Given that he was betting everything he had at this speed? He’d be lucky if he left anything big enough to bury.
Faster. Faster. Fast—
Unfortunately, or fortunately, he wasn’t sure which, the end for him did not come in a screeching rip into the trees to avoid a Buick or a Bambi.
It was a Polo Ralph Lauren outlet store.
Or specifically, the light right before the place.
Pulling out of the tunnel vision he’d enjoyed made him feel strangely disoriented, and the only reason he stopped at the red was that there were a couple of cars in front of him and he was forced to obey the traffic laws or ride over their roofs. The goddamn light took forever, and the lineup he was in moved at a snail’s pace when it finally got its green on.
Then again, he could have been popping sixty-five on the highway and it would have felt like he was twiddling his thumbs.
But it wasn’t like he was trying to run from something. Of course not.
Passing by Nike, Van Heusen, and Brooks Brothers, he felt as empty as the huge parking lots, and there was a part of him that wanted to keep going . . . past this retail fringe, through Caldie’s suburban maze, out around the skyscrapers, and over the bridge to God only knew where.
The trouble was, everywhere he went . . . there he was: Geographical relocation wasn’t going to change the face in the mirror. Or that part of him that he’d never understood, but never questioned. Or what the fuck had gone down tonight.
He must have killed that sick bastard. There was no other explanation. And he didn’t know what Reilly was thinking in letting him go. Maybe he just needed to confess. . . . Yeah, but to what? That he went there with the intent to kill, and then he—
The headache that plowed into his front lobe was the kind of thing you couldn’t think around. All you did was groan and close your eyes—not the best move when you were on a bike that was basically just an engine with a padded seat screwed to it.
Forcing himself to focus on the road and nothing else, he was relieved when the cranial thumping eased off and he pulled into his development.
The house he lived in was in a neighborhood full of teachers, nurses, and sales reps. There were a lot of young kids, and the yards were maintained by amateurs—which meant in the summer there was probably going to be a lot of crabgrass, but at least the shit would be mowed regularly.
Veck was the outlier: He had no wife, no kids, and he was never going to bust out a Toro or a Lawn-Boy. Fortunately, he had the vibe that the neighbors on either side of his postage stamp of a yard were the type to cheerfully encroach with their blades.
Good people. Who had told them they felt safer with a cop next door.
Showed what they knew.
His two-story house was about as fancy and unique as a penny from the seventies. Which, as it turned out, was the last time the place had been wallpapered.
Pulling up to the garage, he dismounted and left his helmet hanging from the handlebars. There wasn’t a lot of crime in this area—so his mowing neighbors were getting a burn deal on a lot of levels.
He went in the side door, passed through the mudroom and walked into his kitchen. Not a lot of Food Network going down in here: all he had were a couple of empty pizza boxes on the counter, and some Starbucks dead soldiers clustered around the sink. Half-opened mail and loosely stacked reports were on the table. Laptop was closed down for the day next to a Valpak coupon book he was never going to use and a cable bill that was not yet overdue but probably would be because he sucked at paying shit on time.
Always too busy to write a check out or go online to pay.
God, the only difference between this place and the office downtown was the fact that there was a king-size bed upstairs.
On that note, Officer Reilly wanted him to get naked, didn’t she.
Snagging a Glad trash bag from under the kitchen sink, he went upstairs, thinking he was going to have to hire a cleaner to come once a week so that he didn’t end up with cobwebs in every corner and dust bunnies going IVF clinic under the couch. But this was no home and was never going to be. Pine-Sol and 409 four times a month didn’t get you cozy.
Although at least the occasional chick he brought in would have somewhere halfway decent to get re-dressed in.
His bedroom was at the front of the house, and all it had in it was that big bed and a bureau. His boots, socks and pants came off quick. Turtleneck was the same. As he peeled off his black boxer briefs, he refused to think of Officer Reilly handling them. Just was not going to go there.
Heading into the bath, he turned on the shower, and as he waited for it to get warm, he stood in front of the mirror over the sink. No reflection to bother with—he’d covered the glass with a beach towel the day he’d moved in.
He was not a fan of mirrors.
Lifting his hands, he held them out palms down. Then flipped them. Then looked under his nails.
It appeared as though his body, as with his mind, was empty of clues. Although you could argue that no scratches, no blood, no gore on him was an indicator—and no doubt what the fine Officer Reilly had noticed and acted on.
Man, this was the second time in his life he’d been in this situation. And the first . . .
No reason to think about his mother’s murder. Not on a night like tonight.
Stepping into the shower, he closed his eyes and let the spray fall down his head and shoulders and face. Soap. Rinse. Shampoo. Rinse.
He was standing in the steamy, wet heat when he felt the draft: Sure as if someone had opened the window by the toilet, the blast of air shot over the top of the plastic curtain and brushed across his skin. Goose bumps came when called, popping out across his chest and shooting down his legs and back.
The window hadn’t been opened, however.
And this was why he’d removed the glass wall of the shower and covered that built-in mirror over the sink. Those two things had been the only changes he’d made to the house, and the unimprovement had been for his own sanity. He’d been shaving for years without his reflection.
“Get the fuck away from me,” he said, closing his eyes and keeping them that way.
The draft swirled around his legs, feeling like hands roaming over his flesh, going higher, fondling his sex before hitting his abdomen and his pecs, up to his neck . . . his face. . . .
Cold hands ran through his hair—
“Leave me alone!” He threw out his arm and shoved the curtain aside. As warm air greeted him, he bore down at his core, trying to kick the intruder out, kill the connection.
Stumbling over to the counter, he braced his arms and leaned down, breathing hard and hating himself, hating this night, hating his life.
He knew damn well that it was possible, if you had multiple personality disorder, for a part of you to break free and act independently. Sufferers could be completely unaware of the actions their body had taken, even if it involved violence—
As that headache started kicking his temples like tires again, he cursed and dried off; then pulled on the flannel shirt and NYPD academy sweatpants he’d slept in the night before and left on the back of the toilet. He was about to go downstairs when a quick glance out the window held him in place.
There was a car parked across the street about two houses down.
He knew every vehicle in the neighborhood, all the trucks, vans, SUVs, sedans, and hybrids, and that shadow-colored, late-model American nothing-much was not on the list.
It was, however, exactly the kind of unmarked that the Caldwell Police Department used.
Reilly was having him surveilled. Good move—exactly what he would have done in her position.
Might even be her in the flesh.