by Timothy Zahn
Fierenzo shook his head. "I'd rather put them on a leash and let them run."
"I doubt Cerreta will spring for the extra manpower," Powell warned.
"I wasn't planning to ask him," Fierenzo said as they headed downstairs. "I figured we could cover this ourselves."
Powell turned a dark look on him. "As in, there goes my weekend?"
"The blood of thousands of New Yorkers, Jon," Fierenzo reminded him.
"Easy for you to say," Powell grumbled. "With Claire and the girls gone, you can keep whatever crazy hours you want."
"Sandy will understand," Fierenzo assured him.
"Sandy's getting tired of understanding," Powell countered. "What the hell. We're starting right away, I suppose?"
"They're not going anywhere tonight," Fierenzo said. "If they really don't know where the girl went, they're bound to stick around at least until morning in case she comes back."
"And if she does?"
"She won't," Fierenzo said grimly. "Wherever she went, I get the feeling she didn't go voluntarily."
They crossed the entryway alcove past the duty cop and stepped out into the chilly night air. The CSU investigators were closing down shop, their lights switched off and being broken down. A
pickup truck with the Department of Parks and Recreation logo on the side was parked at the curb, and a pair of figures were dragging the broken tree limb toward it. "I still don't think we should let them out of our sight," Powell said.
"We won't," Fierenzo assured him. "I think I can find someone who'll baby-sit the building until we get back in the morning."
Even without looking, he could feel Powell's eyes on him. "You wouldn't," the other said. "Smith?"
"Why not?" Fierenzo countered, pulling out his cell phone. "He wants to be a detective. It's only fair that we show him what the job entails."
"I suppose you even have his number memorized?"
"Don't be silly," Fierenzo admonished him. "I've got it on speed-dial."
Roger locked the door behind the detective, fastening both the deadbolt and chain. Then he went through the apartment, making sure every window was locked.
Caroline was still on the couch, gazing into her teacup, when he returned. "How are you doing?" he asked.
She gave a little shrug. "Okay."
"How's your side?" he asked, his own chest throbbing a little harder in sympathy.
Another shrug. "It's okay."
With a sigh, he sat down beside her. "It's not your fault, Caroline," he told her quietly. "It really isn't."
"I'm the one who let her go into the courtyard," she said, her lower lip trembling visibly as she fought back the tears. "I could have said no, but I didn't. How can it not be my fault?" She shook her head. "That woman came straight out of the tree," she murmured with a sudden shiver. "I know you don't believe that part, but she did."
"Where she came from doesn't really matter," Roger said, ducking the implied question. Caroline had only been able to give him a quick summary before the cops marched them back to the apartment, and the mysterious woman and her baffling appearance had been one of the many things he hadn't understood. "My point is that if you had stayed inside, Melantha would have been here when my two gorillas showed up. There was going to be trouble no matter what you did or didn't do."
Caroline sniffed back some tears. "They must have followed the cab."
"We don't know that," he said, determined to snap her out of this quagmire of self-recrimination.
"Maybe they followed me."
"No, it was me," she insisted. "We saw them climbing our building, just as we were leaving Lee's."
"They were climbing?" Roger asked, frowning. "You mean the outside?"
She nodded. "And Melantha called them Grays."
"Grays," Roger murmured. The Greens, and the Grays. This was starting to make an unpleasant sort of sense. "What did they look like?"
"I don't know," Caroline said. "They seemed short and squat. Sort of like the way you described our visitor last night."
Roger nodded. "And like the two who shot at me just now."
Caroline looked up sharply. "They shot at you?"
"With a gun that appears from nowhere and fires invisible bowling balls," he said, gingerly rubbing his sore chest. "Knocked me straight across the room."
"Let me see," Caroline said, hurriedly setting down her cup and unzipping his jacket. "You didn't tell me you were hurt."
"It's nothing," Roger assured her as she got through the jacket and started on his shirt buttons. "Like I said, it was like getting hit with a bowling ball."
