Look Closely (2 page)

Caroline stepped into a wel -lit kitchen. The shiny silver espresso makers sitting atop tan Formica counters gave nothing away about what the rest of the mansion might look like. She picked her way through a pack of tuxedoed servers, most of whom held trays of cut cake. One waiter nodded with his head to direct her toward the restroom.

When she came out of the bathroom, the kitchen was empty. There was no one to stop her from changing her direction and ducking under the blue velvet curtain that hung across the arched wood doorway, the one that led into the main part of the mansion. The renovations were supposedly in high gear, with too much dust and equipment to al ow guests to view it, but Caroline didn’t care much for rules. Why should she? Except for Matt, no one in her life had fol owed them.

As the curtain flapped closed behind her, she blinked to let her eyes grow accustomed to the darkness. The only light in the room came from the lanterns hanging in the trees outside, and there was a musty scent in the air. She could hear the tinkle of music from the band and the clatter of dish-ware from the waiters, who must have returned to the kitchen.

As the dark room became clearer, Caroline made out a massive, mahogany stairway that curled upward in scrol s from the center of the room. Nothing seemed to support the staircase, yet it gave the impression of solemn strength. Caroline felt a trembling inside her bel y, a shakiness in her hand. The stairway reminded her of another staircase. One she hadn’t seen in so very long, but one that had, in a way, started it al .

She had to do this.
One more time,
he’d said.
Just one more time.

Caroline tried to draw her gaze away from the stairs but couldn’t. And it didn’t matter, because in her mind, she was seeing that other staircase so long ago.

The trembling deepened, the shaking in her hands grew stronger.

Final y wrenching her eyes away from the staircase, Caroline turned, found the front door and ran outside into the night.

The lights were blinking, weren’t they? Blinking and flickering and then fading. Or maybe it was him.

Dan Singer stopped trudging and opened his eyes wide to stare at the lights. No. Not blinking. It wasaBudweisersign.Justayel owandgreenneon beer sign hanging in a bar window.

Jesus, he’d drunk too damn much, and after so many years of sobriety, it had hit him hard. He’d needed courage, andhe’dconvincedhimselfthatthistimethevodka might bring him some.

Real y, he was drinking to kil time. He was delaying the inevitable.

He’d been in and out of nearly every bar on this street. What was the name of it again? He turned and gazed at the street sign. “Division Street,” it said. That was right. He knew that.

Division Street in Chicago. He’d been at a convention here for the last few days, and he’d spent the time with other salespeople in the pharmaceutical industry, acting as if he stil cared about the new cholesterol drug and his company’s revenues. Yet, as uninterested as he was in the technicalities, he’d reveled in the normalcy of it al , knowing he might not have that for some time.

He turned to the nearest bar and pul ed open the big oak door, a rush of laughter and music swel ing out to greet him, along with the smel of stale beer. Strangely, the scent was comforting, a reminder of col ege—blurry days fil ed with classes and parties and bars and girls. He’d been able to escape for a while during those days.

He pushed his way to the bar, drawing a few irritated looks in the process. There were no available stools so he lodged himself between two patrons and waved at the bartender.

“Vodka with a splash of soda,” he said when the bartender reached him.

He watched as she poured his drink. He liked the way she made a dipping motion with the bottle, her T-shirt lifting up and exposing a slice of tanned skin above her jeans. A week ago, he would have tried to flirt with her. He was final y getting back into the dating scene. But that wasn’t an option now.

She slid the glass in front of him. “It’s on me. You look like you could use it.”

He tried to give a lighthearted smile, but her kindnessputalumpinhisthroat,sohejustnodded.

He tipped her and sipped the drink, trying not to think of Annie or how she must have felt when he hadn’t picked her up today. His ex hadn’t helped matters, he was sure. She’d probably told Annie, in a smug voice, that her dad didn’t care enough. She wouldn’t think about how hearing that would make Annie feel. She’d only know that it made her feel superior.Hisfailuretoshowwouldconfirmwhatshe

thoughtanyway—thathewasirresponsibleandnot

to

be

trusted.

