Tiger

by William Richter

  Tiger heard a faint noise from somewhere out in the main room and froze, listening intently. He remained motionless and still for two minutes, maybe more, before deciding that he was in no immediate danger of being discovered.

  Enough. Tiger closed the browser and ran a security sweep of the hard drive, careful to eliminate all traces of his activity. When he finally shut down the computer and made his way back out onto the fire escape, he knew with certainty that he would not make this secret, late-night pilgrimage again.

  It was time for Tiger to move on and never look back.

  7.

  WALLY SLEPT QUIETLY AND DEEPLY, FINALLY WAKING

  at nearly 11:00 A.M. to the smell of fresh coffee. Looking through the sliding glass doors onto the roof, she saw Kyle sitting up straight in a patio chair, drinking coffee from one of her mugs. The morning sun looked warm and inviting, but Kyle’s upright posture suggested that he was waiting, not relaxing. Wally pulled on a hoodie and poured herself a cup of coffee, then went outside to join him.

  “Hey,” he said. “I needed coffee. I hope it’s okay.”

  “Sure.”

  “I took a shower too—there was an extra towel.”

  Kyle looked clean and put together, certainly better than he had the night before. He’d replaced one of the butterfly bandages on his face, and the rest of his injuries were mostly just bruises, darker now and less inflamed.

  “Wally, I’m really sorry for everything yesterday,” he said, sincerely. “At your office and definitely at that other place, I can’t remember the name.”

  “It’s called Harmony House.”

  “Right. I’m embarrassed. You have no reason to believe this, but how I was yesterday is nothing like I normally am.”

  “You had a bad day.” A huge understatement, Wally figured, but she still felt as though her ineptness at the interview had made things worse. If they could start the day with a clean slate, why not?

  “And I made your day suck too, even though you were obviously just trying to help. I would have just bugged out of here this morning, but I wanted to apologize in person. I’m sorry.”

  Kyle’s entire demeanor was different that morning. Studying him as he spoke, Wally noticed a kind of clarity—even confidence—that he hadn’t shown before.

  “I appreciate that,” she said. “But we’re here and safe now.”

  “Yeah, about that—my head was obviously a little messed up last night. But if I remember things right, you seriously kicked the asses of those guys. That was, like, hard-core cage-fighting action. What’s up with that?”

  “I’ve had some training. But what you saw was mostly about surprise—they didn’t expect that kind of resistance from me, and I used that to my advantage.”

  “That’s one way of putting it,” Kyle said with just the hint of a mischievous grin. “I think the second guy might be on a feeding tube right now.” He paused, looking serious again, and stood up. “Anyway, I appreciate everything. And what comes next, I have to do that on my own.”

  Something about the finality in Kyle’s voice made Wally uneasy.

  “Hold on,” she said, “what are you planning to do?”

  Kyle sighed, looking a little guilty. “I’m sorry. I used your laptop. I saw the information you put together on my father.”

  Wally’s eyes went to the dining table—she’d left her laptop there last night, open and still logged in to her accounts. She felt a rush of anger toward him but also toward herself because she had forgotten to log off her accounts.

  “That’s a total invasion, Kyle!”

  “I know, you have a right to be pissed off. But I didn’t look at anything private—”

  “It’s my laptop, Kyle! It’s all private!”

  “I know, but you were still asleep, and I needed to know if you’d started any of your research stuff. Now I have an idea where to start looking for my mother.”

  “What are you talking about?” Wally was still angry, but she couldn’t help being curious about what Kyle had spotted in the file.

  “First of all, I know her name: Mercy Smith.”

  “It’s an alias.”

  “Yeah, I read your notes. But it’s a place to start. On top of that, I’d never seen my birth certificate before. I put some things together.”

  “Like what?”

  “It says I was born in Fair Haven, Vermont. I looked on Google Maps and that’s in the Adirondacks. It reminded me of something I’d forgotten: Around the time I was born, there were a few years when my father didn’t live here in the city. He has a fishing lodge up in the Adirondacks. The timing fits—it’s almost definite that my birth mother was with him then. I’m sure there’s something up there for me to find.”

  “Okay, fine,” Wally said. “So give me a chance to follow up on that.”

  “I’m going there now.”

  “Kyle, you have to trust me . . . this is a mistake. I’ve reviewed thousands of the Society’s cases—family members separated for years and then finally coming together. More than half the time it doesn’t work, and usually it’s because expectations are too high. The more you need the reunion to work, the more certain it will be to fail you, in some way. That’s the reality. There’s just too much pressure on everyone.”

  “Okay, then tell me this: if you were me, would you wait for just the right time, or would you run down any possible lead as soon as you could?”

  “I’d wait,” she lied.

  “Ha,” he said. “I only met you two days ago and I already know that’s bullshit.”

  Busted. She couldn’t deny it.

  “It’s only like three hundred miles to get there,” he went on. “That’s one easy day of driving. Whatever I find, I don’t even have to use it right away. But I have to go.”

  “One day of driving? You have a car?”

  “I have money.”