"Well, there's no blood, anyway," Caroline said, peering through the gap she'd opened. "There's going to be some bruising, though."
"That I can live with," he said, buttoning up the shirt again. "I'm just glad the things weren't on whatever setting blows off tree branches."
Caroline caught her breath. "Is that what happened?"
"What else?" he said. "I wasn't outside in time to see the branch go, but I did see the woman get slammed into the tree. It was exactly what happened to me, only worse."
"Maybe that's what happened to Melantha, too," Caroline said. "Oh, Roger, what are we going to do?
She trusted us, and we've let her down."
"I don't know," Roger said, taking her hand as he fought back his own gnawing sense of guilt.
Maybe if he hadn't been so intimidating—maybe if Melantha had felt free to tell them the whole truth
—this could have been avoided. But it was too late. Now, most likely, the story was lost to them forever.
Unless...
Letting go of Caroline's hand, he got to his feet. "Where are you going?" she asked as he headed across the living room.
"Fierenzo said we had a message on our machine," he reminded her, picking up the handset and punching in their number.
Caroline came up beside him as the answering machine picked up. Roger punched in the retrieval code, then switched to speakerphone so they could both hear. "Hello, Roger, my name is Cyril," an unfamiliar voice said. "I understand you spoke to Sylvia at Aleksander's this morning..."
They let the message run to the end. Caroline gave a little shiver, Roger noticed, when he came to the part about the blood of thousands of New Yorkers.
"... I hope you'll do the right thing, and that we'll see you and Melantha here soon," the voice concluded.
There was the click of a disconnect. "Lovely," Roger growled. "Nothing like a little veiled threat to
—"
"Hello, Roger, my name is Aleksander," a new voice unexpectedly came on. "I wanted to apologize for not being here when you came by this morning. Sylvia told me about your conversation, and I sense her zeal may have skewed your perception of us. I'd like to make that up to you, as well as give you the complete story before you make any decision on what to do with Melantha. You'd be more than welcome to come back here; alternatively, there is one of your own who's familiar with the situation."
Roger felt his throat tighten. One of your own?
"His name is Otto Velovsky, and he lives in the apartment building across from Jackson Square,"
Aleksander went on. "Please go and listen to him. I don't exaggerate when I say that the fate of the entire city may hang in the balance."
The disconnect click came again, and this time it was followed by silence. Roger waited a moment to make sure there weren't any more messages, then clicked off his end of the connection. "Where's Jackson Square?" Caroline asked.
"No idea," Roger said. "Do you know if the Youngs have a good city map?"
"Should be here," Caroline said, pulling open the telephone stand drawer.
The map was indeed there, tucked beneath a small stack of notepads and pencils. They took it back to the couch, and for a minute searched through it in silence. "There," Caroline said suddenly, pointing to a spot in the West Village near 14th Street and Eighth Avenue. "One of those little neighborhood pocket parks."
"Right," Roger said, n
odding as he studied the area. It wasn't too far from a little Italian place he'd taken Caroline to a couple of times before they were married. "Did he give an address? I don't remember hearing one."
"We can look him up in the phone book," Caroline said. "I wonder who he is, and how he fits into this."
"I'm more worried about that 'one of your own' comment," Roger said. "It sounded really strange."
"And the woman by the tree told me to leave Melantha to her own people," Caroline said slowly.
"Roger... these aren't just two ethnic groups, are they?"
He shook his head. "No ethnic group I've ever heard of can climb walls or pop out of trees."
"Trees!" Caroline clutched suddenly at his arm. "Roger—if that woman could come out of the tree, maybe Melantha went into it."
"Oh, damn," Roger muttered as a cluster of mismatched puzzle pieces suddenly fell into place.
"That's how she disappeared Wednesday night. She just popped into one of the orange trees." He snorted under his breath. "I can't believe I'm saying this."
