“‘Bending’ would be a better description.”
“Alonzo’s going to ‘bend’ our legs if we get found out.”
“So don’t get found out,” Del replied. “You want to be a detective? You gotta detect.”
From the sixth floor of One Police Plaza, the new New York Police Department headquarters, there was a view of the trees of City Hall Park, just at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge. Beyond the park stood the neo-Gothic magnificence of the Woolworth Tower, its green copper crown framed by the glass-walled Freedom Tower behind it.
LCT Capital was in the Woolworth Tower, Del remembered. Maybe she would pay a visit over there and talk to Atticus Cargill. Find out about Roy’s trust fund from the administrator himself.
Or maybe she wouldn’t. That would set off Captain Harris’s alarm bells and land her in hot water with her boss, Alonzo.
Coleman had gotten them into the NYPD’s SOC—the Security and Operations Center. They had to go through two sets of double doors and be photographed twice to get in, but Del and Coleman had credentials. And Coleman’s buddy Francis Esposito was the tech nerd who, in addition to loving the Giants, managed the physical infrastructure side of the SOC.
It didn’t hurt that Esposito knew Del’s father, too.
It was here that the NYPD integrated all the incoming cyber threats, alarms, and physical threats—the new real-time crime-fighting center, where they merged all the credible threats into a single stream of information to disseminate back to the cops on the street. New York’s Finest in the twenty-first century.
The SOC wasn’t quite as exciting as it had sounded on the drive over. Del had imagined an evil-genius-style control center with wall screens tracking orbital assets. After passing security, Del had been ushered into a city-block-size open room of gray cubicles. It smelled of new carpet, old pizza, and body odor.
“Stop there,” she said to Esposito. “Put the cameras from Ninth and Tenth on these two monitors and roll forward at triple speed.”
Esposito checked his watch. “That’ll only get you to ten at night. I gotta turf you out at one.”
“You want to keep those tickets?”
“One-fifteen, and I’ll roll at five times speed. I’m telling you, it’ll pick up.”
They had fed several of Primrose’s pictures into the facial recognition system. Del wanted to see the woman entering the bar.
“Okay, do it,” Del said.
Two days ago, when she met Charles Chegwidden at the house in Montauk, she was forced to call in to the East Hampton Police Department to check on the missing-persons report. This had ignited a firestorm. Captain Harris had shown up within half an hour, his face redder than his hair. Del had feigned surprise, saying she was just chasing down a missing-person sighting that was called in.
Harris didn’t believe her, of course.
He said they knew that Primrose had been called in as missing but that she often went off-grid for a few days when her show was in the off-season.
Del found out later that Charles had a bit of a sad reputation as the cuckolded husband. He called in several times a year to report her missing, when his wife was just out enjoying herself—with other men—in the city. They started to ignore his calls after a while.
This was different. Ten days missing already. Despite all the attempts to track her down, no one could find her.
A missing billionaire TV celebrity wasn’t going to escape the media for much longer. Her last known stop was at the bar Heaven, in Meatpacking, or, more accurately, at Hell, in the basement of Heaven.
Eden ran an out-patient rejuvenation center there, Del had discovered, but there was no way any video footage of inside the bar or from Eden’s own systems was going to get into the public eye. Harris had petitioned the commissioner to make sure it stayed under tight security, and Del and Coleman weren’t invited to the party.
The public system of outdoor cameras the NYPD maintained was another matter, however—as long as they didn’t get found out.
Why was she risking it?
It was something the private eye, Angel Rodriguez, had said. Someone was killed. Whoever Roy was attached to was dead.
There was a body.
The links to Eden and Primrose were too much of a coincidence. The missing hiker reported on Roy’s street—that was another dead body. And now his neighbor was also missing. She wasn’t ready to bring it to her boss yet. She needed more.
She had tried the cell phone that Roy called her from before, but it was disconnected. She tried his friend Sam, whose private number she had, but he didn’t answer. It was too risky to Del’s career to try calling Roy’s wife or his mother, the socialite-queen of the Hamptons. She tried calling back Angel, Roy’s private eye, but got only an answering machine.
Roy’s case had become an itch that Del couldn’t quite scratch, and that drove her nuts.
“And the download of all Royce Lowell-Vandeweghe’s facial-recognition hits?” Del asked Esposito. “How long?”
That was the real reason they had come. She knew that Roy was in Manhattan. If she couldn’t go to Eden Corporation to find out his location, she still wanted to know where he was and what he was doing. This may be another way to find out.
“It’ll be a raw dump of all the hits,” Esposito said. “I put the filter wide, just like you asked, but you’ll be getting thousands of false positives you’ll have to sift through manually. It’ll be done in a few minutes.”
The time stamp on the video feed scrolled through 10:00 p.m., then 11:00. It froze and then began stepping forward a few frames at a time.
“There she is.” Esposito pointed at a red square highlighting a woman’s face.
It was Primrose Chegwidden, no doubt about it, walking down Ninth Avenue to Heaven.
