Тесс Герритсен - I Know a Secret

“I live in the North End. I was here to meet friends too, but they canceled at the last minute.” How easily the lie slips off my lips, and he has no reason to doubt me. Most people automatically assume that you’re telling the truth, which makes life so much easier for people like me. I hold out my hand to shake his, a gesture that men find unnerving when a woman does it, but I want to set the parameters early. I want to make it clear that this is a meeting of equals.

We sit for a moment companionably sipping our coffees, watching the action. Police investigations are, for the most part, unexciting to watch. All you see are vehicles coming and going and people in uniforms walking in and out of buildings. You don’t get a view of what’s going on inside; you can only surmise, based on which personnel shows up, what the situation might be. There’s a calmness, even boredom, on all the cops’ faces. Whatever happened on Utica Street took place some hours ago, and investigators are simply assembling the pieces of the puzzle.

With nothing very interesting to watch, the other customers in the coffee shop drift away, leaving Blue Eyes and me alone at the window counter.

“I guess we’ll have to check the news to see what happened,” he says.

“It’s a murder.”

“How do you know?”

“I saw a homicide detective out there a few minutes ago.”

“Did he come over and introduce himself?”

“It’s a she. I don’t remember her name, but I’ve seen her on TV. The fact she’s a woman interests me. It makes me wonder why she chose that sort of job.”

He eyes me more closely. “Do you, uh, follow this sort of thing? Murders?”

“No, I’m just good at remembering faces. But I’m lousy at remembering names.”

“While we’re on that subject of names, mine is Everett.” He smiles, and charming laugh lines crease his eyes. “Now you’re free to forget it.”

“What if I don’t want to forget it?”

“I hope that means you think I’m memorable.”

I consider what might happen between us. Looking into his eyes, I suddenly know exactly what I want to happen: We go to his place in the Back Bay. We chase our coffees with a few glasses of wine. And then we rut all night like hot bunnies. What a shame he’s supposed to meet his friends for dinner in the neighborhood. I’m not at all interested in meeting his friends, and I’m not going to waste any time waiting by the phone for him to call me, so I guess this is hello and goodbye. Some things aren’t meant to happen, even if you want them to.

I drain my coffee cup and rise from my seat. “It was good to meet you, Everett.”

“Ah. You remembered my name.”

“Hope you have a nice dinner with your friends.”

“What if I don’t want to have dinner with them?”

“Isn’t that why you’re in the neighborhood?”

“Plans can change. I can call my friends and tell them I suddenly need to be somewhere else.”

“And where might that be?”

He stands up too, and we’re now eye-to-eye. That tingle in my leg spreads to my pelvis in warm, delicious waves, and all at once I forget about Cassandra and what her death might mean. My attention is only on this man and what’s about to happen between us.

“My place or yours?” he asks.

Amber voorhees had violet-streaked blond hair and polished black fingernails, but it was the nose ring that most unsettled Jane. As Amber sobbed, threads of snot hung from that gold hoop, and she kept dabbing at it delicately with tissue to catch the drips. Her colleagues Travis Chang and Ben Farney weren’t crying, but they seemed just as shocked and devastated by the news of Cassandra Coyle’s death. All three filmmakers wore T-shirts and hoodies and ripped jeans, the uniform of young hipsters, and none of them looked as if they’d combed their hair in days. Judging by the locker-room smell of the studio, they hadn’t showered in days either. Every horizontal surface in the room was covered by pizza boxes, empty cans of Red Bull, and scattered pages from their film script. On the video monitor, a scene from their work-in-progress was playing: a blond teenager, sobbing and stumbling through dark woods, fleeing from some relentless and shadowy killer.

Travis abruptly turned to the computer and paused the video. The image of the killer froze onscreen, an ominous shadow framed between trees. “Fuck,” he groaned. “I can’t believe this. I can’t fucking believe this. ”

Amber wrapped her arms around Travis, and the young man gave a sob. Now Ben joined the hug and the three filmmakers clung to one another for a moment, their three-way embrace backlit by the glow from the computer monitor.

Jane glanced at Frost and saw him blink away a brief sheen of tears. Grief was contagious, and Frost had no immunity to it, even after years of delivering bad news and watching the recipients crumble. Cops were like terrorists. They tossed devastating bombs into the lives of victims’ friends and families, and then they stood around to watch the damage they’d done.

Travis was first to pull away from the hug. He crossed to a sagging sofa, sank onto the cushions, and dropped his head in his hands. “God, just yesterday she was here. She was sitting right here. ”

“I knew there was a reason she stopped answering my texts,” said Amber, sniffling into her tissue. “When she went silent, I figured it was ’cause she was stressing out over her dad.”

“When did she stop answering texts?” Jane asked. “Can you check your phone?”

Amber hunted around under the scattered script pages and finally uncovered her cell phone. She scrolled back through her messages. “I texted her last night, around two A.M. She didn’t answer.”

“Would you expect her to, at two A.M.?”

“Yeah, actually. At this stage of the project.”

“We’ve been pulling all-nighters,” said Ben. He too dropped onto the sofa and rubbed his face. “We were up till three, editing the film. None of us even bothered to go home, just crashed right here.” He nodded at the sleeping bags wadded up in the corner.

“All three of you spent the night here?”

Ben nodded again. “We’re under the gun because of deadlines. Cassie would’ve been working with us too, except she needed to pull herself together before she met her dad. Something she was definitely not looking forward to.”

“What time did she leave here yesterday?” Jane asked.

“Around six, maybe?” Ben asked his colleagues, who both nodded.

“The pizzas had just been delivered,” said Amber. “Cassie didn’t stay to eat. Said she was going to get something on her own, so the three of us kept working.” She wiped a hand across her eyes, leaving a thick smear of mascara on her cheek. “I can’t believe that’s the last time we’ll ever see her. When she walked out the door, she was talking about the party we’d have for picture lock.”

“Picture lock?” asked Frost.

“That’s when all the edits are done,” said Ben. “Basically, it’s the finished movie but without sound effects or music. We’re almost there, maybe another week or two.”

“Plus another twenty grand,” muttered Travis. He raised his head and his black hair stood up in greasy tufts. “Shit. I don’t know how we’ll raise it without Cassie.”

Jane frowned at him. “Was Cassandra supposed to deliver that money?”

The three young filmmakers looked at one another, as if unsure who should answer the question.

“She was gonna ask her dad at lunch today,” said Amber. “That’s why she was stressing out. She hated having to beg him for money. Especially over lunch at the Four Seasons.”

Jane surveyed the room, taking in the stained carpet, the ratty sofa, and the bundled-up sleeping bags. These filmmakers were well into their twenties, but they seemed far younger, just three movie-obsessed kids who were still living like dorm rats.