“I’ll kill him,” muttered Jimmy, hugging the dog even closer to his chest. Lyssa gripped his bony shoulder with her human left hand.
“Don’t say things like that,” she said quietly.
Jimmy tensed and gave her a sullen look. “I was joking.”
“I don’t care. You have to think about repercussions.”
The boy stared at her, then glanced away. “Did you ever kill someone?”
Lyssa felt cold. “That’s some question.”
“My mom was wondering why you’re still down here. You’re not like the others. Which means you’re like us.” Jimmy looked at her again, and the glow from his flashlight cast shadows that made his face look hollow, ghastly. “You’re hiding.”
It was Lyssa’s turn not to answer him.
The tunnel curved. Most of the walls were unfinished, nothing but excavated dirt. The support columns were made of concrete, covered in graffiti. Trains rumbled, sounding so much like thunder it made Lyssa homesick and heartsore. She missed a good rainstorm.
“I’ll take you to school,” she said. “We’ll drop Icky off at your place first.”
“They hate me at school,” he mumbled.
“Good. Having people hate you builds character.”
Jimmy gave her a dirty look. “You’re mean.”
Lyssa ruffled his hair. “Don’t come back here. Not unless someone is with you.”
“I had to.” Jimmy pulled away from her. “Mandy is missing. Flo, too.”
Lyssa missed a step. “What?”
“They’re gone. That’s what their friends said when Mom stopped by their bench at Grand Central. She had sandwiches from work that she was going to give them.”
“They’re heroine addicts. Anything could have happened.”
“You haven’t heard the rumors?”
“No.”
“People are disappearing,” said Jimmy. “I’m afraid you’ll be next.”
He had newspapers, articles that he had torn out.
It was an old habit. The boy was a punk, but he was good with words, and his mom didn’t read English as well as she spoke it. She depended on Jimmy to keep her updated on what was going on in the city, and elsewhere. Newspapers were cheap. Listening improved her English. And it made Ms. Sutabuhr feel good that her son might be learning something every time he read to her.
Lyssa gave Jimmy a bottle of water from the cooler. He knelt on the threadbare rug, and dribbled some into his cupped palm. The dog, Icky, wagged his tail and lapped at the water. She watched for a moment, amused and uneasy.
You’ve been alone too long, she told herself. Solitude was easier to accept without reminders of what she was missing.
Lyssa smoothed out the newspaper articles Jimmy had given her. He watched, wiping his wet palm on his jeans. No emotion on his face.
He focused instead on the watercolor she had been working on. The canvas was part of a thick drawing block: a heavy sheet of paper with a prominent tooth, its rough texture creating a grainy surface that captured pools of flame-colored water. Flames, everywhere, twisted in knots and claws, and wings made of sheer, delicate fire — all surrounding an empty white space to the right of center.
A white space that made her heart ache when she looked at it. A white space that stared at her from the page with its own peculiar, haunting, life. Even when she did not look at it, she felt its presence.
Like now. Heavy, at the corner of her eye.
Lyssa swallowed hard. “You’ve brought me articles on six different women. Disappearances dating back three months. Only three of them are from New York state. None are homeless, either.”
Jimmy shrugged, and bent to pick up Icky, who pawed at his ankle. The tiny mutt got lost in the oversized folds of his sweatshirt. “Those have to do with something else.”
“Jimmy.”
“Rumors started a couple weeks ago,” he said sullenly. “Maybe earlier. I didn’t hear anything until I went with Mom to the church place and helped with the sandwiches. Guys were warning her to be careful. They knew people who knew people who were just gone one day. All girls.”
“Homeless? From the city?”
“Yeah.”
“How many?”
“Four, five. More if you count Mandy and Flo.”
“Maybe they’re sitting in jail, some hospital.”
“The guys didn’t think so. They were sober,” Jimmy added, after a thoughtful moment. “One mentioned blood had been found at a Midtown bench, in a station where some girl liked to hang.”
Blood meant nothing. Probably there wasn’t any blood. Just a crazy unfounded rumor getting larger and nuttier by the minute. But hearing that word—“blood”—sent a chill through her anyway.
Lyssa tapped the newspaper clippings, forgetting herself and using her right hand. The claw on her index finger clicked through the leather on the hard surface: a distinctive, cold sound. Her heart lurched a little, but Jimmy was still looking at the watercolors and didn’t seem to notice. The dog, though, twitched.
“These six,” Lyssa said, after clearing her throat. “What about them?”
Jimmy hugged the dog more tightly. “No one knows what happened to them, either.”
It didn’t surprise her that he’d paid enough attention to the news to single out six missing women. Even when the kid was still living in the tunnel, he kept boxes for different kinds of crime. He collected robberies, murder, assault, rape, kidnapping — there was even a box for the elusive and indefinable miscellaneous—and he was as careful and obsessive as any detective in poring over facts..
Lyssa wasn’t certain his obsession was healthy or normal, but she wasn’t in much of a position to judge. If it helped Jimmy feel in control of his life — then fine. Maybe he would grow out of it. Maybe she was looking at the future director of the FBI.
She studied those six faces. Besides the fact that their disappearances remained unsolved, the only thing the women had in common was their relative youth — all were in their thirties, or younger. Two were black, one was Asian, and there was a blonde, a brunette — a lawyer, a college student, an accountant, a homemaker, a cashier at Walmart. .
No connection. The dates of their disappearances were random. Their locations dissimilar.
Lyssa gave Jimmy a careful look, but he was staring at her painting again.
“Is that fire?” he asked.
“It could be,” she said. “Yes.”
Jimmy pointed to the empty white spot on the drawing block. “What’s supposed to go there?”
Dread filled her. With some reluctance, she said, “Eyes.”
He frowned. “Why?”
“Because I see eyes in my head,” she said, which was the truth but not the whole truth. “And I can’t get them out of my head.”
Lyssa could see those eyes even now, as though they occupied a permanent spot just to the left of her thoughts: eyes that were dark and masculine, staring into her with incredible intensity.
A knowingness. . leveled at her soul.
Premonition, maybe. Which frightened her. Enough so that she was already considering uprooting her life — again — and running. But that was the problem with premonitions: Running might be the very thing to make them come true.
Lyssa was afraid of what would happen if she ever met the man those eyes belonged to.
Jimmy scrunched up his nose. “You’re weird.”
She had to smile. “Yeah?”
“Well,” he said, hedging a little.
Lyssa shook her head. “Why these women? Why did you bring them to me?”
“No reason,” he said, after a noticeable hesitation. “I told you. . they’re gone.”
She wished he would tell her what was really on his mind. “And nothing in the papers about homeless girls disappearing?”