by Lisa Unger
I just looked at him, withdrew my hand.
“This is not typical of steganographic sites, though,” he said, as if thinking aloud. “I mean, usually it would be masquerading as something else, like a porn site, or even a mystery bookstore. Then messages would be hidden in elements of the site, like I said…images or sound files.”
“Or streaming video,” I said, thinking of Jake’s computer. He nodded.
“Those messages might be encrypted on top of that. There’s a program called Spam Mimic. Say there was a message waiting for you at a site like this. You’d get a message in your in-box that would look like ordinary spam that most people would delete. But you’d know it was an alert to check the site.”
I thought about my father’s computer, all the junk mail there. I wondered if one of those spam messages had been an alert that a message was waiting for him.
Grant went on. “When you click on the link, it leads you to the message site. You get your message and supposedly you have the means to decrypt it.”
“Who would set up this kind of thing?”
He shrugged. “The government has been making a lot of noise that terrorists are using communications like this. They want stricter regulations on the software that makes it possible to create these encrypted messages. They’re virtually untraceable. Unless someone stumbles on a site like this and knows what they’re looking at, there’s no way to even know it exists. More and more, this type of thing is preferred to phone communications. The government is nervous because it significantly cuts down on the ‘chatter’ they monitor through conventional counterterrorism measures.”
I wasn’t sure what he meant by chatter, though I’d heard the term before. I asked him about it.
“Yeah, the government can monitor terrorist activity by watching the frequency of communications between known terrorist groups. When they see an increase in communications—or even a falling off of communications—coupled with other things, say content intercepts or satellite observations, they know something is going on. But things like these websites, disposable cell phones, even Internet cafés like this one are making things a lot harder for them. Of course, organizations like the FBI and CIA probably use sites like this all the time to communicate with agents in the field, freelance contacts, God only knows who else. They just don’t want anyone else using it.”
“Sarah Duvall told me that Myra Lyall had a screen like this up on her computer when she ran out of the Times that afternoon.”
“No shit?” he said. “Can I put that on my site?”
I gave him a look. “I wouldn’t advise it.”
He took his glasses off again and rubbed them on his T-shirt. He was sweating profusely now.
“Is there any way to know who set up this site or where it originates from?”
“I can take the URL and go back to my place, see what I come up with,” he said, putting his spectacles back on. “There are ways to trace these things, and I know a couple of guys who might be able to help.” I could tell he was trying to act cool, but it wasn’t working. A tiny bead of sweat dripped down the side of his face.
“Can I get you some water or something?”
“Sorry,” he said, rubbing his brow with his hand and then wiping his hand on his pants. “I sweat when I get really excited. This is pretty exciting stuff. I mean, I can’t believe I’m sitting here with Ridley Jones.”
The way he said my name, with such awe and reverence, made me a little queasy. “What are you talking about?”
“I’ve been writing about the whole Project Rescue thing for months. If it weren’t for you, none of it ever would have been exposed. Now you’re on the run from the police. Max Smiley might be alive. It’s too rich.”
I felt my face go hot with anger and annoyance. “This is my life, Grant, not some movie of the week. People are dead. This is serious.”
“I know,” he said. “That’s what makes it so cool.”
“Look,” I said, rubbing my eyes. I felt so tired suddenly. “Can you help me or not?”
“What do you want me to do?”
“I want to know where this website originates from, how to log in, and what kind of messages are contained inside.”
He took his glasses off again and looked me dead in the eye. The teddy-bear sweetness was gone. “What’s in it for me?”
I shrugged. “What do you want?”
“An exclusive interview with Ridley Jones for my website,” he said without hesitation.
What a vulture, I thought. His eyes suddenly looked beady; he had an aura of smugness about him as he leaned back in his chair. I wanted to punch him in his big, soft belly.
“Okay,” I said. “When this is over.”
