Die Again Tomorrow (19 page)

She was holding up the ring for the Chinese man to see. Its sparkling fake ruby matched her shirt.

“It's not real, right?” she asked.

The man took the ring and examined it with a special eyeglass, then shook his head. “Costume.”

The woman didn't miss a beat. “How much to engrave a date?”

“Twenty dollar.”

“Then do July six, 1957. Here, I'll write it down.”

She scribbled something on a scrap of paper.

What in the world could that mean? This was getting more and more confusing. In Isabel's ear, Galileo kept telling her to be careful. “Don't get involved . . . just come back . . . the GPS is running . . .”

But
, she wanted to respond,
look what I just learned. Your GPS would never have picked up this much detail.

“Okay, I do now,” the Chinese man said, plucking the ring from the woman's French-manicured fingers. His own nails were lined with black grime. “Ten minute.”

“I'll wait,” she said.

Isabel waited, too. She dawdled, trying on various bracelets and necklaces, no doubt frustrating the proprietor who was catering to her. Every piece reminded her of her mom. She was all right, Isabel knew. They spoke over Galileo's satellite phone every few nights. But she was worried and isolated with Andy in the safe house back in Key West. Their lives, too, had been monumentally disrupted. Isabel yearned for the moment she could tell them her killer was caught. But who knew how long that might take—if ever?

Then a carved wooden jewelry box caught her eye. It was in the shape of a hardcover book laying flat. Horizontal drawers pulled out from its spine. It was perfect for her mother, a voracious reader who sold books for a living.

She haggled the cost from $50 down to $35. Galileo could arrange to send it to her. Isabel was sure it would bring a smile to her face.

Just as she took the plastic bag, she saw out of the corner of her eye that the Chinese man was handing back the newly engraved ring.

“In a new box,” the woman instructed. Her tone was oddly firm.

Isabel picked up its subtext right away. The investor suspected that the original box was embedded with GPS, not the ring itself. But still, why did he want it at all? What had happened on July 6, 1957? Nothing made sense.

The woman pocketed the new box, paid in cash, and strode out of the store. Isabel hurried out in her wake, elbowing through the crowd that clogged the sidewalk.

“Isabel!” Galileo shouted in her ear. “You don't have to do this!”

Up ahead, the woman was disappearing down into a subway station. Isabel followed her down the steps despite not having any idea where she might end up. Galileo's repeated pleas cut out as soon as she got underground. A metallic gray train was waiting in the station.

The woman breezed through the turnstile and hopped on board. Isabel tried to run after her but the turnstile jammed into her stomach. No MetroCard, no ride. She watched helplessly as the doors slid closed and the train accelerated.

A streak of red flashed by before vanishing into the blackness of the tunnel.

 

 

When Isabel returned to the ship, Captain the dog was the only one to greet her. Everyone else was busy working. The dog jumped up and licked her leg excitedly, then led her down the stairs to Quinn's lab, where she found Galileo, Richard, and Chris. While Richard was sitting for another blood draw, he and Galileo were glued to a computer screen. She braced herself for an argument as she walked in.

“I'm sorry,” she said, “but I wanted to get as much information as I could.”

Galileo waved her defensiveness away. “I get it,” he said. “I'm just glad you're okay.”

Richard was confined to a chair with Chris's needle deep in his inner elbow. Both men chimed hello. She mustered a smile, hardly able to make eye contact with Chris. When her gaze settled on Richard instead, he tightened his lips in subtle acknowledgment of her disgust.

“Check this out,” Galileo said, gesturing to the laptop on the counter. Next to it was his black satellite phone.

She rushed to get a better look at the screen. A map of upper Manhattan showed a glowing red GPS dot.

“The ruby's been stopped there for a while,” he said.

“Where is that?”

“Two-fourteen West 104th Street. Some residential building with a dozen apartments. But that's as specific as the GPS gets.”

“So what do we do now?”

“Someone's going to have to go there and investigate. So far none of this is adding up. Why take the ring in the first place if he knew it was fake?”

Isabel sunk her fingers into her hair. “And why have me drop it off? Then get that random date engraved?”

“There must be a reason.” Richard winced as Chris extracted the needle from his arm. “If I know one thing about Robbie, he never messes around. He's one cunning son of a bitch.”

