Twice: A Novel

by Lisa Unger

  He was starting to think he’d hit a dead end when she came to one of the last records. Her hair was much shorter, her face rounder. The picture didn’t at all capture her fiery beauty, but there was the woman he knew as Geneva Stout.

  “That’s her,” he said, moving in closer.

  “I remember that one,” said the nurse with a snort. “She walked around here like she owned the place. Lazy as the day is long. Then one day she didn’t show up for her shift. Never came back again.”

  “Right after Geneva died?”

  She thought about it a minute. “I guess that’s right.”

  Ford leaned in to the record to read her name. “Oh, Lord,” he said with a shake of his head. “I should have known.”

  “That sure is an odd name for a town,” Nurse Jeremiah said, reading the young woman’s address. “Haunted? I’ve never heard of such a place.”

  “Unfortunately,” said Ford, “I have.”

  chapter twenty-four

  In his hand Jeffrey held a sterling Tiffany baby rattle. He turned it and marveled at how small it looked in his hand. It made just the lightest tinkling as he played with it, watched it catch the light sneaking in through the slats of the drawn blinds. He’d bought the rattle for Lydia after he learned that she was pregnant and had been waiting for the right time to give it to her. That time wasn’t going to come for a while.

  Jeffrey hadn’t really begun to conceive of the baby as a real person; he hadn’t thought of whether it would be a girl or a boy, what he would look like, if she would have Lydia’s eyes, her stubborn streak, his pragmatism. Jeffrey had only really thought of the baby as a happy concept rather than as a flesh-and-blood part of himself. But the loss was a crush on his heart. He didn’t see it as a death, necessarily … maybe if Lydia had been further along, it would have felt more like that. But it was the death of a hope, a dream he’d had for their immediate future.

  It wasn’t to be for them, right now. He could accept that. All that mattered to him at the moment was that Lydia was all right. When he’d seen her fall on the street, he felt like the world was coming to end. It had seemed like miles between them as he ran to reach her, though it was only a few feet. And when he’d seen her face, pale and wan, her eyes half open, he’d felt fear on a level he didn’t even know existed. Now she rested in their bed, her breathing heavy with painkillers and exhaustion.

  Lydia had experienced an ectopic pregnancy, where the fetus had settled in her fallopian tube rather than in her uterus, causing a rupture that led to Lydia’s collapse on the sidewalk outside Midtown North. He was more than a little thankful that the miscarriage was a result of circumstances beyond their control, rather than it being the result of the trauma she’d sustained the night before. He wasn’t sure if he’d have been able to forgive himself for that. He was glad he didn’t have to face anger and guilt, as well as grief.

  These were the thoughts in his mind as he sat in the chair by the window of their bedroom and watched Lydia sleep. She looked small and fragile wrapped in their down comforter. But physically, she would be all right. With a laparoscopy, the doctor had managed to repair the ruptured tube. The rest of it would just take time.

  It was amazing how the world can come grinding to a sudden halt. Everything that seemed so important three days ago couldn’t mean less to him. When life is reduced to the survival of someone you love, everything else reveals itself as trivial. He hadn’t even called in to the office since he called to tell them what had happened.

  He replaced the rattle into its black velvet bag and stood to put it back in the drawer on the top of the dresser.

  “Are you okay?” she asked groggily.

  “Yeah,” he said, closing the drawer and coming to sit beside her. He put a hand on her head and she looked up at him. “How are you?”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, for what must have been the hundredth time.

  “There’s nothing to be sorry for. It just wasn’t meant to be right now. We have plenty of time,” he answered, kissing her head. She nodded and then seemed to drift off again.

  He stood and walked from the room, pulled the door closed behind him, and walked down the stairs. Before he reached the bottom level, the phone started ringing and he raced for it so that it wouldn’t disturb Lydia.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey, it’s Craig. How’s Lydia?”

  “On the mend,” answered Jeff. “What’s up?”

  “I hate to bother you, man. But there’s something you need to know.” Craig’s voice sounded strange to Jeff and it immediately made him alert, brought him back a little to life outside their loss.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Rebecca’s missing, Jeff.”

