“It’s not like they’re furnished, Emily.”
She shrugs. “We’ll get furniture.”
“You make it sound so simple.”
“You make it sound impossible.”
But the problem, she knows, is not furniture. It’s that the buildings Dale owns—inherited from his father—aren’t nearly as nice as the building where they live now.
Lived.
“It’s all about quality of life,” Dale frequently tells Emily. “Without it, you’ve got nothing worthwhile.”
Their quality of life has certainly never been lacking.
Dale always made a nice salary as a corporate accountant, but was able to retire a few years ago after unexpectedly inheriting a small fortune from his father. Unexpected in the sense that Mortimer Reiss was the kind of robust man who seemed as if he was destined to live forever. But he was just in his mid-sixties when a freak traffic accident took his life, making Dale an overnight multimillionaire—and reluctant landlord.
Mortimer had started flipping real estate years before it became fashionable. At one point, he owned two dozen properties in lower Manhattan, but over the last decade made a killing selling off all but the few buildings Dale still manages. Those, too, will be listed as soon as the market picks up a little. Unlike his shrewd father, Dale doesn’t want to deal with tenants, rent collecting, and maintenance, and Emily, who usually sees things eye to eye with her husband, doesn’t blame him.
Throughout twenty years of marriage, Dale’s affinity for the finer things in life has meshed fairly well with Emily’s decidedly charitable outlook. They’ve always had enough money, and both have been free to spend it—or give it away—as they’ve seen fit.
But in the weeks ahead, she realizes, they might not agree on their priorities. They need a roof over their heads, and a luxury doorman building might not be an immediate option.
About to leave the room to make dinner—the least she can do for Frank, with Jacky working late—she remembers something and turns back to Dale.
“You should call Jerry.”
“Jerry? Why?”
“You call him every day to tell him where he’s supposed to be working. When was the last time you touched base with him?”
“Tuesday morning. But I’m sure he doesn’t expect me to be calling him in to work when all this is going on.”
Emily stares at him and shakes her head.
“What?”
“Never mind. I’ll call him,” she says. “I should have before now, just to make sure he and his mother are okay.”
“I’m sure they are.”
“I hope so. Do you remember the number?”
He shakes his head. “It’s in my cell. My cell is dead.”
Right. So is hers. They both had their phones with them on Tuesday, but not chargers. Earlier, Dale tried to get new ones at an electronics store a few blocks away, but it was closed. The sign on the window said it will reopen tomorrow.
Looks like that check-in call to Jerry will have to wait.
Whatever Mack was expecting, this wasn’t it.
Numb, he stares at the two uniformed NYPD officers in his living room, trying to absorb what they’re telling him.
“I’m so sorry, Mr. MacKenna,” the older female cop, who’s done all the talking, tells him. “But can you please take a look?”
The other cop, probably a rookie, really just a kid, stands there looking shell-shocked. Mack imagines that he’s thinking he didn’t sign up for this: thousands of dead New Yorkers, families to notify . . .
He looks down at the little plastic-wrapped packet in his hand.
In it, supposedly, is Carrie’s wedding band.
He described it just hours ago at the registry, when he was asked to write down what she might have been wearing. Black suit, size ten. Black shoes, also size ten. He guessed those sizes by checking similar clothes and shoes in her closet. White blouse. Gold watch, gold wedding band, inscribed with her initials—along with his. It also contains their wedding date—the date they eloped because she didn’t want a big family wedding, because she didn’t like families.
Ah, the irony.
A family is what we were trying to have!
How many times did he scream those words at her? Silently . . . or maybe not. Not on that last morning, for sure.
“Mr. MacKenna,” the female cop says gently, “if you want to see if that is your wife’s ring . . .”
“Sorry.”
“No, no, take your time.”
He doesn’t want to take his time. He wants to get this over with. His hands shake as he fumbles with the packaging, but no one moves to help him. It’s as if this is a sacred relic, or perhaps just a sacred moment, a moment—a burden—that belongs to him alone.
The packaging falls away.
The gold band is in surprisingly good condition.
He clears his throat. “I was expecting . . .”
No. He doesn’t want to voice what he’d been expecting.
He checks the inscription inside the ring, nods.
“It’s hers, then?” the cop asks.
“Yes.” His voice sounds hoarse to his own ears.
“I’m sorry.” That comes from the younger cop, who shifts his weight and stares at the floor.
“Mack . . .”
Allison.
He’d forgotten she was here.
He looks over to see her standing a few feet away, giving him space—or maybe giving herself space.
“Are you okay?” she asks. “Do you need to sit down? Do you want a glass of water?”
Water . . . no. He doesn’t want water. He wants . . .
What does he want?
He turns to the female cop. “Can I ask a question?”
“Of course.”
“Do you know where . . . how . . . it was found? I mean, my wife wasn’t . . . she wasn’t . . .”
