Seven Minutes to Noon (28 page)

“Helped
you,
Alice,” Dana said. “We talked about that. Frannie
wanted
to help you, but she’s a detective. The investigation comes first.”

“Right,” Alice said, remembering Frannie’s words.
We had to test you, Alice.

They stared at each other in silence. Alice knew she was the one who had to surrender her point of view. Despite her rage at the manner of Lauren’s death, despite her pained frustration at the utter disappearance of Ivy, despite the possibility that she could be the next target — despite all that, she knew quite simply that Dana was right.

The women locked gazes, and then simultaneously took a breath.

“I’m sorry,” Alice said.

Dana half smiled. “I’d keep it to myself, but Hank saw you go in.”

Hank. The man in the gray Ford.

“Do you think he’ll tell her?”

“I know he will,” Dana said. “He probably already did.”

A quick call to Frannie confirmed it. But by the look of alarm that swept Dana’s expression, it wasn’t professional reproach she was hearing. After the call, Dana took Alice by the elbow and led her quickly along President Street toward Court, away from the playground.

“Wait a minute! I have to get my kids!”

“That sitter have a cell phone?”

“Yes, but—”

“Call her. Tell her to bring the kids to Simon’s. We’re going straight there.”

Dana took Alice’s bags so she could get her cell phone out of her purse. She could actually hear Sylvie’s phone ringing inside the playground. Twisting back to look, Alice saw Sylvie answering her phone, her eyes trailing Peter as he ran in front of her.

“Sylvie, it’s Alice.” She tried to control her voice,
keep it calm, but the tremor of anxiety was unmistakable. “Change of plans. Can you bring the kids over to Simon’s house?”

“Sure,” Sylvie said. “Shall I bring them now? It looks like rain.”

“I’ll meet you there.” Alice ended the call and dropped her phone back into her purse. “What’s going on, Dana.
Tell
me.”

As they crossed Court Street against the light, the sky quickly darkened.

“Frannie said Pollack’s on a rampage. He’s been calling people, telling them the cops entered his apartment unlawfully. Then he ran out of his house.”

“Where is he?”

Dana clenched her jaw and shook her head; she didn’t know.

“Wasn’t Hank watching him?” Alice hurried beside Dana the best she could; her body felt heavier than ever, slow, uncooperative.

“His assignment today was you,” Dana said. “We’re understaffed, Alice. We’re doing our best, trust me.”

“Can’t you arrest Julius?” Alice struggled for breath; they were moving too fast. “He threatened me. Isn’t that enough?”

Dana’s hesitation was Alice’s answer. Julius Pollack couldn’t be arrested without a solid, verifiable reason.

“Frannie’s got a call in about that, but Alice, you broke the restraining order when you ran up those stairs.”

As the image of an enraged Julius Pollack blossomed in Alice’s consciousness, the sky opened up and a deluge began. Hurrying forward along President Street, toward Clinton, Alice fought an urge to turn back to the playground. Nell and Peter were going to get wet. She wanted to go to her children, usher them safely home.

“I’m going back for my kids.” Alice turned around. “They’ll get soaked.”

And what if Julius Pollack sought them out at the playground?
What if?

“Alice!” Dana shouted. “Let the sitter bring them home; they’re probably on their way already. Frannie’s gonna meet us there as soon as she can get back from Jersey. Come on!”

Having ignored Dana’s advice to such dramatic ill effect just half an hour ago, Alice decided to follow orders. Dana was right; Sylvie was perfectly capable of bringing the children home and it would be smart of Alice to be there when they arrived. Then they could lock the doors and huddle inside, waiting for Julius to be located. Waiting for all of this to finally end.

“Why is Frannie in New Jersey?” Alice asked as they hurried through the pounding rain. “What’s she been doing there so much?”

“Later,” Dana answered.