 

 

An hour of discussing possible explanations went by before the satellite phone rang. It shrieked a high-pitched note that sounded like a wail. Isabel saw that its flashing display read
No Caller ID.
When Galileo answered, his face became grave. He pressed speaker.

“I said, is Richard Barnett there?” a familiar voice growled. “Hello?”

Isabel gaped at the phone.
How did he get this number?
But then she remembered. Robbie Merriman had promised to call to confirm the transaction. And the transaction was a fraud.

“Hello, Robbie,” Richard said, astonishingly casual. “What can I do for you?”

“You have no idea what game you're playing, do you?”

Isabel, Chris, and Galileo stared at Richard. This time he was on his own. There was no script. He opened and closed his mouth, but no sound came out.

“I didn't think so,” the voice went on. “Allow me to fill you in. I entertained your little stunt so that your stupid bitch client would come to New York, so I could set eyes on her myself. Now I know she's alive. But she
was
dead. Impossible, isn't it?”

Galileo made a cutting motion across his throat. Isabel noticed that Chris clamped his fingers tighter around the tube that contained Richard's blood.

“How do you explain it?” the voice demanded.

“Maybe,” Richard suggested, “it was a miracle. Divine intervention?”

A snort came over the line. “Christ, spare me.”

“Then I don't know.”

“Well, I plan to find out. I am an investor after all, and I know a pot of gold when I see one. And only one person who can tell me how to get to it.”

Isabel felt a boulder of dread barrel through her. She glanced helplessly at Galileo, but he was fixated on the phone.

“Lucky
Isabel
”
—
the sound of her name was a sneer—“is going to meet some friends of mine in the projects tomorrow. Tell her to go to 1844 Lex in East Harlem at midnight, apartment four. She better be alone, no cameras, no weapons, no trackers, nothing. She
will
be checked. If she has anything on her or calls the police, it's over. My friends will be expecting a credible explanation. If she cooperates, she'll be let go unharmed. We'll call it even.”

“
Even?
” Richard's nostrils flared in rage.

“She did rip me off. And you tried to. Thanks for the ring, by the way. I think it'll actually come in handy.”

Isabel was shaking her head so hard her neck hurt.
He can't make me
, she mouthed. Surely Galileo would agree to just push out to sea and leave New York behind forever. Then she'd move her family somewhere far away and forget all about her desire for justice.

“You're crazy,” Richard said. “She'll never do that.”

“Oh no? I'd think twice if I were her.”

“Why's that?”

“You think I don't know about her brother? Or should I say
cousin
?” He pretended to seem hurt. “I hate when you underestimate me, Richard. You know I always do my research.”

Isabel sprang to her feet, her heart thudding.

“Someone followed her family when they moved last week,” he continued, oblivious to her panic. “Someone who's watching their house as we speak. If she refuses to comply or if they attempt to leave, the feds will be tipped that el Cubano's been squatting here for years.” He paused to let the news sink in. “So I have a feeling she'll be there—unless she wants to see him deported.”

CHAPTER 34

 

S
trangely, all the lights were off when Joan got home from the gym. But Greg was supposed to be there—this was his night off from the ER.

“Honey?” she called from the hallway as she pulled off her gloves. Her left ring finger remained starkly bare. Even though the diamond had managed to bring in a cool thirty grand, she couldn't shake her sadness over its loss. She chastised herself for mourning over a mere
thing
, with so many real problems mounting—like the fact that her quest to track down the investor was at a dead end. But every time she caught sight of her naked finger, she felt her heart constrict.

“I'm here,” Greg called from inside the apartment. “Come on in.”

“Then why are the lights off?”

As soon as she walked into the living room, her depressed mood lifted. Their bland place had been utterly transformed. Dozens of flickering votive candles decorated the living room, the kitchen table, the bookshelves. A fresh bouquet of pink dahlias, her favorite flower, stood in a glass vase on the coffee table. And in the center of the floor, down on one knee, was her smiling husband.

She blinked at him, unsure if she was seeing correctly. He hadn't been romantic in ages, ever since the whole crisis began. A slow grin spread across her face.

“What's going on?”

He produced a small box from his pocket. “I've been feeling terrible that we had to sell your ring. But then I thought of something else you could wear.”