  “You’re going to rent a car? Have you ever tried? Cash doesn’t do it. You’re not old enough, so you’ll need a fake ID, like mine, which could get you busted all by itself. Plus a credit card to secure the rental, and then you’re in the system. Your father will find out immediately.”

  Kyle looked frustrated—he obviously hadn’t thought everything through.

  “I’ll hitch,” he said defiantly. “I’ll take a bus. Whatever . . . ”

  “You don’t think the fishing lodge is one of the places they’ll be looking for you?”

  “No way. As far as the old man knows, I hate that place.”

  “Why’s that?”

  Kyle went silent for a moment, the dark expression on his face conveying a memory of something he’d rather forget.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said, his voice bitter. “I’m not asking permission. I waited here to tell you my plans face-to-face because you’ve been good to me. I wouldn’t have survived these past days without your help, and I really appreciate it. But I am going.”

  He was obviously determined, but when Wally looked at him she could see he was feeling other things also: fear, doubt, excitement. She knew how intoxicating those feelings could be. Who knew what he would find at the fishing lodge? It might be something that would change his life forever—for better or worse. At least he was showing faith in himself.

  “I’ll trade you,” she said.

  “What does that mean?”

  “The place you ended up last night, Harmony House? The woman you saw there is named Candace Chen, and situations like yours are totally in her wheelhouse. She could set you up with a place to live that’s safe. She could get you counseling, legal help—all kinds of things.”

  He shook his head. “I can take care of my own problems.”

  “Yeah, you can, but everyone needs a little help to start out. So here’s the trade: I’ll take you to
Vermont, set us up with a car. We go up and find whatever there is to find, and when we get back to town you’ll just sit with Candace and hear what she has to say.”

  “That’s it.”

  “Yeah, hear her out. That’s it. It’s a win-win for you.”

  Kyle met her proposal with silence, apparently wrestling with the offer. Wally herself had one reservation—if Tiger reached out for her again, she would be out of contact. But it would be worth it if she could help Kyle and make up for the damage she’d done.

  But he was still hesitating.

  “Hey, Kyle?”

  “Yeah?” He looked up at her, a pained look on his face as he struggled with the decision.

  “Don’t be an idiot.” She cracked a little smile.

  He smiled a little in return.

  “Deal,” he said. “For real, I’ll be happy to have company. I’m actually a little nervous about what I might find up there.”

  Wally liked hearing this—the fact that he was feeling doubt meant he was capable of being realistic.

  “That’s a good way to start,” she said.

  Thinking about the road trip ahead, Wally felt an unexpected spike of excitement, as if an adventure was something she’d been craving all along without knowing it. She hadn’t left the city even once in five months—not since Shelter Island—and suddenly the idea of escape was intoxicating.

  She would have to lay a little groundwork first. Wally went inside and picked up her cell, dialing Lewis at the Society number. At some point, Wally would bring him up to speed on what was going on with Kyle, but now wasn’t the time—he would disapprove of almost every step she’d taken so far, especially her decision to bring a client home with her.

  “What is it, Wally? You’re late.”

  “If it’s okay, Lewis, I need a couple of personal days.”

  “I understand. I thought you might experience some emotional blowback after your encounter with the young man . . . what was his name? Kyle?”

  “Yeah, Kyle. It’ll only be a day or two. . . . ” she said, feeling slightly shitty for not being honest. Wally sat down on one of her desk chairs as she waited for Lewis’s response, tapping her heel on the floor anxiously like a delinquent schoolgirl waiting outside a principal’s office.

  “Take your time away,” Lewis finally said with an impatient sigh, “but you’ll have to toughen up in the future. We deal with failure every day, but we just keep working.”

  His tone was a little patronizing, and it bugged Wally enough that she almost told him that she already was working a case, with or without his approval. Almost.

  “I know you’re right,” she said instead. “Thanks for understanding. I’ll see you in a few days.”

  Wally went back inside and threw a few things into her messenger bag as Kyle stood by waiting, then grabbed a light jacket. She was ready.

  “One quick stop,” she told Kyle as they locked up her apartment.

  They walked down one flight together, and Kyle hung back as Wally knocked on January and Bea’s door. It was January who answered, wearing pajamas with her hair up in a ponytail and a green tea deep-cleansing mask spread all over her face.

  “What up, Stoneman?”

  “Do me a favor and check on Tevin?” Wally asked, passing her friend a spare key to her apartment. “I’ll be gone for just a couple days, but if you could give him some frozen fish once or twice, that’d be great.”

  “Okay, but where—” January caught sight of Kyle, hanging back by the staircase. She leaned in close to Wally to whisper in her ear excitedly. “You slut!”

  “I’ll check in if I can,” Wally said, glaring at January to make her behave.

  8.

  “Don’t bother, girlfriend. The snapper will be fine.”

  THEY RENTED A CAR IN BROOKLYN, USING A CREDIT card with Lewis’s name on it that she was only supposed to use for Ursula Society business. Wally had no reason to think that Richard Townsend’s security men had identified her yet, but they would eventually and she didn’t want any transactions on her personal account that might help them find her—or Kyle.

