Smoke (34 page)

In front of them, the gleaming white Gulf beach and the crystalline blue water beyond looked like an oasis between the heat waves that rose off the black concrete of the road. Of course, their last visit to Florida had been pretty frightening.

“You know, when we travel, we tend to see only the very worst a place has to offer … men with guns, back alleys,” said Jeffrey. “Maybe you should give it a chance.”

An ice cream truck jingled around the roundabout they were waiting to enter.

“They should outlaw those things,” said Lydia.

“They should,” said Dax. “That stupid goddamn music makes me want to pull out my rocket launcher.”

“Man, this is a tough crowd,” said Jeff. “You can’t take New York anywhere. I kind of like it here. It’s peaceful.”

They pulled past a strip of outdoor bars and restaurants, tacky souvenir shops and real estate offices. To the right, white-capped water lapped lazily against a sugar-white beach. A median lined with tall, full palm trees that looked like giant pineapples divided the north- and south-heading lanes of the road. They stopped at a crosswalk and let a dumpy tourist family wearing tacky beach cover-ups and painful-looking sunburns cross in front of them. Dax ogled two bikini-clad rollerbladers with matching heads of bottle-blonde hair, huge fake tits, and impossibly slim bodies.

“Maybe it’s not so bad down here after all, eh?” he observed absently.

They passed a row of gleaming high-rise hotels and crested a causeway that looked out over a marina lined with hundreds of boats in a canal that led to the Gulf. High cumulous clouds towered full and dramatic in a cerulean sky. Lydia rolled down the window to breathe in the salt and they all felt the swath of hot, humid air as it saturated the cool interior of the car.

The causeway ended in a lush explosion of green. The temperature dropped as they passed beneath a glade of trees that seemed to shelter the island in a dark canopy. From the road, they could no longer see the ocean because of the high walls that edged the magnificent homes lining the beaches. A thick cover of palms, oleander, and hibiscus bushes, fanning birds-of-paradise, and loblolly pine allowed only glimpses of tile roofs.

“I think this is it. Up here on the right,” said Dax, scrolling down on his portable global positioning device.

They slowed as they passed a pair of heavy wrought-iron gates, the metal twisted and shaped to resemble thorned branches. Lydia saw the New Day logo on an unmarked plaque above an intercom speaker box. She felt the familiar buzz, an agitation to get behind those gates made her fidget in her seat. When she thought of Lily now, all she could see was that image, those sharp shoulder blades, the shaved head.

“Maybe we should call the police,” said Lydia.

“Tell them what?” asked Jeffrey.

“That we think a missing girl is locked inside those gates,” she said.

“And what do you think they’ll do? Take a report and investigate, announcing to Trevor Rhames and company that we’re here in Florida.”

“And who knows?” added Dax. “They’re as powerful in this town as the FBI seems to think, who’s to say the chief of police is not a New Day devotee.”

“Jeez, it was just a thought. Take it easy.”

“We’ll wait till dark,” said Jeffrey, his eyes on the road, both hands on the wheel. “Then we’ll try to find our way in.”

“Since that’s been working so well for us,” she said, looking at him.

She heard Dax in the back tapping on the keys of his BlackBerry.

“What are you doing?” she asked, turning to watch as he typed furiously with his thumbs.

He looked up at her. “None of your beeswax,” he said, sticking the device in his pocket. Lydia had a wave of technology lust and felt jealous.

“I need one of those,” she said sullenly as she turned to watch the property pass. She could see the cupola on the roof peeking out through the trees and her thoughts turned, for some reason, to Shawna Fox, a girl she’d been far too late to help. She remembered the green eyes that stared out at her from a photograph handed to her by Shawna’s desperate, sad boyfriend, Greg.

Lydia was a different person then, as sad and desperate as Greg, haunted by an unresolved grief for her mother that had become so much a part of her she barely even realized it. Old photos of people who were gone had angered Lydia then. They were cold, eerie reminders of how easily life was lost, of how vividly alive people remained in the memories of those who loved them, and how grief was the slick-walled, bottomless abyss between those places.