He opened the box. Inside lay a dazzling oval ruby surrounded by glittering white gems, set in a thick gold band. “It was my mother's. I'd forgotten about it in the safe. My dad gave it to her for one of their anniversaries.”

“Oh my God, it's gorgeous!”

She held out her hand and he slipped it onto her left ring finger. It felt surprisingly solid. “How could your dad have afforded this?”

Greg's father had been a post office worker in Nebraska whose idea of luxury was going out to dinner once a month.

“Oh, it's not real. It just has sentimental value. He even had their wedding date engraved.”

She wagged her finger so the scarlet stone reflected the candlelight.

“It's beautiful,” she said. “You could've fooled me.”

CHAPTER 35

T
he full moon hung low off the river, illuminating the pier fifteen feet below. A chilly breeze whipped at Isabel's cheeks. She was alone on the top deck. She needed to get off the ship—and fast—but there was no way to deploy the general access ramp without waking everyone aboard. So she'd thought of another way.

She eyed the thin metal staircase affixed to the port side in case of an emergency evacuation. In one breath, she climbed over the edge of the deck and gripped the cold railing. Her feet tentatively connected with the first step. The wind hissed in her ears and whipped up the inky black water below. Little eddies swirled and lapped at the rotting wooden pier. If she lost her nerve now . . .
Don't look down.

Her rubber-soled shoes squeaked as she made her white-knuckled descent. No one tried to stop her. Because no one, not even Richard, knew what she was doing.

It was 11
P.M.
, exactly one hour before her deadline to show up in the Harlem projects. Per Robbie Merriman's instructions, she wore no earpiece, no GPS, no camera. This time, she was completely, woefully alone.

It didn't matter that Galileo had promised to protect her family. It didn't matter that he was “working on a solution” and had emphatically told her to stay put on the ship. As much as she wanted to lean on him, she kept circling back to his mistake about Chris and his flippant dismissal of the truth. How could she trust a man like that with the people she loved most?

All it took to make up her mind was an image of Andy getting wrenched from her poor mother's arms; Andy getting sent back to Cuba, to a life of privation and misery . . . because of her own failure to act. The horrific thought spurred her on as she hopped down to the pier and scrambled past the other docked ships. No, she would rather confront evil than sacrifice her brother to it—and he
was
her brother, in all the ways that counted. She ran through a deserted parking lot to the West Side Highway, where an empty cab pulled over for her waving arm.

“I have two stops,” she told the driver. “First, two-fourteen West 104th.”

According to Galileo's GPS, the ruby ring had been stopped at that address for a whole day now. But since Robbie's call last night, Galileo had disappeared into his private cabin with the ship's only phone, Chris remained holed up in his lab, and she and Richard tolerated three more blood draws. The other personnel, meanwhile, were caught up in their own all-consuming drama about whether the X101 could be salvaged. No one volunteered to go out and investigate the ring's address.

But someone had to. Since she was sneaking out anyway, she decided to make a pit stop there on her way to the projects. If this was actually the last night of her life—and she viscerally recoiled at the thought—then every move had to count. If she died tonight, her murderer couldn't get away with it—twice.

Richard would be devastated. But at least she knew he would champion the cause in her absence. He was just as angry, just as hell-bent on justice. As the cab zoomed uptown, she felt a pang of sadness over leaving without saying good-bye. She hadn't even left a note, in case someone found it and tried to stop her. He was the only reason that life on the ship was bearable. Now that she was away, she realized how much she relished his companionship. A sideways glance or a wry smile was often all they needed to exchange a whole conversation.

As the cab zoomed uptown, she found herself missing his face. At first glance, his slightly hooked nose, floppy hair, and pointed chin had seemed terribly average. But since he'd quit smoking and shed a few layers of cynicism, his whole look had transformed, too. A renewed vitality shone through. His smile was warmer, his hazel eyes more earnest. Every day he was regaining more strength. Once he reached peak recovery, his trim body would be pretty sexy after all. She was sorry she had never told him so.

At least, if something did happen to her tonight, he was safe behind. Plus, with him on board, the X101 still had a shot. With his blood, they didn't need hers, so she didn't feel too guilty about deserting the critical research. And she didn't feel guilty at all about deserting Chris. Her heightened senses were starting to fade, anyway, which meant the drug's concentration in her blood was weakening. Richard's was stronger and thus more useful, since he'd received his dose a few days after hers.

