Alafair Burke - Long Gone

The couple stepped from the car, leaving her alone with the homeless man dozing in and out of sleep and a guy who seemed to think earbuds the size of pencil erasers could somehow shield the people around him from the rap music thumping from his iPod. The doors remained open, and Alice realized she was holding her breath again, waiting for the car to be sealed like a protective shell. She did not want to see a police officer step inside. And with both Drew Campbell and Robert Atkinson dead, she was beginning to wonder whether the police might be the least of her worries.

She allowed herself to exhale when the doors closed. She felt her core flex instinctively, muscle memory formed from years of subway transit, stabilizing her own body, preparing for the abrupt lurch of the train’s movement. But there was no movement. The car remained still. There were no sounds other than the tinny rhymes leaking from the iPod guy’s headphones and the quiet hum of the homeless man’s snore. She was holding her breath yet again, wishing she had waited at Union Square for an express train.

When the car finally jerked forward, her body was unprepared. She slid all the way into the empty seat beside her, and had never been so thankful for the unceremonious wobbling of a New York City subway ride.

Just as quickly as she had calmed herself, she felt the hot rush of unmitigated terror when the sliding door at the end of the train opened and a man who looked like the driver of the green Toyota stepped inside.

She rose from her seat and walked hurriedly toward the opposite end of the car. She could hear his footsteps behind her and wondered if either the homeless man or the iPod guy would help her if she screamed. She pulled at the exit door, realizing she had never tried to walk from car to car on the subway and had no idea how to operate the sliding door.

She felt the man’s hand on her shoulder. She turned and pressed herself against the door, trying to release herself from his grasp. She could still hear the homeless man’s purr and the iPod guy’s tunes.

“Help. Someone help?”

“Shh. Shh. It’s okay. Stop. Just stop.”

The man’s palms were raised as if he was the one being attacked, but his face was completely calm. Something about his whispered pleas for her to stop resisting was comforting. “My name is Hank Beckman, and I believe you’re innocent.”

“So you actually saw the woman who was kissing Drew Campbell in the photograph the police showed me?”

They had completed the 6 train leg of the trip and were continuing their conversation on a bench in Grand Central Terminal, each of them telling the other a one-sided view of the events of the last few days. They were strangers, but somehow the simple fact that this man was an FBI agent who believed she was telling the truth allowed her to share every detail within her knowledge.

“You mean Travis Larson. There is no Drew Campbell. But, yes, I believe that the woman I saw at Larson’s apartment was the same woman in that photograph. And I believe she was intentionally trying to look like you and had purchased the identical blue coat for exactly that purpose. The human mind is capable of greatness, but we have been trained to process information with efficiency, which can sometimes mean superficially. We grab on to salient identifiers, often at the expense of devoting attention to more nuanced details. It’s one of the reasons why cross-racial eyewitness identifications are less reliable. We see a person of a different race and give disproportionate weight to that one distinctive visual trait without really processing the individual’s true appearance.”

“So it’s not like this other woman is my identical twin?”

He shook his head. “Don’t get me wrong: she certainly did resemble you. You probably could see the similarity for yourself in that photograph. But she and Larson were taking advantage of the fact that your hair, if you don’t mind me saying, was the single characteristic that most people would identify first when looking at you. And I assume you bought that blue coat for a reason.”

“It never fails to get a compliment.”

“No surprise there. Your coloring-her coloring-with that bright blue? It’s a knockout combination. Any chance that coat’s a specialty item? We could start with that to track down your doppelganger.”

“Mass-produced in China and sold at department stores all over the country. Sorry.”

“You shouldn’t have cut it, you know.” He pointed to his head. “Your hair.”

“The last thing I’m worried about right now are my looks.”

“That’s not what I mean. If you hadn’t changed your hair, I’d be trying to talk you into going home. It looks really bad that you ran.”

“I panicked. They had my building surrounded. They were coming to get me. I pictured myself being carried away in handcuffs, and I just couldn’t sit there and let it happen.”

“They weren’t coming for you. Not yet, anyway. Shannon told me not an hour ago that they were still working on the warrant. It’s definitely in the pike.”

Lily must have seen a police car on the street outside her building and assumed they were there for her.

“If you go back now, though, they’ll see what you’ve done to your hair. Changing your appearance is quintessential evidence of consciousness of guilt. That, combined with lies they caught you in about your relationship with Larson? They may as well have a confession.”

“I never lied to them.”

“But they think you did. And that new haircut of yours makes their version all the more likely.”

“I think I liked you better when I thought you were trying to kill me.”

“I’m just telling you how it is. So tell me what you’re planning to do in Bedford.”

She had already purchased a ticket in cash. The train was due to leave in twelve minutes. “I’m going to find out why Robert Atkinson was tracking down a police report from there.”

“Why don’t you just call your brother and ask him what he knows about Atkinson?”

“Because I have no idea how to get hold of him. He’s cell-only, and I went and took his only phone.” She was also increasingly convinced that he’d been holding something back from her since the very beginning.

“So you’re going to march into a police station and tell them you’re Alice Humphrey?”

“No. I’m thinking I’ll say I’m a reporter following up on the story Atkinson was working on.”

“And what if someone there recognizes you? I assume Bedford’s a small place.”

“I don’t think I have any choice right now but to take a few calculated risks.”

He rose from the bench without speaking, reached into his coat pocket, and dangled a set of car keys. “That green Toyota that’s been tailing you should get us up to Bedford just fine. I’ll pull in front of the exit on Lexington in about twenty. Don’t go anywhere.”

“Why are you doing this?” she asked.

“Let’s just say I might also be in need of a few calculated risks.”

J ust as Beckman had predicted, they pulled off 684 at the Bedford exit about an hour after crossing the Triborough Bridge. The plan was for him to go to the police station to ask questions about Robert Atkinson while she drove one town north to Katonah to avoid the chance of being recognized in Bedford.

“Here.” He handed her a cell phone. “I’ll call you when it’s time to pick me up.”

“Isn’t there some FBI rule that says you shouldn’t be handing over your phone to a wanted fugitive?”

“Probably, but I think we can agree I’ve officially left the reservation. That’s a disposable that can’t be traced to you, so let’s keep it that way. Absolutely no calls to anyone you know. The NYPD will be pulling their LUDs.”