"Never mind that," Caroline said, jumping up and starting across the living room. "Come on."
"Whoa," Roger said. "Where are we going?"
"To the courtyard, of course," Caroline said, scooping up her coat from the chair where she'd draped it. "We have to see if Melantha's in that tree."
"With the cops still out there?"
Caroline froze with one arm halfway into its sleeve. "Oh. No, I guess not."
"Definitely not," Roger agreed, trying to think it through. "And even after they leave, it might not be a good idea. If the woman's still out there, and if she didn't see where Melantha went, that might give her away."
"I don't know," Caroline said, her eyes going strangely distant. "She looked awfully dead to me."
"Then where did the body go?" Roger countered. "Besides, even if she's not there, there may be more of her people around."
"Or the men who shot you," Caroline agreed with another shiver. "Did I tell you they can turn invisible?"
Roger felt something catch in his throat. "No, you did not," he said, trying hard not to yell. Of all the things to forget to tell him—"How do you know?"
"The Grays on the building today did that," Caroline said. "You could see them moving against the wall, but only because they were moving. Once they stopped, it was like they weren't even there."
"Terrific," Roger said, looking surreptitiously around the room.
"But they weren't completely invisible," Caroline added. "You could still see their shadows."
"Really," Roger said, a spark of an idea finally coming to him. "Wait here."
He found the hefty four-cell flashlight the Youngs kept on hand for power outages and went through the apartment again, sweeping the light across walls and ceilings and looking for unexplained mansized shadows. To his relief, there weren't any. "Looks clear," he reported as he returned to the living room.
"I hope so," Caroline said. "What now?"
Roger looked out the window. The extra lights that had been set up around the park had been taken apart and were being loaded into their van. "There's nothing we can do until morning," he said. "We don't know who's going to be watching, and even if we find Melantha we haven't got any place to run but back here. We've already seen how vulnerable this place is."
"But we can't let her stay out there all night."
"We're assuming she was inside one of your orange trees all night and most of the next day," he reminded her. "She ought to be able to hold out until morning."
"I suppose," Caroline said reluctantly. "What then?"
"We'll call a cab," Roger said. "Once it's standing here with the engine running, you'll go over to the tree and see if you can get her to come out. If she's there, and if she answers, we can hopefully all be on the FDR before anyone can stop us."
He looked out the window again. "If so, then you two can hole up in a hotel somewhere while I go talk to this Velovsky character and see how much of this mess he can clear up."
Caroline sighed. "I just wish there was more we could do."
"Me, too," Roger said. "But I don't know what else to suggest."
"I know," Caroline said reluctantly. "Could we at least...? No, never mind."
"What?" he asked. "Come on, tell me."
"Could we at least use the hide-a-bed here instead of one of the bedrooms?" she asked hesitantly. "I know she was watching when I did the code downstairs. That way, if she gets into the building but can't remember the apartment code, we'd hear her knocking."
"Sure," Roger said, suppressing a grimace. He never slept well on hide-a-beds, and Caroline knew it.
But aside from that, it was a good idea. "Go get our stuff and I'll get the bed set up."
"Okay." To his mild surprise, she leaned over and gave him a quick kiss. "Thank you."
"No problem," he assured her.
And besides, he thought as he stacked the couch cushions against the wall, no matter where they settled down for the night, he wasn't going to sleep well.
13
The sun was just coming up over Queens, and Fierenzo and Powell had been sitting in the stakeout car for half an hour, when the Whittiers finally made their move. "There they are," Fierenzo announced, nudging his partner as he peered back over his shoulder.
"Where?" Powell asked, turning around.
"Cab," Fierenzo said succinctly, pointing to the vehicle that had pulled up in front of the apartment building behind them. A moment later the Whittiers appeared, the husband going straight to the cab's back door and opening it. To Fierenzo's mild surprise, though, the wife headed instead across the street.
"Where the hell is she going?" Powell muttered.