He’d

never

cheated

on

her

when

they

weremarried,butheunderstoodwhyshesuspected it. It was his secretive manner that made her wonder, and when he wouldn’t fil in any of the blanks, when they couldn’t communicate the way she’d beentaughton
Oprah,
she’dassumedtheworst.He didn’ttryveryhardtoconvinceherotherwise.Annie was the loser in their divorce, caught between two people who wanted to move on with their lives. For thathewassorry.Itwaswhyhe’dnevermissedany ofhisweekendsorWednesdayswithher,untilnow.

He was jostled from behind by a group of women who were hugging and shrieking as if they hadn’t seen each other in years. Soon, two of the women pushed in beside him, waving dol ar bil s at the bartender, who took their orders.

“You look amazing!” one woman said to the other, grabbing her friend by the forearm and looking her up and down. “You’re so thin.”

“Oh, stop,” said the other, but she beamed.

They launched into a discussion about who they’d been in touch with, how much they’d missed everyone, how it had been way too long, and yet neither of them sounded particularly surprised to find themselves together again. It made Dan think about how empty his own life was, how devoid of any relationships like that. But it was too late to change. Way too late.

And he had to make himself accept, again, that it had al been worth it. If he didn’t get his mind around that, he would snap. He’d given up too much—his family, his hometown, his
history,
for Christ’s sake. It
had
been worth it, he told himself, but his own voice sounded like that of a politician, trying to sugarcoat an international incident.

The ease of the women’s reunion was depressing him, and the vodka seemed to have lost its power. He’d hit that point where he couldn’t get any more loaded, no matter how hard he tried, his veins already coursing at their alcoholic capacity. He shot a halfhearted goodbye smile toward the bartender, then turned and elbowed through the girlfriends.

After he’d walked a few blocks, he saw cars up ahead, flashing by. In the spaces between the cars were intermittent glints of silvery light. He took a few more steps before it hit him.

Lake Shore Drive, or LSD as he used to cal it in high school, liking how saying that made him sound as if he might know a thing or two about il icit drugs. He had nearly reached Lake Shore Drive, which meant he was almost to Lake Michigan.

“Hey, buddy.” The voice startled him so much he flinched. Spinning around, he saw a man crumpled on the sidewalk, against the side of a brownstone. Dan’s first instinct was that the man was hurtandneededhelp,butinthenextinstanthesaw the stuffed garbage bag at the man’s side and his multiple layers of clothing, and realized he was homeless.

“Spare a couple bucks?” the man said, his voice a rough croak. “Gotta get some food.”

“Yeah, sure.” Dan extracted a ten-dol ar bil from the few he had left and crumpled the rest in his pocket. He tossed the bil toward the man, but it caught a breeze, twisting and lilting in the air like a snowflake until the man snatched it.

“Thanks, bud.” The man gave Dan a nod. “Appreciate it.”

Danstoodamomentlonger,lookingattheman.

Heusedtowonderhowanyonecouldbehomeless,

how

someone

could

shift

from

a

house

and

a

professiontoalifeonthestreet.Butnowheunderstood better. In fact, it was a possibility that occasional y loomed in his own future, because sometimes he just didn’t care anymore. At those times, hecouldimaginelettingital go—hissalesjob,his apartment, his child-support payments—until he was fired, evicted and strapped with a restraining order. What scared him was that oftentimes that possibility appealed to him, because he saw it as a waytoletgooftheconstraintsinhislife,andmaybe that would al ow him to let go of the secret, too. A secret that had somehow grown larger and larger over the years, when, in fact, some days he wondered whether it real y needed to be hidden at al .

He turned away from the man and kept moving toward the lake. He’d avoided lakes his whole adult life, especial y this one. It reminded him too much of the old days. But he felt its pul now, the water’s tug. He kept walking. When he reached the poorly lit tunnel that would take him under LSD and to the lake, he hesitated, waiting for the alcohol to clear his head.

But the fear he expected didn’t come. He took that as a good sign, and descended into the tunnel.

1

The short letter, a note real y, arrived at my apartment on a Thursday. It was one of those random, end-of-April days in Manhattan when the temperature shot to eighty degrees, sending everyone to Central Park or the cafés that had rushed to set up their outdoor tables. A boisterous, electric feeling was in the air. I cal ed Maddy from my cel phone as I walked home from the subway, and we decided to go for wine and dinner at Bryant Park Gril , a rooftop restaurant where Maddy knew the maître d’.

