Hold Tight (3 page)

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Tough. I want to see my godson. And figure out what the hell you’re doing wrong.”

WHEN Mo turned down their street, Mike spotted Susan Loriman, his neighbor, outside. She was pretending to be doing a yard chore-weeding or planting or something like that-but Mike knew better. They pulled into the driveway. Mo looked at the neighbor on her knees.

“Wow, nice ass.”

“Her husband probably thinks so.”

Susan Loriman rose. Mo watched.

“Yeah, but her husband’s an asshole.”

“What makes you say that?”

He gestured with his chin. “Those cars.”

In the driveway sat her husband’s muscle car, a souped-up red Corvette. His other car was a jet-black BMW 550i, while Susan drove a gray Dodge Caravan.

“What about them?”

“They his?”

“Yes.”

“I got this friend,” Mo said. “Hottest chick you’ve ever seen. Hispanic or Latina or some such thing. She used to be a professional wrestler with the moniker Pocahontas, you remember, when they had those sexy numbers on Channel Eleven in the morning?”

“I remember.”

“So anyway, this Pocahontas told me something she does. Whenever she sees a guy in a car like that, whenever he kinda pulls up to her in his muscle wheels and revs his engine and gives the eye, you know what she says to him?”

Mike shook his head.

“ ‘Sorry to hear about your penis.’ ”

Mike had to smile.

“‘Sorry to hear about your penis.’ That’s it. Ain’t that great?”

“Yeah,” Mike admitted. “That’s pretty awesome.”

“Tough to come back from that line.”

“Indeed it is.”

“So your neighbor here-her husband, right?-he’s got two of them. What do you think that means?”

Susan Loriman looked over at them. Mike had always found her gut-wrenchingly attractive-the hot mom of the neighborhood, what he had heard the teens refer to as a MILF, though he didn’t like to think in such coarse acronyms. Not that Mike would ever do anything about it, but if you’re breathing, you still notice things like that. Susan had long so-black-it’s-blue hair and in the summer she always wore it in a ponytail down her spine with cut-off shorts and fashionable sunglasses and a mischievous smile on her knowing red lips.

When their kids were younger, Mike would see her on the play-ground by Maple Park. It didn’t mean a thing but he liked to look at her. He knew one father who intentionally picked her son to be on his Little League team just so Susan Loriman would show up at their games.

Today there were no sunglasses. Her smile was tight.

“She looks sad as hell,” Mo said.

“Yeah. Look, give me a moment, okay?”

Mo was going to crack wise, but he saw something on the woman’s face. “Yeah,” he said. “Sure.”

Mike approached. Susan tried to hold the smile, but the fault lines were starting to give way.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hi, Mike.”

He knew why she was outside pretending to garden. He didn’t make her wait.

“We won’t have Lucas’s tissue typing results until the morning.”

She swallowed, nodded too fast. “Okay.”

Mike wanted to reach out and touch her. In an office setting he might have. Doctors do that. It just wouldn’t play here. Instead he went with a canned line: “Dr. Goldfarb and I will do everything we can.”

“I know, Mike.”

Her ten-year-old son, Lucas, had focal segmental glomerulosclero- sis-FSGS for short-and was in pretty desperate need of a kidney transplant. Mike was one of the leading kidney transplant surgeons in the country, but he had passed this case to his partner, Ilene Goldfarb. Ilene was the head of transplant surgery at NewYork-Presbyterian and the best surgeon he knew.

He and Ilene dealt with people like Susan every day. He could give the usual spiel about separating but the deaths still ate at him. The dead stayed with him. They poked him at night. They pointed fin- gers. They pissed him off. Death was never welcome, never accepted. Death was his enemy-a constant outrage-and he’d be damned if he’d lose this kid to that son of a bitch.