He raised his eyebrows. “No offense, but how do I know you’re going to make it, you know? You said yourself everyone else in this mess has disappeared or is dead. What makes you think you’ll be any different?”
I felt my stomach bottom out. People say the shittiest things, don’t they?
I forced an aura of confidence and gave him a wan smile. “That’s a chance you’re going to have to take, Grant.”
I wondered if he’d walk away. He didn’t have to do this, would probably be better off if he didn’t. But I was banking on his curiosity getting the better of him.
“How will I reach you?” he asked.
I slid him one of my business cards, which displayed my name, home phone, cell, and e-mail address. “I’ll be in touch with you in a couple of hours.”
“A couple of hours,” he protested, lifting his hands. “Dude. Impossible.”
“Grant, I don’t have a lot of time. Just do your best.”
He nodded, scribbled down the URL on the back of my card, and shoved it into the pocket of his jeans. “I better bolt.” He handed me a card as well. “Here are my numbers. They’re all secure. There’s a secure e-mail address on there, too.”
I slipped it into my pocket and watched him get up. “I’m serious, you know,” he said, looking at me. “Your face is everywhere—on the television, the Times website…will probably make the evening editions. If you’re not looking to get caught, be careful.”
I remembered the last time my face had been all over the place, just after I’d saved Justin Wheeler. People had stopped me on the street to hug me, to give their well wishes. And even still, my life had gone to hell as a result of that exposure. I wondered what happens when your face is all over because you’re wanted by the police. I realized it might not be so easy to get to the Cloisters.
“You, too,” I answered. “Nothing on the site, Grant. Not about the call or this meeting—you could get us both in a lot of trouble.”
He nodded, started walking away.
“So, hey, first question,” he said, turning back to me. “What’s it like being the total Project Rescue baby?”
I looked at him.
“It sucks, dude,” I said. “Totally.”
I HUNG AROUND in the dark safety of Strange Planet for a while, trying to figure out what to do. I had another cappuccino. I felt as if the second I stepped back out into the light, I’d be identified and taken into custody—which might not have been the worst thing in the world as far as my personal well-being was concerned. I spent a few minutes staring at the red screen, sipping coffee, and thinking about Agent Sorro’s advice. But then I thought about Dylan Grace and the things he’d said in the park. It turned out he was a liar, and God knows who he worked for or what his agenda was, but he was right about one thing: Whether he was alive or dead, I was chasing Max.
Instead of finding clarity from knowing the truth about my past, I had felt my delicate self-concept becoming more and more nebulous. Every day, I felt less connected to the woman I was.
It was obvious that the only way to understand myself was to find Max, my father. I had to find him or I’d lose myself completely. I knew this with a stone-cold certainty. If I allowed myself to be taken in, I might never have the answers I needed. A door was closing, and if I didn’t sl
ip inside before it shut, it might be locked forever.
I remembered that day in the woods behind my house. Max had said, “There’s a golden chain from my heart to yours. Trust me. I’ll always find you.” He was right. I knew it then, I knew it now. And I knew I was the only one who could bring Max home. That connection had always felt like a gift. Now it felt like a curse.
Then, of course, there were the other things I’d fallen into, or had been dragged into, depending on your perspective: Myra Lyall’s disappearance, Esme Gray’s and Sarah Duvall’s murders, the question of Dylan Grace. (Not to mention, where the hell was Jake?) Myra Lyall had accused Sarah of lacking that belly of fire, that raging curiosity to just know the truth. She could never have accused me of the same. What was so awful that all these people were dead or missing or lying? What had they learned? Who wanted them to be quiet? Who was the man in black who had killed Sarah Duvall so audaciously on the street and then disappeared? What did all of it have to do with me?
Ace had accused me of choosing trouble. Maybe he was right. But sometimes I had to think trouble chose me.
