The Dead Room (8 page)

At last the good-nights were ending. Robert Adair continued to look troubled. She kissed his cheek. “We'll have dinner soon, how's that?” she whispered to him.

That seemed to brighten him. He nodded.

“It's really good to see you back, Leslie,” he said gravely.

“Back in New York. Back with us all,” Ken Dryer added.

She smiled. “This is home,” she murmured.

Finally they left and she was alone in the house.

She stood in the entry. She could still hear the street noises, muffled by the fence and the thick walls of the house. The sound of a horn, a shout, a car alarm. The usual.

She forced those noises into the background and tried to hear the house itself.

Nothing. Everything was quiet. Not even an old board creaked.

Hastings House had stood for more than two centuries. It had seen war, peace, life, love…and death. It had to be filled with a few spirits. It had been witness to a revolution, to a civil war that had torn a country apart. It had been there in 1812 when a fledgling nation had faced its first major confrontation following its independence. It had witnessed riots, the teeming disturbance of a world gone crazy in the caste war pitting old immigrants against new. World wars had come and gone, and the Cold War after them. It had survived the tragedy and trials of the twenty-first century.

There had to be spirits here….

But she heard, sensed, nothing. The house was silent.

“Matt?” she whispered hopefully.

But there was no reply.

She closed her eyes, prayed, hoped, waited.

Nothing.

At last she went up to bed.

There are no rules, Nikki had told her once. No one really knew what lay beyond this world.

She lay awake as long as she could, still and expectant.

But nothing happened, and without even noticing the transition from wakefulness, she finally fell asleep.

A
t three in the morning, Joe was trolling the streets, driving slowly, looking for his one hooker in a veritable sea of them.

He'd started doing the basics immediately. Checking and double-checking the information Eileen had given him, making appointments, sending e-mails…

He'd read the magazine article several times over but had found nothing but an allusion to a long-ago rumor of an extramarital affair—not enough to make an intelligent grown woman go berserk, surely. The reporter was currently on assignment overseas, so there was no way to get hold of him to see how much he really knew.

Joe didn't think he was going to get much help from that quarter, anyway.

The secret to Genevieve's whereabouts was out here somewhere on the streets.

One of the notes Eileen had given him referred to a hooker Genevieve had tried to help in the course of her job and had actually spoken about to her aunt.
Didi Dancer.
Probably not the girl's real name, but…

Five foot four, huge breasts, tiny waist, liked to wear a skin-tight red skirt and leather jacket when she worked. Spiked heels. Her vanity was her hair, long and a rich, vibrant brown; she wouldn't be hard to spot.

He saw the woman and pulled over to the curb. She noticed that he was driving a Lexus, and he noted the hard smile that curved her lips as she walked over to the car. She leaned against it, arching her body suggestively as she did so.

“Hey,” she said. Then her hard smile eased a bit. “So, good-looking, what are you up to tonight?”

“I'd like to talk to you,” he said.

She had pretty features. Her skin was dry and taut, though. Too many cigarettes. Maybe—probably—too many less legal substances, as well. “Talk? Sure, honey, everyone wants to talk.”

He smiled; her own grin deepened. “Hey,” she said again, her voice growing husky. “You really are good-looking, sugar. Maybe we can work out a good deal—for talking.”

“Honestly, I really do just want to talk, but I'll make it worth your while.”

She tensed suddenly, started to straighten. “You're fucking vice, aren't you? I haven't said a thing. You can't run me in.”

She started to walk away, heels clicking sharply on the pavement.

He hopped quickly out of the car. “I swear to God, I'm not vice. And I
will
make it worth your while. You're, uh, Didi Dancer, right?” Man, what a ridiculous name.

She paused, then turned back, staring at him across the sidewalk.

“Who are you?
What
are you?” she asked suspiciously.

“I'm a private investigator. And I just need some help. I'm looking for a missing girl. Genevieve O'Brien.”

A strange look washed over her face. Something containing caring and humanity.

Her voice still husky, she asked, “That pretty social worker?”

“Yes.”

“I talked to the cops, you know.”

