The night, however, was not over.
It was four in the morning when my phone rang. I was in the state I now refer to as sleep. I never fall into true slumber anymore. I hang above it with my eyes shut. The nights struggle by like the days. The separation between the two is the flimsiest of curtains. At night, my body manages to rest, but my mind refuses to shut down.
With my eyes closed, I was replaying the morning of the attack for the umpteenth time, hoping to stir a new memory. I started where I am now: in the bedroom. I remembered my alarm clock going off. Lenny and I were going to play racquetball that morning. We’d started playing every Wednesday about a year before, and so far, we had progressed to the point where our games had improved from “pitiful” to “almost remedial.” Monica was awake and in the shower. I was scheduled for surgery at 11:00A .M. I got up and looked in on Tara. I headed back to the bedroom. Monica was out of shower now and putting on her jeans. I went down to the kitchen, still in my pajamas, opened the cabinet to the right of the Westinghouse refrigerator, chose the raspberry granola bar over the blueberry (I had actually told this detail to Regan recently, as if it might be relevant), and bent over the sink while I ate. . . .
Bam, that was it. Nothing until the hospital.
The phone rang a second time. My eyes opened.
My hand found the phone. I picked it up and said, “Hello?”
“It’s Detective Regan. I’m with Agent Tickner. We’ll be over in two minutes.”
I swallowed. “What is it?”
“Two minutes.”
He hung up.
I got out of bed. I glanced out the window, half expecting to see that woman again. No one was there. My jeans from yesterday were crumpled on the floor. I slid them on. I pulled a sweatshirt over my head and made my way down the stairs. I opened the front door and peered out. A police car turned the corner. Regan was driving. Tickner was in the passenger seat. I don’t think that I had ever seen them arrive in the same vehicle.
This, I knew, would not be good news.
The two men stepped out of the car. Nausea swept over me. I had prepared myself for this visit since the ransom had gone wrong. I’d even gone so far as to rehearse in my mind how it would all happen—how they would deliver the hammer blow and how I would nod and thank them and excuse myself. I practiced my reaction. I knew precisely how it would all go down.
But now, as I watched Regan and Tickner head toward me, those defenses fled. Panic set in. My body began to shiver. I could barely stand. My knees wobbled, and I leaned against the door frame. The two men moved in step. I was reminded of an old war movie, the scene where the officers come to the mother’s house with solemn faces. I shook my head, wishing them away.
When they reached the door, the two men pushed inside.
“We have something to show you,” Regan said.
I turned and followed. Regan flicked on a lamp, but it didn’t provide much light. Tickner moved to the couch. He opened his laptop computer. The monitor sprang to life, bathing him in an LCD-blue.
“We had a break,” Regan explained.
I moved closer.
“Your father-in-law gave us a list of the serial numbers on the ransom bills, remember?”
“Yes.”
“One of those bills was used at a bank yesterday afternoon. Agent Tickner is bringing up a video feed right now.”
“From the bank?” I asked.
“Yes. We downloaded the video onto his laptop. Twelve hours ago, someone brought a hundred-dollar bill to this bank in order to get smaller notes. We want you to take a look at the video.”
I sat next to Tickner. He pressed a button. The video started up immediately. I expected black-and-white or poor, grainy quality. This feed had neither. The angle was shot from above in almost too-brilliant color. A bald man was talking to a teller. There was no sound.
“I don’t recognize him,” I said.
“Wait.”
The bald man said something to the teller. They appeared to be sharing a good-natured chuckle. He picked up a slip of paper and waved a good-bye. The teller gave a small wave back. The next person in line approached the booth. I heard myself groan.
It was my sister, Stacy.
The numb I had longed for suddenly flooded me. I don’t know why. Perhaps because two polar emotions pulled at me simultaneously. One, dread. My own sister had done this. My own sister, whom I loved dearly, had betrayed me. But, two, hope—we now had hope. We had a lead. And if it was Stacy, I could not believe that she would harm Tara.
“Is that your sister?” Regan asked, pointing his finger at her image.
“Yes.” I looked at him. “Where was this taken?”
“The Catskills,” he said. “A town called—”
“Montague,” I finished for him.
Tickner and Regan looked at each other. “How do you know that?”
But I was already heading for the door. “I know where she is.”
Chapter 7
My grandfather hadloved to hunt. I always found this strange because he was such a gentle, soft-spoken soul. He never talked about his passion. He didn’t hang deer heads over the fireplace mantel. He did not keep trophy pictures or souvenir antlers or whatever else hunters liked to do with carcasses. He did not hunt with friends or family members. Hunting was a solitary activity for my grandfather; he did not explain, defend, or share it with others.
In 1956, Grandpa purchased a small cabin in the hunting woods of Montague, New York. The cost, or so I am told, was under three thousand dollars. I doubt that it would fetch much more today. There was only one bedroom. The structure managed to be rustic without any of the charm associated with that term. It was almost impossible to find—the dirt road stopped two hundred yards before the cabin. You had to hike along a root-infested trail the rest of the way.
When he died four years ago, my grandmother inherited it. At least, that is what I assumed. No one really thought about it much. My grandparents had retired to Florida almost a decade before. My grandmother was in the murky throes of Alzheimer’s now. The old cabin, I guessed, was part of her estate. In terms of taxes and whatever expenses, it was probably deep in arrears.
When we were children, my sister and I spent one weekend each summer with our grandparents at the cabin. I did not like it. Nature to me was boredom occasionally broken up by an onslaught of mosquito bites. There was no TV. We went to bed too early and in too much darkness. During the day, the deep silence was too often shattered by the charming echo of shotgun blasts. We spent most of our time taking walks, an activity I find tedious to this very day. One year, my mother packed me only khaki-colored clothes. I spent two days terrified that a hunter would mistake me for a deer.