In the case of Lucas Loriman, it was, of course, extra personal. That was the main reason he took second chair to Ilene. Mike knew Lucas. Lucas was something of a nerdy kid, too sweet for his own good, complete with glasses that always seemed to be sliding too far down his nose and hair that required a shotgun to keep down. Lucas loved sports and couldn’t play them a lick. When Mike would take practice shots at Adam in the driveway, Lucas would wander over and watch. Mike would offer him a stick, but Lucas didn’t want that. Realizing too early in life that playing was not his destiny, Lucas liked to broadcast: “Dr. Baye has the puck, he fakes left, shoots for the five- hole… brilliant save by Adam Baye!”

Mike thought about that, about that sweet kid pushing his glasses up and thought again, I’ll be damned if I’m going to let him die.

“Are you sleeping?” Mike asked.

Susan Loriman shrugged.

“You want me to prescribe something?”

“Dante doesn’t believe in that stuff.”

Dante Loriman was her husband. Mike didn’t want to admit it in front of Mo, but his assessment had been spot-on-Dante was an asshole. He was nice enough on the outside, but you saw the narrowing of the eyes. There were rumors he was mobbed up, but that could have been based more on looks. He had the slicked-back hair, the wifebeater tees, the too-much cologne and the too-glitzy jewelry. Tia got a kick out of him-“nice change from this sea of clean-cuts”-but Mike always felt as though there was something wrong, the machismo of a guy who wanted to measure up but somehow knew he never did.

“Do you want me to talk to him?” Mike asked.

She shook her head.

“You guys use the Drug Aid on Maple Avenue, right?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll call in a prescription. You can pick it up if you want.”

“Thanks, Mike.”

“I’ll see you in the morning.”

Mike came back toward the car. Mo was waiting with his arms folded across his chest. He wore sunglasses and was aiming for the epitome of cool.

“A patient?”

Mike walked past him. He didn’t talk about patients. Mo knew that.

Mike stopped in front of his house and just looked at it for a moment. Why, he wondered, did a house seem as fragile as his patients? When you looked left and right, the street was lined with them, houses like this, filled with couples who had driven out from wherever and stood on the lawn and looked at the structure and thought, “Yes, this is where I’m going to live my life and raise my kids and protect all our hopes and dreams. Right here. In this bubble of a structure.”

He opened the door. “Hello?”

“Daddy! Uncle Mo!”

It was Jill, his eleven-year-old princess, tearing around the corner, that smile plastered on her face. Mike felt his heart warm-the reaction was instantaneous and universal. When a daughter smiles at her father like that, the father, no matter what his station in life, is suddenly king.

“Hey, sweetheart.”

Jill hugged Mike and then Mo, flowing smoothly between them. She moved with the ease of a politician working a crowd. Behind her, almost cowering, was her friend Yasmin.

“Hi, Yasmin,” Mike said.

Yasmin’s hair hung straight down in front of her face, like a veil. Her voice was barely audible. “Hi, Dr. Baye.”

“You guys have dance class today?” Mike asked.

Jill shot a warning look across Mike’s bow in a way no eleven-year-old should be able to do. “Dad,” she whispered.

And he remembered. Yasmin had stopped dance. Yasmin had pretty much stopped all activity. There had been an incident in school a few months back. Their teacher, Mr. Lewiston, normally a good guy who liked to go a step too far to keep the kids interested, had made an inappropriate comment about Yasmin having facial hair. Mike was fuzzy on the details. Lewiston immediately apologized, but the pre-adolescent damage was done. Classmates started calling Yasmin “XY” as in the chromosome-or just “Y,” which they could claim was short for Yasmin but really was just a new way of picking on her.

Kids, as we know, can be cruel.

Jill stuck by her friend, worked harder to keep her in the mix. Mike and Tia were proud of her for it. Yasmin quit, but Jill still loved dance class. Jill loved, it seemed, almost everything she did, approaching every activity with an energy and enthusiasm that couldn’t help but jazz everyone around her. Talk about nature and nurture. Two kids- Adam and Jill-raised by the same parents but with polar opposite personalities.

