“I saved your mystery meat dish just in time before it
burned down the neighborhood.”
“No way. The timer was supposed to go off after half
an hour. I didn’t hear anything.”
“You are in the shower, you know.”
“No way. I have a keen sense of hearing.”
“When you pressed half an hour,” I said, “what exact
buttons did you press?”
“I held the button until it read three zero minutes and
zero seconds.”
“Really,” I said. “You’re sure about that?”
“Sure. Why?”
“There’s no seconds on the oven. It’s just minutes and
hours. You set the timer for three hours and zero minutes.”
“Oh. Crap. Sorry.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “Just…never cook again. And apologize to the fish in there.”
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“It was supposed to be orange chicken,” she said.
“Well it’s probably got the texture of volcanic rock
right now. You feel like pizza?”
She offered a sheepish grin, and said, “Let me finish
up in here and we’ll order.”
“Sure you don’t want me to join you?”
“No, the toaster is on, too. Would you mind checking
on it?”
“The toaster? Are you ser…”
“Just kidding. Give me five minutes.”
She closed the door and I collapsed on the couch. I
turned on the television and clicked through a hundred
and fourteen channels before deciding that there was
nothing worth watching. It was just as entertaining to sit
there and go through the events of the day, and prepare
for the next.
Hopefully Brett Kaiser could fill in much of the information that was missing. Somebody had to be paying
Kaiser’s firm’s share of the lease money, and with any
luck that person would have intimate knowledge of just
who my brother was working for and why he was
killed. I still didn’t buy that it was totally a power play.
Stephen came to me because he was scared of something. If you work in a company and have problems
with underlings, there are ways to circumvent any
actions. Now when somebody above you wants you
gone, that’s when you have a problem. If you feel that
your termination—pardon the term—is inevitable, you
begin planning an exit strategy. In the workplace,
maybe you look for another job, prepare a lawsuit,
something so that you’re not thrown from an airplane
without a parachute. When Stephen came to me that
night, scared out of his mind (a mind already addled),
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he was looking for his exit strategy. Granted the actions
you take are a little different when you led a life of
crime as opposed to life in a cubicle, but the principle
still stood.
What I needed to know was who set Stephen on the
path to his eventual exit. Even though he didn’t make it,
he had something to say. A story to tell.
Amanda came out of the shower. She was wrapped in
a towel, and over the towel she wore a pink bathrobe.
Above this contraption she was tousling her hair with
another towel. The combination of towels and thick
bathrobe made Amanda look about twice as thick as she
normally did, and I couldn’t help but laugh.
“This is my routine,” she said. “You should be used to
it by now.”
“I am,” I said, “but that doesn’t mean you don’t look
a little silly.”
She took a seat on the couch, wrapping the towel into a
turban where it sat perched a whole foot above her head.
I’d bought the couch at an apartment sale for about a third
of what it would cost at a department store. It was brown
leather, with big cushions that I constantly rotated to change
up the stains. Made me feel like it was a little less worn.
“How was your day?” she asked, absently flipping
through the stack of the day’s newspapers I kept on the
coffee table.
“Still working on this story with Jack,” I said. “It’s
interesting, working with him for the first time.”
“In what way?”
“Jack was in pretty bad shape my first few years at the
Gazette. I hate to admit it, but there was a moment or two
when I wondered if this was really the same guy I grew
up wanting to be. Not many kids dress up like a journal-88
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ist for Halloween. It was important to me that he was who
I thought he was.”
“You did not dress like a journalist,” Amanda said.
“You bet your ass. Had a row of pens in my shirt
pocket, a camera and notepad and everything. Everyone
assumed I was Clark Kent.”
“I would have paid to see that,” Amanda said.
“There aren’t a whole lot of photo albums back in
Bend. My dad wasn’t exactly the sentimental type.”
“How do you feel about how things are going?” she
asked. I took a seat next to her, thought for a moment.
“When I found out Stephen was dead, I felt numb. Like
someone was prodding me with a stick I could see but
couldn’t feel. I was supposed to feel remorse, but it didn’t
come at first. Someone can tell you that you lost a family
member, but if you didn’t even know the person it’s not
the same. It should be, I guess. Blood is blood, but in a
way it isn’t. Now, it feels different. Like maybe I did lose
someone who could have— should have—been closer to
me.” I looked at Amanda, saw she was listening to every
word. “Without you, I’d have no one.”
