Linda Fairstein - Killer Heat

Please keep talking, Lydia. Please tell us everything she said to you.

What did she tell you about the guy?"

"Weird. I even asked her, 'What guy?' Twice she said to me, 'You know, the one who comes to the fort every week.' "

"That's great, Lydia. Pam had talked to you about this young man before Sunday."

"That's what's so odd, Miss Cooper. She had never mentioned him to me. Pam talked about her job, about the other interns. She loved anything that had to do with history. But she didn't have a single date these two months, much less say anything about a guy she met at work."

"You're certain? You just didn't miss something while you were studying?"

"Pam never talked about a guy. Not once the entire summer.

I mean, she was hoping to meet someone interesting, but it didn't happen."

Either Lydia had been too deeply immersed in her periodic table of elements to listen to the earlier references or Pam was trying to make a point during that second phone call.

"What did she say?"

"I told you. She was with somebody, like I was supposed to know about who she meant," Lydia said. "Only I didn't."

"What were her words, her exact words?"

Lydia took her hands from mine and tucked her feet under the bench. She seemed to be trying to think.

I pushed her. "The words Pam used, tell me those."

" 'I haven't forgotten about dinner. I'll for sure be home by eight.' That's how she started. I told her I didn't know what she was talking about. Then she said. 'You know that guy I told you about? The one who comes here every week? Knows all these hidden places in the old fort?' 'What the hell are you talking about?' I asked. Then it was something about history. That he wanted to show her something historical.

Like a family place."

"Family place?" I turned my head and looked at Mike. Whose family, I wondered, and what kind of place.

"I think what she said was where his family went for holidays." The rain was teeming now and the tide was rising on the beach. I couldn't imagine Troy Rasheed and his family on a holiday outing, but I had visions of the Dylans at their vacation house a few miles away. I was as confused as Lydia.

"What holidays?"

Her words were clipped and firm. "I don't know. If I hadn't been so annoyed about the interruption, maybe I'd have asked more questions. It was just so unlike Pam. Then she said she was going and that she'd call me again when they got there."

"Got where?"

"Wherever the hell she agreed to go. Look, Miss Cooper," Lydia said, standing up, "at the time she called, I thought she was just showing off for this guy, pretending she had something else to do that night. I studied, I went to sleep and got up early. Pam wasn't there.

Great. I figured she and her history pal hit it off. Nothing strange about that. I took my exam, went out with a bunch of friends from school, spent the evening at the library, and when I came home late last night I realized Pam's backpack was still by the door."

"Did you try to reach her?"

"Yeah. Sure. I called her cell but it didn't even go to voice mail. I called five times. It just isn't like her not to follow the rules, you know? Not to turn in the park uniforms and stuff," Lydia said, laughing a bit.

"She's such a nerdy kind of good girl."

Lydia walked to the end of the bench, facing out to the rough sea, and sat down. "I had no one to call, didn't know the people she worked with. Then I was watching the late news, and the story about these girls who'd been killed came on. It didn't seem possible that it could have anything to do with Pam. But I kept watching, and there was a local news story that showed one of the bodies was found in Brooklyn, not too far from here."

Elise Huff, wrapped in the green blanket, was dumped in the marsh off Belt Parkway, right across Jamaica Bay from where we stood. "That's when you called the Suffolk police?"

"Yes, ma'am. Just a few hours ago." Lydia dug her hands back into her pockets. "I'm kicking myself now 'cause I think maybe Pam was trying to signal me."

"How do you mean?" I asked.

"She was so wound up, I guess she was really excited about whatever she thought she was going to see. But at the same time she was making a point to whoever was with her, if he was listening, that she had to be somewhere, with someone, by eight o'clock. Pam was obviously trying to let him know that she had talked about him before, even though she hadn't, I swear it. Like maybe she was a little bit afraid and wanted to warn him someone knew she was with him."

"You're doing very well, Lydia. Everything you know, every idea you put together-it all helps us," I said. "Has anyone asked you, did Pam say where she was when she called that second time?"

"Oh, yeah. She was right here."

"On her post, at Fort Tilden?"

"Yes, she and her friend-well, this guy-they were driving around the beach."

"I got them working the Lear girl's cell phone already, Alex. Looking for pings. Seeing if we can trace where she's gone. Getting nothing from it so far. Could be he ditched it," Dickie Draper said, waddling closer to me. Then he looked at Lydia. "Must be wrong about where Pam said she was. Think harder. They don't let anybody drive on the beach here. The only vehicles these park personnel are allowed to use going over the sand are dune buggies."

Lydia pursed her lips. "I'm telling you what Pam said, Detective.

That he was driving her all over the beach, showing her things she'd never seen before. In his jeep. I'm pretty sure she said he had an old army jeep.

An old army jeep," I said, as I watched the Suffolk officer lead Lydia to the patrol car to get her back to the mainland before travel became impossible. "What's the description of Wilson Rasheed's jeep that Edenton put out on the APB?"

"Willy MB, 1944," Mercer said. "Manufactured for the Department of the Army. Those little workhorses that could handle any terrain." Mike was giving Dickie Draper directions to Jimmy Dylan's Breezy Point house. "It's a five-minute drive from here. See who's at home. We need to reel Kiernan in."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, Mikey. Who died and made you the commanding officer? This frigging breeze is turning into a hurricane. I'm outta here."

"Don't panic just because they don't make life rafts big enough to hold you, Dickie. I didn't happen to come by car, so I'm counting on you to check it out."

The thunder and lightning were getting closer. It was almost high tide and the surf was raging. Joe Galiano came trotting over from the broken-up concrete pad on which we had landed. "We've got to get out of here now. It's going to be dicey. Winds are up to fifty miles an hour."

Mike didn't need to be told a second time. "Let's go, Coop."

"One call. Give me one minute." I held up a finger and backed into a corner of the long room so that I could hear once I dialed the number.

"You can fly in this?" Mike asked Galiano, as his hair whipped across his face.

"Seventy-four miles per hour makes it an actual hurricane. I'll get you home before that happens."

"If Coop moves her ass," Mike said, starting off behind Galiano.

"Mercer, she'll listen to you."

"Who you calling?"

"Nelly Kallin," I said. "On her cell."

Mercer tugged at my arm. I plugged one finger in my ear and held the phone to my other ear.

"Ms. Kallin? It's Alex Cooper. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, thanks."

"Still with your sister?"

"Yes, yes, I am. And I heard the news about Wilson Rasheed this morning."

"I'm sorry we didn't call you about that. I don't mean to be rude, but I have to make this short, Ms. Kallin, because there's another girl who's been abducted."

I heard a noise competing with the sound of the wind and waves and turned to see that Galiano had started the rotors of the chopper.