When Day Breaks (18 page)

J
ust after five o’clock, Jason pushed the buzzer and waited in the hallway until the apartment door opened. A boy with dark, tousled hair and a thin, serious face opened the door.

“Are you ready, buddy?”

“Yeah, Dad. I’ll be right there. I got to get my stuff.”

“Don’t forget to bring everything you need for your homework,” Jason called after his son. He walked through the door and stood in the small vestibule. He could hear Nell wrapping up a telephone conversation. When she hung up, she walked out to acknowledge him.

“Hi. How’s it going?” she asked.

“Actually, Nell, it’s going pretty well,” Jason answered, happy to have the first positive thing to report to the mother of his son in a very long time. “Have you been following the news?”

“How could I not?” she asked. “It’s everywhere you turn. And now this missing Lady Guinevere unicorn? That’s fascinating. I’d love to see that Camelot Exhibit. But do you think Constance Young was really killed for that unicorn?”

Jason shrugged. “Who knows? But all this is turning out to be great for book sales.”

“That’s kind of sick, don’t you think, Jason?”

Jason shrugged. “Maybe,” he said. “But it’s hard for me to feel too sorry for her after what she did to me.”

“Well, do me a favor, will you please?” said Nell. “Don’t say that in front of Ethan. He’s a nine-year-old boy, and he doesn’t need to be tainted by your personal problems any more than he already has.”

“Don’t worry, Nell. I won’t say anything to him about my feelings toward Constance Young. But I would like to share with him the news about the book doing so well. Did you guys see me on television this morning?”

The uncomfortable expression on Nell’s face told Jason that his call alerting his ex-wife and son to the cable news show interview hadn’t induced them to make a point of watching it.

“That time of morning is always tough,” said Nell. “Ethan is rushing around getting ready for school, and I’m trying to get to work.”

Jason tried not to let his disappointment show. “Don’t worry. There will be other interviews,” he said. “So how
are
things in the real-estate business anyway?”

“All right, I guess.”

“That doesn’t sound very convincing.”

“It can be tough working on commission,” she said.

“Then why don’t you get a salaried job?”

“Because this job gives me flexibility,” said Nell. “I can plan my schedule somewhat and be here when Ethan gets home from school, at least a few afternoons a week. He’s not a little kid anymore, but there’s no less reason to keep track of where he is and what he’s doing.”

Jason nodded. “You’re right. But I hate that our lives have been like this, Nell. Think how much better it would be if we were all together again. I hate seeing Ethan only a couple nights during the week and every other weekend. I could be with him all the time, and you wouldn’t have to work unless you wanted to.”

“That presupposes that you’d be making enough money to support us, Jason.”

“If this book does as well as my agent thinks it will, there
will
be enough,” he answered. “I already have an idea for the next one, and Larry feels confident he’ll be able to sell it.”

Nell sighed. “Finances aren’t the only problem, Jason. We’ve grown apart. I don’t feel like we know each other anymore.”

T
he KEY Evening Headlines
began precisely at 6:30 P.M. At the top of the broadcast, Eliza Blake delivered the forensic findings.

“Constance Young died of cardiac arrest. There was no sign of any struggle usually associated with drowning. Neither her stomach nor her lungs were filled with water.”

Eliza took a breath before continuing. “The fact that the lights and heater at the pool had shorted out suggests a possible surge of electricity. Therefore, authorities are working on the supposition that Constance Young died of cardiac arrest when an electrical current pulsed through her heart, stopping it.

“While the results of the autopsy answer some questions,” she concluded, “there are still others left to be answered. Chief among them: If Constance Young was electrocuted in her swimming pool, was it an accident? Or was she deliberately killed?”

Eliza turned to look in the direction of another camera.

“We already reported to you that a dog was found lying dead on Constance Young’s property last Friday morning. That dog has been recovered, and while we don’t know the results of the necropsy yet, KEY News has learned that its original owner had delivered the Great Dane to an animal shelter a few weeks ago. This is what Graham Welles, who now lives in California, had to say when he spoke with KEY News today.”

An image of a distinguished elderly man appeared on the television screen.

“Marco was the best dog anyone could ever want,” the man said. “I loved that dog from the moment I got him as a puppy. I treasured him. That’s why I got that microchip implanted, so if he ever ran off or got lost, somebody could track Marco back to me. I could have gone with a tattoo, like a lot of folks do, but I thought the chip would hurt him less.”

Eliza appeared on the screen again.

“Today we went to the animal shelter that took the dog when Graham Welles moved from New York to live with his daughter on the West Coast. We found out that the Great Dane had been adopted just last week, the day before the dog was found dead on Constance Young’s property. And in an even more troubling twist, the shelter employee who facilitated the transfer of the dog to its new owner has been found murdered.”

