*
A summer Friday afternoon is the worst time to drive to Long Island. The financial set clears out of the city as soon as the markets shut down at four. Everyone else who can afford a rental gets on the road even earlier. By four thirty, the traffic on I-495 is as thick and sluggish as cold gravy. It continues consolidating as it travels deeper into the heart of Queens, cholesterol-filled blood forcing itself through narrowing veins. We all know it’s only a matter of time before it stops completely.
I get trapped in bumper to bumper near Corona Park, where the Grand Central Parkway intersects New York’s main east–west artery. Part of me wants to sit in traffic and forget about the police academy to spite my spouse. The other part of me knows visiting my contact is the sole reason that I am in this mess of cars in the first place. I have to help David find out what happened to Nick so that we can move on with our lives once and for all.
I escape the gridlock by heading north. Traffic is still heavy, but it’s moving. Within five minutes, I’m sailing on the Whitestone Expressway. Another three minutes and I’m pulling into the home of NYPD’s new recruits.
The two-year-old building still shines like a new nickel. Skinny maples line the parking lot, their trunks the size of my thin arms. Very young trees are cheaper to plant, but I prefer to think these saplings were chosen for their metaphorical qualities. Like the men and women inside, they yearn to mature over long lives into something solid and powerful.
I smile and think of Beth. That line would never emerge from her lips. She’s no romantic. At least, not anymore.
I park in the stadium-sized lot in front of the facility and make my way to a massive portico. Its rectangular shape reminds of a giant metal detector. Walking under it, my keys don’t feel as though they belong in my jeans’ pocket. Glass doors lie on the other side. I pull one back and enter a wide open space that resembles a hotel entrance rather than a police station. The whole building smells faintly of glass cleaner and gunpowder, though the latter scent may be from my memories of the in-house shooting range.
I’d forgotten the size of this place. It was a mistake thinking that I could barge in and talk to an instructor who had me in class for a mere week. Sergeant Perez must train hundreds of real officers responsible for public lives, let alone writers trying to get fictional details right in shootout scenes. Why would he remember me?
For a moment, I think about leaving without approaching the annoyed-looking female officer manning the visitors’ desk. I could always tell David that I couldn’t locate my contact. Of course, then I wouldn’t get to be the hero wife who helps her husband move on from his friend’s death and is rewarded with regular sex and a healthy full-term infant.
The desk officer’s full cheeks and bright eyes make me guess that she’s no older than twenty-two. Still, she watches me approach with the clinical gaze of a seasoned detective. My tentative walk and sheepish expression do not do me any favors. By the time I reach the desk, she’s staring at me as though I’ve come to sell her magazine subscriptions. She demands my name in the gruff manner that I imagine she’d use to dole out loitering tickets. I provide it and my license, along with a rushed explanation of my purpose at the academy and my history with Sergeant Perez. “He said I could call him when I graduated, but since I was in the neighborhood, I thought I’d stop by.”
Her look suggests that she has not decided whether or not I’m a mental patient. Even with the jury out, though, she plugs Sergeant Perez’s name into a field on her computer screen and calls up his extension. A man picks up on the third ring.
The officer doesn’t do me any favors with her introduction. She explains that she has “a woman here” who “says she is from a writers’ workshop” and “claims that you know her.” She covers the handset and rolls her eyes up at me. “What did you say your name was?”
“Liza Cole. I’m an author.” Her eyes don’t show any recognition, but I don’t expect them to. While I’ve written half a dozen thrillers, only one of them had the kind of success capable of making me a household name—and that was years ago. I clear my throat. “I wrote Drowned Secrets.”
The woman’s narrowed eyes open. “Oh. I know that book. My mom read it. It’s about the kid whose dad—”
“Yup. That’s it,” I deliberately interrupt.
“Wasn’t it turned into a movie or something?”
“They still play it on Lifetime.”
Now convinced I’m not insane, the woman repeats what I’ve said to the sergeant and tells me he’ll be right down. I thank her and step away from the booth to lean against the glass wall. The last thing I want is to discuss my first novel and—to date—my only bestseller. That plot is not the stuff of polite discourse.
Sergeant Perez emerges from an elevator moments later. He looks exactly the same as he did a year ago: a fade haircut and a Tom Selleck mustache, along with an easy smile that must have short-listed him for a teaching position.
“Liza Cole,” he says. “Working on a new murder mystery?”
“Something like that.” I extend my hand. “It’s actually a real case.”
His chin pulls back into his neck as he shakes. “I can’t talk about cases on the record without approval.”
“I’m not writing about it. It’s a personal matter.” His look becomes even more skeptical. “I don’t know if you’ve read any of the articles about a missing lawyer? Nick Landau.”
The sergeant’s thick black eyebrows rise into Vs. “The guy that won that big judgment against the city?”
I hesitate before nodding yes. Police are paid out of municipal coffers. It’s possible that David and Nick’s lawsuit didn’t win them any friends on the force. “Nick was—” I clear my throat. There’s no evidence that Nick deserves the past tense—at least, not yet. “Nick is a partner in my husband’s law firm, and he was the best man at our wedding. My husband is pretty distraught. He doesn’t know what to tell clients. He’s also afraid that Nick may have been targeted because of the lawsuit and that he could be in danger himself.”
“Do you think your husband is in danger?”
My mouth opens, but no sound emerges. I realize that I’ve never seriously considered the answer. I’d always assumed that Nick’s disappearance/death had been related to his party lifestyle or the rough neighborhood in Brooklyn where he insisted upon living. But I didn’t know about the hate mail until last night. Maybe some nut job had done something horrible to Nick. Or someone who’d lost their job over the suit—a teacher at the kid’s school, maybe—decided to seek revenge. Such things happen in thrillers because they first make headlines.
“If Nick’s disappearance is related to the lawsuit in any way, I guess it’s possible,” I say. “I also think it’s plausible that he was the victim of a mugging or a drug deal gone wrong.”
Sergeant Perez scratches the side of his mustache. I may have made a mistake bringing drugs into the mix. Now he’s wondering whether I do coke on the weekends.
“Nick wasn’t really settled down like me and my husband. He hung with a young crowd and liked to party, and he lived in a higher-crime neighborhood in Brooklyn.”
The sergeant puffs his cheeks and exhales. Drugs and bad neighborhoods are deadly combinations. “I’ll look into it. Give me your number and I’ll get back to you in a few days.”
Relieved tears suddenly blur my vision. David will be so pleased and impressed when I tell him that I have a sergeant looking into Nick’s disappearance. He’ll apologize for calling me selfish and want to make up for his distant, cold attitude. I might not lose out on my chance to get pregnant this month after all.
“Thank you,” I manage. “It means a lot to my family.”