“I’ll try.”
“Good. You have my number.”
After she ended the call, Tess steadied herself against the counter. She felt a dizzying cocktail of elation and dread as the ramifications of what had happened sank in.
Reilly was out. He was free again, which, on its own and unencumbered by the bigger picture, was a huge relief-only the bigger picture was massively worrying. He was a fugitive, a suspected murderer, with all the considerable resources of law enforcement on his trail.
Her legs felt like she’d just run a marathon, but she still found herself padding through to the front of the house and tilting the slats of the plantation-style shutters so she could peer out the living room window at the street outside.
It was quiet. This early in the morning, especially on a crisp cold day like today, was when Westchester County was-for her-at its peaceful best. She took in the deserted lane, quite a change from the ERT circus it had hosted the day before. Stalwart patches of snow dotted the front lawn while a thin dusting of it clung obstinately to the bare branches of the big oak tree by the driveway.
The surveillance team was, no doubt, on their way.
She stood there in silence, enjoying the calm before the storm. The kids and Tess’s mom were asleep-no school on Saturday-blissfully unaware of the drama the day would inevitably bring. She’d need to tell them, of course; she’d need to look at their faces and watch as each word she uttered chipped away at their innocence and replaced it with fear and worry.
As she watched a lone starling hop along a low branch, she became aware of a ball of anger inside her gut, and she could feel it growing at an alarming rate no matter how tightly she tried to subdue it.
The anger she was fighting right now felt oddly similar to what she had experienced when her marriage to Doug-Kim’s father-had first begun to unravel, even before the inevitability of his subsequent affair and the divorce that quickly followed. You didn’t need your partner to screw someone else in order to feel betrayed, and the way she felt about Reilly’s total inability to let go of the past, or at least be honest with her about the intensity with which it was consuming him, was uncomfortably mirroring how she’d felt about Doug, back when she still cared.
It was a bizarre irony of human nature that only love could underpin such extreme feelings of anger and betrayal, and that was the big difference in the two situations. By the time she found out about Doug’s affair, she had already fallen out of love with him, his deception simply providing the end of a chapter and the promise of new horizons, rather than the beginning of a chapter filled with circular resentment and claustrophobic bitterness. This was very different. Despite the anger, she was more in love with Reilly than ever, which only made all the conflicting feelings churning inside her harder to calm.
She wondered where he was, how he was doing, and what he was thinking right now.
Yes, he’d definitely be in touch.
And she couldn’t wait to see him.
27
By the time I first became aware of a semblance of daylight around me, I had no idea where I was or what time of day it was. All I knew was that I was shivering. A lot.
I had the vague, disturbing conviction that I was in the cellar of El Brujo’s hacienda in Mexico, where I’d been held and force-fed a drug that was meant to extinguish my soul for all of eternity. That was quickly dismissed in favor of our house in Mamaroneck and then for my old bachelor pad in the city. My mind-struggling for handholds on a sheer climb-finally settled on a West Hollywood hotel room in which I’d spent two weeks the summer I turned nineteen. I’d taken a Greyhound to Los Angeles and, within a few hours of arriving, I’d been struck down by a flu that was so virulent that I’d had to find myself a bed and spent all the money I’d saved for three months in California on two weeks in the Econo Lodge on Vine. I barely ate for a week and couldn’t move for almost ten days. A pretty young Mexican maid named Rosita had taken pity on the poor sick guy from Chicago, checking on me at the beginning and end of every shift to ensure I was still alive and bringing me bottles of water and left-behind pizza slices. When my fever finally broke, I was so exhausted that I’d had to spend another three days in the hotel recuperating. Finally feeling well enough to venture out, I’d summoned up the courage to ask Rosita to dinner. She’d smiled kindly and told me she was engaged, though still waiting for her betrothed to save up for the ring she’d chosen.
I’d had enough dollars left to catch a Metro bus to the Greyhound terminal, from where I took the first bus back east.
My mother never asked what had happened and I’d never shared it with her. Instead, I got a summer job as a clerk at the Forty-second Precinct of the Chicago Police Department before moving to Indiana to begin my law studies at Notre Dame.
As I lay there between sleep and waking, feeling nineteen but knowing I’d traveled a very long way from who I was back then, it struck me that even though I rarely thought of that connection, those three months on Addison were probably instrumental in my later decision to apply to the Bureau. There was something about the camaraderie and sense of moral purpose at the precinct that was deeply satisfying, the idea that not only could you intend to make a difference-however small-but that you actually could make society a better and safer place.
As the Bureau came into my head, so did everything else. Clarity gradually seeped back into my mind and my surroundings fell into focus. I wasn’t at the hacienda or chewing on leftover pizza. I was curled up on myself in the car I’d stolen, wrapped up in Lendowski’s parka and using his suit as a makeshift blanket, and I realized that the shivering was simply from the cold, which was reaching me with little resistance since I’d smashed one of the car’s windows. I rubbed my arms as I tilted myself up, slowly, hesitantly, my eyes stinging, my fingertips buzzing with a mild electrical current, my head pounding like someone had pimped out my skull with a subwoofer.
I’d never taken psychedelics like LSD or any hard drugs for that matter, so I didn’t know if I was experiencing a normal comedown. If it was, I couldn’t imagine how people actually got a kick from doing these kinds of psychoactive drugs. The endless, mind-numbing all-nighters we’d pulled last week outside Daland’s place were suddenly a fond, idyllic memory by comparison.
I stepped out of the Caprice and looked around. I realized I was in the East Village, on Third Street, close to its intersection with Avenue C. I needed to get something hot inside me, ideally something loaded with caffeine. I pulled up the collar on Lendowski’s parka, then remembered it said FBI on its front breast pocket and across its back, so I quickly shrugged it off, turned it inside out, and pulled it back on. A couple of minutes later, I was basking in the warmth of a small coffee shop, my hands toasting on a big mug of heaven. Each sip seemed to jump-start a bundle of neurons in my frazzled brain, and once the egg platter started working its magic, I was starting to think maybe I’d got away with this. My body seemed to have ducked any permanent damage from the drug, though it would take years before I’d know for sure if my mind was as lucky. For now, at least, I was a reasonably sentient being once again. Which wasn’t ideal, given that the events of last night, and the bigger picture, came galloping back. I think I might have preferred to stay in wonderland.
I needed to get in touch with Tess, let her know I was OK. I also needed her to help me with a couple of things, but I had to figure out how to contact her safely. I was sure the Bureau would have a Stingray van parked outside the house, and besides not wanting to be caught, I didn’t want to get her into trouble. I thought about it while I worked on a second mug of coffee, then came up with what I thought was a halfway decent plan. I’d need to buy myself a cheap phone and a couple of prepaid SIM cards.