KATRINA

Katrina

TWO DAYS BEFORE

I sat back down on the bench after the black car pulled away. At least there, in front of the Met, I could keep an eye on my surroundings. And I needed to get my bearings. Did Carmichael have someone following me? Maybe, but Darden was a more likely possibility, trying to monitor me close-up. I'd need to call Mark—he'd put a stop to it.

My phone buzzed then. Lauren.

"Why haven't you answered any of my calls or texts?" She sounded out of breath, like she was walking. "I've been worried about you and this Doug thing. I know it's weird because you guys just started dating. But I also know you really liked him."

"It is weird, you're right. And I'm sorry I've been MIA. But everything kind of exploded at once. Work's been … complicated." Of course I couldn't get into any details with Lauren, not about Doug or Darden. I'd never told her about my role at the firm, though I'd always wanted to. But she was a U.S. attorney, a highly ethical one. I didn't want to put her in a bad position of knowing more than she wanted to. "Plus, Aidan's been all over me for another loan."

Lauren was always my very best audience for Aidan complaints.

"Aidan." She huffed predictably. "I hope you told him to fuck off."

"Easier said than done, given the state of affairs between me and Cleo."

"You cannot let him extort you," she said. "It's sick."

"Cleo is seeing Kyle again." It felt even worse than I'd imagined saying it out loud.

"Oh, I'm sorry … I'm sure that's …" She sounded sympathetic, but I could only imagine her appalled expression. "Well, I'm not sure what that feels like. My girls are ten. But Cleo is twenty and she's making scary choices that you can't control, and that must be so hard. Even though as your friend I know that you've been doing everything you can."

"Have I, though?" I asked. "Everything?"

Lauren didn't know what I really meant. That I could easily have found someone in my bag of tricks capable of taking care of Kyle. I wasn't that person, though. I wasn't. Also, on a practical level, I knew how terribly those kinds of plans could go awry. What if Cleo somehow got hurt? Kyle's phone, on the other hand? I suspected I could do something about that.

"What mother ever feels like they've done everything ?" Lauren said, just when I'd forgotten I was on the phone with her. "Being a mother is a rigged game, Kat—you know that. There's no way to win. And from what I can tell, it only gets harder the older they get. But I mean, it could be worse: I'm older than you are, and my fifth-grade parent-teacher conferences start in ten minutes. What was I thinking? Twins at forty-three. Twins! I loved my life, Kat. I was fulfilled. "

"Come on, you adore the girls," I said. Lauren wasn't pretending to be fed up, though. She was always brutally honest about everything, but especially how hard she found motherhood.

"I do love them, of course I do. But I do also kind of hate being a mom. Why doesn't anyone ever mention that's a possibility! That you can love your kids and still hate the role." She was laughing now even though I could tell she didn't really think it was funny.

Every mother I knew learned how to laugh at so many unfunny things. Like the realization I'd faced as the parent of a teen, and then a young adult: that you were expected to have endless empathy—but no vulnerabilities of your own.

"You're sure you're okay?" Lauren asked. "I feel like there's something you're not telling me, Kat. You know I can't stand it when you get squirrelly like this."

"I'm okay," I said, lying. "I'm trying to figure out when, exactly, my life became this much of a mess."

"Everybody's life is a mess, Kat. Absolutely everybody's," Lauren said softly. "I promise. And you are a good mom. No, you're a great mom. Especially considering where you came from. I don't say that often because I worry it will make you feel bad. But it is true. Not having your own mom must make it even harder to figure out what the hell to do. And yet you're so good at it. Anyway, these kids aren't cakes—you can put in all the right ingredients, watch the timer like a hawk, but all sorts of other shit actually happens in the oven. Things over which you have zero control."

This was true; there was only so much control I had over anything to do with Cleo. But this mess with Darden and Doug? This was the kind of situation I could and did fix all the time. But I needed to be methodical about it.

I called Mark as soon as Lauren and I finished talking. "There's a chance I can get Doug Sinclair's phone records, at least from the last few days," I said after I'd given him a quick summary of what I'd learned from Brian Carmichael, that whatever blackmail had been going on was under false pretenses. That Doug hadn't bribed anyone, and that was an important point Darden would need to acknowledge. "If I can, I'll go through his texts and see if I can find anything about the blackmail."

"That doesn't sound especially …"

"Legal?" I asked. "You really want to get into that discussion?"

This was already more than Mark and I had ever spoken about the unsavory details of my job.

"No," he said quickly. "I do not."