“Do you think you can find out who those people are?” Del pointed at the half-dozen oldsters following in Primrose’s wake.
“You want me to ID citizens?” Esposito said. “Tracking down a perp or two from photos, that’s one thing. Doing a database search—that’s a whole—”
“Set of playoff tickets?” Del said suggestively.
Coleman groaned.
“I’ll see what I can do,” Esposito said.
The image on the screen froze again. This time, not just one red square highlighting a face, but a green one, too, on a different face.
“Jesus Christ,” Del muttered under her breath. “Zoom that in.”
The two faces ballooned in size.
It was Roy, talking to Primrose. Her golden-fish earrings waggled and sparkled even in the dim light. Roy followed her into the bar.
“Can you add that video stream to my download?” Del asked Esposito.
“Sure thing.”
“And double-check that we get all the facial recognition hits on that guy.” She pointed at Roy. “I want to know everywhere he went.”
“That guy?” Esposito squinted at the image. He zoomed in so Roy’s face took up the whole screen. “That’s your head-transplant guy? I read all about him in my technical journals.”
Del said, “One more thing.”
In the picture on-screen, she pointed at a Latino-looking guy with a mullet and a mustache, his shirt unbuttoned almost to his navel despite the freezing weather.
“Find out who that joker is.”
34
“Hello? Sam? That you?” Roy said into the phone.
He was alone in the dark in his dingy apartment, with the heating off.
The cold brought with it pain, so he at least had some sensation from this bastard body. He sat naked and cross-legged on the stained mattress of the bed. Two fingers held the pull cord of the lamp on the nightstand.
Every few minutes, he would click the light on and stare at his pale reflection in the mirror of the vanity he had ripped from the bathroom wall and pro
pped up on a chair in front of him. He would stare back into his own eyes, wondering what was lurking in the depths.
Who was in there?
What was in there?
He would stare at the red scar ringing his neck and fantasize about digging his fingers into the edges of it, ripping the skin apart in a gush of blood. Separating himself to become one again, not two.
Then he would click the light off, and the room would go dark again.
And the sensation returned. That he wasn’t alone.
The body had two brains; that was what Dr. Brixton had told him.
Is that you in here with me, Jake?
Stop talking to yourself, a voice answered. Focus. Get a grip.
His dog had died a full three years before the accident, but hadn’t he spoken to Penny about it? Or Sam? Even his mother? Was that why she was so upset when he brought it up? Because it made no sense? What else didn’t make sense?
It didn’t matter.
He could just sit here and wait for it to end. Stop taking his antirejection drugs, and his head would explode. Or rot. That was what he’d heard would happen. His brain would decay from the inside out while his eyes and tongue bloated.
That was all he had to do to end this pain.
“Hello?” a tiny voice said in the darkness.
He’d forgotten he had just answered the phone. He clicked the light on and lifted the phone to his left ear.
“Sam?” he replied.
Only Sam had this number, unless it was a telemarketer. Now, that would be icing on the cake. Maybe he could invite them over. Show them just what he thought of telemarketers. Add another prize to his collection.
Roy asked, “Who is this?”
“Hope.”
* * *
It took Roy’s mind a few seconds to process. It felt like days. Weeks.
He became aware that he was sitting completely naked and staring at himself. He clicked the light off to hide in the darkness.
“Who?” he said into the phone.
“Hope Hawkins,” said the all-too-familiar voice.
Even now he felt the pull—even in the darkness, that tug toward the center of a universe he could never be a part of. Was he hallucinating? Was this real? How could it be possible? He hadn’t left anything at the house. She didn’t know who he was. She didn’t even know who her husband had donated his organs to, if she even knew that he’d been a donor. And she certainly didn’t have Roy’s phone number.
He remained silent.
“Roy, are you there?” Hope said.
“You’ve got the wrong number.”
“Please, don’t hang up,” her voice pleaded, on the edge of tears.
In the silence, a battle of Titans raged inside Roy. His thumb hovered over the button to end the call, but instead he said: “How did you get this number?”
“I called your house. Your wife gave me your friend Samuel Phipps’s number, said if anyone could reach you, it would be him.”
“But how … how did you know?”
“Those hands …” She started weeping but managed to contain it. “I would recognize Jake’s hands anywhere.”
He remembered her staring at his hand as he held it up to her in the garage to try to keep her back.
“He was the sweetest man.” Hope’s voice trembled as the words tumbled out. “When we got married, he said that if anything ever happened to him, to donate his organs. He was firm about that, about helping someone else. That’s who he was. When I saw you—saw Jake’s hands—I thought I was seeing things. But I went online, saw that they did hand transplants, and then I read the stories about whole bodies. I saw your picture. I saw your face.”
After a pause, Roy said quietly, “I shouldn’t have …”
But what could he say? That he was sorry? He was sorrier than the world had words to express.
“You wanted to know about Jake,” Hope said. “I can understand that.”
“That’s right.”
“Then I’ll tell you everything. Where are you?”