“Will you talk to me?”

She hesitated. “All right,” she said at last. “If you'll take me for a ride. That's a cool car.”

“Thanks.”

She crawled into the passenger seat, ran her hands over the soft leather, then looked at him.

“Where did you want to go?” he asked her.

“Just drive. Hey, let's take the FDR.”

“All right.”

He drove for several minutes, navigating the city streets to reach the highway, before she started to talk. “The police quizzed a lot of us about the missing hookers, you know. Strange. Well, not so strange. It was like it was all by rote. Questions they had to ask. They think we chose this life, that we deserve whatever happens to us.” She shook her head, staring out the window. Then she looked back at him. “Can I smoke in here?” she asked him.

“If you can help me, you can light up a cigar,” he told her.

She smiled, staring at him. “You are one handsome dude, you know? I should have known right off you weren't looking for a fuck. No, that's not true. You'd be amazed at the really good-looking young guys who just want sex without any emotional bullshit. Or kinky things, or sometimes not even all that kinky. Just things their wives won't do.” She frowned. “You really aren't vice, right?”

“I swear, I'm not vice. I'll show you my ID.”

“Oh, honey, anyone can fake ID,” she said with a laugh. Then she sobered. “I wish I could help you.”

“Try.”

“Okay.” She opened her window and lit a cigarette. Exhaling, she began. “Genevieve. The cops asked about her, too. Such a pretty name for such a pretty girl.” She inhaled deeply, just air. At that moment she didn't even seem to realize she had a lit cigarette. “I have a daughter. They took her away. She's in foster care. Genevieve came to see me. I gave her a hard time at first. The girl looks like she ought to be posing for
Vogue
or something like that. And I heard from some of the other girls that she's really rich, too…but she was the real deal. She really wanted to help me. Us. I even got her together with some of the other girls one time. She was so sweet. She wanted to know about
our
dreams, can you imagine that? Like, did we plan on doing what we're doing forever? Was it just to pull in some money? She wanted to help us get real jobs that paid enough to survive here. Enough to get legit. To get our kids back,” she said softly.

“When was the last time you saw her?” Joe asked.

“About a month ago.”

Right around when she disappeared?

“Did she visit you? Were you at a restaurant…on the street, what and where?” Joe pursued quietly.

“We were right where you picked me up tonight,” she told him. “She knew where to find me.”

“Why was she looking for you?”

“She thought she might have a job for me.” Didi inhaled on her cigarette, exhaled the smoke, then flicked the butt out the window and looked at him. “She wanted to know if I was seriously—really seriously—ready to change my lifestyle. If I wanted my daughter back bad enough to stay clean. Squeaky clean.”

“And what did you tell her?”

She folded her hands in her lap and looked down at them. “I said yes.”

He nodded. “But she never came back?”

“No.”

“When and how did she leave you?”

“A car pulled up, and I could tell she knew the driver. She walked over to it, and it looked like she and the guy—I think it was a guy—it looked like they were kinda arguing. I couldn't hear what they said, but she looked pissed, you know? Then she waved at me and said she'd get back with me about the job.”

“And then she got in the car?”

“Yes.”

“What can you tell me about the car?”

“It was a dark sedan. Black, blue, something like that.”

“By any wild chance, did you get the plate number?”

Didi shook her head. “I wasn't looking. I…I didn't notice anything more.”

“You didn't watch her go, maybe wave as she drove off?”

“No,” Didi said softly, then looked at him. “Another car showed up. A regular of mine. I knew the guy; knew he was worth money. I forgot all about Genevieve then. I had to. I mean, I seriously would have taken her offer, and I would have stayed clean. But…well, I needed to eat in the meantime.”

“Right,” he murmured.

He drove her back to the curb where he had found her. After he slid the car into neutral, he pulled out a wad of bills.

“You don't owe me,” she said.

“I told you I'd pay you to talk.”

“It was about Genevieve. You don't owe me. I really hope that you find her. I pray sometimes that she's okay.”

“Take the money, have some dinner. Give yourself a break.”

She paused, looked into eyes, then took the money. “What makes you think I'm not just gonna buy some coke with it?”