"You do understand this means that Doug Sinclair is a victim here?"

"Perhaps," Mark allowed. "But it also doesn't rule out that being blackmailed—even unjustly—distracted him from his oversight of Xytek."

"It also doesn't rule out that Darden is trying to use him as a distraction." I wasn't letting Mark play this dumb.

"I understand what you're saying. We will have to cross that bridge when we come to it, depending on what you find. You and I both know we are not going to do anything unethical or inappropriate here. But if we can keep Darden happy, at least until we can get a foothold in managing a bigger segment of their billables—that would be ideal. I, for one, do like health insurance."

Ruth. It was easy to think that Mark could afford to lose everything and still be fine. But his wife was dying of cancer and he had a daughter getting married, and he did seem more concerned lately about money than I would have expected.

"Oh, and one last thing. There was a car following me. A black sedan. Like the sedan that was spotted at Doug's accident scene."

"What?" Mark sounded alarmed. "Are you okay?"

"Yes, yes. I'm fine. But I've seen the same car twice now, last night and today."

"Do you want to … should we call someone?"

"The car is gone now—so, no, there's no emergency," I reassured him. "But you should confirm it's not Darden. Because that would make me uncomfortable."

"Of course it would. I certainly hope that's not the case." Mark still sounded rattled. "I will speak directly with Phil today and confirm. In the meantime, Kat, please be careful out there."

I placed one last call after Mark and I said our good-byes.

"Ahmed, glad I caught you," I said.

Ahmed was an SVP at Digitas Data, the cyber investigative firm I relied upon for all back-channel information gathering for my clients. Ahmed was my go-to guy at Digitas. He was excellent—efficient and fast, and I trusted him. I'd helped see to it that he made vice president at Digitas in half the usual time. In return, Ahmed always made sure my projects got priority. He was also willing to cross some lines when I said it mattered.

He sighed, but good-naturedly. "Let me guess … You don't have the phone and it's an emergency because why can't anything be easy?"

"Yes, please. All the texts at least and also the call log if possible? He's deceased, if that matters."

"Only matters if it means I need to be worried I'll be next." He laughed. I didn't respond. "Wait, I don't need to be worried, do I?"

"I don't think so," I said, which, at that moment, felt like the most I could promise anyone.

"Okay, but without the phone the best I'm ever going to do is messages from the past few days."

"That's all I need."

It wasn't easy to track down Jimmy Ahearn. Or to get him to agree to talk. It took me a good part of the day, the rest of which I spent trying to persuade Dalton not to kick a client's son out for vandalizing the school locker room. I took the teacher who'd caught him out for an endless lunch at Le Bernardin, which was mostly spent making him feel like a good person for taking money instead of reporting the kid. "You don't want to be responsible for derailing this kid's life, do you? People make mistakes." I couldn't count how many times in my life I'd used that line. And, in point of fact, this was a decent kid whose parents refused to treat his anxiety properly. But today, the whole thing made me want to take a shower.

Jimmy and I finally met at 6:00 p.m. on the edge of Chelsea, in what was technically a cop bar—wood-paneled and Irish, with deep, worn booths lining the side of the room. The bar was Jimmy's choice, which made no sense to me, but that didn't matter. He was a sometime confidential informant with a specialty in breaking and entering. Skills he didn't use anymore "except for good," he claimed. Which essentially meant for an exorbitant price—something the police seemed willing to overlook, maybe because they, too, used his services on occasion. And Jimmy was worth the money. Within minutes, he could get in and out of any place undetected and with whatever you needed safely in hand—or left behind. He also had a real aversion to the idea of going to prison, which meant he never took a job unless he was absolutely sure he could pull it off successfully. I'd gotten Jimmy's name years ago through a parole officer I knew. I'd used him a couple times: to retrieve keys in one instance, given—prematurely, it turned out—to a new mistress with a temper, the other time to get drugs out of a dorm room before a search.

As soon as Jimmy sat down, I slid a folded piece of paper with Kyle's address across the table. Maybe I couldn't control Cleo or her choices, but I could limit Kyle's ability to do any more damage.

"I need his phone. His work one. He probably has more than one. He's dealing."

Jimmy frowned. "Getting a phone is like getting a ring off a finger. I don't do close contact."

I gave him a pointed look. "He's got to go to sleep eventually."

Jimmy unfolded the sheet of paper and scanned it quickly. "Who is it?"

"College student, rich kid. Harmless, the dealing is just at NYU."

