Eyes Wide Open

Chapter Twenty-Seven





Kathy called when I got in the car. I had just pushed off a procedure on the daughter of a friend. Now I was pushing for a few days more. Her patience was running thin. Mine might have been too, if the situation was reversed.

“It’s time to come home, Jay.”

I didn’t answer for a second. I wasn’t exactly sure how to. “I can’t, Kath. I just can’t.”

“What the hell is going on out there, Jay? This is beginning to scare me a little now. I’m sorry about what happened to Evan. My heart goes out to Charlie and Gabby. It really does . . . But people need you here. It’s time to come back.”

“I can’t, Kath.” I sucked in a sharp breath without explaining.

“You can’t?” There was an edge to her tone.

I pulled the car over to the side of the road. “I’ve just found out a few things. And it’s hard to explain. Especially right now.”

“Well, try, Jay. Try! You’ve been there almost a week. So please, try . . .”

There was about the toughest silence I’d ever felt pass between us. Maybe twenty seconds, but it felt like an eternity.

I wanted to say, I love you, honey. You know that. I need you. Especially right now.

But I just can’t tell you.

Until I knew for sure.

I saw something starting to open up. Something only I saw. Something only I could put together.

I flashed to Russell Houvnanian. To the time he’d been up to my dad’s.

And then to Evan. The flashing “eye” they had found in his pocket. The eerie knife marks on Walter Zorn’s tongue.

And finally to something I’d held back, from Charlie, from Sherwood.

And now, even from my wife.

The image of someone staring at me from their car the other night outside Charlie’s apartment. Their face obscured by the darkened glass.

I didn’t know for sure, but it all added up to me. Maybe only to me.

I thought I’d seen Susan Pollack.

And if I had, I knew what it meant.

It meant my nephew Evan had been murdered.