Lightning and thunder raged overhead. It was the kind of flash storm that hit so ferociously on summer afternoons, then dissipated like a forgotten drunken rage. The sidewalks had cleared, with only a few people running through the storm for shelter; otherwise there was no one around. By the time they reached Simon’s brownstone, the storm was starting to clear, leaving behind an eerie silence draped in heavy fog. And the shadow of a message finger-drawn on Simon’s front window:

STOP OR THEY’RE NEXT

Dana had the keys and was opening the front door. But Alice couldn’t move. She stood on Simon’s stoop, staring at the lopsided note scrawled on the wet glass, and pried her hands beneath her soaked shirt to massage the tight skin of her belly.

Within minutes a squad car arrived, followed by a battered silver van from the Criminalistics lab. Forensics technicians scrambled over the window, isolating it, analyzing elements invisible to Alice’s eye. All she could see was STOP OR THEY’RE NEXT.

She huddled on the couch, petrified and shivering under a red fleece blanket, caressing what she could reach of her twins. She had always felt her unborn babies were safe inside her body, safer than they would ever be once they were born. It was when her children left her — disappeared into their school every morning, or worse, went on a field trip to places Alice didn’t know — that she most suffered their vulnerability. It was when they were without her, not within her, that they had always seemed unsafe. She ran her hands along her skin, still tacky from the rain, and silently promised the twins her protection. But watching the technicians crawl over the front of Simon’s building, she knew it was a promise she might not be able to keep.

With shaking hands, she reached into her wet purse for her cell phone. She would call Mike, summon him home. Once Nell and Peter made it back to the house, Alice would have all she needed. She would talk to Mike about leaving.
Insist
on it. Whatever was happening now was too confusing and too dangerous. And she, huge with her twin sons, was a sitting duck.

It took a few rings for Mike to answer. Before she
even spoke, she heard the tension in his voice. “I’m stuck in traffic in the Bronx. We had this delivery in Westchester. I should have had Diego do it but I wanted him to get some stuff done at the shop.”

She told him about Julius, the crying baby, the note on Simon’s window.

He began to blow the pickup’s horn, over and over. Each wail drove Alice’s anxiety deeper.

“Mike, stop it! That won’t get you home any faster.”

“But I need to get to you!” A long, final wail of the horn. “I can’t be stuck here like this!” She heard a rustling and the slam of a car door. “Screw it. I’m taking the subway.”

“You can’t just leave the pickup, Mike!”

“Let them tow it. I’ll pay the fine.”

“I’m not alone, Mike. The police are here, a whole bunch of them, and Dana—”

“Where are the kids?”

“With Sylvie. She’s bringing them home.”

His breathing was labored and she could see him, walking quickly, cell phone pressed to his ear, hair electric, somewhere in the Bronx. She had never been to the Bronx, she realized, and didn’t know how it looked. Thus her mind conjured looming concrete canyons, the street an urban valley through which Mike strode alone.

“Mike, honey, get back in the pickup.”

He sighed and the motion around him seemed to quiet.

“Rushing back won’t change anything,” Alice said. “Dana has things under control.”

“You’re probably right.”

“I love you.” She heard another slam of a car door. “Are you in the pickup now?”

“Yes.”

“Is traffic moving?”

“No, but I guess it will.”

“Call me if you’re worried, Mike. I’ll be right here.”

They ended the call and Alice held her phone in her hand. She surprised herself by feeling less frantic now;
having called Mike for support, then being called upon for encouragement, she had actually calmed herself. Yes, the police were there,
handling the situation.
Trying to determine what the situation was. Alice pulled the blanket over her lap and watched the impressive sight of Dana running the investigation in Frannie’s absence.

A lab technician sprayed something on the windows to evaporate the water, then painstakingly examined every inch of glass. A photographer took pictures of each stage of the process and every aspect of the building’s exterior. He even photographed the inside of the windows. “Just in case,” he casually told Alice, who hovered in the living room, waiting.

In case of what?
Her momentary calm began to dissipate as quickly as it had gathered.

When would Frannie arrive?

Nell and Peter — where
were
they?