If Robbie Merriman's thugs thought she was going to show up and hand over a map to the drug, well, it wasn't that easy. She just hoped she could escape their retaliation. What if they tried to kill her?

She waited for a bolt of fear that didn't come. After a minute, she realized why. Death itself was peaceful, she now knew. It was total deliverance from suffering. She involuntarily thought of her dad's death in the context of her own, and for the first time, felt a degree of comfort. She imagined him sliding out of his panicked agony into that welcoming blackness. Now that she grasped how complex it was to effectively resuscitate someone, she realized how pointless it was to blame herself for failing to do CPR on her dad. Even if she'd acted sooner and gotten him to a hospital, it would still have been a conventional hospital without the Network's cooling protocol and the X101. So his heart attack would have still likely been fatal. There was nothing she could have done. If only Galileo had been there the way he had for her.

When the cab stopped in front of 214 West 104th Street, she asked the driver to pull over and wait until she returned. With the meter running, she ran up to the stout brick townhouse. It was about six stories high, sandwiched between a dive bar and a smoke shop on a poorly lit street. As she walked toward the front door, she noticed that a window of one of the ground-floor apartments had been smashed in. Its hole was patched over with silver electric tape.

There was no doorman. She pushed open the glass front door and entered a small foyer. Trampled old takeout menus littered the floor. Ahead was another door, this one locked and shielded with a wrought iron security gate. On the left wall was a row of narrow mailboxes and a panel of twelve buzzers corresponding to various apartments. Next to each buzzer was a name.

She skimmed the list:
Slattery, Eisenberg, Chen, Hughes, Wilcox . . .

No Merriman. Not that she expected it. She knew it was a pseudonym. But someone on this list was connected to him. How could she figure out who? A quick idea wormed into her head. It might never work, but it was worth a try. She rushed out to the waiting taxi and asked the driver for a pen and paper. He scrounged in his glove box and produced a crumpled sheet of yellow legal paper and a black Sharpie.

“I'll be right back,” she promised him.

He shrugged. The meter was still running. “Take your time.”

She thanked him and raced back. As she entered, a trendy couple in their forties walked out of the building holding hands. Isabel scurried past them into the foyer as though she belonged there. She ripped the piece of paper in half and secretly copied down all the names next to the buzzers as fast as she could. The couple paused in the doorway, watching her. She heard them murmuring to each other.

Then the man cleared his throat behind her. “Can we help you with something?” His tone was cold.

She spun around and smiled sheepishly. “Um, thanks, but I'm okay.”

“Do you know someone here?”

“Sort of. A friend of a friend. I lost my favorite ring here the other day, so, um, I was just leaving a note for the whole building.” She held up the pen. “In case anyone spots it.”

She scrawled out a quick message and showed him:

It was Galileo's satellite phone number.

“Oh,” the man said. “Well, good luck.” He lost interest and turned to leave, but his wife's attention perked up when she read the note over his shoulder. Isabel was pressing it to the wall, trying to find something to pin it up.

“Is it a big stone?” she asked. She curled her forefinger and thumb into a sizeable circle. “With little diamonds around it?”

Isabel blinked at her. The woman was decked out in a chunky gold necklace, emerald stud earrings, a diamond ring, and a wrist full of metallic bangles. She stared back openly, as though she had nothing to hide.

“How did you know?”

“Our new neighbor was wearing it today,” she said. “I even complimented her on her good taste.”

“My wife is obsessed with jewelry,” the man added with a grimace. “In case you couldn't tell.”

She smacked his arm playfully and all her bracelets jingled together.

“Which neighbor?” Isabel asked.

“Oh, I don't know her name,” the woman said, “but she's in 1B. Do I get the reward?”

“Katie,” her husband groaned. “Come on. You don't need this young woman's money.” He pulled her out the door. “Good luck,” he said again to Isabel, more sincerely this time.

They stepped out arm in arm, leaving her standing there with her heart slamming against her ribs. She scanned the panel on the wall for apartment 1B.

It was 11:25
P.M.

Far too late to call on a stranger. But her midnight deadline loomed—and after that, who knew if she'd have another chance to come back?

She drew a breath, pressed the buzzer, and waited.