Nightwatcher (23 page)

Mack’s eyes widen—ow, that hurts, everything hurts—and he tells Ben, “Lexi—that was Lexi just now, waking me up.”

Ben’s daughter. He hasn’t seen her in months. Maybe a year. Years? And yet she drew a picture of him and Carrie holding hands on a sunny day.

“Yup—that was Lexi. Only I told her not to wake you up, just see if you were awake. I know you have a hard time falling asleep, and staying asleep—although I guess if last night didn’t knock you out, nothing could.”

Last night . . .

Mack hasn’t a clue. Even this morning, right here and now, is hazy.

“I was so out of it, I didn’t even realize that was Lexi,” he tells Ben. “She used to be . . .”

“A baby?” Ben smiles faintly. “Yeah. I guess they grow up.”

Inevitably, Mack’s thoughts shift to Carrie, and the baby they were trying to conceive.

That’s never going to happen now.

Oh, hell, that was never going to happen anyway. Tuesday morning . . .

“Listen, Mack?”

He looks up to find Ben watching him, still looking worried, as if he knows . . . something.

But how much?

Ben clears his throat. “I’m glad you told me about Carrie, and if you don’t mind—I want to tell Randi about it.”

“Wh-why?”

“You know—she’s always felt kind of bad about things. That we never saw much of you anymore once you got married, or . . . I mean, we both thought it was us, that we rubbed her the wrong way or something.”

“No. It wasn’t you. It was Carrie. She just had a hard time with . . .”

“People,” Ben supplies, as Mack simultaneously concludes his sentence with “Everyone.”

Ben nods. “Well, now that I know the truth—it changes the way I see her. I wish I could go back, knowing what I know now. Maybe it’s too late to change things, with everything that’s going on—but it helps that I know.”

“How?”

“I don’t know . . . it just does. That’s why I want to tell Randi. She’ll feel better about it, too.”

“What . . . what are you going to tell her, exactly?” Mack’s heart is racing.

“You know—what you told me. About her past. It explains why she was the way she was. I mean why she
is
the way she
is
,” he amends hastily.

“You don’t have to do that,” Mack tells him.

“Do what? Tell Randi?”

“No—talk about Carrie like she’s still alive.”

“She could be.”

Mack shakes his head. No more lies. “She isn’t, Ben. She’s never coming home.”

“You don’t know that.”

Wordlessly, Mack hands over the newspaper, folded open to the article about Cantor Fitzgerald. He watches Ben read about how yesterday afternoon, at the Pierre Hotel, the chairman informed the families that not a single Cantor employee out of the thousand or so who had been at work on Tuesday morning had made it out alive. Not one.

When Ben finishes reading the article, he puts the paper aside and looks at Mack.

He knew
, Mack realizes.
He already knew.

“I’m sorry, Mack.”

He nods.

“What are you going to do?” Ben asks after a few moments of somber silence.

“Go on,” Mack says simply. “What else is there to do?”

S
tepping from the bright morning sunshine into her office building, Allison is greeted with a prompt “Good morning,
mon
!”

As her eyes adjust to the dim lighting in the lobby, she spots the dreadlocked security guard back at his post. “Henry! It’s so good to see you.”

Ah, there it is again—that inexplicable urge to make physical contact with someone she really doesn’t know all that well; someone who—like Mack—she has seen in passing as she goes about her daily business and never really thought much about until now.

It’s all she can do not to race over and throw her arms around Henry, but she merely smiles.

“Good to see you too,
mon
. Everything is okay?” he asks in his lilting Jamaican inflection.

How to answer that?

With a simple nod and another question is probably the easiest way. “How about with you?”

Henry shakes his head. “I knew a few people.”

The words are spoken so softly she can barely hear them, but the sorrow in his big black eyes speaks volumes.

“I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah,
mon
. Me too.”

For a moment, they’re both silent.

Then Henry slides a clipboard across the counter to her. “Here . . . I need you to sign in.”

“Sign in?”