Her experiences since that time had taught her something about the nature of love and what it meant to lose it. She’d come to understand that though we may lose the people we love, the gift of their love remains. In the throes of grief, that was little comfort. But in time, that knowledge could bring a kind of peace, a tentative healing. She thought
then of her father, whom she’d lost before she ever knew him, who she now realized had been trying to reach out to her for most of her life. She thought of the woman, the stranger, who might be her sister. She felt a wash of anxiety mingling with a strange feeling of hope. Shawna. Tatiana. Lily. The lost, grief-mangled girl Lydia herself had been once.

“Shit,” she said aloud.

Jeffrey put a hand on her knee. “We’ll find her,” he said. “I promise.”

She put her hand over his, looked at the wedding band on her finger, and nodded.

“We need to go inland,” said Dax.

“Why?” asked Lydia, watching the house disappear from her view in the mirror.

“That compound you mentioned … organic produce or something, right?”

“Yeah.”

“I found a listing for a New Day Farms.”

She turned in the passenger seat to look at him; he turned his GPS out to her and showed her a little map on its screen.

“That must be the place Rusty Klautz claimed they were stockpiling weapons.”

“It’s interesting, isn’t it?” said Jeffrey. “The waterfront property in an affluent area and a farm out in the-middle-of-nowhere Florida.”

Dax nodded. “It’s a good setup for trafficking.”

“Trafficking what?” asked Lydia.

Dax shrugged. “Pretty much anything,” he said. “Guns, drugs.”

“Diamonds,” said Jeffrey.

D
ylan Breslow wouldn’t walk a block to piss on Matt Stenopolis if he was on fire. The guy was an asshole, and if it weren’t for old Mount, Dylan strongly suspected that he and Jesamyn would still be together. Maybe not. But it certainly hadn’t helped their situation when Matt had stumbled upon Dylan making out with a female rookie from the Fifth Precinct at a bar on the Lower East Side. In fact, that was the incident that had led to Jesamyn asking Dylan to leave their home. Not that things had been great prior to that incident.

“I’ve dealt with the pain and humiliation your infidelity has caused me in our relationship. But I can’t handle being humiliated in front of my co-workers,” she told him. “You’ve just walked over the line. Don’t even try to come back.”

She’d meant it. He hadn’t believed her at first but it wasn’t even a month before he was served divorce papers. She had him served on the job during roll call, trying to get even with him, he figured, for hurting and humiliating her the way he had. He didn’t blame her, really. He knew every shitty thing that had passed between them had been his fault; he even knew he didn’t deserve her. But he loved her, loved her like a freight train through his heart. He just couldn’t be faithful to her. He didn’t have enough perspective on himself to understand why.

“Why am I trying to help this guy?” he asked himself aloud as he pulled the unmarked Caprice in front of the Brooklyn row house that belonged to Clifford Stern, the eyewitness who claimed to have seen Matt leave the scene of Katrina Aliti’s murder. The day was bright and cold. An old lady in a black wool coat and a kerchief on her hair made her way slowly up the street with a walker and an air of determination. A young mother in tight jeans and a short, puffy white coat pushed a stroller, had a little rhythm to her step from whatever she was listening to on her headphones. In the schoolyard across the street, children about Ben’s age played, bundled in thick parkas and little wool hats … jump rope, swing sets, jungle gyms. He smiled, thinking that no matter how the world changed, the schoolyard seemed always to maintain a comforting sameness. No video games, no Internet, just the simple physical games he had played when he was a kid. That’s what kids needed, to run around, burn off some of that energy. They didn’t need to be sitting in front of a screen somewhere, stimulating their developing brains with the worst possible garbage, growing physically inactive. It was a recipe for bad physical and mental health. He noticed teachers standing like sentries, arms crossed, eyes alert, by every possible exit or entrance from the yard, four in total. Someone had to keep the world and all its many terrible changes outside the perimeter of the last safe place.

He peeled back the tab on his coffee from the deli up the street and settled in. A door slammed somewhere close by and he started, spilling a little hot coffee on his jeans.

