but the thought immediately depressed him. Imagine pawing over Emily’s lingerie while she was missing? That felt like all kinds of wrong. It had been five days since anyone had seen her, and that didn’t seem right. She hadn’t run away. Something had happened to her.

  There was relief in Alex’s not being home. Bobby had decided he needed to confess the truth to Alex—he was going to come clean about the fact he’d been inside the apartment when Emily stopped in—although he didn’t relish the thought. But not finding Alex meant Bobby’s sense of guilt didn’t let up either. It wasn’t like he could tell Alex the whole story, but maybe he could reveal that he saw Emily—or this chick with the hoodie up, who knows who that was?—taking the laptop out of the apartment. That would give the cops a lead, right? He wanted to be helpful.

  He headed down the stairs, moving slowly. He was starting to hate his job. It was convenient, and it allowed him the access he craved, but it also mixed him up in people’s lives, and Bobby wanted no part of that. While she was alive, his mother had harassed him about finding a nice girl and settling down. But that had never been for Bobby, for reasons he could never voice to anyone. He liked girls—really he did. But he didn’t dream about them, only their underthings. He’d read once that, in Japan, there were vending machines filled with worn panties. It sounded like heaven to him. By the time he reached the landing on the first floor, he was mentally planning a trip to Tokyo.

  That was when he saw a man letting himself into the building with a key that didn’t belong to him. He was one of the characters the cops had asked him about earlier. He couldn’t remember the name, but he knew that man didn’t belong there.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Bobby asked, blocking his way into the corridor.

  “Going upstairs,” the man said.

  “You don’t live in the building, and those aren’t your keys,” Bobby said.

  “I’m visiting a friend.”

  “No, you’re not. You’re the fuckhead who shoved me against a wall.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He tried to push past Bobby.

  “Yes, you do. You’ve been hanging here like a spider for months. What do you want?”

  “I’m just visiting my friend,” the man answered through clenched teeth.

  “Were you the one leaving those letters for Emily?” Bobby demanded.

  “Leave me alone.”

  “The police were here asking about you. You’re the one who was harassing Emily. You left letters for her, letters that got her upset.”

  The man’s jaw was tight, and there was a vein pulsing in his forehead. “She helped her boyfriend cover up my daughter’s murder,” he said. “She deserves everything that’s come her way.”

  “Did you hurt her?” Bobby asked.

  “Of course not.”

  “You’re leaving the building, or I’m calling the cops.”

  The big man gave a mirthless laugh. “I’m not doing a thing you say, fat ass.” Then he shoved Bobby to one side, just as he had back in July, the last time Bobby had confronted him.

  It took Bobby a moment to get his breath. In that time, the man was most of the way up the first set of stairs. “That was you on the street outside the building on the night Emily disappeared,” Bobby called after him. “I saw you.”

  That caught the man’s attention. He stopped in his tracks and turned his baleful eyes back on Bobby. “What?”

  “The woman who went into Emily’s apartment gave you her laptop. That wasn’t even Emily, was it?”

  “I suggest you slide back into the hole you crawled out of,” the man answered quietly.

  Bobby pulled out his phone. “Get out, or I call the cops.”

  The man didn’t move a muscle. In the dim light of the stairwell, he looked to Bobby like a malevolent spirit, his face as lined as the bark of an old tree. His cold eyes were sunken in his head.

  “That’s it. I’m dialing,” Bobby said. He tapped out 911, leaving his thumb hovering above the call button, ready to hit it in a heartbeat.

  It was enough of a threat to make the big man move down the stairs.

  “Okay,” Bobby said.

  “Okay,” the man repeated. Then he shoved a knife into Bobby’s throat.

  There was a split second where time seemed to freeze for Bobby. He didn’t feel any pain; in fact, he didn’t feel the blade at all. There was a car horn honking outside, but it receded into the distance, as if it were hurtling away in space. The sound of his own heartbeat filled his senses. There was only Bobby and this man, and it wasn’t even so much a man as a pair of haunted blue eyes in a face defined by fury. It was like staring into the ice, as if Bobby were freezing to death instead of bleeding out. Then the moment passed, and Bobby felt the most horrific pain he’d ever known.

  “What’s your emergency?” asked the 911 operator.

  He tried to cry out, but he had no voice. The man picked up Bobby’s phone, and his words filled the air. “I’m so sorry. My kid was playing with my phone and pressed the wrong button. I apologize.”

  Bobby heard the operator say goodbye and hang up.

  “You just ruined everything,” the man said, the calm tone he’d used on the opera
tor replaced by frothing hatred. “Months of planning. All of it wrecked by a stupid piece of shit who should never have been born.”

  Bobby made a tiny squawk as he slid down the wall.

  “Rot in hell,” the man said. “I came here to do something important, but now I have to deal with your stinking carcass. You’re going to pay for that.”

  He kicked Bobby in the stomach. Bobby couldn’t cry out, but whatever little bit of air that was left in his lungs evaporated. Just before he lost consciousness, he felt his head hit the linoleum. The man was dragging him by the heels, away from the lobby.

  Bobby’s last thought was that he was leaving a trail of blood. Someone else would have to clean it up.

  CHAPTER 47

  ALEX

  When Alex got home that night, it was late; the lights on the first floor of his building were off, as if they’d burned out. CJ and Jayson had talked him into eating something, and their company kept some of his darker demons at bay. He was ashamed of himself for rushing over in a frenzy because Will had managed, yet again, to push his buttons. What did it matter if Emily and CJ had once been involved, back when they were barely of legal drinking age? It was understandable to be shocked that Emily had kept the secret from him, but it had been churlish of him to be jealous. The person he needed to focus on was Will, who lied with such aplomb, largely because he baited his barbs with fragments of the truth. But Alex was certain he hadn’t heard the whole story. Will knew far more than he was telling.

  He paused in front of Mrs. DiGregorio’s apartment. He wanted to reclaim Sid, but that didn’t seem fair to either his neighbor or the dog. She loved the pup and spoiled him, and Alex knew that Sid would have a better night there than he would at his own apartment. Sid intuitively knew when Alex was struggling, and he always wanted to help. At least one of us should get a good night’s sleep, Alex thought. He walked back to the staircase and followed it up to the roof.