  As the two of them surveyed the menu of available cars, Wally noticed that one was a Lincoln Town Car—in white. It was a bittersweet reminder of Tevin, and how happy he had been when he had slid behind the wheel of an identical rented Town Car five months earlier. It had been a rare and exciting treat for him—a poor kid from Harlem—and his face beamed with pure happiness as he drove them out of the city and upstate, a route nearly identical to the one Wally and Kyle would be taking that afternoon.

  The last trip Wally and Tevin had taken together in that car was to the Brooklyn Navy Yard, where everything went wrong. Tevin had died there, gunned down without mercy by Wally’s own father, Alexei Klesko. It had been the worst moment of her life. . . .

  Until Shelter Island.

  “There’s a chance the road will still be rough,” Kyle said, his voice snapping Wally out of her dark reverie. “Four-wheel drive might be a good idea.” They chose a Ford Explorer, in blue.

  Wally was careful not to include the GPS option in the rental—it was possible for their movements to be traced that way—but once they were inside the SUV, Kyle used a screwdriver from the vehicle’s tool kit to pry the LED panel out of the dashboard.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Saying you don’t want GPS doesn’t really do anything,” he said. “They keep it active for themselves so they can track their car.”

  Once he had slid the panel out, Kyle immediately located a SIM card and pulled it out, holding it up for Wally to see.

  “We’re officially off the radar,” he said, tossing the SIM card into the glove compartment.

  “Smart,” she said. “How do you know how to do that?”

  “Half the guys at Sexton have helicopter parents who need to know every detail of their kids’ lives, and that includes being able to trace them and their cars with GPS. Sometimes a guy needs to run silent.”

  Wally took this as a good sign—Kyle apparently had some skills to contribute and was obviously thinking about their situation. Maybe he’d be more of a help on their fact-finding mission than she’d thought. She pulled out her own phone and shut off the GPS, just in case.

  They made one quick stop at a convenience store, where they loaded up on a ridiculous amount of junk food and half a dozen cans of energy drinks—enough to keep them wired for the drive. Wally used the ATM in the store to withdraw a thousand dollars in cash. It was probably more than they would need, but she didn’t want to make any Internet transactions once they were moving.

  By the time they were officially on the road—Wally taking the first shift behind the wheel—it was early afternoon, with five or six hours of driving ahead. Wally plugged her phone into the stereo and streamed a playlist of Radiohead from Spotify. The music filled the Explorer with a trancelike soundtrack that fit well with the landscape rushing past them.

  “It’s all happening,” Kyle said, a hopeful look on his face.

  “Yeah, it is,” Wally said.

  It felt fun and exciting to break free of the city, but Wally reminded herself that she had gone way off the reservation. She was dealing with Kyle and his case in exactly the wrong way, and she had lied about it to Lewis, who trusted and cared for her. It wouldn’t do any good to beat herself up about it—that would be a waste of time, now—but she vowed to be smarter and more conscientious as things moved forward.

  A couple of hours into their drive, another thought came to Wally: their route to the Adirondacks would take them just fifty or sixty miles east of Neversink Farm, where Jake and Ella were now living. The thought of seeing them again was tempting, but it also made her anxious—they had loved Tevin as much as Wally had, and it had partly been her selfishness that had ki
lled him. She wondered if they had forgiven her yet, or if they even thought of her.

  “Would you be cool with a minor detour?” she asked Kyle.

  “Sure. Where to?”

  “My friends live on a farm north of Utica. If we just stay on the interstate it’ll only add an hour or so.”

  “Sounds good. I’ll be glad if you get something from this trip too.”

  Another hour of driving took them to the exit at a town called Mohawk, and from there they drove country roads north into a stretch of lush green pastureland. For miles, one farm flew by after another, with lakes and scattered woodland in between. A turn onto a long dirt road eventually led them to a two-story white farmhouse on top of a small hill, overlooking a lake. The sign at the open gate read NEVERSINK FARM.

  They paused at the gate and looked the place over.

  “Wow,” Kyle said. “This is the real deal, right? An actual farm.”

  “I guess so,” Wally said. “I’ve never been here before.”

  “Did your friends grow up here, or what?”

  “No, it’s a kind of residential thing for at-risk youths. Kids from the street and all that. They work the farm and go to school. A fresh start. Which is what my friends needed more than anything.”

  “That actually sounds good. I wonder if they have room for me,” he joked.

  They pulled into the dirt driveway and motored up to the farmhouse, where they parked and climbed out of the Explorer. Two other vehicles were parked there, both of them well-used and rusted old Ford pickup trucks. Several other buildings sprawled over the property, including a huge red barn—of course—and another building that looked like it might be a bunkhouse. The pasture held sheep and goats and about twenty head of cattle, as far as Wally could tell.

  The setting was beautiful and calm—like a perfect landscape painting, Wally thought. She imagined Jake and Ella—two city kids—working this farm in overalls and flannel shirts. She couldn’t help smiling at the idea. They were adaptable, for sure. They would thrive as long as they were together.