“Don’t say that,” she said, looking away. “That’s not
true.”
It was true, but I didn’t want to argue. I’d made mistakes during our time together. Knowing when to shut up
was an important lesson.
She went back to reading the paper. Her fingers were
still a little wet, and I could see the print rubbing off on
them. She went to wipe her hands on the towel, then
smiled and thought better of it.
“You see this?” she said, holding up a copy of that
morning’s Dispatch.
I shook my head. I rarely read the Dispatch. Not
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because I held a grudge against them—though I did—it’s
because they never had much I felt was worth reading. It
was the kind of paper that rarely presented an even story.
It was all about eliciting a reaction, stoking a fire, presenting a story so biased in one direction or the other that
readers would either be incensed or infatuated. I had all
the major New York City papers delivered to my door in
one bundle. I could care less about the Dispatch, but it
didn’t cost anything more and every now and then I
enjoyed reading the sports section.
“I must have missed it,” I said. “What’d you see?”
“Paulina Cole,” Amanda said. “Says here her column
will be suspended until Thursday while she deals with a
personal matter.”
“Really?” I asked
. That surprised me. Paulina Cole
was the kind of woman who didn’t take personal leaves.
If my mental image of her was accurate, she stayed in her
office while darkness crept in, waiting for some scoop to
brighten her desk. And if she didn’t get one, it would only
fuel her fire to make the next scoop even juicier.
I wondered what could be so important that she’d
suspend her reporting, even just for a few days. It would
take either an act of nature or a revolt by the paper’s
shareholders to get rid of Paulina. Which meant somewhere a storm was brewing. Not to mention I’d be lying
if I didn’t hope, after everything she’d done to Jack and
me, that it made her life a living hell.
No doubt Paulina would come back on Thursday with
a story that would open some eyes.
11
Wednesday
Paulina Cole glanced over her shoulder. Still nobody
there. The Mercedes was empty when she climbed in,
empty when she started the engine, and empty when she
pulled onto the FDR Drive toward I-95. She even checked
the trunk—nothing—but wondered if there had been
enough time for someone to climb in during the split
second when she closed the trunk and climbed into the
driver’s seat.
The anger welling up inside Paulina was a firestorm.
She was scared, and God, she couldn’t stand that feeling.
The idea that someone controlled an aspect of her life that
she did not, it was like being trapped in cement while
people poked you with a stick. That night, the night that
man took her, Paulina had experienced emotions she
didn’t think she’d ever felt. Not when her husband left her.
Not when he took half of her money because his deadbeat
ass barely made a dime, not when she was fired from her
first job as a secretary for “not being presentable.” Of
course this translated as she wouldn’t wear a blouse lowcut enough that the partners could see her tits, but even
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then Paulina Cole didn’t feel this sensation. Even then,
she knew her future was in her hands. Small people
thought small. She was meant for something bigger,
grander, and nobody, no idiotic men—whether spouse or
employer—would ever slow her down.
Until that night.
There were burn marks on her right side, just below
the curve of her breast. It ached every second of every
day, and she had to wear a massive bandage, otherwise
all the aloe she put on it would seep through her shirts.
She’d never been brutalized. Not like that. She could take
criticism. She could take people hating her. Hate came
when you got under somebody’s skin, and Paulina was
nothing if not a provocateur.
But she did nothing to deserve this.
And neither did Abby.
Thinking about what that man threatened to do to her
daughter made Paulina shriek inside. And when Paulina
Cole got scared, she took those emotions and turned them
inside out. Fear turned to rage, and rage had to be directed
somewhere. She just didn’t know where yet.
She arrived at Smith College at just past noon, the
entire hundred-and-sixty-mile-plus drive taking just over
two and a half hours. Luckily there wasn’t much traffic
leaving Manhattan that early in the morning. Lots of
people lived outside the city and commuted in. Not a
whole lot did the opposite. No sense paying New York
living prices and make a non-NYC wage.
Finally Paulina found herself on College Lane, which
was bracketed on the north by Elm Street. Figured, she
thought, that this pagan sanctuary of a university would
have an Elm Street.
The office of admissions was a three-level white-92
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thatched cottage with a second-level deck that hung over
the entryway. The front door had several sun chairs on the
porch, though Paulina couldn’t for the life of her figure
out who exactly would choose to spend a beautiful day
sitting in front of the admissions office.