Attached to it.
The female cop shifts her weight. “The ring was one of the first things found down at the scene—picked up on the street Tuesday afternoon by a bystander. Earlier today, we matched the engraved initials against your wife’s name on the list of missing Cantor Fitzgerald employees over at the Pierre.”
“That was fast.”
“We know how hard it is for the families, waiting . . . not knowing.”
He nods. “It is hard. But now I know.”
“I didn’t mean—” She looks flustered. “I’m sorry, I know that this is hard, too—harder, I’m sure—than not knowing.”
Is it?
Mack looks down again at Carrie’s ring.
What is he supposed to do with this? Bury it in the family plot in New Jersey, next to his mother who hated Carrie?
I just told Allison about that, he realizes.
Not only that . . . he’d told her how he’d been feeling about Carrie, too.
What must she think of him? What kind of man talks that way about his dead wife?
When he unburdened himself, he was nearly delirious with exhaustion—and yes, guilt. And now . . .
He’s nearly buckling beneath the added weight of regret.
He regrets telling Allison how he felt about Carrie, he regrets the way he felt about Carrie, regrets that their journey had to end the way it did.
We were never going to make it all the way together, he acknowledges sadly, but still . . .
If I had just waited . . .
Why the hell didn’t I wait?
His throat tightens.
“Mr. MacKenna?”
Dazed, he looks up and sees, through the blur of tears, that the female cop is holding out a clipboard.
“We need you to sign . . .”
“Oh. Okay.” He automatically scribbles his signature in the general area she indicates.
“I’m sorry, I just . . . need a minute.” Mack turns and blindly races for the bedroom.
In the end, it hadn’t been satisfying at all.
That’s the disturbing part.
Jamie can’t stop thinking about the young punk—the one who had called Mo a towel head, the one Jamie had followed for several blocks before the street was deserted enough to make a move.
Even though he deserved to be punished, deserved to die . . .
Even though his blood flowed red and warm and sticky, just like the others’ . . .
The whole thing had just felt wrong, from the moment Jamie jumped the kid from behind and dragged him into an alley.
He didn’t even realize he was being punished; thought it was a mugging.
Feeling the blade at his neck, he said, “Take what you want!” The belligerent tone Jamie had heard in the store had completely evaporated. Now his voice was high-pitched; he was pleading, like a terrified little boy.
Jamie didn’t like that at all. Terrified little boys . . .
They’re a reminder of Jerry.
“Please don’t hurt me. Take my wallet. Please. Just don’t hurt me . . .”
But Jamie had no choice. It was too late to back out by that time; the only thing to do was get it over with.
It was so rushed—just one quick slash across the kid’s throat, not even time to watch him die there on the concrete. It would have been much too risky to linger.
But it wasn’t even worth it.
I needed the connection. I needed to take my time. I needed to make someone suffer more. I needed someone else. I needed . . .
I need . . .
Allison.
Not just yet . . . but soon. And I know where to find her when I’m ready.
With Mack behind closed doors in the bedroom, presumably trying to pull himself together, Allison looks at the two police officers.
“Can I ask you something about the ring?”
“What about it?”
Allison hesitates, not sure how to phrase the question that’s on her mind without getting into gory detail.
“It was found by itself, right? Not with . . . anything . . . um, attached?”
In other words, Carrie’s disembodied finger wasn’t still in it.
The female officer glances at her partner, who shrugs as if to say, You’re doing fine, go ahead, keep talking.
In return, she gives him a look that says, Thanks a lot, before turning back to Allison. “It was just the ring.”
“Could it have slipped off her hand, maybe, while she was trying to escape the building or something?” Allison suggests. “I mean, otherwise, shouldn’t there be . . . more than just the ring?”
“The, uh . . . the nature of the scene is that . . .” The cop shakes her head. “They aren’t necessarily finding intact human remains.”
Intellectually, Allison had already been aware of that fact. But now, hearing it spoken aloud—and after seeing Carrie’s wedding ring—
Why did I have to ask?
She glances toward the bedroom, making sure Mack hasn’t reappeared and overheard. This is hard enough for him.
“The thing is, there are a lot of people who just . . . vanished into the air.” The cop shakes her head. “I’m sorry to put it that way, but . . . that’s what we’re seeing. Or should I say not seeing.”
“I understand. I’m sorry I asked. I just thought there might be a way . . .”
Both cops shake their heads grimly, and the female gestures at the closed bedroom door. “He’s lucky to have something, even if it’s just one of his wife’s belongings. At least it’ll give him some kind of closure. A lot of families aren’t going to have anything at all.”
Anything, Allison suspects, but false hope.
“Do you want to knock and see if he’s coming out?” the male cop asks, looking at his watch. “We should probably get back over there.”
Allison wonders where there is. The Armory? The Pierre? Ground zero?
So many sites around the city wear the shroud of mourning tonight.