When I figured the light had gone low in the sky, I left Strange Planet, made a stop at a drugstore, and picked up a few things. I checked into an SRO near Forty-second Street, the kind of awful place nice girls from the suburbs never even know exist, populated by transients, the homeless, hookers, and people just clinging to the fringes of the world, barely able to make their rent day to day. Dark stairways, dirty hallways, hollowed-out people staggering through—it truly was a land of the lost.
The room was small and filthy in spite of smelling like antiseptic. I could hear yelling and the sound of multiple television sets blaring through the thin walls. I wasn’t staying; I just needed the small private bathroom for a while. In my plastic bag was a bottle of hair dye, an electric shaver, a pair of sunglasses, and a black cap.
When I left that bathroom, my thick auburn tresses (one of the things I’ve been most vain about) were in the drugstore bag, tied tight and clasped in my hand, about to be stashed in the Dumpster outside. I’d turned my leather jacket inside out and cut out the tags, exposing the silk lining. I popped the dark lenses out of the sunglasses and wore only the frames (there’s nothing more obvious than someone wearing sunglasses at night). I put the cap on over my new spiky platinum-blond hair.
The girl in the mirror? I didn’t even know her.
11
I’ve always been attractive—not hot, not gorgeous, but pretty enough to get along, not so beautiful as to attract undue attention. Weirdly, I’ve always been grateful for this. I was never one to wish I looked like the girls in the Victoria’s Secret catalog, with their jutting bones and vamping eyes, or the models on magazine covers, with their airbrushed beauty. I never primped or starved or strutted for male attention—attempts I’ve always found to be somewhat sad and desperate in other women. My mother always said, “You are the one to do the choosing, dear. Not the one who waits to be chosen.” She knew something that most women don’t seem to know anymore, that an awareness of your own worth is the most attractive quality in the world. That a woman centered and secure in her own power need never starve herself or subject herself to self-mutilating surgeries, may not even choose to hide her grays. She’ll always have the kind of beauty that age and changing fads can’t touch.
My mother also said, “If you do things to cheapen yourself, men will think they can have you cheaply and then discard you.” These things included dyeing my hair, getting a henna tattoo, wearing midriff tops and fishnet stockings. Even when I resented these restrictions, even as I railed against them, I think I heard the truth in what she was saying. I was thinking about this because of the leering glances I drew on the street with my new platinum-blond hair peeking out of my cap. I wasn’t used to being leered at on the street, really. I mean, this is New York, and there’s always some lowlife catcalling or making a disgusting noise as you pass. But the most I might get from the average man is a quick glance or a smile. As I walked up Broadway toward the subway, men stared at me with odd looks and disrespectful grins. I walked faster and had to keep myself from running my hand through my hair. Was it the blond hair dye? Or was there something about me now that showed my fear and desperation?
I jogged down the stairs into the Times Square station and waited for the 1 or the 9. When a train came, I got on and walked through the cars to find the emptiest one, then sunk into a seat on the far end in the corner and closed my eyes.
I felt someone sit next to me and I scooched over toward the wall, kept my eyes shut.
“It’s an interesting look for you. A little bit Madonna, the Vogue years.”
I opened my eyes. Jake with an amused smile. I didn’t know whether to slap him or hug him. I opted for the latter. He held me tight, as tight as I held him.
“I’m sorry,” he said into my ear with a low whisper. “I’m sorry.”
We got off the train at 191st Street and found a Cuban coffee shop in the bustle of the busy Inwood neighborhood. It’s the tip of Manhattan, not quite the Bronx but close enough. The train is elevated here and the streets a grimy mix of mom-and-pop restaurants and Laundromats, bodegas and apartment buildings. It’s a fairly safe working-class area but close enough to the bad stuff that liquor stores are gated, their clerks behind bulletproof glass. There’s a heavily Latino influence in this area, which means the coffee is fantastic and the aromas of roast pork, rice and beans, and garlic are in the air.
We found a table toward the back, and I took off my ridiculous glasses.
“They think you killed Esme,” I said.
