"Well, no. I mean, Professor Dakota had it. She let me see it a couple of times, but that was months ago."
"Where was it when you saw it?"
"At her office, right in this building. But she moved it out of here a while back."
"To?"
"I don't know. She told me she had to find another place for it. No room in her office."
"Do you know why it was so important?"
He looked puzzled. "I'm not sure it was. Least, not that she ever told me. I just thought it was beautiful. Made with such painstaking devotion, accurate to the most minute detail."
Lola may have liked this kid a lot, but she didn't seem to have trusted anyone with the importance of her discovery.
"Would it help you guys if I poked around the island some more? There's lots of places to hide things over there. Places nobody goes to or looks in."
"I don't want you doing anything to get in trouble at school. How about you let the detectives do it with you?"
"Yeah, that's fine. You want me to take you around there tomorrow?"
"I don't want to screw up the visit with your family." I checked the time. "I'm going to see the detective I'm working with in another hour or so. Why don't you give him a call later on tonight and we can work out a way to do this together? Any day that it's convenient for you will work for us." I took out one of my business cards and wrote Mike's beeper number on the back. "In the meantime, just give some thought to where you think she would have stored the model for safekeeping, okay?"
If we weren't able to jog Orlyn Lockhart's memory, then maybe Mike and I could more thoroughly interrogate Efrem later tonight. I thanked him for coming by and rejoined the disgruntled-looking characters who were marching down the staircase to the lobby. This was not a good day for a ride in the country.
Lockhart pulled up in front of the building and honked his horn. Thomas Grenier held Nan by the arm and walked her to his SUV, closing the back door after he helped her inside, and then settling himself in the passenger seat.
Recantati waited several minutes with Sylvia and me until Winston Shreve arrived in a gray minivan. He slid back the door and I hoisted myself into the rear. Recantati boosted Sylvia up by the elbow and Shreve held her bag while she buckled up the seat belt, telling Recantati she would call him in the morning. He whispered something to her that I was unable to hear, then shut the door and walked away as the engine started up.
"Turn up the heat, Winston," she ordered with her usual display of charm. He angled the rearview mirror into place, and I could catch the corner of his smile as he then adjusted the temperature controls on the dashboard.
There was a steaming container of cocoa in the cup holder of each of our armrests. Shreve opened his and sipped at the hot drink.
"You know the way, do you?" Sylvia asked.
"Yes, Sylvia. Skip's given me directions," he said, holding up a slip of paper. "It's right off the Saw Mill River Parkway. Won't take long to get there. I just want to drink a bit of this before I start driving. Otherwise it will spill all over us."
"Good idea."
We uncapped the lids and I blew on the chocolate, warming my hands as I took a swallow. "Detective Chapman and I were up there the other day. The house is easy to find. I grew up not too far away."
"In White Plains?"
"No, in Harrison." I sipped a few more times before Shreve pulled away from the curb, making the westbound turn to head over to Riverside Drive and the entrance to the West Side Highway. "Spent a lot of time there. I was a competitive swimmer in high school and they were our archrivals. Next town over."
"Just get us up there and back before this snow starts piling in," Sylvia said.
The liquid sloshed around the rim of the cardboard cup as Shreve accelerated past the yield sign, and I took another big gulp of hot chocolate, wiping the drops off my parka.
We were passing under the cloverleaf roadway that led up to the George Washington Bridge, following the signs to Westchester County, when I heard Sylvia make a gurgling sound. Her neck snapped forward and her chin dangled against her chest.
I reached for the headrest behind her seat to pull myself forward and yelled for Shreve to stop the car. "Are you all right, Sylvia?" is what I tried to say, but my tongue twisted around the words and they slurred as they came out.
My arms felt like leaden weights as I unbuckled my seat belt, pushed the strap out of the way, and attempted to reach toward Winston Shreve. Snowflakes swirled outside at a dizzying speed, blurring into one as I slid off the seat and onto the floor of the van.
32
My first sensation was of the cold, biting and urgent, piercing every pore of my body. The stinging pain that grated on my wrist and ankles was caused by bindings of some kind, although I could not see them as I lay facedown in the darkened space. A soft piece of cloth covered my mouth, tied behind my scalp.
Wind shrieked above my head and still the blur of white flake: fell around me. I was inside some structure, flattened against the remains of a wooden floorboard that had been partially destroyed by years of exposure to the elements. Whatever it had been, the draft and snow told me there was now no roof covering the walls
I heard no sounds of a human presence. No inhalation o exhalation of breath. No footsteps. No words.
I shifted my weight and turned my body onto its side. Still, no response from anyone to the rustling sound made by my own movement.
Even this slight change of position charged the flashes of light that raced inside my brain, and the pounding waves of dizziness and nausea returned. I had been in my office, I remembered that. I was talking with Mike Chapman, and I was pretty certain that had happened. But now the crests and swells of wobbly images flooded my head again and I was sure of nothing.
Thoughts would not come clearly and my eyes closed, ceding to whatever it was that had overpowered all my senses.
I don't know for how long I lost consciousness this second time, but when I was able to see again, the inky surroundings were identical. I was dressed in my ski parka, and the lapel of a gray suit stuck out above the zipper. I pushed to order my thoughts, trying to recall when I had dressed this way to leave my home. There was a moth-eaten old plaid blanket stretched out down the length of my body, heavy now from the wet snow that it had absorbed.
My hands were gloved and boots were still on my feet. I could feel them. Only my face was exposed to the pelting drops of ice. I rolled it back onto the flooring. Think, I told myself over and over again. Think where you were today and who you were with. Think where you were going that brought you to this godforsaken place. But the neurons were short-circuiting and something had poisoned my brain's ability to connect the dots. All I knew for certain was that I was cold.
I drifted off again and wakened later still. Now I could see a brick wall a few feet away from my head, the side of whatever building I was in. I arched my back and saw, two or three feet above the floorboards, the empty frame of a window. Get to that, I directed myself. Get to that and find out where you are.
Turning back onto my side, I started to wriggle my feet, making sure I could control their movement. I bent my knees and drew them up toward my waist. Slowly, like some primitive, reptilian apoda, I extended my legs as far as possible and edged my body forward toward the wall. Repeating the motion eight or nine times, I worked myself across the splintered floor until my head touched the crumbling rows of brick.
I rested there for several minutes before trying to slide my body into an upright position. Sitting up would bring back the dizziness, since the oxygen would flow away from my brain. Expect that, I reminded myself. Mental and physical processes were all operating in slow motion. Don't fight it, I said, forming the words with my mouth.
Inch by inch, I righted my body and twisted to lean my back against the wall. It felt sturdier than its uneven surface appeared, and I knew it could support my weight. My head pounded as I forced it to remain erect. I settled there for several more minutes, adjusting my eyes to the darkness around me.