Images of the interior of the animal shelter popped up. The words KEY NEWS EXCLUSIVE appeared in the bottom-left-hand corner of the screen.

“The body of thirty-seven-year-old Vinny Shays was discovered when one of his coworkers opened the animal shelter this morning. It is suspected that Shays was injected with sodium pentobarbital, the product often used for the euthanasia of animals. Containers of the substance were found in disarray in a storeroom at the rear of the shelter.”

The director switched back to a shot of Eliza at the anchor desk.

“So we have a dead animal found on Friday and Constance Young found dead the very next day. A coincidence? Perhaps. But the fact that the last person known to have seen the dog alive has now been murdered raises worrisome questions that all of this is somehow connected.

“In addition, we’ve traced the name and address that were given by the person who adopted the Great Dane from the animal shelter. There is no such person at that address. In fact,” Eliza continued, “there is no such address at all.”

Her luminous blue eyes looked directly into the camera lens.

“KEY News will continue investigating this story, and we will, of course, keep you informed of everything that develops.”

W
atching and listening to Eliza Blake, Ursula knew what she should do. She should go to the police and tell them what she’d seen, but she just couldn’t bring herself to do it. The police would say they would protect her, but they really wouldn’t. They always promised they could ensure the safety of a witness, but the reality was that the witness was never totally safe. If the killer wanted to get to her, eventually it would happen.

Ursula looked around her modest living room and wondered if Constance might have left her anything in her will. Her small house wasn’t much by the standards of the many wealthy people who lived nearby, but she loved her cozy little place. She worked hard, she paid her bills, she went to church, she taught the rich ladies how to knit and do needlepoint. She guessed most would judge it to be a small life, but it was a life she treasured. Ursula wanted it to last.

Willing to kill Constance, the killer would certainly be willing to murder her, too. But if the killer did figure out that Ursula had seen everything that night at the pool and decided to kill her, Ursula was determined that she leave behind some indication of her killer’s identity.

She turned her attention to the needlepoint canvas that lay on her lap. Ursula picked up the canvas, but her hands trembled. Forcing herself to concentrate, she selected a strand of black wool and began weaving it through the holes, finally finishing the second verse of her tribute to Constance:

 

Men wooed her as a queen,

Sought after for her charms,

Known only on the screen,

If rarely in her arms.

 

A
microchip in the Great Dane. Who could have anticipated that?

It had gotten to the point that technology had its invasive tentacles everywhere. There was no real privacy anymore. There were cameras trained to catch you running red lights and tapping devices that could record your most confidential conversations. And every single address you visited on the Internet could be tracked. You couldn’t possibly anticipate each potential for detection.

There had been no thought at all to the chance that a tiny microchip transmitter had been implanted in the dog. And yet that unanticipated element could have ruined everything.

Thank God for good old-fashioned lying and deception! A fictitious name, a fake address, and a subtle disguise had, in the end, saved the day. Those, plus trusting one’s instincts and taking the initiative to do what needed to be done with Vinny. It turned out that the poor do-gooder hadn’t had a clue—but who knew what he might have recalled when the police came around and plumbed his memory of the morning the Great Dane was adopted by his new owner?

The idea that KEY News was all over this was somehow more worrisome than knowing that the police were investigating. Were there any other loose ends that had been left hanging?

The carved unicorn lay nestled in the pocket of a coat in the hall closet. It seemed as good a place as any to hide it. Maybe the unicorn’s power lay not in possessing it but in making sure it got to where it could do the most good. Maybe it was time to transfer it from one pocket to another.

I
t was a balmy evening, and Eliza and Mack walked the blocks from the Broadcast Center toward Columbus Circle.

“You said you wanted to go somewhere relaxed,” said Mack. “I thought maybe we could go for a burger.”

Eliza smiled, somewhat disappointed that Mack didn’t exactly seem to be pulling out all the stops for this dinner date that he’d practically been begging her for. Passing by dozens of upscale shops as they cut through the curving arcade at the base of the Time Warner Center at the southwest corner of Central Park, Eliza considered that Mack might just want to surprise her. There were several wonderful, highly touted restaurants located in the newly constructed center. But when they walked straight through the arcade and exited onto West Sixtieth Street, Eliza had no idea where they were going.

“I’m staying here,” said Mack as they entered through the glass doors of a skyscraper a few yards away.

“KEY News is obviously improving its selection of expense-account-approved hotels,” Eliza commented as they got into an elevator.

“KEY News isn’t paying for the night here,” said Mack. “I am. I moved over from the regular hotel they put me up in the last few nights.”

“Does that mean you think you might get lucky?” Eliza asked, with a twinkle in her eye.

Mack smiled, showing his even, white teeth. “A guy can hope, can’t he?”

The elevator doors opened. Mack took Eliza’s arm and led the way to the Lobby Lounge of the Mandarin Oriental hotel.

