“Mommy, is something wrong?” Brianna was standing by her bedroom door in the hallway past the kitchen.
“Go back to bed!” Cat snapped. Bree bit her lip to keep from crying and closed the door behind her.
It was Erin. Erin was dead. And Cal was missing.
Cat ran to her purse and got her cell phone, which she had set on vibrate so as not to interrupt getting Bree to bed, and had several voice-mail messages in the queue. She walked into the bedroom to change clothes. Mrs. Sullivan next door would come stay with Bree while she went to the station. She hated to wake the old woman at that hour, but her mother was too far away and it would waste precious time. The precinct’s line was busy, no doubt reporters digging for a story and family members calling to see if their loved one was killed in action.
As she put on her clothes, she saw through the window that a police car was downstairs, parked at an angle facing the curb. Cat ran to the living room to get a better view. The rain on the window blurred the outside world, but she could see well enough to tell there was no activity around the car. The cruiser’s headlights were on and the front doors were both open. From her vantage she couldn’t see the driver’s face, but his arm was slumped to his side, fingers dangling a few inches above the street. Then she noticed the other arm laying on the street, its owner obscured by the car.
“What the hell is going on?” Cat whispered to herself.
Maggie started barking and clawed at Bree’s door.
“Not now, Maggie.”
She heard a crash in Bree’s bedroom and her child’s scream. Cat didn’t even remember opening the door; the scene before her was instantaneous: shattered fire-escape window, bits of glass like stars strewn about the carpet, rain and wind streaming in through the billowing drapes, and a strange swarthy man hoisting her daughter by the arm.
“Ah, the lady of the house.” His smile was yellow. His long black hair billowed behind him.
Maggie rushed past Cat and lunged at the intruder, who dropped the girl to protect his throat. Cat scooped up her daughter and rushed into the hallway and turned right toward the front door. She skidded to a stop. Blocking the exit was the largest, ugliest man she’d ever seen. He lumbered toward her. Cat bolted the opposite way through the hall into the master bedroom at the end. She slammed the door behind her and locked it, well aware that it bought mere seconds. She heard a crack from Bree’s room-Maggie whimpered and went silent.
Cat laid her daughter on the bed and began rummaging through her armoire at the far end of the room. She threw shoebox after shoebox over her shoulder, cursing every pair, until she picked up the one that weighed right. Inside was the Colt. 32 caliber automatic pistol Cal had bought at a gun show. Under his supervision, she had fired it a dozen times at the Orchard Beach range but was now having trouble remembering the steps. She didn’t even know if it was loaded. Cat jumped and almost fumbled the weapon when a large hand smashed through the door. She remembered the safety, snapped the catch and aimed at the door. Hinges and wood flew apart. Cat held her breath and fired.
CHAPTER 6
Seth summed up the day’s events and concluded his life had been better before Lelani entered it.
This morning, he had been a photographer with a home, friends, and a job. Now, his home and job were gone, his roommate was dead, and none of his friends wanted anything to do with him. His life was in danger, he was fleeing a crime scene, leaving behind a decapitated cop and an abundance of his own blood, hair, and scraped skin all over the combat zone. Add to that, he was riding on a city bus with an unconscious police officer kidnapped from the crime scene and a woman who, among other things, refused to ever sit down.
Even now, she stood in the open corner reserved for wheelchairs, despite plenty of available seats. The driver and few passengers were oddly oblivious to Officer MacDonnell propped up on the bench, even after Lelani carried him aboard slung over her shoulder.
Seth nearly jumped out of his skin when the cop’s radio blared, “Officer MacDonnell, please respond!” The few passengers in the bus looked around for the sound. Lelani searched the radio for the off button. The radio blared again and Seth jumped in to turn it off for her.
Seth stood up and began to pace.
“Stay close to me,” Lelani said.
Seth wanted anything but to stay close to her. It was hard for him to believe that just a few hours earlier he had entertained notions of shooting her for a centerfold; that she would be his ticket to the big time like Playboy or Maxim. The longer he stayed with her, the more things unraveled. She was getting weirder by the hour. Earlier, she had insisted they wait until post-rush hour before taking the subway to the Bronx, citing lack of space in the cars. Then, she would only stand in the area between the port and starboard doors because the seats were “too thin.” At 110th Street, a group of Hispanic teens came aboard and began making catcalls at all the young women. Seth had suggested moving into the next car. She refused. They continued harassing girls down the line until they came to Lelani. The tallest of them only reached her shoulders, but they had numbers. After one of them ran his finger down her arm, Lelani put her hand up, palm facing the hooligans, and in a foreign tongue, sang a verse from the most beautiful lullaby Seth had ever heard. The youths fell asleep where they stood, piled atop each other. The car erupted in applause. Lelani had spotted a baseball bat sticking out from under one of the teenagers’ coats and handed it to Seth; a bad omen.
The bat! Seth remembered. He had left it at the crime scene; add another set of fingerprints for the forensics experts.
He studied the bus passengers: an old Hispanic woman in a maid’s smock, a teenage couple making out, a tired construction worker, and a mother with her young daughter. None of them paid him any attention despite his overt gaze. It was as though he weren’t there.
Lelani touched the rubber strip that signaled a stop request. The bus pulled over at the next stop, but nobody got up. Seth saw the driver searching the rearview mirror for someone getting off. After a moment, he resumed the route.
Seth watched her study the advertisements as the bus headed up Pelham Parkway. The babies were in at the Bronx Zoo, demonstrated by the bronzed webbed baby shoes of some exotic bird; Dr. Rajashkharappa guaranteed he could end your foot pain for only sixty dollars; and the language institute could teach immigrants English in only six months, provided they could read the ad to begin with.
Lelani hit the rubber strip again, and seemed amused by the sound of the bell. Seth studied her and realized a change in himself. Through her eyes everything took on a fresh perspective, as though the most obvious things were new and exotic. Sometimes she came off like a genius. But earlier, they had passed a street construction site and the pipes and wires beneath the street had enthralled her. “Everything flows here,” she had said. Her outlook forced Seth to reconsider things he’d often taken for granted. Although a novel feeling, it wasn’t worth going to prison for. Now, Seth needed a place to stay until he could sort out the mess that had become his life. Beyond that, he couldn’t care less if he ever saw her again.
“Please signal a stop,” Lelani asked.
Seth slapped the strip.
As before, Lelani effortlessly picked up Officer MacDonnell and carried him off the bus. The driver shouted for whoever to “Cut that out!”
Lelani handed a fold-out transit map of New York to Seth.
“Find Mayflower Avenue,” she said.
Seth pointed the way.
They passed Italian bakeries and delis, bodegas, dry cleaners, and Korean grocers, all gated shut at that late hour. A bar’s canned music spilled onto the street along with a few stumbling patrons. The vibe was less claustrophobic than in Seth’s neighborhood. Even in a cold drizzle at this time of night, Avenue A would be jumping with partygoers, diners, bar hoppers, dealers, addicts, musicians, artists, police, and transients. At the time Alphabet City had teemed with the denizens of eastern and southern Europe, huddled in rear tenements, the tranquil street they currently walked on had been farmland. This was where people who craved a slower pace came to settle. All the better, Seth thought. No one around to question their business.