“Yep,” Aaron says into the phone. “Okay, good.” Aaron hangs up. “Commissioner Ghosh just arrived, sir. He’s on his way up.” Aaron glances at the podium in front of the windows and then back at Teb. “You might want to change ties. Something a little more solemn.”
Teb nods and turns to walk back toward his office. “Sorry, Colette,” Aaron says, guiding her toward the elevator, pressing the down button. “I know it must be frustrating when this happens, but sometimes things are beyond our control. Nature of the job.” The elevator doors open, and Elliott Falk of the New York Post bursts out. “I’ll have Allison call you to reschedule,” Aaron says. The elevator doors close between them, and when they open again, she runs outside, waving down the nearest taxi. She slams the door shut behind her.
“Where to?”
“Brooklyn,” she says, sliding across the hot, cracked leather. “Prospect Park West.”
She presses the power button on the television in front of her seat and the screen flickers, filling the cab with loud music, a jingle about buying a mattress. The cabdriver lays on his horn at the entrance to the Brooklyn Bridge. A local morning program is on, in the midst of a cooking program. How to get kids to eat more greens. The driver turns up the radio, competing with the sound of the television. He’s listening to the all-news station.
She leans forward. “Did you hear anything about Midas, that baby that was taken?”
“The rich one?”
“Yes.”
“He’d dead,” the driver says. “An ex-boyfriend killed him, apparently.”
“No.” The word is choked. “Where did you hear that?”
“My wife. She told me that the other day.” He makes a face. “She’s obsessed with this story.”
Colette’s phone beeps. It’s Nell.
I NEED to see you. Meet me at 5? The Spot. I’m going to sneak out early, need to get Beatrice at 6.
I can’t. Colette types. Not today.
Three dots. Nell’s response is immediate. PLEASE. It’s important.
Colette places her phone on her lap and closes her eyes. Remember to breathe. She pictures the doula kneeling in front of her at the worst moments of her labor, repeating the phrase again and again. It all comes back to your breath.
I’m serious, Nell writes. I have to talk to you.
Fine. I’ll be there.
“Excuse me,” the driver says, fifteen minutes later. “We’re here.”
Charlie is in the kitchen making a sandwich when she enters the apartment.
“You’re back already?”
She drops her bag by the door, mutes his music and then turns on the television, flipping through the stations.
“What are you doing?”
“The mayor is holding a press conference. I think it’s about Midas—” When she gets to a cable news program, she sees Teb standing at the podium, holding up his hand to silence the reporters. “The remains were discovered in the woods about four hundred feet from Winnie Ross’s home, on her property in upstate New York. Because the body had been badly burned, we elicited the help of the FBI to identify the remains.”
“No.” Charlie comes to stand beside Colette and he takes her hand. “They found Mid—”
“Shhhhhh.”
“We received confirmation this afternoon that the remains belong to Hector Quimby, a longtime employee of the Ross family.” Teb consults the notes in front of him. “For the past thirty years, Mr. Quimby has worked as the groundskeeper at the Ross property, as well as maintaining the family’s home in Brooklyn, from which Midas was taken on the night of July 4.” A photo flashes on the screen. The man is in his late sixties, with gray hair, a gray mustache, and cottony blue eyes. “We do not yet know if there’s a connection between Mr. Quimby’s death and the abduction of Midas Ross, but we are proceeding with the investigation assuming there is.”
“How was the body discovered?” someone calls from the crowd of reporters.
“Investigators with the FBI and NYPD were led to Mr. Quimby’s body”—Teb coughs—“excuse me. They were led to Mr. Quimby’s body by cadaver dogs sniffing for the scent of Midas Ross.”
Colette unwinds her fingers from Charlie’s. “I need a second.” She walks to the kitchen, picks up her bag, and locks the door behind her in the bathroom. She sits on the toilet and removes the manila envelope, tearing it open. There’s no sign of who sent it. No letter. No signature. Just a single sheet of paper.
It’s a mug shot.
He’s a teenager in the photo. There are no lines around his eyes, no gray in the goatee. He stares into the camera, a defiant expression on his face. The nameplate he holds in front of his chest is lettered with his date of birth and place of arrest. But not what he was charged with. Not even his name.
But of course it’s him. Token.
Francie sucks in her stomach, aware of a guy approaching, but he strolls past her, taking a seat at the far end of the bar. She checks the time again: 3:32 p.m. He’s thirty-two minutes late. Maybe he lied. Maybe he’s not coming.
“Another white zinfandel?”
She tugs at the fabric of her low-cut neckline in the wake of the bartender’s gaze. “I guess so,” she says, glancing down at the text her mother-in-law, Barbara, sent a few minutes ago, with an attached photo of Will lying on a blanket in the park. We’re doing great. Hope the photo shoot is going well. Good luck!
Her hand is unsteady as she gives a ten to the bartender, thinking again about the argument she and Lowell had this morning, after he came out of the bedroom to find Francie sitting on the couch, feeding Will a bottle, trying to hold back tears.
“What is it this time?” he asked her.
“What is what?”
“You look upset.”
“I’m not.”
“Francie—”
“It’s nothing. I don’t want to talk about it.” She can’t tell Lowell what’s bothering her—how she called Mark Hoyt yesterday to inform him she’d found photographs of the guy who approached Winnie at the Jolly Llama.
“I’m disappointed I had to do this work myself,” she said to Hoyt, impressed with the authority in her voice. “But so be it. I will e-mail them to you now, unless, for security purposes, you’d prefer to send an officer over to pick them up personally?”
“Francie, listen to me,” Hoyt had said. “You need to back off.”
“Back off? Are you—”
“You heard me, Mrs. Givens. Back off. Find something to do. Take that kid to the swings. Or maybe go see your doctor. Make sure everything is okay. Let us do our job.”
“Go see my—” A laugh escaped her. “Do you have any idea what a shitty job you’re doing here? Are you even aware there is a newborn baby counting on you to bring him back to his mother? Go see my doctor? Are you kidding me? I don’t need another man—”
“Good-bye, Mrs. Givens.”
Of course she could never tell this to Lowell, who just stood there, looking at her like she was crazy, his back against the counter, his arms crossed at his chest. “I’m starting to worry about you, Francie.”
She feels sick now, thinking about what she said to him after that, how she accused him of being cold and unsympathetic as he got dressed, turning away from his kiss as he made his way out the door to pick up his mother from the airport (Lowell had, apparently, called Barbara and asked her to come from Tennessee for a few days, telling her Francie was overwhelmed and could use some help with the baby, without even discussing it with her first). Francie hates it when they fight. They hardly ever argued before, but now, since the baby, she’s annoyed by everything he does. She knows she needs to apologize to him and smooth things over, especially with Barbara staying with them, sleeping on the sofa in the living room, in earshot of every word they exchange. She reaches for her phone, but then she feels a pair of hands around her waist.
She turns, her phone frozen in her hand, stunned by how handsome he is up close: his icy blue eyes; his strong, square jaw; his dark hair under the bright red baseball cap. Before she can even say hello, he lifts her from the stool and draws her close, kissing her in a way she hasn’t been kissed in a very long time, helping her forget all about Lowell.
He pulls back. “You are the woman I’m supposed to meet, correct?”