Balenger sensed the old panic taking control. “You know what happened. Shortly after I got there, the convoy I was guarding came under attack. An explosion knocked me unconscious. When I woke up, I was being held prisoner by a bunch of Iraqis wearing hoods, one of whom threatened to cut off my head if I didn’t look into a video camera and denounce the United States. After a Ranger unit attacked the compound where I was tied up, I managed to escape, but even when I was safe in the States, I didn’t feel safe. I had nightmares. I couldn’t bear being closed in. I broke out in sweat.”
“Post traumatic-stress disorder,” Ortega said.
“Check,” Balenger said, mocking Ortega’s earlier expression. “So, as you know, I went to another psychiatrist.”
“Who had an unusual method of therapy.”
“He advised me to do everything I could to distance myself from the present. Study history. Read novels about the past. Try to do everything possible to imagine I’m somewhere a hundred years ago and more. It was sort of like trying to transport myself back in time.”
“What happened after you went inside the Paragon Hotel and you found your dead wife and you rescued Amanda?”
Balenger didn’t trust himself to speak.
“Your fists are clenched at your sides,” Ortega said. “Do you want to hit me?”
“I woke up in a hospital, where a psychiatrist wanted to know why I called Amanda by my dead wife’s name.”
“Psychiatrist number three. Did you get that straightened out by the way? The names?”
Balenger was too furious to answer.
“You and Amanda. In the night, in the shadows, do you ever think you might be seeing a ghost?”
Balenger felt a scalding fury. “Stop.”
“You said psychopaths often fixate on women who resemble one another. The victims tend to remind the killer of his wife or his mother or whatever.”
“I don’t think I’m living with my dead wife! I don’t think I’m sleeping with my dead wife!”
Ortega didn’t reply.
“You believe I’m responsible for Amanda’s disappearance?”
“It’s a theory,” Ortega said. “Maybe you freaked out when you understood the implications of your domestic arrangements. Maybe you got so disgusted with yourself that you did something you regretted. You used to be a police officer. You could predict how the investigation would proceed.”
“Be careful,” Balenger warned.
“I told you it’s a theory. Everything needs to be considered. You set up a diversion. You rented the row house on Nineteenth Street. You hired a woman to arrange for the actors to be there. You showed up with someone you paid to impersonate Amanda. As instructed, the actors left during the talk. With everybody gone, you thanked the woman who impersonated Amanda. She was puzzled, but you paid her well, so she thought ‘Another weirdo’ and went home. Meanwhile, everybody thought they’d seen the real Amanda and that someone had abducted her.”
“For any of that to work, I’d also need to be responsible for the fire at the theater. But you and I were always together.”
“Except for the time you waited in the lobby while I went into the main part of the theater to look around. You could have started the fire then. I wouldn’t have noticed.”
“We almost died. Why would I put myself in danger?”
“To convince me of the threat. Anyway, according to this theory, you were never in danger.”
“What do you mean?” Balenger’s forearm felt as if an abscess wanted to burst.
“You should have come with me to talk to the fire investigators you tried so hard to avoid. The conversation was revealing. It seems the woman who hired the actors asked for a tour of the theater. She was very interested when she learned about the sub-basement. She asked to be taken down there so she could have a look. A couple of weeks ago, a woman matching her description also visited businesses along the street. The antique store was one of them. While she pretended to think about buying something, she mentioned that she’d heard about dried-up streams under Greenwich Village and passageways where the water used to flow. As it turns out, the antique store owner was happy to talk about it because that piece of history helps him sell antiques. He has the only other building in the area with a sub-basement that matches the one in the theater.”
“You think I set the fire, hoping I could escape by crawling along a passageway that I couldn’t be sure was open? That’s crazy!”
“Is it any more crazy than your claim to have seen this same woman in the library this afternoon? A woman who magically disappeared and who hasn’t the slightest reason to show herself and whom nobody else saw except you.”
“Why would I lie?”
“To make me continue believing there’s a threat. To keep throwing me off track. You took every chance you could to assume control of the investigation.”
Balenger stared past Ortega toward the end of the street where a woman wearing dark slacks and a white blouse waved at him.
“You’re wrong,” he told the detective.
“It makes as much sense as your theory that somebody abducted Amanda to force you to play a sicko game.”
“You’re wrong, and I can prove it.”
“Believe me, I’d like a little proof about something.”
“The woman who showed herself at the library, the woman who hired the actors and introduced herself as Karen Bailey at the lecture…”
“What about her?”
“She’s standing down the street, waving at us.”
4
As Ortega spun to look, Balenger was already running. For a moment, Karen Bailey didn’t move. Then she ducked around the corner on the right.
Balenger raced. It was almost five thirty. Classes were finished for the day, students having returned to their dormitories or homes elsewhere in the city. Few pedestrians got in Balenger’s way. He reached the corner and saw Karen Bailey’s white blouse disappearing around another corner.
He avoided a passing car and turned the next corner in time to see her charge into what looked like an apartment building. Her shoes were lace-up, low-heeled, like a man’s, giving her mobility.
“Stop!” he yelled.
He heard Ortega’s rapid breathing behind him. Then Ortega was next to him, and they rushed toward the building.
“Now do you believe me?”
A wire fence blocked the sidewalk. A Dumpster held broken plaster and boards.
Chest heaving, Balenger reached the fence. No one was around. He studied a gate that seemed to be locked.
Then he saw that the lock hung loose. Furious, he shoved the gate open.
Ortega grabbed his shoulder. “For God’s sake, wait till I call for backup. We don’t know what’s in there.”
“You wait.” Balenger raced over bits of debris toward grit-covered steps that led to a sheet of plywood tilted over the entrance as a makeshift door.
“You’re not a police officer!” Ortega shouted. “You don’t have authority!”
“Which means I don’t have a job to worry about!” Balenger yelled over his shoulder. “I can do whatever I want!”
He gazed warily through the gap beyond the plywood, then eased inside. The place smelled of dust, mildew, and old plaster. As his eyes adjusted to the murky light, he saw exposed floorboards and walls stripped to their joists. A corridor led to doorless entrances to what he assumed were other stripped rooms. On the right, a stairway didn’t have a banister. The ceiling had dangling strips of ancient paint.
Another old abandoned building, Balenger thought. Shadows. Narrowing walls. Shrinking rooms. Sweat oozed from his pores, but not because he’d run to get there. With all his being, he wanted to turn and escape.