  “Missing?”

  “Yeah,” he said. He paused then as though he weren’t sure how to go on. Finally, he blurted it out like what he had to say was burning his tongue. “Jed McIntyre’s got her.”

  The words had the effect of a baseball bat to the stomach. “What?” was all Jeffrey could manage.

  Craig started rambling out the details. He was talking fast.

  “The day after I told you she called in sick? She didn’t show up, and this time she didn’t call. I left a message for her to make sure she was okay, but she never called back. Then the next morning her mother called, very worried, told me she normally speaks to Rebecca every day but hadn’t been able to reach her at home. Christian headed over to Rebecca’s place, convinced the doorman to let him into her apartment. From the mail the doorman had and the messages on her machine, it looked like she hadn’t been there since Wednesday morning before work. Her coffee cup was still in the sink. We tried her cell phone, friends whose numbers we found in her home address book. Finally at the end of the day we filed a missing person’s report.”

  “Why am I just finding out about this now?” said Jeff. His anger and fear were like a balled fist ready to fly.

  “We didn’t want to bother you,” Craig said lamely. “I mean, we didn’t know about Jed McIntyre until about an hour ago when we checked the surveillance tape from the lobby.”

  “It’s been three days. Nobody thought to look at it sooner?”

  “I guess we all just thought she’d show up. We never imagined …”

  “What? What didn’t you imagine?” he asked.

  “That she’d been taken from the office.”

  He wouldn’t have imagined it, either. They all thought of those offices as ultra-secure. Rebecca must have felt the same way. Jeffrey remembered now how both he and Lydia had felt that someone had been rifling though their offices. Now he knew why. He didn’t even have time to think about what Jed might have learned about them, what kind of access he gained to their cell numbers, their security codes.

  “How’d he get in?”

  “He killed one of the Speedy Messenger guys, took his gear. Used the speed dial on his cell phone and called in a late route to the dispatcher. Christ,” Craig said, his voice catching. “She was basically just sitting here waiting for him.”

  More silence.

  “From what we saw on the camera as they left, she looked pretty out of it. He was holding her by the arm. We didn’t know who it was at first. He was wearing a wig. Then he looked up to the camera and smiled.”

  “Oh, God,” he said quietly. He said a silent prayer for Rebecca; one he was coldly sure would go unanswered. “Did you call the FBI?”

  “They’re here already.”

  “Okay … I’ll be there as soon as I can,” he said, looking up to the bedroom door. As sick as it was, part of him was glad to have something to think about other than his and Lydia’s sadness. Of all the emotions, it was the hardest to deal with because there was an essential powerless to it, a lack of energy. It entered your system like a barbituate, slowing you down, making you weak, forcing you to feel its effects. Fear and anger were like speed, forcing you into action, pumping adrenaline through your veins. No reflection, just movement.

  “Also,” Craig sai
d, “Ford McKirdy called a couple times today, said it’s very important that he talk to you. And Eleanor Ross has called about a thousand times, she’s threatening to fire you if she doesn’t get a call back today.”

  “Okay, okay. I’ll deal with it when I get there.” He hung up the phone and released a sigh.

  “Jesus,” came Lydia’s voice from the top of the stairs. She held the cordless extension in her hand. “You’re outta commission for a few days and the whole world falls apart.”

  He recognized the tightness that her voice took on when she was trying not to sound afraid. She looked pale and weak, and seemed too wobbly to be standing at the top of the stairs.

  “Don’t even think about it,” he said, sternly. “Get back into bed.”

  “But Rebecca”

  “You’re no good to Rebecca or anyone else all hopped up on painkillers.”

  She headed tentatively down the stairs, her abdomen still painful from the laser surgery. She wore a pair of purple silk pajama bottoms and a gray oversized NYU sweatshirt, her black hair pulled back into a ponytail at the base of her neck. She walked over to the couch and sat down there as if the effort had drained her.

  “I know,” she admitted. She closed her eyes and seemed to squeeze back tears. “But Rebecca. Oh, God.”

