Long Lost (Myron Bolitar) (32 page)
“But I have the order number, if that will help.”
“It may.” He pulled over a keyboard, got his fingers ready, turned back to me. “Well?”
“Four-seven-one-two.”
He looked at me as though I were the dumbest thing on God’s green earth. “That’s not an order number.”
“Oh. Are you sure?”
“That’s a session number.”
“A session number?”
He pushed the cape back with both hands like a bird might before spreading its wings. “As in photo session.”
The phone rang and he turned away as though dismissing me. I was losing him. I took a step back and did my own theatrics. I blinked and made my mouth into a perfect O. Myron Bolitar, Awestruck Ingénue. He was watching me with curiosity now. I circled the store and kept the awestruck look on my face.
“Is there a problem?” he asked me.
“Your work,” I said. “It’s breathtaking.”
He preened. You don’t often see an adult man preen in real life. For the next ten minutes or so I snowed him with a bit more about his work, asking him about inspiration and letting him prattle on about hue and tone and style and lighting and other stuff.
“Marge and I have a baby,” I said, shaking my head in admiration at the hideous Victorian monstrosity that made an otherwise cute baby look like my uncle Morty with a case of shingles. “We should set up a time to bring her in.”
Albin continued to preen in his cape. Preening, I thought, was meant for a man in a cape. We discussed price, which was absolutely ridiculous and would require a second mortgage. I played along. Finally, I said, “Look, that’s the number my wife gave me. The session number. She said that if I saw those photographs it would simply blow me away. Do you think I could see the shots from session four-seven-one-two?”
If it struck him as odd that I had originally come in claiming to pick up photographs and now wanted to look at pictures from a session, the note hadn’t sounded over the din of true genius.
“Yes, of course, it’s on the computer here. I must tell you. I don’t like digital photography. For your little girl, I want to use a classic box camera. There is such a texture to the work.”
“That’d be super.”
“Still, I use the digital for Web storage.” He began typing and hit return. “Well, these aren’t baby pictures, that’s for sure. Here you are.”
Albin turned the monitor toward me. A bunch of thumbnails loaded onto the screen. I felt my chest tighten even before he clicked on one, making the image large enough to fill the entire monitor. No doubt about it.
It was the blond girl.
I tried to play it cool. “I’ll need a copy of that.”
“What size?”
“Whatever, eight-by-ten would be great.”
“It will be ready a week from Tuesday.”
“I need it now.”
“Impossible.”
“Your computer is hooked up into the color printer over there,” I said.
“Yes, but that hardly produces photo quality.”
No time to explain. I took out my wallet. “I’ll give you two hundred dollars for a computer printout of that picture.”
His eyes narrowed, but only for a second. It was finally dawning on him that something was up, but he was a photographer, not a lawyer or doctor. There was no confidentiality agreement here. I handed him the two hundred dollars. He started for the printer. I noticed a link that said Personal Info. I clicked it as he pulled the photograph from the printer.
“Pardon me?” Albin said.
I backed off, but I had seen enough. The girl’s name was only listed as a first: Carrie. Her address?
Right next door. Care of the Save the Angels Foundation.
ALBIN did not know Carrie’s last name. When I pressed him, he let me know he took pictures for Save the Angels, that was all. They gave him first names only. I took the printout and went next door. Save the Angels was still locked up. No surprise. I found Minerva, my favorite receptionist, at Bruno and Associates and showed her the picture of the blond Carrie.
“Do you know her?”
Minerva looked up at me.
“She’s missing,” I said. “I’m trying to find her.”
“Are you like a private eye?”
“I am.” It was easier than explaining.
“Cool.”
“Yeah. Her first name is Carrie. Do you recognize her?”
“She worked there.”
“At Save the Angels?”
“Well, not worked. She was one of the interns. Was here for a few weeks last summer.”
“Can you tell me anything about her?”
“She’s beautiful, isn’t she?”
I said nothing.
“I never knew her name. She wasn’t very nice. None of their interns were, truthfully. Plenty of love for God, I guess, but not real people. Anyway, our offices share a bathroom down the hall. I would say hi. She would look through me. You know what I mean?”
I thanked Minerva and headed back to suite 3B. I stood in front of it and stared at the door for Save the Angels. Again: the mind. I started letting the pieces tumble through ye olde brain cavity like socks in a dryer. I thought about the Web site I had surfed through last night, about the very name of this organization. I looked down at the photograph in my hand. The blond hair. The beautiful face. The blue eyes with that gold ring around each pupil, and yet I saw exactly what Minerva meant.
No mistake.
Sometimes you see strong genetic similarities in a face, like the gold ring around the pupil—and sometimes you also see something more like an echo. That was what I saw on this girl’s face. An echo.
An echo, I was certain, of her mother.
I looked again at the door. I looked again at the photograph. And as the realization sank in, I felt the coldness seep into my bones.
Berleand hadn’t lied.
My cell phone rang. It was Win.
“The DNA test on those bones has been completed.”
“Don’t tell me,” I said. “It’s a match for Terese as mother. Jones was telling the truth.”
“Yes.”
I stared at the picture some more.
“Myron?”
