Lisa Unger - Die For You

“Are you on foot?” he asked.

“I am now. She took a cab to her sister’s apartment. I’ve been sitting here, waiting. She just left on foot, moving fast. I thought she’d hail another cab but she didn’t.”

“Where’s the vehicle?”

“Parked illegally across the street from the Books’ building.”

“Where’s she going?”

“I don’t know,” she said, drawing out the words as if she was talking to a toddler. “That’s why I’m following her.”

“Keep me posted,” he said, glancing up at Linda Book, then over to the two kids who both seemed pretty bored or unhappy or both. He’d been asking them questions in the family waiting area, getting nowhere.

“Where are you going?” Jez asked.

“I don’t know yet.”

“Then you keep me posted, too.”

In the first smart move he’d made in twenty-four hours, he had left Jez outside the hospital while he went inside. He couldn’t hold Isabel Raine; he knew he had no legal reason to do so. But one of them could stay on her, see where she went. Maybe she’d lead them to her husband. Maybe they’d see someone following her, like the alleged thugs who’d nearly killed her stepfather.

Isabel Raine was a runner. Not that he thought she was guilty necessarily, but she had an idea of herself that made her a flight risk. She was angry, she was arrogant, and she’d been betrayed. And she was looking for answers, thought she was better qualified than anyone to find them. She didn’t disappoint him, took the first opportunity she had to bolt. But, he’d noted, she’d waited until she knew her stepfather was okay, knew that he had family nearby, before she left. To him it said that she was a good girl at her core, if not a rule follower. Her staying when she could have more easily left was what they called in the business a telling detail. Not in the police business, in the writing business. The little quirk that spoke volumes about character.

He’d read this in one of the myriad books he’d read about fiction writing. It had stayed with him. He thought it was something that made sense in real life, too, in police work. The two professions weren’t really so different. You had to have the belly of fire, that drive to know and solve and speculate, to follow your hunches and go where incident and evidence impelled you. You had to have a terrible curiosity about character, about what made people do the awful, wonderful, terrifying, brilliant things they do.

He looked up at Linda Book, who was watching him.

“She went to your apartment.”

Linda nodded, as if this didn’t surprise her. “She has a key.”

She stood by the window, leaned against the sill and looked out, her arms wrapped tight around her body. He noticed that the skin on her hands was creamy white, her nails short, sensible squares. She wore a honker of a diamond, cushion cut, a carat and a half at least. She clenched and unclenched this hand unconsciously, squeezing the thick cashmere of her coat. He could tell it was cashmere, had always been good about identifying fine fabrics by sight or touch.

The way the light came in from the window, the golden light of afternoon, it caught the highlights of her hair. In the line of her nose and something about her brow, he saw Isabel Raine. It was easy to see they were sisters, though they had opposite coloring. Isabel Raine looked like she’d been dipped in milk. Linda Book was gilded by sunlight. They were both beautiful, but Linda Book was softer, more real somehow. It was the mother factor. There was a look to a certain type of mom, a compassionate knowledge of the human condition that can only come from changing diapers and soothing tantrums, bandaging knees and assuaging fears.

“Where will she go, Ms. Book?”

“Wherever she thinks the answers are,” she said, looking out the window again. He felt a wash of frustration. Stubborn stoicism must run in the family.

“You’re not helping her,” he said. “You’re not protecting her.”

“I’ve never been able to do either of those things, Detective. Never. Not unless she wants me to.” He watched her eyes drift over to her daughter, a tiny dark-haired girl who slumped in an uncomfortable chair, pretending to be asleep. “If I knew where she was going, I’d tell you.”

His phone rang again. He saw it was Jez, so he answered quickly.

“I lost her,” she said, yelling over street noise.

“What? How?” he said sharply, causing both Linda and the girl to look at him.

“I got caught in the crowd pushing out of the train and she snaked in. The doors closed and she was gone.”

“What train?”

“The uptown N/R.”

“Fuck me .”

Linda Book shot him an annoyed look, shook her head. The girl smiled, a small, amused turning up of the corner of her mouth. And in that second she was identical to her aunt. Detective Crowe was really starting to dislike this family of stubborn, too-smart women with bad attitudes.

“What are you going to do?” he asked her, sounding a little petulant even to himself.

“What can I do, Crowe?”

“See if you can catch her at the next station.” He heard her release an exasperated breath.

“Okay.” She said it as if he was an idiot and it would never work but she’d try it anyway. He ended the call. If he’d been alone, he’d have kicked something, issued a string of expletives to blow off steam. But he managed to keep his composure.

“I have an idea.” It was the girl, looking at him as if he might be interested in her thoughts.

“Really,” he said, sarcastic and annoyed. He saw anger, anger rather than intimidation, flash on her small face. He hated to admit it, but it cowed him a bit. He kept his eyes on her. She turned to her mother, as if he no longer deserved to be spoken to.

“Make Daddy go home and check the computer,” she said. “You can use the spyware you installed to see what sites she visited and try to figure out where she went that way.”

“What spyware?” asked Linda, widening her eyes and lifting her brow in a bad imitation of innocence.

“Yeah, right,” said Emily. “Like we don’t know , Mom.”

“Hey, that’s a good idea, kid,” he said, surprised.

Emily Book gave him a nasty smirk. “Duh.”

Five minutes later Erik Book was on his way downtown. Linda Book looked uneasy, rubbed her temples with the spread thumb and index finger of one hand, as though she was wondering if she was helping or hurting her sister.

WHEN THEY WERE girls, before their father died-because after that neither of them were ever girls again-everyone thought of Izzy as the difficult one. If Izzy had been first, Margie famously told everyone, there wouldn’t have been two. She was the one with colic, the bad sleeper, the finicky eater, the one who never napped. It had been said so many times that it became a kind of family legacy.

But Linda knew the truth. Izzy was wild, yes, where Linda was obedient. Izzy was outspoken where Linda was quiet. Izzy was honest where Linda was tactful. All these things added up to make Linda seem like the angel and Izzy the rebel. But as for who was the good girl, and who was the bad, Linda knew the truth.

She watched Emily now and saw the same pure soul she knew existed in her sister. In Trevor she saw the same conviction that good would always triumph over evil, a belief fueled by the mythologies of his comics and the legends of Star Wars , that there was a clear right and wrong in every situation. He sulked over by the doorway, battling his conscience and the nagging feeling she knew he had that following the rules in this case might not have been that right thing. He looked confused. She wanted to tell him that he was only going to get more confused as time went on, that things would never be as clear as they were right now. She’d been like him once, so righteous and sure. Poor Fred could attest to her punishing standards. She wanted to tell her son that it was all just shades of gray. But that was a lesson for another day.