  She tried to push away the visions of Jed McIntyre’s victims and pray instead that somehow Rebecca would manage to escape that fate. But she lacked the energy to control her thoughts, even to pray. Holding the phone to his ear with his shoulder, Jeffrey grabbed a chenille blanket off the couch and covered her with it.

  “You need to get over here,” Jeffrey said into the phone, presumably speaking to Dax. Without another word, he hung up.

  “Naturally, you can’t leave me here without my babysitter,” she said. But she didn’t have it in her to put up any kind of real protest. She was more just complaining out of habit.

  “Please, Lydia,” said Jeffrey with a sigh. “Spare me a little worry for the afternoon, will you? Just stay here with Dax. And when you’re feeling stronger, we’ll talk about getting back to work. In the meantime, I’ll deal with the Ross case.”

  “I feel like I’ve been in bed for a month.”

  “You’ll be on your feet again soon.”

  She nodded and looked away, out the window into the flat gray afternoon sky. He followed her eyes and saw tiny flurries of snow out the window. In the loft across the way, he saw a towering Christmas tree, lights glowing green, red, blue, tinsel glittering on the branches. He looked back at Lydia.

  “You have to deal with this okay? Don’t just bulldoze over it.”

  She nodded again and he saw the sadness in her eyes, how they were rimmed with dark smudges. He sat beside her and took her into his arms.

  As if, she thought, resting her head on his shoulder, I had any choice but to deal with this. Even when her mind got up to its old tricks of pushing things she didn’t want to deal with so far inside that she could almost forget them, the pain of her body was a harsh and constant reminder. She felt hollow and empty, as if something she didn’t even know she wanted had been wrested from her. For all the ambivalence she’d felt about her pregnancy, she grieved the loss. She was trying hard not to feel like it was a punishment, a message from the universe that she wasn’t worthy of motherhood. But the shadow of that belief hovered in her consciousness.

  And the fatigue—physical, emotional, spiritual—was so powerful that it pushed everything else out … Julian Ross, Rebecca, even Jed McIntyre. If he were to come for her now, he wouldn’t get much of a fight. She held on to Jeffrey, felt the strength of his body and his spirit, and it gave her comfort. She released him and lay back.

  “I’m okay,” she said, wiping the tears that had sprung to her eyes. “I’m going to be fine.”

  “I have no doubt,” he said with a smile.

  “It’s Rebecca we should be worrying about now.”

  The buzzer for the door rang. “Was he waiting downstairs?” said Lydia with a roll of her eyes.

  “Who is it?” said Jeff into the intercom.

  “Land shark,” said Dax.

  “Very funny,” said Jeffrey, pressing the buzzer.

  As he hulked through the elevator door, Dax’s head was not visible behind the gigantic bouquet of Stargazer lilies he’d brought for Lydia. The sight of them made her heart sink a little further. He placed the flowers down on the coffee table beside her, leaned in, and gave her a little kiss on the head. He smelled like musky cologne and snow, his cheek pink and cold against her own.

  “How’re you doing there, girl?” he asked, his green eyes sincere, concerned. No wisecracks, no insults. It was awful. If Dax felt like he had to be nice to her, things must be worse than she thought.

  chapter twenty-five

  Rebecca was a strong girl, with big, tight thighs. She may even have had some martial arts training and Jed McIntyre had some bruised ribs and a black eye to show for it. But in the end none of that had done her much good. Even the toughest women had throats with skin as soft and easily torn as silk. That had always been his favorite end for the women in his life. It was so intimate, so final. To feel their mortal struggle against his chest, panic radiating off their skin like a perfume, the pain as they tried to scratch at his arms, the music of the death rattle in their throats. Then the peaceful moments when life left them to sag into his arms. Then silence. Frankly, sex didn’t even compare to the release. Yes, Rebecca was a strong girl. But he was stronger.

