“Where’s Daddy?” Madison asks her. “We have to say good-bye.”
“In the kitchen. J.J. was fussing so he went to get him some milk.”
“My brother fusses a lot,” Hudson informs Randi, as if she didn’t know.
“Mack!” Allison calls. “Come say good-bye. The girls are going.”
He comes in carrying J.J., who is furiously sucking on a plastic sippy cup.
As the girls give hugs and kisses to their father and brother—who bonks Madison in the head with his sippy cup—Allison reminds Randi, in a low voice, that they don’t know what happened next door. “If you can keep them from finding out . . .”
“Don’t worry,” Randi says, “I’ll keep them busy and distracted. You and Mack come over with J.J. when you’re finished here. You know we have plenty of room for all of you in the guest suite.”
“I don’t know . . . J.J. would need a crib, and—”
“Ben will run out and buy a portable one.”
“That’s crazy.”
“You’re crazy, Allison, if you think you’re going to be able to sleep here after what happened. You’re going to lie awake all night afraid he’s going to come after you next.”
Randi is probably right about that. But Allison doubts she’ll be able to sleep anywhere after what happened.
What happened . . .
Phyllis . . .
No! Don’t let yourself think about that right now! Not while you’re with the girls!
“I think I’d better stick around here for now,” she tells Randi. “The police said they’re going to need to talk to me again.” And she knows how that goes, having once before been a key witness in a murder investigation. “It could be tonight, or it could be tomorrow—I have no idea what’s going to happen or when.”
“Do you want me to send Ben over? I called him at work after you called me and he left right away—he’s on the train right now.”
“No, that’s all right. I’m sure you need him at home.”
“I think you guys might need him more here.”
“We’re okay. Would you mind getting the girls to school tomorrow, though? They’ve missed two days this week with the closings, and—” Remembering, she says, “Mack can come get them and bring them to school. He’ll be around.”
Hearing his name, he looks over. “What’s that?”
“You can pick up the girls from Randi’s in the morning and drop them at school if I have to . . . be someplace else.”
“What’s tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow . . . ? I don’t even know what today is. I can’t think straight.”
“Today is Tuesday,” Randi tells them.
Allison and Mack exchange a startled glance. She knows he’s thinking exactly what she is: that things really do seem to happen on Tuesdays.
September 11 . . .
And the freak earthquake that shook Manhattan . . .
They even got the news about Jerry Thompson’s suicide on a Tuesday.
Jerry.
If Jerry is dead, then how . . . ?
Stop it, Allison. He’s dead. You know it.
That’s what Mack had told her earlier, when he first got home and she told him about the nightgown.
Yes, he’s dead. She knows. But . . .
“I can’t be here in the morning,” Mack is saying now. “I have a meeting.”
“You’re going to work?”
“Daddy always goes to work on Wednesday, Mommy,” Hudson reminds her.
“I know that, but I thought maybe Daddy would stay home tomorrow,” she says pointedly.
“Because Mrs. Lewis died? Does that mean you get to stay home, Daddy?”
“No, it does not mean I get to stay home, Huddy.”
Allison shoots him an incredulous look.
Seeing it, Randi quickly defuses the tension, saying, “Well, no matter what happens with that, there’s no need for you to come and get the girls to school. I’ll do it, and I’ll pick them up, too, so that you have one less thing to worry about. We’ll go out shopping and have ice cream. Maybe Lexi will come, too.”
“Randi, you don’t have to—”
The girls cut off Allison, thrilled about the prospect of an afternoon with Aunt Randi and Lexi, their own personal teen idol.
“The thing is,” Allison says, “you can only pick up Madison if you have our password to give the dismissal monitor. Otherwise, they won’t let you take her.”
Randi nods, familiar with the preschool’s many security measures. Her kids went there, too, years ago.