“I think I get it now,” I said. “I think I know what’s going on.”
33
I drove back to New York City—more specifically, to the offices of CryoHope.
This can’t be.
That was the thought that kept rambling through my mind. I didn’t know if I hoped that I was right or wrong—but like I said, truth has a certain smell to it. And as far as the “can’t be” aspect, I again bring up the Sherlock Holmes axiom: When you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.
I was tempted to call Special Agent Jones. I had the girl’s picture now. This Carrie was probably a terrorist or a sympathizer or maybe—best-case scenario—she was being held against her will. But it was too early for that. I could talk to Terese, run this possibility by her, but that, too, felt premature.
I needed to know for sure before I got Terese’s hopes up—or down.
CryoHope had valet parking. I gave the keys to the man and started inside. Immediately after Rick Collins found out that he had Huntington’s disease, he had come here. It made sense on the surface. CryoHope was a leader in cutting-edge research with stem cells. It was natural to think that he had visited here in hopes of finding that something might save him from his genetic fate.
But that hadn’t been it.
I remembered the name of the doctor from the brochure. “I want to see Dr. Sloan,” I said to the receptionist.
“Your name?”
“Myron Bolitar. Tell him it’s about Rick Collins. And a girl named Carrie.”
WHEN I came back out, Win was waiting by the front door, leaning against the wall with the ease of Dino at the Sands. His limo was outside, but he stayed with me.
“So?” he said.
I told him everything. He listened without interrupting or asking any follow-up questions. When I was done, he said, “Next step?”
“I tell Terese.”
“Any thoughts on how she’ll react?”
“None.”
“You could wait. Do more research.”
“On what?”
He picked up the photograph. “The girl.”
“We will. But I need to tell Terese now.”
My cell phone chirped. The caller ID showed me Unknown Number. I flipped on the speakerphone setting and said, “Hello?”
“Miss me?”
It was Berleand. “You didn’t call me back,” I said.
“You were supposed to stay out of it. Calling you back may have encouraged you to rejoin the investigation.”
“So why are you calling now?”
“Because you have a very big problem,” he said.
“I’m listening.”
“Am I on speakerphone?”
“Yes.”
“Is Win there with you?”
Win said, “I am.”
“So what’s the problem?” I asked.
“We’ve been picking up some dangerous chatter coming out of Paterson, New Jersey. Terese’s name was mentioned.”
“Terese’s,” I said, “but not mine?”
“It may have been alluded to. This is chatter. It isn’t always clear.”
“But you think they know about us?”
“It seems likely, yes.”
“Any idea how?”
“None. The agents involved with Jones, the ones who took you into custody, are the best. None of them would have talked.”
“One must have,” I said.
“Are you sure about that?”
I ran it through my head. I thought about who else was there that day in London, who might have told other jihadists that I had killed their leader Mohammad Matar. I glanced at Win. He held up the photograph of Carrie and arched an eyebrow.
When you eliminate the impossible . . .
Win said, “Call your parents. We’ll move them to the Lockwood compound in Palm Beach. We’ll add the best security for Esperanza—maybe Zorra is available or that Carl guy from Philadelphia. Is your brother still on dig in Peru?”
I nodded.
“He should be safe then.”
I knew that Win would stay with Terese and me. Win started making calls. I picked up the phone, taking it off speaker. “Berleand?”
“Yes.”
“Jones implied that you might have been lying about that DNA test in Paris.”
Berleand said nothing.
“I know you were telling the truth,” I said.
“How?”
But I had already said too much. “I have some calls to make. I’ll call you back.”
I hung up and called my parents. I was hoping my father would answer, so naturally my mother picked up.
“Mom, it’s me.”
“Hello, darling.” Mom sounded tired. “I’m just back from the doctor.”
“Are you okay?”
“You can read about it on my blog tonight,” Mom said.
“Hold up, you just got back from the doctor, right?”
Mom sighed. “I just said that, didn’t I?”
“Right, so I’m asking about your health.”
“That’s going to be my blog topic. If you want to know more, read it.”
“You won’t tell me?”
“Don’t take it personally, sweetie. This way I don’t have to repeat myself when someone else asks.”
“So you blog about it instead?”
“It increases traffic to my site. See, now you’re interested, am I right? So I’ll get more hits.”
My mother, ladies and gentlemen.
“I didn’t even know you had a blog.”
“Oh, sure, I’m very now, very today, very hip. I’m on MyFace too.”
I heard my father in the background shout out, “It’s MySpace, Ellen.”
“What?”
“It’s called MySpace.”
“I thought it was MyFace.”
“That’s Facebook. You have one of those too. And MySpace.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
“Listen to Mr. Billy Gates back there. Knows everything about the Internet all of a sudden.”
“And your mother is fine,” Dad yelled out.
“Don’t tell him,” she whined. “Now he won’t click my blog.”
“Mom, this is important. Can I talk to Dad for a minute?”
Dad came on. I explained quickly and with as little detail as possible. Again Dad got it. He didn’t question or argue. I had just finished explaining about how we’d get someone to pick them up and take them to the compound when my call waiting beeped in another call. It was Terese.
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