"What?" I said.
She blinked into the sunlight. "I don't believe in the supernatural either-but you know what I do believe in?"
I shook my head.
"I believe in the maternal bond. I don't know how else to say it. I'm her mother. That's the most powerful link known to mankind, right? A mother's love for her child trumps all. So I should feel something, one way or the other. I should be able to stand by that gravestone and know if my own daughter is alive or not. You know what I mean?"
My gut reaction was to offer up some patronizing pap like "How could you?" or "Don't beat yourself up about it," but I stopped myself before uttering the inane. I have a son, at least biologically. He's grown now and doing his second tour overseas-this one in Kabul. I worry about him all the time-and while I don't believe it's possible, I keep thinking I would know if something bad happened to him. I will feel it or imagine a chilly gust inside my chest or some nonsense like that.
I said, "I know what you mean."
We headed down an escalator that seemed to go forever. I glanced behind me. No sign of Sunglasses Man.
"So what now?" Terese asked.
"We head back to the hotel. You start looking at what we found at Karen's. Think about that opal code, see where that leads you. Esperanza will e-mail you whatever she gets. Something happened to Rick recently-something that made him change his life and reach out to you. The best thing to do right now is figure out who killed him, why, and what he was working on the last few months. So you need to go through his stuff, see what jumps out at you."
"What did you think of our conversation with Karen?" Terese asked me.
"You two were close, right?"
"Yes, very."
"Then I will put it politely: I don't think Karen was being totally forthcoming. You?"
"Before today I would have said I would trust her with my life," Terese said. "But you're right. She's lying about something."
"Any idea what?"
"No."
"Let's maybe go back and try something else. Tell me everything you remember about the accident."
"You think I'm holding back?"
"Of course not. But now that you've heard all this new stuff, I'm wondering if anything about that night is striking you as different."
"No, nothing." She looked out the window, but there was only the blur of the tunnel. "I've spent the past decade trying to forget that night."
"I understand."
"You don't understand. I've replayed that night in my head every single day for the past ten years."
I said nothing.
"I have looked at that night from every angle. I have pondered every what-if-if I had driven slower, taken a different route, left her at home, hadn't been so damn ambitious, everything. There is nothing more to remember."
We got off the train and headed forward toward the exit.
When we entered the lobby, my phone vibrated. Win sent the following text:
BRING TERESE TO THE PENTHOUSE. THEN GO TO ROOM 118.
ALONE.
The two seconds later, Win added:
PLEASE REFRAIN FROM TEXTING BACK SOME WITTY ALBEIT HOMOPHOBIC COMEBACK VIS-А-VIS THE "ALONE" COMMENT.
Win was the only person I knew who was more verbose in texts than in person. I took Terese up to the penthouse. There was a laptop with Internet access. I pointed to it. "Maybe you can start digging into this Save the Angels charity."
"Where are you going?" she asked.
"Downstairs. Win wants to talk to me."
"I can't go?"
"He said alone."
"I'm not really sure I like that idea," Terese said.
"Neither am I, but I find it's better not to question him."
"How crazy is he?"
"Win is sane. He is just overly rational. He sees things in black and white." Then I added: "He tends to be more of an ends-justify-means sort of guy."
"His means can be pretty extreme," she said.
"Yes."
"I remember that from when I helped you find that donor."
I said nothing.
"Win isn't trying to spare my feelings, is he?"
"Win and sparing a woman's feelings," I said, making a scale with my hands. "I don't think that's a factor."
"You better go."
"Yep."
"Will you tell me what happens?"
"Probably not. If Win wants to keep something from you, it's for the best. You have to trust that, I guess."
She nodded and stood. "I'm going to wash up and then hit the Internet."
"Okay."
She started for the bedroom. I reached for the door to the corridor.
"Myron?"
I turned toward her. She stood facing me full. She was beautiful and vulnerable and strong and she stood like she was readying to take a blow and I wanted to jump in the way and protect her.
"What?" I asked.
"I love you," Terese said.
She said it just like that. Facing me full, beautiful and vulnerable and strong. Something in my chest rose and took flight. I stood there, frozen, the gift of speech temporarily taken away from me.
"I know the timing sucks and I don't want it to interfere with what we're doing now. But either way, if Miriam is alive or if this is all some horrible practical joke, I want you to know: I love you. And when this is over, however it turns out, I want more than anything to give you and me a try."
I opened my mouth, closed it, opened it again. "I'm kinda with someone."
"I know. I guess my timing double-sucks. But that's okay. If you love her, then that's that. If you don't, I'm here."
Terese didn't wait for a response. She turned and opened the bedroom door and vanished inside.
18
I staggered to the elevator.
How had that Snow Patrol song put it a couple of years back? Those three words, they say so much, they're not enough.
Baloney. They were enough.
I thought about Ali in Arizona. I thought about Terese standing there and telling me that she loved me. Terese was probably right-the best response was to not let it interfere. But it was there. And it was gnawing at me.
The blinds were drawn in room 118.
I reached for the light switch and then thought better of it. Win sat in a plush chair. I could hear the clink of ice in whatever he was drinking. Alcohol never seemed to affect Win, but this was awfully early.
I sat across from him. We have been friends for a very long time. We met as college students at Duke University. I remember seeing his photograph in the freshman face book the first day I arrived on campus. The entry listed him as Windsor Horne Lockwood III from some obnoxious-sounding prep school on the Main Line in Philadelphia. He had the perfect hair and the haughty expression. My father and I had just lugged up all my stuff to my fourth-floor walk-up. Typical of my father. He drove me to North Carolina from New Jersey, never bitching once, insisting on carrying the heaviest items himself, and we sat down and took a break and I started paging through the face book and I pointed to Win's picture and said, "Hey, Dad, look at this guy. I bet I never even see him in my four years."
I was wrong, of course.
For a long time I felt Win was indestructible. He had killed many, but none that didn't seem to deserve it, and yes, I know how disturbing it is to say that. But age has a way of creeping up on all of us. What seems eccentric and edgy when you're in your twenties or thirties turns into something closer to pathetic at forty.
"It will be difficult to get permission to exhume the body," Win began. "We have no cause of action."
"How about the DNA test?"
"The French authorities won't release the results. I also tried the most direct route-a bribe."
"No takers?"
"Not yet. There will be, but it will take some time, which it seems we don't have."
I thought about it. "You have a suggestion?"
"I do."
"I'm listening."
"We bribe gravediggers. We do it ourselves tonight under the cover of darkness. We only need a small sample. We send it to our lab, compare the DNA with Terese's"-he raised his glass-"and we're done."
"Ghoulish," I said.
"And effective."