“You might. I hope you don't.”

She started to get out of the car. “You know, you're the only one who asked me that.”

“Asked you what?”

“What I said to Genevieve. No one else cared if I meant to clean up or not. That was really nice of you.”

“You could probably get yourself a real job, with or without Genevieve,” he said.

“Yeah? I have great references. ‘John Q. says I'm a great lay,'” she said dryly. She flushed, then dug into her small handbag. She produced a scrap of paper, a receipt from a coffee house, and scratched down a number. “If you think I can help you again, call me.”

He accepted the paper. “Thank you. Are you sure you don't remember anything else about the car? Can you take a guess on the color?”

“Black. I think it was black,” she said. Then she sighed. “I'm just not sure.”

“Okay. Thank you. Really.”

She touched his face, her eyes soft. “No, thank you, sweetie. You treated me nice. Real nice. And I'm serious. You call me.” She gave him her dry smile once again. “And that wasn't a come-on. Good night.”

She hopped out of the car.

He drove on down the street, past the site of the new dig. At night, it seemed huge, protected behind quickly rigged barbed wire. Hardly aware of what he was doing, he slid into a spot along the curb, stepped out of the car and started walking, making mental notes as he went.

Eileen Brideswell might just be right. Her niece had been working with prostitutes in the same area where a number of hookers had gone missing. She had been picked up by a dark, probably black, sedan off the street—in that same area. He needed Robert Adair's notes; he needed to know if any friends of the other missing girls had seen them getting into a dark sedan.

He kept walking, using the time as he often did to make sense of what he had learned.

He found himself standing in front of Hastings House once again, as if brought there by instinct.

Well, that was crazy as hell. What could Hastings House have to do with the disappearance of Genevieve O'Brien?

The place just bugged him, that was all. He couldn't shake the feeling that the blast had been intentional and Matt had been the intended target.

And that someone was getting away with murder.

He stood beneath the streetlight, staring at the house. It seemed to live and breathe; the old colonial windows were like eyes, the door like a mouth.

Unease filled him. Eileen Brideswell was right, he thought. Her niece
had
been the victim of foul play. Just as the prostitutes had been.

Someone was getting away with murder.

Just like at Hastings House.

 

At first Leslie slept deeply. Then, suddenly, she discovered that she was wide awake.

She glanced at her travel alarm on the Duncan Fife reproduction by her bed. Four in the morning. Much too early to get out of bed.

She plumped her pillow, but sleep wouldn't come. After half an hour she sighed and gave up. She slipped on a robe and went quietly downstairs.

So far, she hadn't gone into the room where the explosion had taken place. Was she ready for that?

Did she want to reach Matt?

In the entryway, she hesitated, then went into the first room off the entryway, now set up as a Colonial parlor. There was a love seat beneath the window, a table in the center of the room, a pianoforte to one side, and various chairs, along with a tea table. She stood there in the shadows and the diffuse glow cast by the the security lights. “Hello?” she said softly.

But the room was just a room, an image of a past that might or might not have been exactly as it was represented now.

She walked through the connecting door to the dining room, thinking that last night was now just a moment in history, like everything else.

Then she walked through the kitchen and back to the servants' pantry.

The hearth had been rebuilt. She could almost imagine Matt standing by it the way he had that night. She could almost see herself nearby, held captive in a different conversation. In her mind's eye, she could almost see…

But the room was silent. Just a room.

“Not even a Colonial gentleman here, huh? The lady of the house?” she said aloud.

Just an empty room.

She walked back into the kitchen, found the coffeepot and the coffee, and thought that if the supplies belonged to Melissa, the ticket-seller, she would make a point of replacing them. She set a pot of coffee on to brew. Upstairs, in her room, which wasn't part of any tour, she had a television. She could sip coffee and watch an early-morning news show soon.

That settled, she hummed while she made coffee, thinking that she might turn and see a ghost at any time. But the coffee brewed, and she saw nothing. She found a large cup, filled it, added cream that she found in the artfully disguised refrigerator and headed back up the stairs.