Gold wrestled with the request for only a few days before bending to Jeremy’s will. He disposed of a sample provided by one Miles Cookson, but attached his name to the files of nine women implanted with Jeremy’s sperm.
Who could have guessed, back then, that in less than two decades there’d be thriving businesses devoted to testing your DNA and linking you to relatives you never knew you had? And that Jeremy’s sister would send in her DNA sample and be startled to learn there was at least one person out there who was very likely her niece? And that it didn’t make any sense at all.
That was when Jeremy realized the seriousness of his situation.
Those nine grown children out there. Living, breathing evidence of his arrogance and grandiosity. One day, more of them might send samples to WhatsMyStory or some other DNA service, and be linked back to Jeremy’s sister and, in turn, to him.
Jeremy was apoplectic.
His grand “nature vs. nurture” experiment had to be brought to an end prematurely. All evidence had to be destroyed.
Evidence being, of course, the people themselves.
It wasn’t enough that they be killed. They had to be vanished. DNA could be recovered from a corpse, even years into the future. A body could be exhumed, tested.
Not only that, DNA traces could be left behind. In hairbrushes, on phones, towels, sheets. Two of the best ways to eliminate DNA were bleach and fire. If the residences of these people couldn’t be burned to the ground, then they had to be thoroughly cleaned.
This string of murders would never have happened if Gold had not caved to Jeremy’s outrageous demands two decades earlier.
Gold knew that Jeremy had employed people to monitor his nine biological children over the years. Followed their academic progress, their interests. And, as the years progressed, which colleges, if any, they chose.
Before learning that his sister had sent her DNA to WhatsMyStory, what had distressed Jeremy Pritkin most was how normal these children were.
Oh, sure, some had shown some minimal talent in certain areas. One wanted to be an actress, another a graphic novelist. The one out in Portland was interested in medical research. But where were the child prodigies? The kid who could play Mozart on a piano at the age of four? The youngster who could solve a scrambled Rubik’s Cube in fifteen seconds? The computer geek who could figure out how to hack the Pentagon from his bedroom before puberty?
Normal. Or, to put it another way: disappointing.
It took a little of the sting out of it for Jeremy. In some ways, erasing these children from the face of the Earth was a way to hide his failures.
Or so Jeremy had told Gold.
There was one bridge, in neighboring Mount Vernon, that Gold viewed with special affection. It was by no means the longest bridge in the world, or the highest, and it certainly was not the most beautiful. It was no Golden Gate, and it sure as hell was no Sydney Harbour Bridge.
But he liked it because it reminded him of the bridges he built as a child.
It was the South Fulton Avenue bridge in Mount Vernon that spanned the Metro North Railroad line.
A simple Pratt through-truss bridge, two-lane, slightly more than 150 feet. Long enough to span the four tracks below. Partway across, a set of covered stairs that headed down to the tracks, and signs that read: MOUNT VERNON EAST STATION. TO STAMFORD AND NEW HAVEN, TRACK 4.
Once you crossed the bridge, the road became North Fulton Avenue. It was a dividing line between north and south, an equator of bridges.
Gold knew the history here and was happy to explain it to anyone who wanted to listen. The design for the Pratt bridges, and examples of them were scattered all over the country, came from Caleb and Thomas Pratt, who developed, in 1844, a bridge constructed of wood and diagonal iron rods. It was made up of sections called trusses.
As a boy, Martin lived only a few blocks from here, and he had walked or ridden his bike across this bridge probably a thousand times.
It seemed fitting this would be the one he jumped from.
There was a fence running along the walkways on both sides, but it was not so high as to be insurmountable. Just to be sure, Gold brought along with him a small plastic step stool that he kept in his storage unit for when he needed to bring a box down from the top of a stack.
The 1349 train would be coming into the station at 11:12, from the east, passing under the bridge before it came to a full stop at the platform. Gold figured if he arrived at 11:10, parked his Lexus right on the bridge, grabbed the step stool, and hurriedly bailed from the car, that would give him enough time to leap over the fence and land on the tracks seconds before the train got there. The fall would almost certainly kill him, but in the unlikely event it did not, the train would finish him off.
Gold, always a considerate sort, would leave the key to the Lexus on top of the dash. No sense making the police have to call for a tow, or worse, dig through his pockets once the fall and the train had made a mess of him. He wondered if he should have written a note for Elspeth, explaining why he was ending his life.
No, he thought. Better that she never know.
He held back one block from the bridge, and when his dashboard clock read 11:08, he put the car in Drive and hit the accelerator. There were no vehicles in his path, nothing to stop him from meeting his train on time.
The car rolled onto the bridge. Halfway across, he stopped the car, put it in Park, and killed the engine. He tossed his keys onto the dash, then grabbed the small step stool that was in the footwell of the front passenger seat.
He stepped out onto the bridge, walked around the back of the car to reach the pedestrian walkway on the east side. He peered over the top of the railing.
There it was. The headlight of the approaching train.
His heart hammered as he set the step stool down, got onto it, and gripped the top of the railing. All he had to do to get over was hoist himself up at the same time as he gave a good push with his legs.
The train was almost to the bridge.
It was time.
Grip. Push.
“Hey, whoa, stop it!”
He felt someone grab him around the legs. He glanced over his shoulder, saw a large woman clinging to him. She was dressed somewhat formally, in a pale blue shirt, black pants, and a black suit-like jacket.
“Don’t do it, Dr. Gold!” the woman cried. “Don’t do it!”
How did she know who he was? He’d never seen this woman before in his life.
“Let go!” he said. “Let me go!”
“I gotcha! I gotcha!”
Martin Gold couldn’t get over the railing. The woman had a good fifty pounds on him, he was betting. He’d lost his leverage.
The train rumbled underneath them as it slowed coming into the station stop. It was now immediately west of the bridge.
The moment was gone.
He stumbled off the plastic step, lost his balance, and hit the walkway. The woman knelt over him, straddling him. She was doing more than just trying to help him. She was keeping him from getting away.
“It’s going to be okay,” she said. “Charise is going to take good care of you.”
And that was when Gold noticed someone else on the bridge. Running this way. This person he recognized.
Miles Cookson.
Shit, Gold thought. It’s over.
Fifty-Seven
New Haven, CT
Gilbert and Samantha stood at her second-floor bedroom window, peering down from behind the curtain, wondering what Caroline might do next. She stood in the middle of the yard, looking up, aware that they were watching her.