Long gone are the days when a relative or friend can just pop in to pick up a student if the parents can’t make it due to the occasional mishap or emergency. The password system is simple, but it prevents unauthorized people—sometimes even noncustodial parents—from taking a child. Each family has a secret phrase the pinch hitter must tell them so that the school, and the child, will know that the person can be trusted and that the change in plans came from the parent.
“So what’s the password?”
“Cookie Monster,” Allison tells Randi. It’s been in place since the beginning of the year, but they’ve never had to use it yet.
“But where will you be, Mommy?” Maddy asks belatedly—and worriedly.
“Don’t worry, sweetie, I might have to run some errands and then I’ll meet you over at Aunt Randi’s. Okay?”
Having been listening to the details and looking as though she’s poised to make a to-do list, Hudson asks briskly, “Now, what about me?”
Good question.
The elementary school doesn’t have a password system. Every afternoon, the big yellow bus lets Hudson off just down the block from their house, and Allison meets her there.
Remembering the bus mishap she heard about at Randi’s party a few weeks ago, Allison immediately decides it’s best not to tamper with her daughter’s daily routine.
“How about if you just take the bus back here like you do every day, Huddy? Like I said, I’ll probably be here, too, but if I’m not, Aunt Randi will be waiting with Maddy. Is that okay, Aunt Randi?”
“Absolutely.”
“But we still get to go shopping and for ice cream?”
“Absolutely,” Randi assures again, and Hudson asks if J.J. will be able to come with them, too.
“Probably not,” Allison says quickly, thinking there’s no way she’d send Randi off with all three kids—plus Lexi, whose adolescent drama queen antics can be all-encompassing.
Though she wonders whether the police will be willing to talk to her if she’s got a squirming baby on her lap . . .
But Mack actually seems to think he might be going to work, despite all that’s happened here, so she may not have a choice.
“Come on, Rand,” he says, handing off J.J. into Allison’s waiting arms, “I’ll walk you guys out to the car.”
He takes the two overnight bags and herds everyone toward the back door after one last kiss and hug from Mommy. Randi parked on the driveway, which is, luckily, on the opposite side of the house from the Lewis home.
Left alone in the quiet house, Allison cuddles J.J. and kisses his fine baby hair. “It’s going to be okay,” she whispers, more to herself than to him.
Sitting at his wife’s hospital bedside, Rocky stares at her face, watching for movement.
On Saturday, when Ange’s sister Carm was sitting with her, she noticed Ange’s eyelids twitching. She went for the nurse, who, much to Carm’s frustration, wasn’t sufficiently awed by the news that one of her patients had shown signs of an impending miracle.
Well, of course not. The staff is jaded, accustomed to dismissing the claims of hovering families ever on the lookout for the slightest movement, often seeing only what they want to see.
But when Carm convinced the nurse to come into the room to look for herself, Ange moved her fingers.
The nurse began to give her instructions: “Squeeze my hand,” “Bend your thumb” . . .
Ange squeezed. Ange b
ent. Ange really was in there somewhere, listening.
Anything is possible.
Carm had tried to reach Rocky, but the snowstorm was interfering with his cell phone signal. By the time he got the message and rushed up to the trauma unit, Ange had retreated to the still, discouraging place again. Rocky stayed with her all that night, and all the next day, and has been here as much as he can since then—but there’s been nothing. Not on his watch, anyway.
The staff played down the episode Carm had witnessed, presumably to avoid giving anyone false hope.
As far as Rocky’s concerned, there’s no such thing. Hope is hope. As long as Ange is alive, there’s a chance she’ll come back to him.
Ironically, she stirred again last night, while the night nurse was in the room and Rocky was home trying to catch a few hours’ sleep. Again, Ange was able to follow simple commands.
Dr. Abrams admitted that it was a good sign; that she really might be starting to come out of it.
“Should I tell my sons to come home?” Rocky was scarcely able to contain his excitement. “One lives in Texas, and the other two are on the West Coast.”