Jimmy shook his head and slid the paper back my way. "Nah. I'll pass. People like that do crazy shit. He's probably got a gun he doesn't know how to use in his nightstand."

"Please," I said, and it came out exactly as desperate as I felt. "This is for my daughter. She's—" My voice cracked. "I need that phone."

Jimmy looked uncomfortable with my display of emotion. He made a pensive, pinched face as he looked up at the mirror above the bar, then took another long pull of his beer. He reached forward and snatched the paper, jammed it in the breast pocket of his windbreaker, already sliding out of the booth. "One whiff this thing is going south and I'm out."

To my surprise, Aidan was already at Bar Six when I arrived. Not even a little late. He was sitting at a table in the back with two glasses of red wine, which was … weird. This wasn't a date. And he was sitting so upright, like he was on his very best behavior. He waved and smiled brightly when he saw me. The money. He was going to ask about it again; that was for sure.

"Kyle and Cleo are back together," I said, trying to get to the point quickly so Aidan didn't derail us with his own agenda. "I have confirmation."

He shrugged. "I guess we could have seen that coming." As if he hadn't been maintaining I was being paranoid this whole time. It was straight-up gaslighting.

"Anyway, you should know Kyle has evidence on his phone of Cleo selling." It was hard to hear the words out loud, but I forced myself to keep going. "Evidence that he can hand over to the police anytime he wants."

"Really?" Finally a hint of concern in Aidan's eyes.

"I'm handling it," I said.

Aidan made a face. "Handling it how?"

"I'm getting the phone," I said. Which I was hoping was a burner. So that the photos were only there and not already all over the cloud.

"What do you mean?" Aidan gave me a questioning look. There weren't a lot of legal options for obtaining a phone that didn't belong to you.

"The details don't matter," I said. "But I should have it by the morning. But we still need to get her away from Kyle, permanently, Aidan."

"I'll help in any way I can. I mean that, Kat," he said, and sincerely it seemed. "I know I've been—listen, I'm trying here."

"I know." I stood and took a swig of wine before setting the glass back down. I wanted to get out of there before he started asking for the money again and things turned tense. This had actually been almost pleasant.

"You're not staying?" Aidan looked wounded.

"No," I said. "I have somewhere else I need to be."

Cleo's dot on my phone was heading east across the NYU campus. Please, don't let her be making another drop. I didn't think I could handle watching that again. When the dot stopped at the Bobst Library, I slowed my pace down Sixth Avenue and loosened my grip on the phone.

But it wasn't until I spotted Cleo through the library's glass fa?ade that I allowed myself to relax. She was inside with her friend Nadine, both had headphones on, hunched over their books like regular old college kids. Occasionally, they'd look up and exchange some knowing look or point to something on one of their phones. I liked Nadine. She was a good kid, a solid one. The kind I could not imagine would ever date a drug dealer, much less deal drugs herself.

When a boy in a black baseball hat and puffy white jacket appeared at Cleo and Nadine's table, all I could think was No. I moved closer. Yes, it was definitely Kyle. He knocked on the table. Cleo looked up in his direction—not surprised or scared. Not pleased, either. More like she had been expecting him. Kyle said something, and then turned to leave. He didn't give a shit how many times I warned him, did he? He was going to keep coming after her, forever.

Cleo returned to her books. Nadine stared at Kyle as he walked away. Once he was out of sight, she leaned in to ask Cleo something. Maybe What was that about? But Cleo just shook her head without looking up.

A moment later, the door to the library burst open and there was Kyle sauntering down the steps, pants ridiculously low, baseball cap lopsided on his head. Walking right past me like he didn't have a care in the world. And there I was, following him again. Even though I was angry enough that it was a bad idea. Even though … what was it, exactly, that I planned to do?

The knife in my bag. I knew better than to let my mind go there. Except there I was, thinking of it, following Kyle like I had a purpose, an endgame in mind. I picked up my pace when he turned left, heading downtown instead of west toward his apartment. Right on Mercer, deeper into the shadows now. I wondered for a moment if Kyle knew I was behind him. If he was leading me into the darkness on purpose. And then there he was, turning into a building, a dorm on the corner of Third Street and LaGuardia Place. Or he was trying to. I darted across the street and watched him flash his ID, but the security guard shook his head and held up a hand before turning back inside. Rejecting Kyle specifically, or any visitor who didn't live there—it was impossible to tell.

Kyle shook his head, then shouted something after the guy before pulling out his phone to send a text. He seemed to wait for a response, then texted some more. He'd be on the move again soon, disappearing into the darkness of the quiet side streets. I could put an end to this myself, right now, without anyone seeing. The world would be better off without Kyle; there was no doubt about that. But then, what would become of me?