In the terminal y slow elevator on the way to my apartment, I glanced at my mail. There was nothing interesting at first, just a bil and a few obvious pieces of junk, but I stopped when I came to the flat, business-size envelope with no return address. The envelope looked as if it had been printed on a personal computer, and there was a postage stamp with an antique car on it.

Inside my place, I dropped my purse, my briefcase and the rest of the mail on the front-hal table, then slit open the envelope. I pul ed out a piece of folded white paper, and strangely, al my senses went on alert. The apartment was suddenly warm and stuffy. It smel ed dusty and stale, and my skin itched from the uncharacteristic heat. Holding the envelope and the stil -

folded paper, I walked to the windows and cranked them open for the first time that year. Balmy, fresh air seeped into the room.

I sat on the couch and unfolded the paper. Only two typewritten lines appeared there.

There is no statute of limitations on murder.

Look closely.

“What?” I said the word out loud, but as I read the note again, some odd glimmer of comprehension began to ruffle my mind. It wasn’t that I recognized the words or the type. I was sure I’d never heard those exact sentences before, and I had no idea who’d written them, yet there was a flicker of understanding.

The breeze from my windows felt too cool then, yet I didn’t move to close them. In fact, I hoped the air would help me breathe. Al at once, my chest and throat felt constricted, my lungs making shal ow movements. I told myself to stay calm and put the note down. But I couldn’t let go of the paper. I read the words over and over until I felt light-headed, and the words swam in front of me.

Murder, statute, closely…

The ring of the phone rattled me away from the letter. I blinked rapidly, final y getting that deep breath, and grabbed the receiver off the end table.

“Hailey, it’s me,” Maddy said. “I’m early, and I’m two blocks from you, so I’m coming over.”

I dropped the letter in my lap. “I need a few minutes.”

“Why? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. It’s… It’s nothing.”

“Whoa,” she said. “I know that voice. I’l be right there.”

Five minutes later, she buzzed from the lobby.

“What’s up with you?” she said when I opened the door, the letter stil in my hand. “What’s wrong?”

I handed her the note. “I’m not sure.” I felt both sickandelated,asifonthevergeofsomediscovery.

Maddy read it. “What in the hel is this?”

I shook my head and took the note from her. I read it again, letting that flicker of comprehension grow brighter.

“Hailey, what’s going on?” Maddy said, her voice cautious, slightly alarmed. She flicked her dark, ringletted hair over her shoulder.

“I just got it in the mail,” I said inanely.

“Who sent it?”

I shrugged.

Maddy groaned. “Why are you being so difficult? Give me the envelope.”

I turned toward the couch and pointed to where it had fal en off my lap. It was now almost hidden between the cushions. Maddy’s heels tapped on the wood floor as she crossed the room. For some reason, I noticed that she was wearing an expensive-looking tan suit, one I hadn’t seen before.

“The letter was sent from here in the city,” she said, lifting the envelope and pointing to the postmark. “Do you have any idea who sent it to you?”

“No.” I looked down at the page, although I knew the words by heart already.

“Wel , who was murdered? I mean, do you know who it’s referring to?”

I felt that nauseous elation again, a sick swoop and dive of my insides. “Yeah, I think so,” I said. “My mom.”

My lungs ached, but I ignored the feeling. I ran faster, heading south down Broadway, then rounding the corner at Union Square West, just barely avoiding a ful -frontal col ision with a falafel vendor. I kept running, my shoes making dul slaps on the concrete, until I hit University, where I turned toward my apartment. Almost there, almost there. My breath sounded ragged to my own ears, but I pushed past it. Just a few more blocks. I pumped my arms faster, increasing my speed, feeling my bangs stick to my forehead with sweat.

I reached Eleventh Street and dropped to a walk, letting my breath catch up with me. It was heaven to jog without al my winter layers, to let the breeze hit my bare legs, to let the run shake off the thoughts of that letter, those two sentences that I carried constantly in my brain. I’d spent the last few weeks obsessing about who had sent it to me. I wouldn’t show it to my dad, and I had no guesses myself. On a long shot, I interrogated my mailman, but he could only tel me the bit of information I already knew—that the envelope had original y been sent from here in Manhattan. Which left me with mil ions of residents to consider, not to mention the mil ions of tourists.