It was Christmas almost six years ago that her mother disappeared; Lee wondered if Kylie knew that. He wasn’t sure how much Fiona or George had told her. Distressing information was guarded closely in his family. The avoidance of conflict made it that much more unsettling when something bad did happen. In spite of his training and knowledge, he had reacted to Laura’s disappearance by plunging into a deep well of despair.
He looked at his niece. Kylie dangled her fork between thumb and forefinger, idly gazing at the patterns she was making on her plate. Lee took a deep breath and placed a hand on her arm. She looked up at him with a surprised expression that quickly hardened into indifference. It tore his heart to think what that emotional control cost her. She was learning at the hand of the master, and he felt it was his job to make sure she knew there were other options. Fiona Campbell had lived her life skimming across emotional surfaces like a dragonfly on a pond, avoiding the anguish of loss through sheer willpower.
“Kylie,” he said, “is everything okay with you?”
She stared back down at her plate. “Sure.” It was clear she wasn’t trying to convince him.
“Is there anything bothering you?”
Her eyes still on the plate, she said, “Why do you ask?”
“I just thought you might want someone to talk to,” he said lamely.
“What has she told you?” Kylie asked, her mouth sullen. The expression was so like Laura, he was caught off guard.
“Who—Fiona?”
She rolled her eyes. “Duh.”
“Nothing,” he lied.
“Get real,” she shot back. “She told you, didn’t she?”
“She mentioned—”
“That I’ve been cutting.” Her voice was hard, flat.
“Yeah,” he said. “So have you?”
“What do you think?”
“I think you have.”
“I tried it once,” she said. “I saw one of the older kids at school doing it.”
“But why?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Because it looked cool. Because she said it made her feel better. Because I wanted to see what it felt like.”
“And what did it feel like?”
The line between her eyebrows deepened, and she bit her lip. “It made me feel better.”
“God, Kylie.”
“Are you angry at me?” Her defensive manner softened, and she sounded like a little girl again.
“No, I’m not angry. I’m just puzzled—and sad.”
“I won’t do it again.”
“That’s not the point. The question is why you did it in the first place.”
“I told you,” she said, on the verge of tears. “Because I wanted—”
“Because you wanted to feel better.”
He looked across the room at a table of children giggling and pointing at a talking skeleton. The statue’s bones clattered as its jaw rattled on, the grinning mouth seeming to mock the living from beyond the grave. He couldn’t hear what it was saying, but he supposed there was an actor in a control room somewhere doing the voice. The talking heads of creatures and portraits on the walls often made personal remarks about the customers, so there were probably closed-circuit cameras everywhere.
The thought sent a shiver through him—being spied upon was too much like his experience with his mysterious caller. He was being stalked by a twisted voyeur, and in a way these children were too—except they were enjoying it. They were about Kylie’s age and were celebrating a birthday. A beleaguered and exhausted-looking young woman—their chaperone?—stared off into space, an empty piña colada in front of her. He looked back at Kylie, who was gazing up at him with a hungry expression. Hungry for what, he wondered—understanding, knowledge, comfort?
“Kylie,” he said, “I want you to know something.”
“What?” she asked, her lower lip beginning to tremble.
“Your mom may not be coming back.”
“I know.” Her voice was soft.
“You do?”
“Grandmother likes to pretend she’s coming back, and I pretend to believe her. It makes her feel better.”
“But—”
“I know it’s not true. She loved me, and if she were alive, she would have come back by now. I know that. So she must be dead.”
He tried to think of something comforting to say, but all he could say was, “God, Kylie.”
“It’s okay, Uncle Lee. Grandmother thinks I believe she’s still alive. Don’t tell her I told you.”
This was so wrong, the child taking care of the adult, he thought. No wonder she was cutting herself. He had never suspected that Kylie felt as he did—that Laura was never coming back. His heart ached for the child, for the delicate deception she had spun out for her grandmother’s sake. How long had she suspected the truth?
“Is that—is that why you’re cutting yourself?” he stammered.
“I don’t know. All I know is that it did make me feel better.”
“Look, Kylie, if you ever need to talk to someone, I mean, about the truth—”
“I know, Uncle Lee—I can talk to you,” she said, but he sensed she was just humoring him. He felt her receding from him, traveling down the same dark tunnel he had been desperately trying to claw his way out of. But the tunnels were not connected; they as were separate as if they existed in different universes. Like him and Kathy Azarian . . . Right now, the only person he really felt connected to was the Alleyway Strangler. But was it enough to find him before someone else died?
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
If there was one thing Victoria Hwang hated, it was being late. She stood on the subway platform grinding her teeth and picking at the cuticle of her left thumb, impatience creeping up her spine like kudzu.
She forced herself to take deep breaths, pulling the musty, subterranean air in through her nostrils. It smelled like mildewed gym lockers and stale urine. She exhaled slowly through her mouth, just as she had learned to do in yoga class. In, out, in, out. Nothing you can do about it, so you might as well relax.