“It’s not as if she’s going to sit up any minute now and start talking, Mr. Manzillo,” Dr. Abrams told him gently. “The process—if that is, indeed, where we’re headed—is likely to take days, weeks, even. In the best-case scenario, there would be a very long road ahead. I wouldn’t disrupt your sons’ lives just yet.”
That was probably sound advice, though Rocky didn’t necessarily welcome it, or the cautionary tone.
In the past forty-eight hours, he’s gone from imagining Ange’s funeral to imagining her homecoming, and he’s not willing to take a step backward.
Still, the painstaking waiting game is hard enough for Rocky, both emotionally and logistically. Ange wouldn’t want him to inflict it on their sons, who have families and jobs and lives of their own that need tending.
The boys check in daily, all three of them, leaving messages on his cell phone, which is, of course, turned off most of the time, per hospital regulations. When he returned their calls last night, he told them that the doctors were more optimistic every day, but didn’t give them the details.
A nurse bustles into the room, pushing a cart. “How are you tonight, Mr. Manzillo?”
“I’m fine, Judy.”
“That’s good.”
They have the same inane exchange every evening, and Rocky suspects it’s repeated in rooms up and down the corridor.
None of the family members in the trauma unit are fine. But the nurses do their best to make things—well, if not pleasant, at least they try to diminish the unpleasantness of the situation wherever they can.
“I need to suction her, Mr. Manzillo,” Judy tells him. “Do you want to step out for a little bit?”
He’s on his feet before she finishes talking. As a homicide cop, he’s never been all that squeamish, but when it involves a medical procedure being performed on his wife . . .
“I’ll be back, sweetheart.” He presses a kiss to Ange’s pale, wrinkled forehead and leaves the room.
Walking down the hall, he passes rooms identical to hers, where families of other comatose patients keep the familiar, joyless vigil. Rocky knows that, according to statistics, the majority of their loved ones will never wake up. But in his heart, he truly believes that his wife is going to.
She has to, because I can’t live without her. It’s that simple.
He rides the elevator to the ground floor and stops in the chapel to light a candle—a daily ritual, both here and at his home parish, Our Lady of Mount Carmel.
After a quick prayer he continues on, passing the cafeteria. Ordinarily, his stomach turns at the cooking smells evocative of steam tables bearing overcooked meat, limp cabbage, mushy grains. But right now, he finds his mouth watering.
Checking his watch, he notes that it’s past midnight. When was the last time he ate something? Lunch? Breakfast? Last night?
You can’t go around skipping meals, Rocco, Ange’s voice scolds him as she has so many times in the past. You get low blood sugar, and it makes you cranky.
Okay. Maybe he’ll come back and grab a sandwich before he goes upstairs again. But right now, he needs to call his sons. It’s getting late, even on the West Coast.
He steps out the nearest exit.
The night air is cold, and there are still piles of snow. He wishes he’d thought to grab his coat. Ange would have reminded him to.
He’s spent a lot of time in hospitals over the years, courtesy of his job with the homicide squad—questioning witnesses, interviewing families of victims. Until recently, the area just beyond the exits would be crowded with hospital employees—including nurses and doctors in scrubs—gathered here under the awning on a smoke break.
Rocky always found it ironic that so many in the health care profession—people who regularly see the ravages wrought by the unhealthy habit—seem to puff away on cigarettes without a care in the world.
Then again, a certain degree of compartmentalization is necessary when you greet harsh reality on a daily basis. He should know.
Anyway, a recent law has banned smoking on hospital grounds. Now the smokers are huddled across the street in the doorway of an office building that’s deserted at this hour of the night. The only people hanging around the exit are the ones talking on their cell phones.
Rocky pulls his own out of his pocket, powers it up, and is surprised to see that he’s missed quite a few calls. Three, of course, are from his sons—but there’s one from his lifelong friend Vic Shattuck, a former FBI profiler.
It’s unusual for Vic to be calling again so soon—Rocky spoke to him earlier today, updating him on Ange’s condition.