Because this would be so different from that night. Back then, I was only a kid. And I'd been scared and in pain and so con fused standing in the bathroom the next morning. When I looked down at the blood on my legs, I thought, You wanted this. And then I thought, No, you didn't. I didn't even know what this was, exactly. There was just him and his threats and me and all that rage. And the knife on the bedside table that he had used to slice a lime.

But this was me calculating. With time to think.

I watched now as Kyle lit a cigarette and propped himself against the building. A moment later, a couple emerged, arms crossed, shivering—the guy scruffily cute, the girl pretty and blond and, oddly, barefoot. It wasn't until the guy fist-bumped Kyle that I recognized the girl: Annie, Janine's daughter? Yes, it was. It was most definitely her. I watched the quick, furtive exchange between her and Kyle, looked again at her bare feet. Annie, buying drugs from Kyle.

Annie was a good kid, though. She was obviously in over her head. I needed to warn her away from Kyle. I could do that one good thing.

The security guard who had rebuffed Kyle so emphatically seemed to perk up when I stepped inside, but then he tried to act casual, like he hadn't even noticed me. Demure damsel in distress—it was the obvious way to go. I smiled tentatively, twisted my hands. "I'm sorry, do you think you could help me with something maybe?"

He didn't hesitate to call up and tell Annie that she needed to come back downstairs, immediately. He even nodded knowingly when I shook my head instead of offering my name— I got it, he seemed to say.

"Because there's somebody here who needs to see you," he said curtly. "No, not that guy. This is an adult. I suggest you come down here right away, or maybe I'll tell campus security about your last visitor. They love to search rooms."

When he hung up, he tugged his jacket straight and gave me an officious nod. "She's on her way."

"Thank you so much," I said. "I really appreciate your doing that."

"These kids … someone needs to teach them a little respect. Their parents sure as hell won't." I smiled but said nothing. Hoped Annie would get down there quickly, before he worked up the nerve to hit on me.

"I'll go stand over there." I pointed to a spot on the opposite wall. "Out of the way."

A moment later, Annie charged off the elevator, looking wired and exhausted. High, maybe. I was hardly an expert in such things. She waved her arms accusatorily in the direction of the guard. "What's the fucking emergency?"

She was so changed from the sweet, quiet girl I remembered. The one who wore pastel sweaters and headbands long after they were in style at school. The girl who'd never seemed to turn dark and angry the way Cleo had. Annie was more striking now, but harder, too. And in a different way than Cleo. Cleo's tough exterior—the black makeup, the many piercings, and the goth clothes—was like a suit of armor she wore. This new hardness in Annie seemed born from the inside out.

"Hey, calm down," the guard admonished, then gestured in my direction.

It took Annie a moment to register who I was. Then she scowled as she walked toward me.

"What are you doing here?"

"Annie, Kyle is not a good person," I said. "I thought you should know."

"Wow, no kidding." Annie's affect was so flat. It was like all the life had been pressed out of her. "Golly, gee."

"No, I mean he keeps pictures of his customers on his phone," I explained. "As insurance. It's … risky."

Her scowl deepened. "Risky?"

"Being a customer." Like she really had no clue what I was talking about. Or she didn't care. "He could use the pictures against you."

"Is that seriously why you called me down here? To tell me that ?"

"I was trying to help." I waited for it to occur to her that I must have been spying on them. But her face betrayed nothing but a vacant kind of anger. "Your mom would want to know if you were in a bad place. She could help. She would. I'm sure."

I'd gone there faster than I'd meant to. It sounded like a threat—tell your mom or I will.

Annie worked her jaw. "My mom stays out of my business because she trusts me," she said. But there was the tiniest flicker of something in her eyes, a hint of shame, possibly. "Anyway, maybe instead of harassing me, you should worry a little more about what your own daughter is up to. Who she's fucking, for instance."

"Excuse me?" I kept my voice calm, but my mind was racing. Cleo was not only dealing for Kyle; she was back with him. Of course she was.

From the little smirk on Annie's lips, she could tell she'd gotten to me. "Yup. Saw them with my own eyes. Or saw Cleo. The guy had his back turned. They were mauling each other up against the side of a building where I guess they thought no one could see them. But it was near the bike path on the West Side Highway. It might not be campus, but there are still a million people over there. Yet another brand-new boyfriend who Cleo practically fucks in public. You must be so proud."