Hunt evil, p.13
Hunt Evil, page 13
“You found her in Astoria? Where exactly?”
He told me the address, which was only a five-minute walk away from the building where I used to live. And where Steve still lived, where I had been earlier today. Steve, who’d been so busy working lately, he’d had no time to see me. I fisted my hands as I felt the blood drain from my face. It couldn’t be just a coincidence that Mom’s body had been found so close to Steve’s house. He had to have something to do with Mom’s murder. I had to talk to him, find out what he had done with Neera, the sick bastard... Damn it. I should have known no normal man would be into cross-dressing. I should have known the guy was a complete freak, probably a pedophile.
I pictured the time when I had shown him photos of Neera, how excited he had seemed when he laid eyes on her. How he’d loved to talk to her when she was with me at the studio. Touch her, pat her head. In hindsight, it hadn’t been normal. It hadn’t been the behavior of a healthy male but that of a sick predator. Especially the first time he’d seen her picture. He had smiled wide, nearly drooled as he had drunk her in wearing that red dress with the white blouse under, her hair in pigtails, grinning at the camera. I had written it off as him just finding the girl adorable. She was an adorable kid after all. Everybody thought so.
I exhaled quietly. That sick, sick fuck… If only I had realized what had really gone through his head then…
“Shane?” Agent McHenry’s voice cut through all the thoughts swimming in my mind.
I looked at him.
“I asked you a question,” he said.
“Can you please repeat it?”
“We have photos from the crime scene. I would like for you to take a look at them.”
“Okay.”
Before we left, I took one more look at Mom on that table, imprinted the image into my memory so I could pull it out whenever I had nightmares that she was still out to get me. I had no doubt they would come, and I needed to be able to remind myself that she was gone, dead, unable to ever hurt me again.
Agent McHenry took me to an empty office and we took a seat on the chairs there. He pulled out his iPad from a thin briefcase and switched it on.
“The NYPD sent them to me right before I called you,” he said. “I just want to warn you that some of the pics might be disturbing. It’s your mother after all.”
“Thanks, I’ll be fine,” I replied curtly and reached for the device. And I would be fine. As sad and disturbing as it might be, I felt nothing but numbness when I saw Mom in her current condition. Maybe that would change later, but right now it served me well.
He handed me the iPad. “Just swipe the screen to get to the next one. I wanted to see if something looked familiar to you. Any of the items on the ground near the body.”
I glanced at the first photo, which featured Mom wearing a dark turtleneck and dark, snug pants. Her skin and blond hair looked even paler against the backdrop of the filthy asphalt, and she was staring heavenward, her eyes pleading, confused. Whoever had killed her had shoved a crumpled Coke can into her mouth, making it look like she was trying to eat it, but it was too big for her. I had to look closer to notice the bruises on her face; at first, I had written them off as ugly shadows.
I swiped the screen and another photo filled it, showing Mom from a different angle. I could see a pen that had looked like a twig on the first picture and what had to be a ball cap. I swiped again, seeing Mom from yet another angle as well as the ball cap better. It was a navy Yankees hat, the generic kind without a number. But there was also something else next to the ball cap, something that glimmered and with something orange at one end. I brought the device closer to get a better look, but it didn’t help; I still couldn’t make out what it was.
“Go to the next pic and you might see what it is,” Agent McHenry suggested, reading my mind.
I did as I was told and went to the next photo. It was a closeup of a key with an orange plastic cover at the part where you held it. It was what had glittered beside the Yankees hat, I quickly determined. I had seen that key somewhere before, hadn’t I? The key looked extremely familiar.
As I stared at it, I knew why that was so. It was the key to the entrance that I had used to get into the apartment building in Astoria. But it wasn’t my key. I had never put anything on my key. But Steve had.
30
“You recognize the key?” Agent McHenry asked, sounding tense and eager at the same time.
“Yes, I do,” I replied.
“Where have you seen it before?”
I looked at him, saw the eagerness in his face, and it made me wonder what had made him suspect that I might recognize any of the items at the crime scene.
“Why is it that you knew I would recognize it?” I asked instead of answering.
He tilted his head and cocked a bushy brow. “I didn’t know. I was hoping that you would. It’s a distinctive key. Maybe you had seen it before. Perhaps it belongs to someone you know who also knew your mother.”
“I can’t tell you where I’ve seen it before. Only that I have.” I didn’t feel like sharing who it belonged to with Agent McHenry. I got the distinct sense that he wasn’t being entirely truthful with me, and it bothered me. A lot. Plus, I wanted a chance to confront Steve on my own. I would make him tell me where Neera was, and I would make him tell me tonight.
“Okay,” McHenry said and took the iPad from me. “We’ll have it sent to forensics so they can check for prints. There are prints on it. The hat will be sent there too so we can check for DNA. By tomorrow evening, we should know if what we’re suspecting is correct.”
“What are you suspecting?”
“That the key belongs to Jordan Black. We believe that he killed your mother. His prints are in the system, so hopefully it’s a match.”