“And you’re wanted for questioning in the murder of that Times assistant,” he answered, “and escaping NYPD custody.”
He seemed tired and pale but his eyes were bright. There was an edginess to him that was unfamiliar. The waitress came and we ordered café con leche and Cuban toast.
“I wasn’t anywhere near Esme Gray yesterday,” he said. “Last time I saw her was when I confronted her about Max.”
“What about the blood in the studio?”
He shook his head. “I came back to the studio last night, hoping you’d meet me. The door was open. I knew I hadn’t left it open, so I slipped into Tompkins Square Park. I thought I’d stop you before you went upstairs, but I looked away for a second, and when I saw you, you were moving so fast, I didn’t get to you in time. I was about to follow you in when I saw the feds making their move. I hung back. Eventually I saw you leave with one of them. I bolted.”
“You could have called,” I said sullenly. “I’ve been sick about you. I left about a hundred messages.”
He held up his cell phone. “Battery’s dead. And I knew they’ve been watching you and your phone. I figured it was better if I just tried to tag you on the street somewhere.”
I nodded, looked down at the table. I noticed that he didn’t seem surprised about the blood in the studio, that he didn’t ask any questions about what else I had seen there or what the feds (if that’s what they were) had found. I didn’t ask him why he wasn’t even curious.
“I almost didn’t recognize you,” he said, lifting his hand to my hair. “Why’d you do that to yourself? You should just turn yourself in. This is crazy.”
“I can’t,” I answered, running one hand over my head, feeling the stiff, spiky pieces.
“Why not?”
“You know why.”
“He’s dead, Ridley.”
“You don’t believe that. And even if he is…I still—” I found I couldn’t finish my sentence.
“You still what?”
“I still need to know who he was. You of all people should understand that.”
He reached across the table and grabbed both of my hands. I looked into his beautiful face, those sea-glass green eyes, the soft lines at their corners, the dark stubble on his perfect jaw. His mouth was the most delicious shade of pink, like raspberry candy. I felt that physical pull to him.
He lowered his eyes f
or a minute, then raised them to me again.
“I was thinking about what Esme said. About changing our names and getting as far away from here as possible. Maybe we could do that. You and me. We could go anywhere in the world. Just start over. Start our own family. Just disappear. I want to let go. I want to move on. I feel like I’ve wasted so much of my life with this thing, with all the anger. It’s possible, isn’t it, just to walk away?”
Everything inside me wanted to tell him yes, yes, it is possible, and let’s go. We could open some kind of tiki bar in the Caribbean or find an olive farm in Tuscany. I’ll shift off my lousy family and the nightmare of Max and who he might have been. We’ll have children and tell them we were both orphans, no family at all. They’d never be touched by the poison in each of our pasts. They’d have a clean slate. It sounded like a beautiful idea and for a split second I could almost believe it was possible. But we can’t do that, can we? You can cut the ties that bind but not without losing a part of yourself. You can walk away and hide from the people who made you, but you’ll always hear them calling your name. At least that’s true for me.
I didn’t say any of these things. But I know he saw my emotions play out on my face. He released my hands and leaned back in his chair. He started working his nail against a corner of laminate that was coming off the table. I saw him abandon his fantasy with a long exhale.
“So what now?” he asked. I didn’t hear disappointment, only resignation, in his voice, as though he’d already known it wasn’t possible for us. I hesitated only briefly before I told him about the text message, my meeting at the Cloisters. About Grant and the phone call I had to make.
“You saw it, too,” I said. “The website. It was up on your computer. There was streaming video of a street in London. How did you log on?”
He shook his head. “I never saw it. I told you, I didn’t go back to the studio that night.” There was something oddly still about his face and I wasn’t sure if I believed him. But I nodded. “And you didn’t send that text message?”
He shook his head. “No, of course not.” After a beat: “Who do you think sent you this message, Ridley? Who are you expecting to find up there?”