“New world—new security procedure. I need to check your bag, too . . . sorry.”

“It’s okay.” She opens her shoulder bag and he pokes around inside quickly.

“I never saw you wear shoes like this.” The twinkle returns to Henry’s eyes as he gestures at the sneakers tucked into her bag. She wore them to walk up to Union Square, then put on her heels before taking the subway to midtown.

“Shh—don’t tell anyone.”

“I won’t. I wouldn’t want you to get fired, would I?”

It feels good to share a little laugh with Henry, after all the grim faces on the streets and in the subway, dozens of black SUVs with government plates parked all over midtown . . . and now this: new security measures at the office.

Allison can’t help but think that it’s going to take a lot more than having visitors sign in and checking their bags to make this building secure. For one thing, Henry is often zoned out in a ganja-induced haze. For another, there’s a basement entrance that opens out to an alleyway where the smokers hang out. They keep the door propped open all day so they can come and go freely.

I guess that’s going to have to change now
, Allison thinks as she waits for the elevator.
A lot of things in this city are going to have to change if anyone is ever going to feel safe again
.

She takes the elevator alone up to the tenth floor—unusual at this time of morning—and finds that all is dark behind the glass doors that lead to the
7th Avenue
offices.

As she pushes through the doors, she realizes how useless they are. They aren’t even locked. Anyone could walk right through them.

Allison looks around for a light switch. Not finding one, she shrugs and makes her way down the darkened corridors to her own office.

She turns on the desk lamp, sits at her desk, and wonders if anyone else is going to show up. Everything is so still without the hum of office machines, voices, ringing telephones. It’s unsettling.

Maybe she should just go home.

To what, though?

More emptiness?

Even Mack appears to have abandoned the apartment building now. He didn’t answer her knock earlier, or the phone call she placed when she got back to her apartment. She left him a message, telling him she was going to be at work today, then dumped the coffee she’d poured for him down the sink.

Maybe he just didn’t want to see or talk to her. Or anyone.

Maybe Carrie turned up—or her remains were found, and he went off to make funeral arrangements.

Maybe something happened to him, just like something happened to Kristina.

Maybe he was arrested for what happened to Kristina.

Allison doesn’t want to consider either of the last two possibilities, but they’re perhaps just as likely as the others.

She thrums her fingernails on the desk and looks at the phone.

Should she call a locksmith first, or try calling Mack again?

She picks up the receiver, dials Mack’s number.

It rings and goes right to the answering machine, just like before. “Hi . . . it’s Allison Taylor again. I just wanted to let you know that I’m at work, and you can call me here if you want, or try my cell phone. I hope . . . I hope you’re okay.” After leaving her numbers, she hangs up.

Remembering what she saw yesterday in Kristina’s apartment, she swallows hard.

What if something happened to Mack?

The thought is too horrible to push aside. She takes a card from her wallet and quickly dials the number, before she can change her mind.

This time, there’s an answer—a gruff, hurried one—on the first ring.

“Yeah, Manzillo here.”

“Detective Manzillo, this is Allison Taylor. I’m—”

“I know who you are,” he cuts in. “What can I do for you? I’m in my car on the Bruckner and I always lose the signal right near here, so talk fast.”

“I was just wondering what’s going on with . . . the case. Did you get him yet?”

“Get who?”

“You know . . . whoever killed Kristina.”

She holds her breath, praying that they got him, whoever he is—praying that it’s not Mack, praying he didn’t get to Mack.

“Not yet,” Detective Manzillo tells her. “Is there anything else you can think of that might help with the case?”

“No. Nothing, except . . . well, there are two things. One is that Kristina had the key to my apartment, and I’m worried that . . . um, do you know if it was still there?”

There’s a pause. “Do you know where she kept it? Because I know that the only keys on her key ring were to the front door of the building, her own apartment, and the mailbox. We checked them out.”

“I don’t know where she kept it, but she definitely has—
had
it. Could I, do you think, have a look around her apartment just to make sure it’s still there?”