Nature every time.

Jill reached behind her and grabbed Yasmin’s hand. “Come on,” she said.

Yasmin followed.

“Later, Daddy. Bye, Uncle Mo. ”

“Bye, sweetheart,” Mo said.

“Where are you two going?” Mike asked.

“Mom told us to go outside. We’re going to ride bikes.”

“Don’t forget the helmets.”

Jill rolled her eyes but in a good-natured way.

A minute later, Tia came out from the kitchen and frowned in Mo’s direction. “What is he doing here?”

Mo said, “I heard you’re spying on your son. Nice.”

Tia gave Mike a look that singed his skin. Mike just shrugged. This was something of a nonstop dance between Mo and Tia-outward hostility but they’d kill for each other in a foxhole.

“I think it’s a good idea actually,” Mo said.

That surprised them. They both looked at him.

“What? I got something on my face?”

Mike said, “I thought you said we were overprotecting him.”

“No, Mike, I said
Tia
overprotects him.”

Tia gave Mike another glare. He suddenly remembered where Jill had learned how to silence her father with a look. Jill was the pupil-Tia the master.

“But in this case,” Mo continued, “much as it pains me to admit it, she’s right. You’re his parents. You’re supposed to know all.”

“You don’t think he has a right to his privacy?”

“Right to…?” Mo frowned. “He’s a dumb kid. Look, all parents spy on their kids in some ways, don’t they? That’s your job. Only you see their report cards, right? You talk to his teacher about what he’s up to in school. You decide what he eats, where he lives, whatever. So this is just the next step.”

Tia was nodding.

“You’re supposed to raise them, not coddle them. Every parent decides how much independence they give a kid. You’re in control. You should know it all. This isn’t a republic. It’s a family. You don’t have to micromanage, but you should have the ability to step in. Knowledge is power. A government can abuse it because they don’t have your best interest at heart. You do. And you’re both smart. So what’s the harm?”

Mike just looked at him.

Tia said, “Mo?”

“Yep?”

“Are we having a moment?”

“God, I hope not.” Mo slid onto the stool by the kitchen island. “So what did you find?”

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Tia said, “but I think you should go home.”

“He’s my godson. I have his best interest at heart too.”

“He’s not your godson. And based on what you just argued, there is no one who has a greater interest than his parents. And as much as you might care about him, you don’t fit that category.”

He just stared at her.

“What?”

“I hate it when you’re right.”

“How do you think I feel?” Tia said. “I was sure spying on him was the way to go until you agreed.”

Mike watched. Tia kept plucking her lower lip. He knew that she only did that when she was panicking. The joking was a cover.

Mike said, “ Mo. ”

“Yeah, yeah, I can take a hint. I’m out of here. One thing though.”

“What?”

“Can I see your cell phone?”

Mike made a face. “Why? Doesn’t yours work?”

“Let me just see it, okay?”

Mike shrugged. He handed it to Mo.

“Who’s your carrier?” Mo asked.

Mike told him.

“And all of you have the same phone? Adam included?”

“Yes.”

Mo stared at the cell phone some more. Mike looked at Tia. She shrugged. Mo turned the phone over and then handed it back.

“What was that all about?”

“I’ll tell you later,” Mo said. “Right now you better take care of your kid.”

“SO what did you see on Adam’s computer?” Mike asked.

They sat at the kitchen table. Tia had already made coffee. She was drinking a decaf Breakfast Blend. Mike was going with pure black espresso. One of his patients worked for a company that made coffee machines with pods rather than filters. He gave Mike one as a gift after a successful transplant. The machine was simple: You take your pod, you put it in, it makes the coffee.

“Two things,” Tia said.

“Okay.”

“First off, he’s invited to a party tomorrow night at the Huffs,” Tia said.

“And?”

“And the Huffs are away for the weekend. According to the e-mail, they will all spend the night getting high.”

“Booze, drugs, what?”