“Easier said than done,” she muttered through clenched teeth as she paced the platform of the 110th Street station. She was supposed to meet her parents in Chinatown at seven, and it was already after six thirty. She dug her cell phone out of her coat pocket and glanced hopefully at the screen, but there was no reception underground, with layers of dirt and rock and steel between her and the nearest cell tower.
“Damn,” she murmured and shoved the phone back into her pocket. A middle-aged woman frowned at her from one of the wooden benches lining the platform wall, then quickly looked back down at her magazine. The woman was tall and reedy, with a green tweed skirt and matching hat. Her sturdy-looking calves protruded from the sensible wool skirt, culminating in thick ankle boots perfect for striding over moors and fens. She brought to mind a British headmistress, ruddy-cheeked and hale from years of hearty lamb stew and brisk exercise in good English air. She had a horsey face, with a long nose and prominent cheekbones, and her big-boned hands clutched a green brocade handbag. Victoria barely noticed the tall man at the other end of the platform, who appeared to be engaged in reading the New York Times.
Victoria paced the platform, cursing herself for not getting an earlier start. She knew New York subways could not be counted on, especially on weekends. She saw a young couple in blue jeans and matching black T-shirts gazing longingly down the platform, as if that would cause the train to magically appear. She smiled and turned away, squelching an impulse to do the same. She felt a tap on her shoulder and spun around, her heart throbbing wildly in her chest. Her breath came in shallow gasps, and sweat spurted from her forehead as she turned to see the English schoolmarm, a startled look in her mild gray eyes.
“Sorry to disturb you,” the woman said. Her accent did sound vaguely British, but it had a touch of something else Victoria couldn’t quite place. “I was just wondering if you had the time.”
“Oh, yes—sorry,” Kathy answered, digging out her cell p
hone. “It’s, uh—six thirty-three.”
“Thanks very much,” the woman replied, smiling to show broad, uneven teeth. Kathy watched as she trundled back to the bench, tottering awkwardly on her sensible shoes. Her gait suggested that the shoes were new, or too small—she didn’t look comfortable in them.
Victoria turned away and forced herself to take deep breaths. Damn panic attacks, she thought, blinking to dispel the black dots dancing before her eyes. Lately, anything could set off a panic attack—the tap of a stranger’s hand on her shoulder, the sound of rapid footsteps behind her, the sight of a lone figure lurking in a darkened alley. Ever since being mugged a year ago, Victoria double-locked her doors at night and slept with a baseball bat next to her bed. She’d had an expensive alarm system installed in her apartment, with a state-of-the-art call center that was manned twenty-four hours a day.
She fished around in her bag for the magazine she always carried—and that, it seemed, was just the cue the train was waiting for. It glided into the station, the rows of shiny new silver cars almost entirely empty. At the far end of the platform, the tall, thin man slipped into the last car.
Victoria got into the same car as the sturdy English schoolmarm. The woman plopped her stringy body into one of the seats and immediately immersed herself in her magazine. Kathy tried to read her own magazine, but it was a trade publication in her field, architecture, and she didn’t find it very absorbing right now. She was too disturbed by her panic attack. Forcing herself to take deep breaths, she closed her eyes and allowed herself to be lulled by the forward motion of the train. She almost missed her stop at Canal Street.
She and the tweed-clad woman were the only two people left in their car as the door opened and the conductor on the loudspeaker blared the name of the stop.
“Canal Street. Change here for the—”
Victoria leaped from her seat and was already halfway out the door before he finished his announcement. She stood on the platform for a moment, trying to remember which exit stairs to use, when she saw the schoolmistress trundling along the platform toward the nearest turnstile. She followed her toward the exit.
She scarcely noticed the tall man behind her taking the stairs up to the street two at a time until he was just a few steps behind her. When she reached the top, she shuddered nervously and headed toward her parents’ apartment.
She forcibly shook off her bout of nerves as the man followed her through the shadows of the buildings lining Canal Street. He was, she was sure, simply going in the same direction as she and would soon be lost in the endless parade of pedestrians on Chinatown’s busiest thoroughfare.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
Lee rented a car and drove Kylie back to Stockton the next day. After dropping her off, he headed for Philadelphia to meet Kathy. He wanted to make another stab at working things out with her, but he also felt pulled there by the presence of the mysterious Thomas. It was totally irrational to think he could ever hunt him down, but he knew rationality wasn’t always his strong suit.
He hugged the river and crossed into Pennsylvania around Trenton. A shroud of mist blanketed the Philadelphia skyline as Lee drove over the Ben Franklin Bridge. The constant stream of traffic had turned the snow on the ground into slush, hissing under his tires as he turned onto the Race Street exit. Still hugging the river, he headed south toward the Old City, past the beer pubs and cheesesteak joints on Third Street. Driving past the graceful steeple of Christ Church, he was amazed, as always, to think that when it was built, it was the tallest building in North America.
Anxiety began to gnaw the pit of his stomach, so he switched on the radio to distract himself. He turned the dial until he reached the local NPR station, WHYY, where Terry Gross was interviewing a scientist about global warming. Looking out the window, he found it hard to imagine the landscape around him ever being warm again. A wicked winter wind whipped the bare trees lining the sidewalks, and even the buildings looked cold.