“I’ll have to do that myself,” the detective tells her. “I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. What’s the other thing you wanted to mention?”

Oh.
That
.

“I just wondered if you knew where Mack—I mean, Mr. MacKenna—is, because I don’t think he’s home and I can’t reach him.”

As soon as she blurts it out, she regrets it.

Especially when she’s greeted with silence on the other end of the line.

“I’m just worried something might have happened to him,” she adds hastily. “It’s not that I, you know, think he’s . . .”

Guilty
.

She can’t say the word; that would mean admitting she’s considered that he might, indeed, be guilty.

Still, Detective Manzillo says nothing.

“Sir?”

Silence.

After a moment, she realizes the connection was lost.

Hanging up the phone, she wonders how much he heard.

About a minute later, her phone rings. She hesitates, wondering what would happen if she ignored it.

It could be a work-related call—though she doubts it.

It could be Mack, getting back to her.

Or it could be Detective Manzillo again, freshly suspicious of Mack, thanks to her.

Reluctantly, she picks up the phone. “Allison Taylor.”

“Sorry, we got cut off before,” Manzillo says briskly. “I was asking if you can think of anything else that might help us with the case.”

And I was putting my foot into my mouth, but you apparently didn’t hear any of that.

Relieved, Allison tells him, “No, there’s nothing else. But I’ll call you if anything comes up.”

“Do that. And please be careful.”

“I will.”

She hangs up and spins her desk chair to the window, gazing absently at the skyline and thinking about Mack. He’s a stranger and a married man—a
widowed
man. Newly widowed. Why does he matter so much to her?

Maybe it’s because she recognizes in him a kindred spirit. Like her, he seems alone in the world, whether he really is or not. She sensed it even on Monday night, before his wife went missing—which is odd, when you think about it.

She’s sick of thinking about it.

So think about something else. Anything else.

Realizing she’s gazing out at the Chrysler building spire, she’s glad her office window faces north and not south. At least she won’t have a daily view of lower Manhattan’s scarred skyline.

It’s hard to imagine that just forty-eight hours ago, on a beautiful morning like this one, the clear September sky exploded in flames.

A faint sound reaches Allison’s ears.

Instantly on high alert, she spins abruptly in her chair, looking expectantly toward the doorway.

Beyond lies the bullpen—a large, open space filled with desks, work cubicles, file cabinets, and office machines.

“Hello?” she calls, and waits for a response from a coworker who probably didn’t realize someone else is here on the floor.

But there’s no reply.

Heart pounding, Allison stands.

She’s as certain she’s not alone as she is that terrible things can happen out of nowhere, out of the clear blue September sky.

She sees nothing, hears nothing, but there are countless nooks where an intruder might be hiding, waiting to pounce, waiting to do to her what he did to Kristina Haines.

“D
id Mack leave?”

Ben nods, closing the bedroom door behind him and watching Randi pull a sweater over her head.

“Where did he go?” she asks when her head pops out the neck hole.

“Home, he said.”

“I was going to see if he wanted some breakfast.”

“I gave him coffee, and ginger ale,” Ben says, sitting on the bed, “and he barely got that down.”

“Poor guy.” His wife sits beside him. He can smell the lotion she always uses before bed at night and when she gets out of the shower in the morning. The scent comforts him; it always does, especially when he comes home after a hard day at work.

He thinks about Mack, going home to an empty house, and he wonders what he would do if something happened to Randi.

I would die
, he thinks, and on the heels of that thought,
No, I would go on.

What else is there to do?

Mack
 . . .

He’ll go on, just like thousands of other people in this city who lost their spouses.

“Ben?” Randi’s shoulder-length dark red hair is mussed from the sweater; he pats a couple of strands into place, then presses a kiss to her shoulder. “What’s that for?”

“I love you.” He rests his cheek against her shoulder, breathing her lotion scent.

“I love you, too, Benjy . . .”

She calls him that when she’s in a good mood or feeling playful and affectionate.

“But I hope you’re not getting any ideas,” she goes on, “because Lexi might walk in any second now.”