Graham Hoyt took care of the slipknot and tossed the rope onto the clean white rear seat of the boat, bounding in after it. "We're going for the boy," he called out to his wife.
He held out his hand and I jumped on as he juiced the motor and headed upriver.
38
The bow of the Whaler crashed against the waves, and the second speed bump threw me down onto the seat. Graham Hoyt was holding the wheel, driving the powerful craft hard, running it between and around the river traffic. Spray from the cold river was splashing over the sides, carried by the wind, soaking my hair and face.
Hoyt looked back at me. "Stay down, okay?"
I nodded that I would.
With his left hand he picked up a walkie-talkie device, trying to raise his captain on it.
Seconds later came the reply that he could be heard.
"We're in the tender, trying to catch up to you. Is Dulles okay?"
The machine crackled as the answer was transmitted. I could hear the captain say that the boy was "just fine."
Hoyt asked how far ahead they were, and I thought I heard the words "Spuyten Duyvil," which was just a few miles north. He replaced the device on the dashboard and turned to me with a smile, slowing the speed a bit. My stomach had been churning as the boat slammed against the water over and over. Now I was able to let go of my firm grip on the edge of the seat.
"He's good, Alex," Hoyt said, flashing me a grin. I could barely hear him over the sound of the engine.
I called out from the back of the boat, "You're both really determined to get him through all this. That's clear."
He was relaxed now. "I only hope Jenna can put up with Andrew's nonsense until we get a judge to formalize the arrangement. I've raised a lot of money for children's organizations around the world, Alex. It's Jenna's passion, and we've been pleased to do it. All those orphans in Bosnia and Afghanistan and East Africa. What the hell else is there but kids, in the end? I've thrown a lot of my money into making kids' lives better."
Somebody had just been talking to me about a corporate lawyer who donated money to children's charities. The wind whipped my hair into my eyes and mouth, and I tried to recall the conversation. I remembered, too, there was a scam involved.
We had passed the Seventy-ninth Street boat basin and were parallel with the West Side Highway. I took my cell phone from my pocket and called Mercer Wallace to see whether he had any word from Mike.
"Hey, where are you?"
"With Graham Hoyt, trying to catch up to the big boat to find Dulles. Halfway between Hoboken and Harlem, on the water. You heard anything from-"
"I'm telling you right this minute, Alexandra, lower yourself into the drink if you have to, but get yourself back to shore this very minute."
"What's wrong?"
Hoyt must have heard the change in my voice and looked around at me. I smiled at him and shrugged my shoulders. "Just checking with my deputy to make sure nothing serious came up while I was on the Vineyard. She's home with her kids."
"Is anyone else with you?" Mercer asked.
"No."
"You close to any place he can dock or pull in?"
"Not far."
Hoyt kept checking back on me.
"Is it Mike? Did he get Andrew Tripping?"
"I haven't heard a thing from Mike. I got another glitch."
"Like what?"
"Just you come home."
"You've got to tell me so I know what I'm dealing with here," I said, hoping the concern in my whispered words hadn't been carried to Hoyt by the wind.
"After I left Kevin Bessemer at the hospital, I stopped by to see Tiffany's mother. Thank her for calling in the tip."
"Yeah."
"Remember Tiffany told us she took something from Queenie's apartment, after she got there and found the old girl was dead?"
"A photograph. She took a photograph of Queenie with her son."
"That's who all of us believed was in the picture, when Tiffany said it was a young boy, right? We just assumed it was Fabian because it came out of Queenie's apartment."
"It's not Fabian?"
"Mrs. Gatts had the picture at her place, 'cause she took her daughter's purse home with her the day Tiffany was arrested. It was a ten-year-old boy in the picture, all right, but it wasn't McQueen Ransome's son and it wasn't taken forty years ago."
"What?"
Hoyt had slowed the boat even further, and I continued to fake my lack of concern.
I needed to listen to Mercer and not panic. I needed to let him tell me what he knew.
"The kid in the photograph is Dulles Tripping-it's a Polaroid and he signed his name right on the back, thanking McQueen Ransome for something, maybe something she gave him."
"Um, hmm, I understand," I said, beginning to see the light.
"And it's dated. It was taken on the afternoon Queenie died, just hours before Kevin and Tiffany got there and claim she was already dead."
"I see," I said, still pretending to be talking to Sarah Brenner. "I'll take care of that next week."
"You'll take care of it right now, Alex. Whoever the agency had let Dulles go off with that afternoon, whoever he was allowed to visit with, might be the person who killed McQueen Ransome. Now maybe it's not Graham Hoyt, but until I can get an answer to that from the child welfare agency, I don't want you alone with him for another nanosecond."
"It's okay, Sarah. We're just a couple of minutes away from the yacht. I'm counting on a delicious lunch from Mr. Hoyt's chef." I wanted Mercer to know there was a crew on board the boat with Dulles, so I wouldn't be alone for long.
"Call me when you get there, right?"
Hoyt had picked up the walkie-talkie again and was speaking to someone on the Pirate.
"Would you do me one more favor?" I said to Mercer. I had shifted my body now so that I was holding the phone to my left ear, my back to Hoyt, with the magnificent skyline of Manhattan receding before me.
"Shoot."
"Call Christine Kiernan, will you? She triangulated a phone number for a new case last week. Tell her it's urgent. Ask her to do a trap-and-trace on my line immediately. She's got all the forms and the contacts at TARU. She can do it in minutes. Keep an eye on me till we get back. Track my coordinates, please?"
"Stay on with me, Alex. Just stay on the line."
Hoyt shut off his receiver and hung it in its cradle. He jerked the steering wheel as hard as he could and pushed ahead on the throttle, turning the boat completely around, a full one-eighty, heading back to the mouth of the great river. I fell down against the seat and the small phone flipped out of my hand onto the wet floor, sliding across out of reach to the other side of the tender.
Find me, I prayed silently to Mercer. Find me before I'm sleeping with the fishes.
39
I hugged the leather seat cushion and tried to balance myself against it on my way to grab the cell phone. Hoyt had let go of the wheel for a few seconds. Steadier than I as the boat crossed its own wake, he stepped ahead, leaned over, and picked it up before I could get to it.
"Is there some change in-?" I tried to ask without broadcasting my alarm.
"We're going back to the Chelsea Piers. Just stay where you are. I'm going to bounce us around a bit." He was looking angry now, under way at excessive speed and rolling me across the stern of the sturdy Whaler.
He pressed a button on the phone and held it to his ear with one hand. He must have hit redial. If he heard Mercer's voice and not Sarah's, he'd know I'd been lying.
Mercer probably answered immediately, since we had been disconnected abruptly.
Hoyt turned to me and sneered, throwing the phone into the water and laughing as he spoke into the breeze, "Sorry, wrong number."
There were craft of all shapes and sizes zigzagging across the Hudson on this fall afternoon. I wasn't able to stand up without falling at the speed we were going, no one could hear me over the noise of the various engines if I were to call out for help across the water, and the only option left-waving my arms in the air-would look like a friendly greeting to most boaters out on a sunny afternoon.