A lot of the cops he worked with probably didn’t listen to public radio, with its leftist slant and liberal attitudes. He wondered what Butts listened to at home. There was so much about the pudgy detective he didn’t know. Hell, there was so much about Kathy he didn’t know, when it came to that. And how could you ever really know another person? But he suspected that most people longed to be known, to be seen and fully understood. Perhaps it was that, and not sex, that drove people to mate and procreate and live together in hope of forging something deeper and wider than the sum of its parts.
The sum of its parts . . . The phrase rattled around in his head, like a light aircraft looking for a place to land. He was sifting through the meaning of it when he remembered that Krieger had also suggested that the killer might have a connection to numbers.
The sum of its parts. Were the strange designs of punctures on the victims a mathematical puzzle of some kind? he wondered as he turned east onto Chestnut Street. He parked at a meter and walked to the restaurant, with its brick-colored walls and black-on-gold painted columns, the colors of the Belgian flag. He didn’t see Kathy downstairs, so he squeezed past the regulars hunched over the bar, sucking on pints of Belgian wheat beer and porter, and climbed the steep steps to the second floor. It was happy hour, and the bar was crowded; the sound of loud laughter and clinking glasses followed him up the stairs.
The place had become a favorite of theirs early on—it boasted over three hundred imported and local brews. The menu included the beer’s country of origin as well as its alcohol content, and the mussels and fries were second to none. There was even a beer called Delirium Tremens (alcohol by volume 8.5 percent.)
On the second-floor landing, a skeleton lay grinning in his transparent coffin—one of the many tongue-in-cheek images of death sprinkled throughout the place. In honor of the season, the skeleton wore a bright red Christmas bow around its neck. Lee liked all the jaunty references to death. There was something unaccountably comforting about eating dinner in a room with a full skeleton in a corner.
He didn’t feel much like food now, though, and the sight of Kathy in the back of the long, narrow room didn’t help. She looked up when he entered, a tight smile on her face.
“Hi,” she said, as he slid into the chair across from her at the long table. The seating was European style, and you might share a table with up to eight other people on any given night. Today all the action was downstairs, though, and they had the upstairs to themselves. Kathy wore a fuzzy red turtleneck sweater that showed off her black hair. She looked fantastic. He wished she didn’t. He decided not to tell her how great she looked.
He thought about ordering a Delirium Tremens but instead selected an equally potent draft ale, Old Curmudgeon. It’s what he felt like lately, so he figured he might as well drink it.
“How’s the case going?” she asked when the waitress had gone.
“Not so good. We’re kind of stuck right now. How about you?”
“My dad’s away at a conference, so I’m staying at his place to look after Bacchus. I don’t know why he doesn’t get rid of that musty old cat—he’s terribly allergic to him.”
“He probably loves Bacchus.”
Her look said, Don’t go there, so he didn’t.
She took a long swallow of beer. “It’s a myth, you know.”
“What is?”
“This whole notion that you meet someone, fall in love and live happily ever after. The idea that anyone can fulfill all your needs or desires or fantasies.”
“But does that mean you can’t be happy with someone?”
“Expectations are too high. We want perfection, when what we’re stuck with is human nature.”
“Well, sure . . .”
She frowned, which deepened the little dimple in her chin. “See, I hate it when you do that.”
“Do what?”
“Say ‘sure’ when I make a point.”
“I was just agreeing with you.”
“No, you weren’t. You were implying that you’d though
t of it already, and what I’m saying is obvious.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“It sounds arrogant.”
“You think I’m arrogant?”
“Sometimes.”
“Is Peter arrogant?”
She put her beer mug down with a thump and glared at him. “Oh, come on, Lee—really.”
“Sorry, it’s just that—”
“I know this is hard for you. It’s hard for me too.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t have come,” he said, hoping she’d disagree. But she didn’t.
“Yeah,” she said. “Maybe not.”
Silence lay between them like a puddle of unhappiness. He felt soggy, sodden, miserable.
His cell phone rang, and he seized it, grateful for the interruption. It was Butts.
“What’s up?”
“Where are you?”
“Philly.”
“How fast can you get back?”
“What’s wrong?”
“We got another body.”
“I’m on my way.” He pocketed the phone, relief flooding his veins with equal parts shame. Someone was dead, and yet he was glad for the chance to be rescued from this desultory conversation. He would have to wait for another time to hunt down the mysterious Thomas, but that could wait.
He looked at Kathy, struck once again by the graceful symmetry of her face.
“I have to go.”
Maybe it was his imagination, but he thought she, too, looked relieved.
“Go,” she said, and he went.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
Traffic was light. Lee reached lower Manhattan in two hours flat, coming in through the Holland Tunnel. He headed straight for Cortlandt Alley, a narrow lane in Chinatown between Canal and White Streets. He found a meter on White, parked the car and showed his credentials to the sergeant guarding the area. Ducking under the yellow crime scene banner, he walked past the graffiti-covered metal grates, deserted loading docks and looming fire escapes to where Detective Butts stood, surrounded by a cadre of crime scene technicians.
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