“So you’re trying to impress me after all,” said Eliza as the hostess escorted them to a sofa by the window. They were thirty-eight floors up and looking out at the most spectacular floor-to-ceiling views of Broadway and Central Park. The vistas changed almost by the minute as lights began to go on all over the majestic skyline.

They ordered drinks, curried crab quesadillas, and a selection of miniburgers described as bacon-cheddar, caramelized onion–Gruyère, and wild mushroom–blue cheese.

The ice-cold martinis arrived first.

Mack leaned closer. “To us,” he said, touching his glass to hers. “I didn’t know if we’d ever be sitting together again like this.”

She looked into his eyes, then averted her gaze and turned her attention to her drink, taking a sip.

“Mmm. That’s just right.” Eliza leaned back into the sofa. “It feels good to relax. The last few days have been so intense. And I’m not looking forward to that funeral tomorrow morning.”

“You know what, Eliza?” Mack put his martini glass down on the low table in front of the sofa. “This whole thing with Constance has really made me think. It’s been a wake-up call. Life is short and very unpredictable.”

“Don’t I know it!” said Eliza. She took another sip of vodka as an image of John crossed her mind. How unpredictable all that had been. Her young, smart, virile husband cut down so unfairly and with such suffering. They’d been married for only a few years and thought they would have a whole lifetime together. The great cosmic joke had been on them. All that promise, all their dreams, gone.

As Eliza felt for the scar on her chin, she caught a whiff of her perfume on her wrist. A memory came rushing back. It was one of the last nights in the hospital with John. He was dozing as she entered the room. All the painful treatments had not worked. He was very thin, flushed with fever, and Eliza could see his chest laboring, slowly up and down, beneath the cotton hospital blanket.

When John opened his eyes, his gaunt face cracked into a weak smile as he saw her. She smiled back and leaned down to kiss him. She felt the heat coming from his emaciated body as he held on to her.

Then, in a wheezing voice, he’d whispered, “Oh, you smell so good.”

Eliza had never forgotten it, could never forget it. John had known he was going to die. Yet, as sick as he was, he’d taken pleasure in something as simple as her perfume.

God, she’d loved him so. But more and more, Eliza found herself having to look at a photograph to reestablish his handsome face in her mind. It had been over six years now, and she thought she might be ready to love someone again.

Mack reached out, pulled her hand from her chin, and held it. “You deserve happiness, Eliza,” he said, as if reading her mind.

“So do you, Mack,” she said, looking intently into his eyes.

“Yeah, but I want us to have that happiness together,” Mack said. He raised her hand to his lips. “I’m so sorry for what I did, Eliza. I truly am. I’m sorry that I hurt you, and I’m sorry that I ruined what we had together.”

“Let’s not go over it again, Mack. You’ve apologized and apologized. I believe you when you say you’re sorry. Now it’s just a question of whether I can let go of what happened.”

“Do you think you can?” he asked earnestly.

“Oh, I don’t know,” she answered, “but I do know I
want
to. I’m going to be honest, Mack. No coyness or playing hard to get. I’ve missed you.”

The server brought the food, and the conversation shifted. Mack asked about Janie and how she was doing in school.

“I miss that little character,” he said.

Eliza told him about Janie’s upset over the stories about Constance Young on television.

“You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to understand that,” said Mack. “The kid must be scared to death something could happen to you.”

Eliza nodded. “I really should be home tonight, shouldn’t I?”

Mack’s face fell.

Eliza couldn’t help but laugh a little at the expression on his face. “Don’t worry,” she said. “Janie is fine and very excited. She’s staying over at the Hvizdaks’ house tonight. That’s a big deal, with it being a school night and all.”

“And where are
you
staying tonight?” Mack asked.

“New Jersey. I told my driver to pick me up at ten o’clock,” she said.

Mack looked at his watch. “That doesn’t leave us much time,” he said.

“Time for what?”

His eyes crinkled at the corners as he smiled. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe see what one of the rooms in this fancy hotel looks like?”

As Eliza regarded Mack, she knew she really loved him. She knew by the sleepless nights she’d spent after she broke it off with him, by the way her heart beat faster each time she viewed one of his reports from London, by the fact that there hadn’t been a single day she failed to think of him or wonder how he was or what he was doing over these last months, by the agony she had put herself through, holding herself back from calling him and resisting his repeated attempts to make things right between them.

Mack had made a mistake. He had apologized again and again and pleaded for another chance. Though she was scared, something was telling her to go ahead and give it another try. Maybe she would end up regretting it, but she was willing to risk it now.

“I guess I could call the driver and ask him to come a little later,” Eliza said quietly.

The check came. Mack signed the bill and stood up from the sofa. He held his hand out to Eliza and she took it.