Paulina parked the rental on the lawn directly outside
of the admissions office, purposefully ignoring the yellow
sign that clearly stated VEHICLES WITHOUT PARKING PERMITS WILL BE TOWED. Paulina knew this
game. In order for her car to be towed, the admissions
office would have to call the college’s office of public
safety. The public safety office would have to dispatch an
officer to survey the vehicle. If the vehicle was, in fact,
parked without a permit, the public safety officer would
then have the go-ahead to call the local police department,
who would then dispatch a tow truck to remove the offending vehicle. The entire process, beginning to end,
would take about forty-five minutes.
Paulina didn’t plan to be there more than five.
She walked into the admissions office, trying to avoid
eye contact with the students huddled in the foyer reading
the campus paper and checking their cell phones for text
messages. She went right up to the registrar and planted
her hands on the counter in front of the ruddy-faced man
who looked at her like she was some vicious bear come
in from the wilderness.
“Hi,” Paulina said with the conviction of a woman
who knew she’d get whatever information she wanted and
might just tear out your spleen to get it. “I’m looking for
my daughter. I was wondering if you could let me know
what dorm room she’s in.”
“Your…daughter?” the man said, surprised. Paulina
could tell from the man’s demeanor that he was probably
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not considered any sort of threat to the student body of
this all-girl school.
“Yes. My daughter. Abigail Cole.” The man sat there
unmoving. “Is there a problem?”
“Well no,” he replied. “It’s just that, well, most parents
have their children’s phone numbers and dorm rooms
etched into their brains. You know, one of those ‘always
know where to reach your loved ones’ deals.”
“Yeah, well I’m not one of those parents,” Paulina said.
“No, you don’t seem to be.” He picked up the phone.
“Would you like me to call her for you?”
“No,” she said. “I’d prefer if you just told me where
she lives. I’d like it to be a surprise.”
“Surprise. Sure. Can I just see some ID?”
Paulina handed it over. The man took it gently between
his thumb and index finger like one might handle a piece
of forensic evidence. He looked at it, typed a few keys
into his computer, then slid it back to her.
“Thanks, Ms. Cole. Abigal lives in room three-ohthree of the Friedman apartments.”
“Where can I find that?”
“It’s the housing complex at the corner of Elm and
Prospect streets. But you’ll need somebody to let you
in—like Abigail. The doors are locked 24/7, and campus
security is always on the lookout for people who don’t
for.”
“Thanks for the tip,” she said, and left.
She drove over to the apartment complex and found a
spot in the student lot in between a Volvo that looked
sturdy enough to withstand tank fire and a Prius with a
Kerry/Edwards bumper sticker lovingly forgotten on the
rear bumper.
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She walked across the lawn toward the middle of the
three dorms, for a moment thinking back to her own time
at college, wondering where it all went. She barely remembered the days that seemed to have flown by in a blur
of books and late nights, staying up until four in the
morning to ace the test that nobody else figured they
could pass. Paulina smiled as she watched all the young
women, these silly young women who probably had no
idea what kind of world awaited them. Most looked like
they didn’t have a care in the world, and who knew,
maybe they didn’t. But, one thing Paulina knew for sure,
it was the ones who cared too much who succeeded. The
ones who refused to stay down when they were beaten
down. The ones who refused to take “no,” and instead
took everything. She prayed for years that her daughter
was like that. Sadly, she’d resigned herself to the fact that
it was not meant to be.
Approaching the dorm, Paulina stopped two young
women carrying backpacks and chatting. “Excuse me,”
she said. “Can you tell me where I can find room threeoh-three?”
The thicker one who had short hair and stringy-looking
tassels lining it, pointed to the dorm on the left, then
middle. “One hundreds, two hundreds, three hundreds.”
She finished by pointing at the dorm on the right.
“Thanks very much,” Paulina said, and waited until the
girls left. She walked up to the entrance, a glass door
leading into a small atrium that was also locked from the
outside. She took out her cell phone, pretended to send
text messages while she waited. Finally a girl approached
the door, looking in her purse for a key. When she found
it and inserted it into the lock, Paulina stepped behind her
and put the phone away. The girl opened the door, and
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Paulina caught it before it could close, following her into
the atrium. The girl turned around, looked at Paulina.
“I’m sorry,” she said, her young blond hair looking so
tender, so naive. “We’re not supposed to let strangers
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