“The e-mail isn’t clear. They plan on coming up with some excuse to sleep over so they can get-and I quote-‘totally wasted.’ ”

The Huffs. Daniel Huff, the father, was the captain of the town police force. His son-everyone called him DJ-was probably the biggest troublemaker in the grade.

“What?” she said.

“I’m just processing.”

Tia swallowed. “Who are we raising, Mike?”

He said nothing.

“I know you don’t want to look at these computer reports, but…” Her eyes closed.

“What?”

“Adam watches online porn,” she said. “Did you know that?”

He said nothing.

“Mike?”

“So what do you want to do about that?” he asked.

“You don’t think it’s wrong?”

“When I was sixteen, I sneaked
Playboy
.”

“That’s different.”

“Is it? That’s what we had then. We didn’t have the Internet. If we did, sure, I probably would have gone in that direction-anything to see a naked woman. It’s society today. You can’t turn anything on without getting an eye- or earful. If a sixteen-year-old boy wasn’t interested in seeing naked women, that would be bizarre.”

“So you approve?”

“No, of course not. I just don’t know what to do about it.”

“Talk to him,” she said.

“I have,” Mike said. “I’ve explained the birds-n-bees. I’ve explained that sex is best when blended with love. I’ve tried to teach him to respect women, not objectify them.”

“That last one,” Tia said. “He’s not getting that last one.”

“No male teenager gets that last one. Hell, I’m not even sure any male adult gets that one.”

Tia sipped from her mug. She let the unasked question hang in the air.

He could see the crow’s-feet in her eyes. She stared at them in the mirror a lot. All women have body-image issues, but Tia had always had a great deal of confidence in her looks. Lately, though, he could see that she was no longer looking at her reflection and feeling okay. She had started coloring her gray. She was seeing the lines, the sags, the normal aging stuff, and it was bothering her.

“It’s different with a grown man,” she said.

He was going to try to say something comforting but decided to quit while ahead.

Tia said, “We’ve opened a Pandora’s box.”

He hoped that she was still talking about Adam. “We have indeed.”

“I want to know. And I hate knowing.”

He reached out and took her hand. “What do we do about this party?”

“What do you think?”

“We can’t let him go,” he said.

“So we keep him in the house?”

“I guess.”

“He told me that he and Clark were going to Olivia Burchell’s to hang out. If we just forbid him to go, he’ll know something is up.”

Mike shrugged. “Too bad. We’re parents. We’re allowed to be irrational.”

“Okay. So we tell him we want him home tomorrow night?”

“Yep.”

She bit her lower lip. “He’s been good all week, did all his homework. We normally let him go out on Friday nights.”

It would be a battle. They both knew that. Mike was ready for a battle, but did he want one here? You have to choose your spots. And forbidding him from going to Olivia Burchell’s house-it would make Adam suspicious.

“How about if we give him a curfew?” he asked.

“And what do we do when he breaks it? Show up at the Huffs?”

She was right.

“Hester called me in her office,” Tia said. “She wants me to go to Boston tomorrow for a deposition.”

Mike knew how much that meant to her. Since going back to work, most of her assignments had been scut work. “That’s great.”

“Yeah. But that means I won’t be home.”

“No problem, I can handle it,” Mike said.

“Jill is having a sleepover at Yasmin’s. So she won’t be around.”

“Okay.”

“So any idea how to keep Adam from going to this party?”

“Let me think about it,” Mike said. “I may have an idea.”

“Okay.”

He saw something cross her face. Then he remembered. “You said two things were bothering you.”

She nodded and something happened to her face. Not much. If you were playing poker, you might call it a tell. That was the thing when you are married a long time. You can read the tells so easily-or maybe your partner doesn’t care to hide them anymore. Whatever, Mike knew that this was not going to be good news.

“An instant-message exchange,” Tia said. “From two days ago.”