“Go ahead and ask him,” the female cop tells her partner, gesturing at the door.
With obvious reluctance, he walks over, knocks. “Mr. MacKenna?”
For a moment, there’s silence.
“Yeah,” Mack says from behind the door.
“Do you . . . can we . . . I mean, if you’re all right, we’ll go ahead and leave so that you can . . .”
Clearly, he’s not all right, but Mack replies, “Yeah. Yeah, go ahead. Allison, you too. I’m not . . . I . . . I just need some time.”
“All right. I’ll be right across the hall if you need anything.”
No reply to that. She didn’t really expect one.
As she parts ways with the police officers in the hallway, she remembers Kristina for the first time since their arrival at Mack’s door.
She had been certain their visit had something to do with the murder; for a split second, had even wondered if they were coming to arrest Mack.
Now, the notion seems utterly ludicrous.
Back in her own apartment, Allison fixes a cup of hot tea, hoping it will calm her nerves. Clasping the mug in her icy hands, she sits in the living room staring into space.
She can’t stop thinking about Mack.
Not just about Carrie’s wedding ring. That was disturbing enough, but . . .
She keeps going back to what he said right before the police showed up.
A lot of people didn’t like her . . . and in the end, I was one of them.
She really wishes he hadn’t told her that.
She bets he wishes the same thing.
Chapter Twelve
Mack is huddled on the end of the couch brooding, as Carrie so often did, when the ringing telephone startles him. He snaps out of his daze, looks around, spots the receiver on the coffee table, and instinctively grabs it and presses the talk button before realizing he doesn’t want to speak to anyone.
Swiftly hanging up without saying hello, he tosses the phone aside and wills it to be silent.
A few seconds later, it starts ringing again, as he’d known it would.
Just get it. You can’t avoid the rest of the world forever.
But chances are the caller will have to be told about Carrie, and he’s not ready to talk about it yet.
When will you ever be ready for that?
The phone rings, rings, rings again . . .
It could be Allison, who already knows about Carrie, and knows Mack’s home. If he doesn’t pick up, she might show up at his door again, and he isn’t ready for that, either. Not yet.
Anyway, the incessant ringing has him on edge; he might as well just get it over with and speak to whoever it is. Shakily, he gets up to answer it.
“Hello?”
“Mack! There you are!” Lynn’s voice greets him. “I just tried to call you and—”
“I know, sorry, there was . . . something wrong with the phone.”
“Really? I’ve been trying to call you all afternoon, and I left you a bunch of messages. Where have you been?”
He clears his throat, tries to speak, clears his throat again.
“Mack? What’s going on?”
“I had to bring Carrie’s DNA samples to the Armory to register her as a missing person . . .”
“Oh God. Was it a nightmare?”
“Yes,” he says simply.
“I would have gone with you. Why did you go alone? I could have—”
“No, it’s okay.”
“But—”
“Lynn, listen to me, it’s over.”
“What? What do you mean ‘over’?”
“It’s over. They found her. They found Carrie.”
There’s a long pause. “Is she . . . ?”
“Yeah.”
“She’s . . . ?”
“Gone.”
Hearing the rush of air from Lynn’s lungs on the other end of the line, Mack feels his knees suddenly turn to liquid beneath him. How can it be harder to deliver the news than it was to receive it?
Mack sinks onto a chair, gripping the phone painfully hard against his ear.
“Are you okay?” His sister’s voice sounds choked.
“Yeah. I’m okay.”
“I’ll come. I can be there in—”
“No,” he says sharply. “Not tonight.”
“Why not?”
“Because I really need to be alone.”
Alone. Isn’t that what you’ve wanted all along?
It certainly was on Tuesday morning, wasn’t it?
You thought that being alone was better than being with Carrie; better than bringing the child you want so badly into an unhappy marriage.
Now what do you think?
“Lynn, I have to go,” Mack says, and hangs up the phone without waiting for her reply.
He buries his head in his hands, his entire body trembling.
The phone starts to ring again.
He ignores it.
It rings again.
Again, he ignores it, jumping up and striding toward the door.
I’ve got to get the hell out of here, he tells himself, right now, before I lose it.
Lose it?
Really? What more does he have to lose?
Just my mind, Mack thinks grimly, stepping out into the hallway without a clue where he’s going.
Rocky sits back and scowls at the screen of his desktop computer, having reached another cyber dead end.
Where are you, Jerry?
Who are you?
How the hell am I supposed to find you when I don’t know your last name—or even your first, for that matter?
Is it just Jerry?
Or is that short for Jerome? Jeremiah?
For all Rocky knows, it’s spelled with a G—Gerry? Short for Gerald? Gerardo?
He hasn’t a clue.
Hoping to locate the guy on a prior, he just wasted an enormous amount of time searching arrest records back to 1997, the year the database was created, for every crime under the sun, petty to major.
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