“It’s not a yes, either.”
“What’s my middle name?”
Dorie struggled for a moment, torn between her natural inclination toward secrecy and wanting to show off.
“Esther,” she said. “But anyone could know that.”
“Last address?”
“One-oh-six West University Parkway.”
“Weight on my driver’s license?”
“A lie. A flat-out lie.”
What could Tess say? It was.
The next morning, her head clear, her voice still pleasingly husky, Tess took the train to Philadelphia. She had not called Devon Whittaker first. She almost never called first. No one wanted to hear a stranger’s voice on the phone. Strangers never brought you good news. And the phone was so easy to slam down, to avoid, to screen through an answering machine or Caller ID. Doors were bigger, harder to shut, and most had only a fisheye to give you a distorted view of the visitor on the other side. As long as Tess wasn’t holding a copy of The Watchtower, she was pretty sure she could gain entrance to anyone’s home.
Crow dropped her off at Baltimore’s Penn Station, embracing her as if they were to be parted for weeks, or even months. He was romantic, in the best sense of the word, and she was beginning to accept that his love for her was not a passing phase.
“Do good,” he told her. “Be safe.”
“It’s just Philadelphia. You know what Philadelphia is? It’s Baltimore, only bigger.”
“Call me as soon as you know if you found her. I feel as if I have a stake in this, too.” He kissed her again. They were drawing a small crowd.
She suspected he was inspired, in part, by the old-fashioned train station. It was small, with only six gates. But the ceilings soared to wonderfully wasteful heights, and high-back wooden benches lined the walls. Tess much preferred it to Washington’s Union Station, which had been turned into a mall, with glossy restaurants and movie theaters. Here, it was possible to imagine Ingrid Bergman slithering by in a trenchcoat, spies exchanging briefcases, lovers meeting surreptitiously.
The tiles on the tote board swirled and clacked, the “All aboard” sounded. Tess settled into a window seat on the east side of the train, because this provided the best views. She was the only person she knew who considered the trip scenic. But then, Tess had always been intrigued by the rear view of things, which she found truer, full of unexpected glimpses into people’s real lives. She was fascinated by what people did when they thought no one was watching. Not sex per se-she had no interest in spying on people in bed, unless someone was paying her to do it. Even then, she held her nose. No, she liked to watch people hanging laundry and scratching themselves, having desultory arguments with children and spouses. Everyone wore masks these days, and they seldom slipped. The extreme was the reality-based television shows, where people created meta versions of themselves by trying to act in a way they thought was natural.
The train was already crossing the Susquehanna River. Wilmington and Philadelphia were only minutes beyond. Tess hunkered down with a map, trying to figure out if Devon’s apartment was near the train station, or if she would have to take a cab.
She had a photo of her, from last year’s Penn freshman face book. Again, she hadn’t questioned Dorie’s methods, had just paid up. It wasn’t the best reproduction, a printout from a scanned photo. Devon Whittaker appeared pretty, in a dull, flat way, but also looked much older than the average college freshman.
It was past eleven when Tess found Devon’s apartment building. She tried the buzzer in the foyer, but no one answered. She was in luck, there was an open square across the street, with a bench that afforded an unobstructed view of the building’s front door. It was cold for outdoor surveillance and she was downwind of a cheesesteak vendor, which made her ravenous. The long, gentle fall had lulled her into complacency; she hadn’t dressed warmly enough. She could get a cup of coffee, but that would present another problem common to surveillance: the bathroom issue. Tess was on mailing lists for catalogs offering all sorts of interesting solutions to this problem, but many of them were anatomically unsuitable for her. She subscribed to mind over matter. So far, it was working.
Mind over matter was still working for her, barely, when Devon Whittaker walked right by her less than two hours later. She even stopped in front of Tess, inhaled the steam blowing from the cheesesteak cart, then made a face as if she found it noxious. Tess caught up with her just outside the door to her apartment house.
“Devon Whittaker?” Nothing like a person’s name to get his or her attention.
“Yes?” She responded as anyone would, with the usual mix of suspicion and puzzlement. Who would have your name except a process server or the Publishers Clearinghouse Prize Patrol? Her key was out, she was ready to slide past Tess and into the apartment.
“I’m Tess Monaghan. I have a message for you from Sarah, your cousin.”
This interested her even more than her own name. “Is she okay? Has anything happened to her?”
“Could we talk inside? I’m chilled to the bone.”
Devon fumbled with the door, which had a balky lock, and walked up one flight to an apartment overlooking the park where Tess had been keeping her vigil. It was not a typical college girl’s apartment, furnished with cast-offs and the landlord’s things. Nor was it a pampered darling’s lair. The living room was clean and simple, with the kind of basic IKEA pieces one expected from young newlyweds. A dining area had been set up at the far end, and the kitchen was just beyond, separated by a counter. There were three closed doors off the hallway.
“Nice place,” Tess said. “Do you have a roommate?”
“No-I mean, yes, I do live with someone. You said you had news of Sarah. Is she okay?”
“As okay as anyone there, I guess. I don’t know what she looked like when she went in.”
Devon had bypassed the living room and seated herself at the dining room table, as if she wanted something large and substantial between her and the world. “She was on the verge of going into a coma.”
“I guess she’s better, then.”
“What did she want to tell me?”
“Actually-” how Tess hated that word, how she disliked the part of her job where she admitted to the half-truths already told, the deceptions and manipulations already employed. “She simply told me where to find you. I needed to talk to someone who was at Persephone’s a year ago, because there’s a possibility that a girl who’s now missing was there at the same time. Sarah told me you were there then.”
“She’s missing, but you don’t know where she was to begin with?”
“It’s complicated,” Tess said. She pulled the artist’s rendering of Jane Doe from her knapsack. Devon studied it intently, frowning.
“This face is a little too round,” she said at last, “and her hair was much fuller, very thick and dark. But it could be Gwen Schiller.”
Gwen Schiller. Tess tested the name, and it felt right. Gwen Schiller. She took the sketch back from Devon, looked at it. Gwen Schiller, Gwen Schiller, Gwen Schiller.
“I suppose her father hired you?” Devon asked. “About time.”
“No. Until you told me her name, I didn’t know who she was. Who’s her father?”
“Dick Schiller, of course.”
Tess needed a second, maybe two. “Dick Schiller, the guy who invented the e-mail software that Microsoft bought out? He’s practically a billionaire.”
“On paper,” Devon said, as if her family’s mere millions were in something else, like gold bullion. Or blue blood. “But if Dick Schiller didn’t hire you, who did?”
Her killer’s sister. But it wasn’t time to say that, not just yet. “You and Gwen knew each other at Persephone’s Place?”
“We overlapped there by several weeks last year, yes.” Devon had a natural wariness about her, she never seemed to relax.