“Nice,” he said, reaching for a napkin from the glove box. He dabbed the hot liquid and swore at the stain it left on his thigh. Since the shooting, he’d been really edgy. He dreamed about Jerome “Busta” White, the boy he’d killed. He’d wake up sweating, and more frightening, he’d had a couple of intense flashbacks during his waking hours. The shrink they made him see told him it was normal and that it would pass. And it
did
seem to be better, a little better every day. But he knew for a fact that he’d never forget that kid’s eyes. How they were liquid and full of life and in a moment they’d turned cold and still as glass.

He’d never given a whole lot of thought to the concept of soul. But Dylan saw something
leave
that kid. How could it be that life just vanished that way? It was hard to understand in theory; it was harder to witness. They’d all wind up that way, abandoned by life. Him, Jesamyn, Ben, too, someday. The thought filled him with dread. He tried to push the dark thoughts away. They made him question everything about himself, everything about the way he’d lived his life so far. He got the terrible sense that everything he thought was cool and important was shit. That the things he thought were irrelevant, the things he had abused and taken for granted, were the only things that mattered. He’d been on the road for forty years, walking in the wrong direction, taking all the wrong turns. It made him feel sick inside. Worse, Jerome knew it, too. In those last seconds, he saw it. But it was too late for Jerome.

He closed his eyes a second and rested his head back against the seat. When he opened his eyes, he saw Clifford Stern come around the corner of Sixty-Sixth Street and walk up Fourteenth Avenue. He was a small, weaselly-looking man, with a shiny balding head and small, darting eyes. He walked quickly, looking around him nervously, then jogged up the stairs that led to his front door. Dylan noticed that he didn’t turn his back completely to the street as he unlocked the door, but stood awkwardly sideways so that he could see behind him.

Jesamyn was right; there was something weird about all of this. He knew Stenopolis had a temper. He’d been on the receiving end of it. But having a temper and being the kind of soulless killer you had to be to beat a woman to death with your fists were not the same thing. He decided he’d give Clifford Stern a few minutes to relax; he seemed jumpy and afraid. Let him think he was home and safe for a few minutes. Then
Dylan would have a few words with him, find out how well his story held up outside the safe environment of a police station.

This was not the best choice of activities for someone already being investigated by IAD for a shooting. But what could he do? The woman he loved, who currently hated his guts, needed him. He’d be crazy to pass up the opportunity to help her.

He dialed Jesamyn but got her voicemail and hung up. He thought about dialing Elena but thought better of it. After Jesamyn had wigged out that night, he’d broken it off with Elena, which pained him because of her outrageous ass, perfect tits, and silky blonde hair down to her waist. But she wasn’t Jesamyn. He wanted to try to be faithful to Jez, even if there was no relationship at the moment. Maybe because he’d screwed up so many times, he’d have to be faithful to her
before
she took him back. That was his strategy anyway. He’d tell her about it after he helped her and she was feeling grateful. He knew he could make her listen. He could always make her listen; it was just getting her to
believe
that would be a challenge.

He turned the rearview mirror so that he could makes faces at himself for a second … sexy face, tough face, innocent face … and instead saw something behind him that caught his attention. He lowered himself in his seat and looked out the sideview mirror as a white van cruised slowly up Fourteenth Avenue. He slunk down farther and closed his eyes to slits, feigning sleep, as the van passed by his parked car. The windows were darkly tinted, too dark to see the driver. This was illegal in New York City now, but older-model cars that were already tinted before the law was passed couldn’t be ticketed. The van was well kept but definitely an earlier-model vehicle.

As the van passed by him slowly, he saw the New Day logo on its side.

“Huh,” he said to himself. “How about that?”

Part of him had figured Jez was just being paranoid. She did have paranoid tendencies, especially where Ben was concerned. But there it was. The van made a U-turn and drove past Stern’s house, pulled into a parking space, and came to a stop. Maybe Dylan was catching Jez’s paranoia but he felt the hairs rise on his arms. There was something menacing about that van. He slunk down a little farther and waited.

• • •

Y
ou shouldn’t have done this,” said Matt.

“My son is going to rot in prison? No,” his mother said with an emphatic shake of her head. “No.”

“Where’d you get the money?” he asked from the backseat of their 1990 Dodge Minivan.

“Don’t worry about it,” his father said sternly.