She reached into her purse and pulled it out. Instant-messaging. Kids talked via typing in live time to one another. The results came out with the name and a colon like some awful screenplay. Parents, most of whom had spent many an adolescent hour doing the same thing on plain old phones, bemoaned this development. Mike didn’t really see the problem. We had phones, they have IM and texting. Same thing. It reminded Mike of those old people who curse out the younger generation’s video games while hopping on a bus to Atlantic City to play video slots. Hypocrisy, right?

“Take a look.”

Mike slipped on his reading glasses. He had just started using them a few months back and had quickly grown to detest the inconvenience. Adam’s screen name was still HockeyAdam1117. He had picked that out years ago. The number was Mark Messier’s, his favorite hockey player, and Mike’s own number seventeen from his Dartmouth days, combined. Funny that Adam hadn’t changed it. Or maybe again that made perfect sense. Or maybe, most likely, it meant nothing.

CeeJay8115: U ok?

HockeyAdam1117: I still think we should say something.

CeeJay8115: It’s long over. Just stay quiet and all safe.

According to the timer, there was no typing for a full minute.

CeeJay8115: U there?

HockeyAdam1117: Yes

CeeJay8115: All ok?

HockeyAdam1117: All ok.

CeeJay8115: Good. C U Fri.

That was the end.

“ ‘Stay quiet and all safe,’ ” Mike repeated.

“Yes.”

“What do you think it means?” he asked.

“No idea.”

“Could be something with school. Like maybe they saw someone cheat on a test or something.”

“Could be.”

“Or it could be nothing. Could be like part of one of those online adventure games.”

“Could be,” Tia said again, clearly not buying.

“Who is CeeJay8115?” Mike asked.

She shook her head. “It’s the first time I’ve seen Adam IM with him.”

“Or her.”

“Right, or her.”

“ ‘See you Friday.’ So CeeJay8115 will be at the Huff party. Does that help us?”

“I don’t see how.”

“So do we ask him about it?”

Tia shook her head. “It’s too vague, don’t you think?”

“I do,” Mike agreed. “And it would mean letting him know we’re spying on him.”

They both stood there. Mike read it again. The words didn’t change.

“Mike?”

“Yeah.”

“What would Adam need to stay quiet about in order to be safe?”

NASH, the bushy mustache in his pocket, sat in the van’s passenger seat. Pietra, the straw-haired wig off, drove.

In his right hand, Nash held Marianne’s mobile device. It was a BlackBerry Pearl. You could e-mail, take pictures, watch videos, text, synch your calendar and address book with your home computer, and even make phone calls.

Nash touched the button. The screen lit up. A photograph of Mar- ianne’s daughter popped up. He stared at it for a moment. Pitiful, he thought. He hit the icon to get to her e-mail, found the e-mail addresses he wanted, began to compose:

Hi! I’m going to Los Angeles for a few weeks. I will be in touch when I get back.

He signed it “Marianne,” did the copy feature, and pasted the same message into two other e-mails. Then he hit SEND. Those who knew Marianne wouldn’t search too hard. This, from what Nash could figure, was her modus operandi-disappearing and then popping back up.

But this time… well, disappearing, yes.

Pietra had drugged Marianne’s drink while Nash kept her occupied with the Cain-ape theory. When they had her in the van, Nash had beaten her. He had beaten her badly and for a long time. He had beaten her at first to elicit pain. He wanted her to talk. When he was sure she had told him everything, he then beat her to death. He was patient. There are fourteen stationary bones in the face. He wanted to snap and cave in as many as possible.

Nash had punched Marianne’s face with almost surgical precision. Some shots were designed to neutralize an opponent-take the fight out of them. Some shots were designed to cause horrible pain. Some were designed to cause physical destruction. Nash knew them all. He knew how to keep his knuckles and hands protected while using maximum force, how to make the proper fist so you don’t hurt yourself, how to use the palm strike effectively.