Jordan? I had totally forgotten about Jordan, the driver. Was it possible that I was mistaken, that I had seen that key with Mom’s lover and accomplice instead of with Steve. I racked my brain, thinking hard. I supposed it was possible. I had always been tired, deprived of sleep, back in the months when Steve and I lived in the same building. Maybe that wasn’t the building key. Maybe it was some key I had seen with Jordan instead.
“I can’t wait to find out,” I said, and I meant those words. In the meantime, I would head back to Astoria and talk to Steve. He still had some explaining to do. That doll shoe didn’t just show up in his bathroom on its own. Maybe he and Jordan were working together. Hmmm. Yes, that seemed like a real good possibility.
I left Agent McHenry, declining his offer of a ride home. I was going to see Steve and I didn’t want the agent to ask where I was heading. He loved to stick his nose into my affairs, always asking intrusive questions. Occupational hazard, I guessed.
When I got out of the subway train on 30th Street station, it was ten o’clock at night. Steve should be home by now. I half jogged along the road that led to my old apartment building and five minutes later, I was walking up the flagstone path parting the small lawn in front of the four-story chain house building in two.
As I was about to press the button belonging to Steve’s apartment on the intercom, I took a quick peek at the list of tenants living in the building and it made me pause. A new person was living in apartment 3 A, the apartment I had thought Sophie had lived in. Sophie, my dream girl, literally speaking. A pang tore through my heart when I had to remind myself yet again that she wasn’t for real. I still missed her.
I pressed the button belonging to Steve’s apartment. When he didn’t buzz me in, I pressed it again, longer this time, much longer.
Still no reaction from him. I kept pressing and pressing until my finger hurt. Was he still with his brother and his wife? Maybe he was staying longer than I had assumed.
I wished I knew where his brother lived, because in that case I would head over there and demand to talk to Steve. Make him tell me what that doll shoe had done on his bathroom shelf. Tossing glances around the neighborhood that was shrouded in darkness, I pondered what to do next. Should I just hang around here and wait for Steve to show up? He had to come home eventually, and it couldn’t be much longer now. I doubted he would spend the night with his brother.
But every minute that passed was one that Neera was on her own, alone and suffering somewhere. Maybe she was only minutes away from dying. The thought of what might have happened to the girl made anger surge through me once more, with even more potency. The sheer notion of what agony Neera must be in made me want to explode. No, I had to do something. I had to get a hold of Steve now, ask him now, not in an hour. How about if I texted him, telling him I needed to see him? I could pretend something urgent had happened to me, and that I needed his help right now. As much as he claimed to care and worry about me, how could he resist such a plea?
I pulled out my cell phone and fired off a text to him in which I told him that something really bad had happened. Could he please come see me? I was outside his apartment building. I needed to see him right away.
I paced the street in front of the apartment building as I waited for a response from him. It should come any second.
When ten minutes had passed and my phone hadn’t chimed, I began to get worried. What was taking him so long? Was he underground, on the subway on his way home with no reception? Or had he switched off the sound of his phone? But why would he do that? Who switched off the sound of one’s phone for a casual family dinner? I chuckled dryly. Well, Steve, who was a weirdo, might actually do that…
I decided to try another approach: calling him until he picked up the phone. If the sound was off, he might notice the screen lighting up instead. He might enter a good area if it was a matter of spotty reception. If I needed to see him so badly, it would make sense that I was calling him like I was obsessed with him. He would understand.
But after having tried to reach him a few dozen times in the span of five minutes without success, all the while scanning the streets in the hopes of seeing him approach, I gave up. Maybe he had left his phone somewhere. That was the only likely explanation. Calling him over and over seemed like a waste of time. He would see my text, not to mention all my missed calls when he got to his phone.
As much as it irked me, there was nothing left for me to do but to wait for him to return home.
31
I must have fallen asleep where I sat on the grass, leaning against the building wall, because it was getting light out. Rubbing my eyes to make myself wake up all the way, I checked the time on my phone. It was a quarter to seven in the morning. Had I been sitting here sleeping since last night?
I must have. Checking the phone again, I noticed that the only person who had tried to call or text me was Rachel. She wanted to know when I was coming back home. She had big news for me about Mom that would make me very happy. I sent her a quick text to let her know I was okay and that I already knew that Mom was dead. I told her I’d be home sometime during the day.
By now, Steve had to have seen that I was trying to reach him. And he must have returned home. Why hadn’t he woken me up as he’d entered the building? I sat close enough to the entrance for him to have seen me. I shivered, feeling cold for the first time, at the thought of him having ignored me, just left me there. Only a guilty person would do such a thing. Part of me wanted to still believe I was mistaken when it came to Steve. Part of me refused to deal with the fact that Steve was not who I had always thought he was.
Popping to my feet, I hurried over to the intercom and buzzed Steve’s apartment again. No answer. It struck me that maybe it was broken and that’s why he didn’t answer. No, I didn’t think his buzzer and his phone were both out of commission. I kept buzzing and buzzing until someone came out of the building. The woman, who was clearly in a hurry, held the door for me so I could enter. I figured I might as well try Steve’s apartment. Who knew? Maybe he had forgotten to close the door all the way again.
