Douglas Preston: Cold Vengeance

Pendergast removed a vicuña overcoat from a closet, slipped it on, and helped Constance into her own coat. “Vincent, please make sure that Dr. Ostrom fully understands Constance is returning voluntarily — and that her departure from the hospital was a kidnapping, not an escape, entirely the fault of this phony Dr. Poole. Whom we are still looking for but are unlikely to find.”

D’Agosta nodded. “I’ll take care of it.”

They left the apartment and entered the waiting elevator. “When you get back to Mount Mercy, make sure she’s given her old room with all her books, furniture, and notebooks returned. If not, protest vigorously.”

“I’ll raise holy hell, believe me.”

“Excellent, my dear Vincent.”

“But… damn it, don’t you think I should go with you to the boathouse? Just in case there’s trouble?”

Pendergast shook his head. “Under any other circumstances, Vincent, I would accept your help. But Constance’s safety is too important. You’re armed, of course?”

“Of course.”

The elevator arrived at the ground floor, the doors whispering open. They exited the southwest lobby and walked across the interior courtyard.

D’Agosta frowned. “Esterhazy might be organizing a trap.”

“I doubt it, but I’ve taken precautions. In case anyone tries to interrupt us.”

They passed beneath a portcullis-like structure and through the entrance tunnel to Seventy-Second Street. An unmarked car idled by the doorman’s pillbox, a uniformed police officer behind the wheel. D’Agosta glanced around for a moment, then opened the rear door, holding it for Constance.

Constance turned to Pendergast, kissed him lingeringly on the cheek. “Take care, Aloysius,” she whispered.

“I’ll be with you as soon as I can,” he told her.

She gave his hand a final press and slipped into the rear of the car.

D’Agosta closed the door after her, walked around to the other side. He gave Pendergast a last, intent look. “Watch your ass, partner.”

“I will endeavor to follow your advice — metaphorically, of course.”

D’Agosta got in and the car pulled out into traffic.

Pendergast watched the car disappear into the gathering dusk. Then he reached into his jacket, pulled out a tiny Bluetooth headset, and fitted it to his ear. Slipping his hands into the pockets of his coat, he crossed the broad avenue, entered Central Park, and vanished down a winding path, heading for Conservatory Water.

AT FIVE MINUTES BEFORE SIX IN THE EVENING, Central Park lay under the drowsy enchantment of a Magritte painting: the sky above in vivid light, the trees and pathways below swathed in heavy dusk. The pulse of the city had slowed with the coming of evening; the cabs hushed by on Fifth Avenue, too lazy even to honk their horns.

The Kerbs Memorial Boathouse rose like a confection of brick and verdigrised copper beside the mirrored surface of Conservatory Water. Beyond it, past a fringe of trees dressed in autumn colors, rose the monolithic expanse of Fifth Avenue, the ramparts of stone blushing pink in the reflected glow of the dying sun.

Special Agent Pendergast made his way through the cherry trees of Pilgrim Hill and paused in the long shadows to scan the boathouse and its surroundings. It was an unusually warm fall evening. The oval pond was utterly calm, its mirror-like surface ablaze with the carmine and vermilion of the sky. The café adjoining the boathouse was closed for the day, and there were only a handful of would-be yachtsmen at the water’s edge plying their model yachts. A few children sat or lay beside them, hands idly stirring the water, staring out at the little vessels.

Slowly, Pendergast circled the pond, passing the Alice in Wonderland statue as he approached the boathouse. A violinist stood on the stone parapet that rose before the lake, case open at his feet, playing “Tales from the Vienna Woods” with almost more rubato than the music could stand. A young couple sat on one of the benches before the boathouse, holding hands, whispering and nuzzling, identical backpacks beside them. On the next bench over sat Proctor, dressed in a suit of dark serge, apparently intent on reading The Wall Street Journal . A vendor of chestnuts and hot pretzels was closing up his cart for the day, and in the deep shadow behind the boathouse, in a cluster of rhododendrons, a homeless man was preparing his cardboard-box bed for the evening. A sprinkling of pedestrian commuters strode past on the various walkways leading to Fifth Avenue.

Pendergast touched his earpiece. “Proctor?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Anything amiss?”

“No, sir. Everything’s quiet. A couple of lovebirds who can’t seem to get enough of each other. A vagrant who’s just finished scrounging a meal from the trash. Now he’s settling down for the night with what looks like a bottle of Night Train. An art class was painting the lake, but they left about fifteen minutes ago. The last model yachtsmen are packing up their boats. Looks like a go.”

“Very well.”

While they spoke, Pendergast’s hands had clenched unconsciously. Now he opened them quite deliberately, flexed his fingers. He made a successful effort to slow his heart to a normal level. Taking a long, deep breath, he emerged into the open, strolling to the short parapet surrounding Conservatory Water.

He checked his watch again: six o’clock exactly. He looked around — and then went quite still.

Two new figures were approaching from the direction of Bethesda Fountain, indistinct beneath the dark canopy of trees. As he stared, they crossed the East Drive and continued to draw closer, past Trefoil Arch, past the statue of Hans Christian Andersen. He waited, hands at his sides, keeping his movements slow and casual. Beside him, a young boy laughed joyously as two of the toy yachts collided while coming into port.

The figures, silhouetted by the evening sky, paused on the far side of Conservatory Water, looking in his direction. One was a man; the other, a woman. As they moved again, circling the lake toward him, he saw something about the woman — the poise of her bearing, the way her limbs moved as she walked — that momentarily stopped the beating of his heart. Everything around him — the yachtsmen, the lovers, the violinist, all the rest — vanished as he stared at her. As they rounded the edge of the lake they moved into a bar of evening light — and the woman’s features came clearly into view.

Time itself seemed abruptly suspended. Pendergast could not move. She, after a moment’s pause, separated from the man and came toward him with hesitant steps.

Was it really Helen? The thick auburn hair was the same — shorter, but just as lustrous as he remembered. She was as slender as she’d been when he first met her, perhaps even more so, and she carried her long limbs with the easy grace he recalled so well. But as she drew close he noted changes: crow’s-feet at the corners of her blue-and-violet eyes; those eyes that had stared sightlessly up at him on that terrible day among the fever trees. Her skin, always tawny and lightly freckled, had grown pale, even wan. Instead of the habitual self-confidence that had radiated from her like light from the sun, she had the diffident quality of someone who had been beaten down by the vicissitudes of life.

She stopped a few feet from him and they looked at each other.

“Is it really you?” he said, his voice little more than a croak.

The woman tried to smile, but it was a wistful smile, almost forlorn. “I’m sorry, Aloysius. So very sorry.”

Upon hearing her speak — a voice he now heard only in dreams — another shock rippled through Pendergast. For the first time in his life, he felt his self-possession gone; he found himself utterly unable to think, completely at a loss for words.