Right before Marianne died, when the breathing was raspy from the blood lodged in her throat, Nash did what he always did in those situations. He stopped and made sure that she was still conscious. Then he had her look up at him, locked his gaze on hers, saw the terror in her eyes:

“Marianne?”

He wanted her attention. He got it. And then he whispered the last words she would ever hear:

“Please tell Cassandra I miss her.”

And then, finally, he allowed her to die.

The van was stolen. The license plates had been changed to confuse the issue. Nash slipped into the backseat. He jammed a bandana into Marianne’s hand and tightened her fingers around it. He used a razor to cut off Marianne’s clothing. When she was naked, he took fresh clothes out of a shopping bag. He struggled but he managed to get them on her. The pink top was too snug but that was the point. The leather skirt was ridiculously short.

Pietra had picked them out.

They had started off with Marianne in a bar in Teaneck, New Jersey. Now they were in Newark, the slums of the Fifth Ward, known for its streetwalkers and murders. That was what she’d be mistaken for-another beaten whore. Newark had a per capita murder rate three times nearby New York City ’s. So Nash had beaten her good and knocked out most of her teeth. Not all of them. Removing all her teeth would make it too obvious he wanted to hide her identity.

So he left some intact. But a dental match-assuming they found enough evidence to warrant looking for a match-would be hard and take a long time.

Nash slipped the mustache back on and Pietra put on the wig. It was an unnecessary precaution. No one was around. They unloaded the body in a Dumpster. Nash looked down at Marianne’s corpse.

He thought of Cassandra. His heart felt heavy, but it gave him strength too.

“Nash?” Pietra said.

He gave her a small smile and got back into the van. Pietra put the van in drive and they were gone.

MIKE stood by Adam’s door, braced himself, opened it.

Adam, dressed in black goth, swung around quickly. “Ever hear of knocking?”

“This is my house.”

“And this is my room.”

“Really? You paid for it?”

He hated the words as soon as they came out. Classic parental jus- tification. Kids scoff and tune it out. He would have when he was young. Why do we do that? Why-when we swear we won’t repeat the wrongs of the previous generation-do we always do exactly that?

Adam had already clicked on a button that blackened his screen. He didn’t want Dad knowing where he’d been surfing. If he only knew…

“I got good news,” Mike said.

Adam turned to him. He folded his arms across his chest and tried to look surly, but it wasn’t happening. The kid was big-bigger than his father already-and Mike knew that he could be tough. He’d been fearless in goal. He didn’t wait for his defensemen to protect him. If someone had gone into his crease, Adam had taken them out.

“What?” Adam said.

“Mo got us box seats to the Rangers against the Flyers.”

His expression didn’t change. “For when?”

“Tomorrow night. Mom’s going to Boston to take a deposition. Mo’s going to pick us up at six.”

“Take Jill.”

“She’s having a sleepover at Yasmin’s.”

“You’re letting her overnight at XY’s?”

“Don’t call her that. It’s mean.”

Adam shrugged. “Whatever.”

Whatever-always a great teenage comeback.

“So come home after school and I’ll pick you up.”

“I can’t go.”

Mike took in the room. It looked somehow different from when he’d sneaked in with the tattooed Brett, he of the dirty fingernails. That thought got to him again. Brett’s dirty fingernails had been on the keyboard. It was wrong. Spying was wrong. But then again, if they hadn’t, Adam would be heading to a party with drinking and maybe drugs. So spying had been a good thing. Then again Mike had gone to a party or two like that when he was underage. He had survived. Was he any worse for wear?

“What do you mean you can’t go?”

“I’m going to Olivia’s.”

“Your mother told me. You go to Olivia’s all the time. This is Rangers-Flyers.”

“I don’t want to go.”

“Mo bought the tickets already.”

“Tell him to take someone else.”

“No.”

“No?”

“Yeah, no. I’m your father. You’re going to the game.”

“But-”

“No buts.”

Mike turned and left the room before Adam could say another word.

Wow, Mike thought. Did I really say
No buts
?