* * *
Roy ran around the apartment like a teenager who had just asked his prom date over. He put sheets back on the bed, tried to arrange the comforter on top with some pillows that weren’t stained. Tried to stick the vanity that he’d ripped out of the wall back in place, but had to settle for pinning a towel over the gaping hole.
At least clean the toilet. That he could do.
And take a shower.
No clean clothes, but he put on deodorant and turned the boxers he had on inside out. Gross, but at least they felt clean. Swept what dirt and dead flies he could under the couch.
She was leaving Elsa with a babysitter, she said. She’d be there in less than an hour. The whole time, thoughts raced through his head.
Did she know that her husband was a killer? Not just in the ring, but a serial killer? A murderer with a collection of body parts just a few streets down from their house?
How could she know?
Serial killers were secretive, Roy had read online. Sociopaths. They often hid in the open with a wife and family, just like Jake. Blended in by appearing normal. They were often extremely intelligent and charming.
But what if she did know?
Had he just uncovered their stash? Was she on her way here to silence him? The thought of Hope killing him felt comforting, somehow. He looked into the mirror and combed back his hair, stared into his own eyes.
His thoughts turned even darker.
What if she was coming over here to reunite with her dead husband? To conjure Jake up from his body to take over Roy’s mind? For the two of them to embark on another killing rampage?
Roy shook his head.
That’s insane, said a voice in his head. She doesn’t know. Don’t get stupid.
And then …
What if it wasn’t safe for her to come here? What if Jake had killed himself to protect her from himself? Was Roy now leading her back into the lion’s den? What if he blacked out again?
A rap at the door.
Roy stopped combing his hair. He’d been raking it for half an hour, trying to cover the protrusions of the sensors embedded in his scalp. He pulled his scarf tight around his neck and went to unlock the door.
All his questions collapsed in on themselves.
There stood Hope, trembling under the streetlight, her mascara and eyeliner smudged and streaked down her cheeks from the tears. She still had on the name tag from the diner. Her red hair was matted. But she was the most beautiful thing Roy had ever seen.
“Come in,” he said simply. There was no way any of this would be easy.
She hesitated, so he stepped back to give her space. After reaching the bottom of the stairs, she stopped. With his eyes, he indicated the couch and that he would sit on a chair beside it. He filled an old kettle and turned on a burner on the stove before sitting down.
“Did you get my letters?” he asked. “From the Organ Procurement Network?”
Her head quivered up and down, her lips tight together. “And you didn’t want to answer them?” He knew they were anonymous and that she couldn’t have known it was a full-body transplant.
“I couldn’t. It was too painful.”
And now Roy had just shoved himself into the open wound. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.” Hope’s voice gained some volume. “Jake would have wanted me to know you.”
He would bet that wasn’t true. “Did you and Jake ever come to New York?”
“You mean around here? He loved the East Village. I wasn’t surprised when you said that’s where you were.”
A creeping tingle in Roy’s scalp. “And the Never Inn? Did you go there together?”
The forced smile on her face faltered. She shook her head. “I don’t know it.”
&
nbsp; “The Never Inn?”
Her shoulders scrunched. Sorry, they seemed to say, never heard of it. Clutching her purse tight, she said, “He was the sweetest man.”
Should he tell her that her husband was a psychopath? His stomach clenched at the thought. Is that you, Jake? What do you want me to tell her? Tell her you kept eyeballs and fingers in glass jars so you could take them out at night and—
“Can I touch your hand?” Hope asked.
“What …?” She was still like a wraith to him—a vision that could be seen but had no real substance.
She reached out and put her hand on Roy’s. Her fingers were warm. Soft.
Without warning, she leaned forward and buried her face against Roy’s forearm. He flinched but didn’t resist. Didn’t pull back. She got halfway to her feet and pushed her whole face into his chest, breathing deep.
The sobs began, her body convulsing with little weeping gasps.
She slumped back down into the couch and held one hand over her face. “Oh, God, you smell like him.”
Roy didn’t know what to say, so he said, “Would you like some tea? I put the kettle on.” He got up, got out of there. Too close, too close. Waited with his back to her until she stopped weeping.
“He’s gone, Hope,” he said quietly.
“But you’re here. Most of you is him.”
“I think I know why he killed himself.” His stomach flared again. Could he tell her? Should he?
“No, you don’t,” she said. She wasn’t crying anymore.
Roy didn’t say anything.
“You don’t know,” Hope said, “because Jake was murdered.”
* * *
A shrieking whistle pierced the air.
“Roy?”
Steam shot out into roiling clouds of vapor that dissipated as fast as they formed.
“Roy, are you okay?” Hope said.
He blinked twice and, in slow motion, took the kettle off the stove. Time stutter-stepped forward and skipped a beat or two.
“How do you know Jake was murdered?” A dull throb blossomed between his temples.
“I just know. He loved”—her voice hitched—“he loved our daughter, Elsa. So, so, much. He would never leave us like that. He was the kindest, gentlest person I ever knew.”
The Dreaming Tree Page 20