Tuesday, June 28
NESSA TURNED OFF her alarm for the morning after her Monday night shift. Otto had been unusually cooperative and helpful, which made her suspicious. But she was too bone--weary to think too much about it. It was all she could do to get through the shift.
Daltrey wasn’t coming home until Thursday, the same day as Isabeau. Nessa felt like part of her had been missing for the past week, and she couldn’t wait to see him. And who knew? Maybe Linda really would have gotten him to talk.
Nessa went upstairs to change Daltrey’s bedsheets and lingered at the bookcase by all the little -people treasures John had hidden for their son, picking them up one by one. She had the urge to smash them all, to destroy any good feelings she had left for her sick, increasingly disturbed husband. But if the treasures disappeared, it would devastate Daltrey and wouldn’t do her any good.
As she walked downstairs, her phone pinged. It was a text from Mac.
Found the origin of the IP address. There are actually two of them. Manhattan Public Library and the Hilton Garden Inn down on Third Street.
Nessa stared at her phone. John was staying at the Hilton Garden Inn? She thought again about what Mac had said, wondering if a crack user could do all the things her troll had done. And if he could, where had he gotten the money to stay in the Garden Inn? She hoped she was going to find out in less than an hour. She grabbed her purse and drove to the hotel, where she parked on the street. When she got out of the Pacfica, she had to stop on the sidewalk to get it together. The most bizarre thoughts swam through her brain.
How do I look? Do I look good?
What difference did it make? Nessa had more important things to worry about than her appearance.
She strode into the hotel and up to the front desk. “Can you tell me if a John Donati is registered here?”
The clerk typed into her computer. “No, ma’am,” she said. “No one by that name.”
Nessa pulled up the photos of John on her phone. “Maybe you’ve seen this man?” she said.
The clerk shook her head.
“He doesn’t look familiar to me,” she said.
“Thanks.”
She went to the concierge desk and asked the two women there if they’d seen him. They had not. She repeated the same rigamarole in the restaurant and the bar. No one had seen him. After walking the halls of the hotel, looking around and finding nothing, she drove over to the library and repeated the whole process. No one recognized the photos, but how closely did anyone look at the shadows of humans who passed in and out of their lives on a daily basis? Still, it was frustrating. She’d thought that finding the IP addresses meant she would be able to confront John, but she felt like she was chasing a ghost.
As she headed for the door, she heard someone call her name. She turned and saw a familiar face, a man with two elementary school girls in tow. It was Kevin, her ex--producer. And these must be the kids he wanted to spend his evenings with.
“Hi, Kevin,” she said. “How’s it going?”
“Great,” he said. “Girls, this is Nessa Donati. We work together.”
They waved uninterestedly, clasping books to their chests.
“We used to work together,” Nessa said. “So what did Otto offer you to cover for him the other night? If I know him, he didn’t actually offer anything.”
Kevin looked confused. “Cover for Otto? When?”
“Thursday before last, I think.”
“Otto didn’t call me to cover for him,” Kevin said.
“Dad,” one of the girls said.
“Just a minute, honey,” Kevin said, then turned his attention back to Nessa. “You mean he didn’t show up for work?”
“No,” Nessa said, confused herself. “He said . . .” Now she couldn’t remember—-had Otto actually said that Kevin couldn’t come or . . .
“Well,” Kevin said, “I’m going to check his time card, because if he didn’t work when he said he did, then—-”
“I think it was just a misunderstanding,” Nessa said. But was it? Or had Otto left her at the station alone on purpose?
DRIVING HOME, NESSA tried to put Otto together with the information she had. Yes, Otto was jealous. Yes, he was a whiny hipster. But it just didn’t fit.
When she got home, a police car was parked in front of her house. This was beginning to be a regular occurrence. Nessa parked in the garage, dread building up in her stomach, and went in the back door. The doorbell rang, and Nessa opened the door to Detective Treloar, looking grave and apologetic.
They must have lifted some of her fingerprints from the truck and run them through NCIC. They knew who she really was, what she had done. She was about to be arrested.
Her throat started to close up. But she walked out the front door and met Treloar on the front porch anyway.
“Detective,” Nessa said, crossing her arms tight over her chest. “How are you?”
“Mrs. Donati,” Treloar said. “May I come in? There are some things I’d like to discuss with you.”