But of course I wasn’t that lucky. The door was shut and locked. I spent some time banging on it, praying that he would all of a sudden come and open. But he didn’t. I put my ear to the door, which wasn’t that thick, and listened. I couldn’t hear a peep coming from inside the apartment. It was dead quiet. The only sound was that of my breathing and the sensation of my pulse beating in my ear.
Where the hell was Steve? Maybe something had happened to him inside the apartment. Maybe he had slipped and hit his head and was lying unconscious on the floor. Well, that would certainly explain why he was being so unresponsive. Before I did anything else, I should check his apartment, if he was lying unconscious there somewhere. The super lived in the building next door, a Polish man named Abel. He and I were on good terms. I should try Abel, tell him that I worried something bad had happened to Steve. He’d help me.
I swiveled around and hurried down the stairs. The good thing about it being so early was that most people were at home at this hour, including the super.
I jogged over to the building next to ours and pressed Abel’s buzzer. He answered after a brief wait.
“Who’s this?” He sounded like he had just awoken.
“Abel, it’s me, Shane. I used to live in 2C in the building next to yours. Something bad has happened to Steve in 3B. You know Steve, right? The website guy. You have to help me get into his apartment.” I figured I might as well lie, pretend it was an emergency, as that would make it more urgent for Abel to act and do what I wanted.
The super appeared only two minutes later, wearing a sweater that had been thrown on in a hurry and pair of jeans that he was still buttoning up as he came out the building door. Whatever hair he had left on his balding head was all over the place, making him look like an escaped insane asylum patient.
“Why do you think something’s happened to Steve?” he muttered as we strode over to the other building.
“I was talking to him on the phone and all of a sudden, he just disappeared. It sounded like he dropped the phone on the floor.”
Abel shot me a glance as he opened the door to my old building. “You were talking on the phone with him this early?”
“Um, yeah, we were buying something in London and had to get them early in the day. They’re five hours ahead of us.”
Abel narrowed his eyes at me like he wasn’t convinced I was telling the truth, but he didn’t say anything; instead, he began climbing the stairs. Relaxing slightly, I followed him and soon we were standing in front of Steve’s apartment door. Abel knocked on the door a few times and called Steve’s name before he opened it.
It was still and quiet and dark in Steve’s apartment. I could instantly sense that no one was there. Even so, we checked all the areas where he could possibly be.
“He’s not here,” Abel said when we were done, stating the obvious.
“Yeah, I can tell,” I said in response, silently wondering where the hell Steve could be. And why he wasn’t getting back to me. This did not bode well.
“Maybe he didn’t call you from his house,” Abel suggested as we walked out of the apartment. He locked the door behind him.
“He told me he was at home.”
“Maybe he was lying. Maybe he didn’t want to tell you where he was.”
“Maybe,” I said just to say something. There was nothing else Abel could do for me, so I should part ways with him as soon as I could. I had to think about where else Steve could be, and I needed to be alone for that.
My phone rang then, making me wince. Maybe it was Steve finally contacting me… Eager to find out, I stuck my hand into my jacket pocket and pulled out the phone. When I saw that it was McHenry calling, disappointment weighed me down
“I have to take this call,” I said to Abel. “Thanks so much for your help. Sorry if I woke you up.”
He harrumphed something as we walked out of the building and waved a hand as he turned back to his building, leaving me in place. I pressed the Talk key.
“Hey, Shephard,” I said. “What’s happening?”
“We have found your sister,” he said, his voice tight.
“Really?” I grasped the phone more firmly. “Is… is she still alive?” Please tell me she’s still alive.
“Yes, that’s what I’ve been told. She’s being taken to a hospital. To Mercy Hospital. I thought you might want to know. I’m heading over there now. You should come there. Bring your stepsister if you can. Her official guardian.”
“Okay,” I said and hung up, then speed-dialed Rachel.
I had to try a couple of times to get Rachel to answer the phone.
“Hey,” she murmured into my ear. “It’s early.”
“They found Neera, Rachel. She’s alive and in the hospital. I just spoke to Agent McHenry. He wants us to go there.”
“Really? What hospital?” Rachel sounded wide awake now.
“Mercy Hospital. I’m on my way over there. See you there?”
“Yes, I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
I ran toward the subway stop, my heart pounding hard in my chest. Neera was alive. They had found Neera. Thank God… I felt myself smiling like a fool as my lungs burned with the lack of oxygen. I couldn’t get to the hospital soon enough. Neera would tell us what had happened to her, who had taken her. She would explain to me why Steve had her doll’s Mary Jane.
I Googled the exact location for Mercy Hospital as I waited for the train to come. It was downtown, near the Financial District in Manhattan. Given that it was rush hour and lots of trains running at this hour, I should get there fast.
I did arrive only thirty minutes later, dashing through the sliding glass doors and up to the reception. I had never before been there, so I had no idea where in the huge building Neera could be.
“Hey,” I said, panting hard, the sweat lining my face, wetting my shirt. “The police took… my little sister here…”
“The police did what?” the bespectacled frumpy-looking woman behind the counter asked. “Calm down and catch your breath, then tell me again.”