  Nobody paid attention to the homeless man pushing his shopping cart up Central Park West, making a right at Eighty-sixth Street onto the path that led into park. Most people would rather stick their face in a public toilet than get too close to the man who shuffled, mumbling to himself, his clothes stiff with filth, his nails long and caked with dirt. He’d piled his red hair into a stocking cap and pulled it down over his ears, wore an old pair of sunglasses he’d found in the tunnels. They were missing one plastic arm and hung crooked on his face. He’d found a pair of old scrubs in the Dumpster behind Mount Sinai Hospital and he wore those over thermal underwear and under a bright red bathrobe. Combat boots from the Salvation Army were a lovely finish to the ensemble. In his current capacity, he found it necessary to abandon vanity. It was truly liberating. And where else but New York City did you have to make an utter spectacle of yourself to disappear completely?

  The right front wheel of his cart was making an irritating squeal and the temperature had dropped significantly in the last few minutes. His hands were going red in the cold and his load seemed to grow heavier with each passing second.

  He wasn’t exactly sure what he was going to do. He was waiting for inspiration, which he hoped would come soon, sometime after dark and sometime before rush hour when the park would fill with commuters and joggers. Then he’d be forced to wait outside for hours just to get a little privacy. This was another thing about New York: You could never find anyplace to be alone.

  He’d developed a special affection for Rebecca over the last few days. She’d brought him closer to Lydia, and more important at this point to Jeffrey Mark, than he’d ever dreamed he would get. Of course, she struggled valiantly to keep the little details of their lives from him. It was the hydrochloric acid that had changed her mind. And then there was no shutting her up. Until he shut her up permanently.

  He suspected she had known she was going to die whether she talked or not, even though he’d promised otherwise. He didn’t like to lie, but sometimes it was necessary. He thought she was hoping not to be disfigured, for her family’s sake. He found it so odd that people cared about things like that. But she was pretty in death. Prettier, he thought, than in life.

  He looked out over the Great Lawn, the grand Metropolitan Museum of Art white and stately across the park, took in the cold air and the aroma from a nearby hot dog vendor’s cart. He watched as the short Mexican man bundled in a New York Yankees sweatshirt, scarf, and hat against the cold, handed a dog, lathered in must
ard and kraut to a young rollerblader. The young man glided off down a slope, eating joyfully as he went.

  “The devil is in the details,” Jed said aloud, as he came to a bench, pulled his cart over, and sat heavily. None of the people moving past him on the path, not the businesswoman in her red wool coat and frumpy, well-used Coach briefcase, not the young mother pushing a stroller carting a baby so wrapped up that he resembled a cocktail wiener, not the old man and his little kerchiefed wife in their matching black coats and orthopedic shoes, turned to look at him when he spoke aloud. Persistent ignorance. He laughed out loud and noticed how people quickened their pace.

  It’s an acquaintance with the minutiae of a life that makes people truly intimate with each other, he thought. It’s the knowing of preferences, habits, idiosyncrasies, the little quirks of personality that really allow you to get inside someone’s head. When you know what someone loves, what someone fears, what turns someone on, what repulses him, and most important what hurts him, you have the lock, the full nelson. Nobody was going to give that to Jed McIntyre. He couldn’t get close enough to Lydia and Jeffrey to figure it out for himself. So he’d had to hijack it.

  Well, okay, maybe he hadn’t exactly gotten into their heads via the information Rebecca had about them and what he could find in their offices. But what he did find was appointment books, cellular phone numbers, things he’d been lacking. The tunnels hadn’t really given him the access for which he’d been hoping. They’d gotten him close, but not close enough. He’d fantasized that he’d find a way into Lydia’s building through one of the mythic speakeasy tunnels he’d heard so much about. But it didn’t work out that way.

  So, he’d cased the offices of Mark, Striker and Strong and found easily the flaw in their security. The Speedy Messenger service, the one that came at the end of the day when most people had gone. It was easy enough to derail a few of the messengers … a flat tire here, a busted chain there. And then finally, grabbing the guy from his route, surprising him at the service exit of the CBS building with a pipe to the head. As far as Jed knew, no one ever found the naked body he’d left in the Dumpster. He took the kid’s outfit, his bag, and his cellular phone. Called into the preprogrammed number on the phone to the Speedy dispatcher and told him he’d run into delays but would still make the stops. It was that simple. Rebecca had just been caught off guard.