There are a couple of calls from the precinct, too, that came in both before and after Vic’s.
Something must have happened.
Rather than waste time listening to voice mail messages, Rocky immediately dials the desk sergeant.
“Tommy, what’s going on?”
“Where are you, Manzillo? We been trying to track you down for a couple of hours now.”
“I’m at the hospital, where do you think? What’s going on?” he asks again.
“Hang on. I’m going to put you through to Murph.”
Rocky’s longtime partner, T.J. Murphy, picks up right away.
“Rock, remember that case you worked about ten years ago? The Nightwatcher murders?”
“About ten years ago? It was almost exactly ten years ago. The perp killed himself in prison on the ten-year anniversary a couple of weeks ago. What about it?”
“It looks like you might be wrong about that, Rock.”
Blame it on low blood sugar; he can’t help but snap, “I’m not wrong about it, Murph. Those murders were ten years ago—the first one was on September 12. That’s why you weren’t on the case with me. You were . . .”
He doesn’t need to say it. Murph knows exactly where he was on September 12, 2001. He was down on the pile, digging in vain for his kid brother, Luke, one of the hundreds of FDNY guys crushed beneath the rubble of the World Trade Center.
“No,” Murph says, “you’re not wrong about that. I mean about the perp being dead.”
“For the love of . . .” Rocky mutters under his breath, and rolls his eyes skyward, trying not to lose his temper. “Murph, I’m telling you, Jerry Thompson killed himself back in—”
“I know what Jerry Thompson did. But it looks like you might’a had the wrong guy.”
“What are you talking about? Thompson confessed. There was a shitload of evidence. We found him with the weapon, bloodstains everywhere—and with his mother’s dead body, too—right there in his apartment. We had a witness who placed him at the—”
“Yeah, about that witness—”
“Don’t tell me we had the wrong guy,” Rocky rants on, pacing to the end of the walkway and back to the door again.
“Okay, I won’t tell you. But everyone else will, Rock,
because he’s at it again.”
Rocky stops short. “Who?”
“The Nightwatcher. Up in Westchester County. We got a new murder, same MO, same signature—stuff we never released to the public, Rock. Stuff no one else knew because the D.A. didn’t introduce it at the trial. And the finger—”
“Jesus.” Rocky knows exactly what he means.
The Nightwatcher had ritualistically hacked off his victims’ middle fingers, taking them as trophies. Sick bastard. The fingers were found in Jerry Thompson’s apartment, along with the other evidence.
That detail was deliberately kept from the press . . . along with another very important detail that never came out at the trial:
“And you know the song?”
The song. Rocky knows the song.
“Fallin’,” by Alicia Keys. The soulful ballad was on top of the charts around the time Kristina Haines and Marianne Apostolos were murdered, and clearly had some meaning for their killer.
“Was it playing at the scene?” Rocky asks Murph.
“Looped to play over and over, just like ten years ago. And you know that witness whose testimony put Jerry Thompson away?”
“Allison Taylor?”
“Allison . . . Taylor MacKenna. Yeah. Her. She’s the one who found the body.”
“Kristina Haines’s body, right. She was the first victim. They were neigh—”
“Nah, Rock, would you just listen? This murder happened on the heels of a natural disaster. Westchester’s been devastated by that snowstorm. Power is down, communications are down, businesses are closed, people are all shook up, isolated in their homes . . .”
“Just like Manhattan after September 11.”
“But wait, there’s more,” Murph says in his best infomercial host imitation. “You ready for this?”
“Just tell me, Murph.”
“She found this one, too. Allison MacKenna found the woman who was killed last night. They were neighbors, just like before.”
Rocky curses under his breath.
“That’s one hell of a coincidence, don’t you think?” Murph asks.
Yeah. One hell of a coincidence.
Anything is possible . . .
“The way I see it, Rock, either Thompson has come back from the dead . . .”
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