"Looks like she's revisiting the crime scene," Fierenzo said, frowning as she stepped over the low fence and waded her way through the bushes to the tree with the broken-off limb. Crouching over, she leaned her face right up to the bark. "Looking for something, maybe?" he added.
"If she is, she's talking to herself while she's doing it," Powell told him.
"You're right," Fierenzo agreed, frowning harder as he watched the woman's lips. Movement, then a pause; then movement, then another pause. As if she was saying something and then waiting for an answer.
An answer that apparently wasn't coming. Thirty seconds later she gave up and turned back toward her husband and the cab. "Here they come," he said, swiveling back to face forward and turning the key. The engine sputtered for a moment and then caught, blowing cold air through the vents at them.
In the mirror he watched as the Whittiers climbed into the cab and the driver pulled away from the curb. It passed Fierenzo and Powell and headed for the next street, its left turn signal flashing. "Here we go," Fierenzo muttered, pulling out onto the street as the cab slowed for the turn. "Five bucks says they're going for the FDR—"
"Hold it," Powell interrupted, pointing to their right. Beyond the tall fence that encircled the park, a dark-haired man was running toward them, waving both arms frantically. "What's he doing in there with the gate still locked?" Powell muttered.
"See what he wants," Fierenzo said, glancing toward the cab as it disappeared around the corner.
"Maybe we can call it in and keep going."
Powell cranked down the window, letting in a fresh flood of cold air. "What's the matter?" he called.
The man skidded to a halt, opened his mouth, and screamed.
Fierenzo jerked as the sound hammered through his head, the car leaping beneath him like a bucking horse. The wheel twisted in his hands, the street and park and whole damn city tilting sideways as up and down suddenly lost their meaning. Dimly over the sound he heard Powell yelling something—
And then the world straightened out; and with a rush of adrenaline he saw he was headed straight for the curb.
He twisted the wheel, but it was too late. With a spine-jolting bounce the car careened up over the curb and rolled itself up against a lamppost.
"You okay?" Fier
enzo asked, shaking his head to clear it.
"Yeah," Powell grunted, sounding as dazed as Fierenzo felt. "Hell—there he goes."
The man had reversed direction and was running back across the park toward the fence at the far side. "Oh, no, he doesn't," Fierenzo growled, popping his seat belt and shoving open his door.
Scrambling awkwardly out against the upward tilt, he hit the ground and charged across the street.
He'd heard echoes of that same scream last night, and he had no intention of letting this one get away.
He was across the street and making for the gate when his quarry spun around in mid-run and let loose with another scream.
He was at least twice as far away from Fierenzo as he'd been the first time, but the extra distance didn't seem to make a bit of difference. Once again the ground tilted violently; and this time, with no car wrapped protectively around him, he fell face first toward the iron fence. More by luck than anything else, he managed to grab one of the bars, halting his forward momentum and giving him something to hang onto as the world took itself on another spin. A moment later, without any memory of having fallen the rest of the way, he found himself lying on the ground. Blinking away the last few sparkling stars, he lifted his head and looked around.
The man had disappeared.
There was the sound of hurrying footsteps, and he swiveled around on his hip as Powell dropped to a crouch beside him, gun in hand as he stared through the fence into the park. "Where'd he go?" he demanded.
"What are you asking me for?" Fierenzo grunted, using the fence for balance as he pulled himself back to his feet. "Weren't you watching?"
"Of course I was," Powell said disgustedly, giving Fierenzo an assist with his free hand. "Right to the point where he ran behind one of the trees, and that was the last I saw of him. You okay?"
"I think so," Fierenzo said, rubbing his palms against his pant legs to dry them as he peered through the fence. The man had vanished, all right, just like Melantha and the old woman from last night.
This was starting to get very annoying. "That song of his sound familiar?"
"Like the one we heard last night," Powell confirmed. "Reminds me of those nonlethal sonic weapons the military's been playing around with."