Standing in the middle of the living room, Dana surveyed the work. Finally, when she wasn’t answering a question or issuing an order, Alice spoke to her.

“Obviously Julius did this.”

Dana’s keen eyes slid to Alice but showed no reaction. “Nothing’s obvious,” she answered. “We collect the evidence and look it over. Whatever’s there, that’s what we work with. The facts.”

But it
had
to be Julius. Who else? He was out there, plotting against Alice, against the police, against the world for stealing his family. A man with so much money and power, badly misusing his assets.
You’ve been punished,
Alice caught herself thinking of him,
punished for your vile nature and the pain you cause other people.
Unless he wasn’t always this way. Unless the loss of his family created the misanthrope that was Julius Pollack. Unless...

“Yup,” Dana briskly said. Alice had not realized Dana was on the phone. “See you in twenty minutes if the tunnel isn’t blocked.”

“Why is Frannie in New Jersey?” Alice shifted positions on the couch, unable to get comfortable.

Dana now turned fully to Alice. “They found the crime scene. Forensics just got there. Paul stayed behind to supervise.”

They found the crime scene.
The very place where Lauren lost her life — no, had it stolen from her — at seven minutes to noon two Fridays ago.

“What about the baby?” Alice asked. “Did they—”

“No.” Dana sat beside Alice on the couch. “No baby. Just a lot of blood.”

Staring across the space of Simon’s living room, Alice saw dust dance in a poststorm shaft of light. “What else did they find?”

Dana pulled the blanket over Alice’s shoulders. “You’re wet. You should change your clothes.”

“Tell me,” Alice said. “What else?”

“Forensics is collecting everything. Frannie will give us a better idea when she gets here. Any minute, Alice. She’s on her way.”

Then Alice thought of something. How could Lauren have crossed the Carroll Street Bridge in Brooklyn at eleven forty-five, and died in New Jersey at eleven fifty-three? Sitting forward, she faced Dana and asked how such a discrepancy could be true.

“It happened in Brooklyn,” Dana answered, “inside a vehicle that was moved to New Jersey.”

“A vehicle?” Alice closed her eyes and pictured it. Cars had windows, anyone could see in. It had to be one of those minivans with tinted windows. They were everywhere. Or a van with
no
windows. She had read the much-circulated e-mails warning you to keep away from vans; they were the vehicle of choice for serial killers. A door could slide open and snatch you up before anyone noticed. Never park next to one, you were told. If one parks next to your driver’s side, get in via the opposite door, then drive away as fast as possible. Now Alice could see it. A dark-eyed minivan sliding up next to Lauren. She would have been too heavily pregnant to run. Angry hands reaching out, pulling her in. Denying anyone, everyone, the happiness of a family.

Julius Pollack, the bastard.

Fury twisted through Alice and she felt the muscle of his hatred. Felt him haul Lauren into the van. Felt the jostle of his flesh as he held her down. Felt Lauren’s terror as a knife descended into her belly. Or had he shot her first? Alice felt Lauren’s last living moments and saw through her eyes as she searched in terror for a soul in the face of Sal Cattaneo as he butchered her. The secret partner. They wanted too much, those two. They stole everything, from everyone.

Then, with sobering clarity, Dana corrected Alice’s vision.

“It was an ice cream truck. Someone found it in an abandoned lot near Trenton.”

A spiral of dizziness overcame Alice and she breathed deeply.

One, two, three.

How many times had she and Lauren and Maggie bought their children ice cream from those trucks? Nell had once admitted to Alice that she thought there was only one truck and it appeared at just the right moment. When she first saw the Mr. Frosty parking lot on Carroll Street, just past the bridge, her face startled into an odd, disenchanted expression. So there was no magic, just a lot of trucks.

Trembling beneath the blanket, Alice yearned for the feel of her children’s warm, supple skin. The acrid sweetness of their breath. The chaos of their undisciplined joys. She wished Nell and Peter would rush into the room and cover her up.