Lisa Unger - Sliver Of Truth

I could see how that might happen; in fact, I could feel it happening to me. But at the same time, Dylan’s answer didn’t quite work for me. I realized then that Jake’s obsession had seemed out-sized for months; it had grown in a way that had felt incongruous. Early in our relationship, I’d believed that it would lessen over time, but the opposite had happened. It was one thing for me to be obsessed; the man was my father.

“I guess you know a thing or two about obsession,” I said.

I thought about the crime-scene photos I’d seen in the dossier. I’d seen what Max did to Dylan’s mother. I understood Dylan better now.

“I guess I do.”

“You turned yours into a career.”

He shrugged. “It’s a living.” He tried for a smile but it died on his face. I, for one, wondered if I’d ever smile again.

“How did Jake know I was Max’s daughter?”

“Maybe he didn’t. Maybe he just knew that Max had loved you.”

“Then why would he lie about how he found me?”

“I can’t answer that.”

There was so much more to ask, so many questions about the last couple of years and the last couple of weeks. We hadn’t scratched the surface. But I sat there for a minute before launching into all that. I wanted to ask about the men at the Cloisters, how I’d wound up in London, and whom he had killed in the hospital. I was afraid that once I started, the answers would only lead to more questions.

“Myra Lyall is dead,” I said. “They found her body floating in a trunk in a canal.”

Dylan nodded. “I know.”

“What did she find out? The people who took her-are they the same people who took me?”

“I’m not sure, Ridley. I don’t know what happened to either one of you. I was hoping you could answer some of those questions.”

I frowned at him. I guess I kind of had the idea that the only reason I didn’t end up in a trunk floating is that Dylan Grace had saved my ass, as he so eloquently put it. Wrong again.

“Then how did you find me?”

REMEMBER HOW EASY it was for me to get away from Dylan in Riverside Park? It turns out he expected me to try to run from him. In fact, he wanted me to run.

“I thought you were hiding something. I figured I’d let you run and I’d follow, see where you led me. We were listening to your cell phone calls and were able to track your movements to the Internet café, the SRO on Forty-second Street. Then we lost you. Actually, you walked right by my partner. Nice job with your hair, by the way. You’ve got a whole Sex Pistols thing going there.”

“Thanks,” I said with a narrowing of my eyes. “You don’t look that great, either.”

“You made some calls from Inwood, so we headed up there. The last call we picked up was your conversation with Grant Webster. By the time we figured out where you were and got up there, you were gone. NYPD had already arrived-they’d been called about gunshots and a helicopter, but they didn’t know what happened. They were searching the area, picked up some shell casings from automatic and semiautomatic fire. That was it.”

“No sign of Jake.”

He shook his head. “No, Ridley. I’d tell you if I knew something. I promise.”

I nodded.

“We went to Grant Webster’s apartment in the Village.”

“Was he…?” I couldn’t stand to finish the question.

“Dead? Yes,” answered Dylan softly. I felt that sick guilty feeling that was becoming so familiar to me. I held some culpability for the things that had happened to Sarah, to Grant, to Jake, even to myself. I wasn’t sure how to deal with that. So I just blocked it out. Dylan went on.

“From his phone call, we knew you were in trouble, that he’d found something and tried to warn you. But Grant has some kind of kill button on his network. He managed to wipe all his data before he died. Anything he knew was gone.”

I shook my head. “I really doubt that. There must be backup somewhere.” I remembered his website, how he’d chastised people for not protecting and backing up sensitive data. He impressed me as a person who’d practiced what he preached.

“If there is, we haven’t found it.”

“He said I was walking into a trap, that ‘they’ thought I knew where Max was, that I could lead them to him.”

“Is that true?”

I gave him a look. “Um, no. You know, why don’t you believe me about this? You’ve been watching me for a long time now. If I was secretly communicating with Max, wouldn’t you know?”

“I didn’t know about the website. For all I know, you’ve been using the computer at your adopted parents’ house to communicate with him.”

I thought about what Grant had said about the government’s dislike of encrypted websites and steganographic software. I started thinking about that streaming video and how maybe it was just a way to hide a message. Again, I wondered what my father’s log-in might be. I was betting I could figure it out if I could get to a computer.

Dylan was watching me in that way that he had, as if he believed he could stare me into admitting all the many lies he’d thought I told. The sad part was I was just as clueless as he was. I sighed. What was obvious was that we didn’t trust each other. We could go around and around like this for hours. I didn’t bother repeating how I’d just found the website recently, that I had no way to log in.

“Anyway, the point is that we lost you,” he said. “I didn’t even know where to start looking. The fact that I’d taken you into custody when I really didn’t have the right to and then allowed you to escape caused me a lot of trouble. I was reprimanded and might have been suspended, except that I’m so entrenched in this investigation, I would be impossible to replace at this point.”

“So you do work for the FBI?”

He nodded slowly. “I work for the FBI Special Surveillance Group. We monitor foreign agents, spies, and others who are not specifically targets of criminal investigations.”

“Like me?”

He nodded. “And like Jake Jacobsen. The point is that I’m not exactly a field agent. I gather data, conduct surveillance, monitor communications and movement. If I see something suspicious, I raise the alarm. Jacobsen has been interesting to us because of his skills as an investigator. We’ve been on him for nearly two years. As a result, we’ve also been watching you.”

I thought about this for a second, the fact that I’d been under surveillance for I didn’t know how long. I looked at Dylan Grace, a man who’d likely heard every private conversation, read every e-mail, seen every move I made since I met Jake. The thought embarrassed and intrigued me. How well could you know a person, watching her live her life from a bird’s-eye view? You’d see all the faces she wore for the various people in her life. You’d hear the same stories and events repeated for different people, each version sounding a little bit different, tailored for the listener. You’d see her face when she thought no one was watching. You might hear her cry herself to sleep at night or make love to a man she cared for but couldn’t trust. For all of this, would you know her better, more intimately, than if you’d been her lover or her friend? Or did you know her not at all, never having been allowed entry into her heart?

He went on. “I watched your cell phone records, credit cards, ATM records, passport control. I didn’t find anything for two days. I feared the worst. I thought you’d disappeared like Myra Lyall.”

“Then?”

“Then a charge from the Covent Garden Hotel popped up on your Visa bill. I was on the next plane to London. I bribed the desk clerk for your room number, found you in the state you were in. Through my London contacts, I was able to get you some antibiotics and painkillers-that’s what I was jabbing into your arm. I went out to get some more bandages and antiseptic to take care of your wound. When I came back, you’d stumbled into the lobby. I watched as they took you away in an ambulance.”