Jack turned to Mia and looked into her eyes. “You’re not going to tell me what’s in the case, are you?”
Mia slowly shook her head.
Jack looked at her as he slid the box onto the deep shelf seven feet up. “You’re sure about this?”
Mia looked up into his eyes. She couldn’t hide her worry. There was an intensity in her face, a focus like Jack had rarely seen. Mia was excellent at hiding her emotions, her thoughts, never betraying her inner feelings to the outside world. But Jack wasn’t the outside world. He could read her as if she were an open book.
“I’ve never been more sure about anything,” Mia softly said.
And finally, Jack realized that what he saw in his wife’s eyes wasn’t worry or concern about her latest case. It was a far more base emotion.
It was fear.
CHAPTER 14
Mia’s eyes opened with a start, her heart already pounding in her ears as she awoke from a nightmare into something far worse. She looked around the barren, windowless room, and except for the bed she lay on and the tray of food on the floor, there was nothing to offer any indication of where she was. The heavy brass knobs were polished to a high sheen, while the key mechanism for a dead bolt looked average and recently installed. There was a single lamp in the corner, its forty-watt bulb casting heavy shadows in the small, confined space. The room was not more than ten foot square, and she couldn’t imagine its function beyond a jail cell.
She rose from the bed, her shoulder sore, her head throbbing, and reached for the brass doorknob, although she knew what she would find as she turned and tugged on the thick, heavy door. She laid her ear against the white oak and gently shook the door, listening to its hollow reverberation on the other side. There was no reaction, no approaching footsteps, just the soft echo of the knob turning to and fro and, in the distance, the faint sounds of the city.
Mia turned and looked at the tray of food on the floor. There was a sealed bottle of water. A loaf of bread, cheese, fruit, and a wedge of sausage, like a welcoming tray from some fine hotel. And although she felt hungry-starving, actually-the hollow pit in her stomach, the mix of fear and anger, was too overwhelming to allow her even to think of eating.
Mia had always been able to master her emotions, contain her fear, her pain, her disappointment. Her stepfather had instilled in her that the display of emotions was for the weak, the unintelligent, a sign of our animal heritage. The display of emotions-be it by man or woman-would only serve to fog the mind and impede one from clear thought.
Whether is was the disappointment she felt at being cut from the swim team in eleventh grade after dedicating so many years to the sport or being thrown from her horse at the age of fifteen, her father admonished her tears, scolded her for not burying the pain deep down, never to be spoken of again. She had learned it so well that she was thought of by many as cold and distant. But her face to the world was so contrary to the swirl of emotions she felt within, emotions she didn’t display until she met Jack and he cracked the hard shell she had developed over the years. But those lessons her stepfather forced upon her, while not suitable for a child, had come in handy in her line of work. She was unreadable when she chose to be, masking her feelings with an expertise only seen through by her husband.
But as she thought of Jack, it all came pouring forth in her mind: the rainy bridge, the white Tahoe, the gunshot, her husband’s eyes as he looked pleadingly at her as the car tumbled over into the churning river below.
Despite all of her mastery of her emotions, despite the desperate need to find a means of escape, Mia wrapped herself in her grief.
For the second time, the most important man in Mia’s life had been murdered, violently taken from her as she was forced to bear witness.
And as all strength left her, she collapsed to the floor, her body wracked with sobs.
CHAPTER 15
The call came at 6:30 that morning. Cursing under her breath at whoever had the nerve to rattle her so early on a Friday, Joy Todd rolled over and grabbed the phone to hear her sister utter her name in a fateful tone. Joy sat up and swept her long blond hair out of her face as if it would help her to focus. She climbed out of bed, stretching the kinks out of her back when her sister began to sob.
“Sheila…” Joy said. “What’s wrong?”
Sheila read the headline from the morning paper.
Joy’s anger was immediately vanquished by grief, and she collapsed to the floor, unable to move.
She finally struggled to stand, wiping the tears from her blue eyes, and she knew where she had to go. It was an odd instinct, something that affected everyone when dealing with the tragic death of a loved one. It happened in plane crashes, motorcycle accidents, and shootings. Some kind of mystical tug on the heart and mind drew the grieving to the place of the incident, where they could try to touch the souls of their loved ones as if they lingered waiting to say good-bye. Makeshift memorials were constructed of flowers, candles, handwritten notes, some in pen, some in pencil, many in crayon bidding farewell, expressing their love and anguish to the ones they never got a chance to say good-bye to.
Joy emerged from her apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Two subways, one train, and a cab ride later, she found herself in Byram Hills, standing with the crowd on the bridge. She was not surprised at how many had followed the same instinct to gather and mourn Jack and Mia. They were the type who always listened, who helped others through their troubles and tragedies, yet never spoke of their own difficulties. It contributed to the fondness people held for them, to the genuine love their friends expressed over the years.
Joy knew Jack as well as, if not better than, anyone. In all the years they had worked together, she had seen him at his best and worst, yet he never buckled, never broke, no matter how hard the pressure. When her parents died and she didn’t have money for the funeral, it was Jack who stepped in and paid. And while the gesture would warm anyone’s heart, Joy knew that it was paid for from what little savings Jack and Mia had. She was there for the births of their daughters, helped them move into their house; she was the only one from their office who attended their holiday parties.
As she watched the Tahoe being lowered onto the bridge, tears rolling down her face, she barely felt the vibration of her phone in her jeans pocket. She pulled it out and flipped it open without seeing who called-she couldn’t care less-and absentmindedly laid it on her ear.
And her heart nearly exploded for the second time that morning as she heard his voice. There was no doubt, no thought of some kind of trick; she knew who it was before the first uttered word was completed.
“Joy,” Jack said, “please don’t let anyone see you react to this call.”
“Oh, my God,” she said in a sobbing whisper.
“I need your help.”
• • •
Joy sat in the backseat of Frank’s Jeep, hugging Jack, holding on to him as if he was about to slip away from this earth again.
“What the hell?” She was genuinely pissed. “It’s eleven a.m. and you couldn’t have picked up the phone any earlie?”
“Sorry,” Jack said with an apologetic smile as Frank shot him a glance.
“I’m serious.” Joy leaned back and glared at him. “I thought you were dead. Do you have any idea how that feels?”
“I said I’m sorry.”
“You’re lucky I don’t kill you now. Don’t ever do that again.” Joy’s emotions flew all over the place, finally settling down into relief as she took a deep breath and leaned back in the seat. “How’s Mia?”
Jack’s look quickened her breath. He told her what had happened, about going over the bridge, his wounds and the tattoo, Mia’s disappearance and his confidence in her still being alive, and the evidence case. After riding the emotional roller coaster again, Joy calmed herself and regained the focus she was known for.