Shadowkiller (8 page)

“I'm not cold. I told you.”

“Then why are you shivering?”

“I have no idea. I just feel funny.”

“Are you getting sick?”

“Maybe.”

The malaise had swept over her about fifteen minutes ago with the grim, all-consuming persistence of a physical illness that takes hold in an instant, accompanied by that familiar sinking feeling of grim inevitability. With a stomach bug, it was the realization that you were about to spend the better part of the next twenty-four hours on your knees.

With this chill, there was a similar feeling of foreboding; that same sensation that something unpleasant was about to happen to her.

But of course, it wasn't true.

Unless this was some kind of weird premonition, and she was about to be hit by a crosstown bus.

She hugged herself, shivering again.

“Maybe you shouldn't be going to class if you're sick.”

Luis, she noticed, had removed his arm from her shoulders, considerably widening the berth between them as they walked on down Fifth Avenue toward the next intersection.

“Don't worry. I'm not sick.”

“Then what are you? Scared?”

She hesitated. “Maybe. I don't know.”

Luis shot her a rare, serious glance as they stopped at the crosswalk to wait for the light at Thirty-fourth Street. “What's wrong, Allison?”

“I just feel like something bad is going to happen.”

She expected a return quip from him, but after taking a good look at her expression, he said only, “I hope you're wrong.”

So do I
, she thought, and tilted her head back, closing her eyes briefly.

When she opened them again, she saw the twin towers of the World Trade Center, twinkling in the distance, and found herself thinking of her father.

He'd always told her to pay attention to her instincts.

Yeah, well, what did he know?

Ha. Everything about everything, if you asked him.

“He just likes to hear himself talk,” Mom used to say, rolling her eyes whenever he launched into one of his long-winded, advice-laden monologues.

And yet, ironically, when his words might have mattered the most—the day he picked up and left—he opted for silence. Not a word of explanation; no indication where he was going, or why, or how they were supposed to pay the bills and keep their heads above water without him. Not a spoken word at all, though he wrote seven of them on the scrap of paper Allison and her mother found on the kitchen table on that final morning:
Can't do this anymore. I'm sorry. Good-bye.

Mom held her lighter to the paper, recklessly tossed it into the sink, and left the room. Seeing a lick of flame edging toward the curtains above the faucet, Allison had turned on the tap. Later, she'd wonder why she'd even bothered. She might as well have just let it burn—take the whole damned house with it—rather than wait for foreclosure to claim the roof over their heads, the one thing Mom had hoped to salvage from the marriage.

“Why did he do it?” she asked her mother, and herself, and—of course—Winona, the imaginary sister who came to live in Allison's head the day her father left.

It was ironic that Allison had woken up that morning from a happy dream about having a sister, and had taken it to mean that her parents were going to have another baby. In fact, she was headed into the kitchen to tell her mother about it when she found the note saying that her father was gone.

Why? Why? Why did he do it?

Even Winona couldn't tell her why a man would just turn his back on his wife and child one day out of the blue, leaving them destitute. Even Winona didn't know how he could have transformed overnight from father of the year to heartless monster.

Okay—he'd been neither of those things in reality. But Allison had spent the first decade of her life loving him and the second decade hating him; in her mind, the paradox was, for too many years, the primary source of her pain. How did someone go from loving you one day to leaving you the next? How did you guarantee that it wouldn't happen again, with the next person you allowed yourself to love, and trust?

What about her father? Did he have regrets? Was he out there somewhere even now, wondering what had ever happened to them after he left? Or didn't he care?

Of course he didn't care
, Allison reminded herself.
And I don't care, either. Not anymore. Not in a long time. Not about him.

Yet even now, on a weirdly warm March evening in New York City, hundreds of miles—as far as she knew—and a lifetime away from her father, Allison couldn't help but think of him anyway.

Was that why she was feeling chilled to the bone?

Once in a while, she'd catch a flicker of something—the smell of a certain aftershave, or a few notes of an old song—that stirred a long-buried memory. Sometimes, she knew right away what it was, other times, she'd find herself feeling ill at ease before she even put her finger on the cause.

Channel surfing on a recent stormy Saturday, she came across the movie
Toy Story.
Something about it made her vaguely uneasy, but she didn't understand why until she realized that the Woody character was voiced by Tom Hanks—the actor who'd starred years earlier in
Big
, a movie she'd watched with her father on that last day, before he took off.

Tonight, she had the same inexplicably unsettled feeling, though it was tinged with foreboding. What had triggered it? An overheard snippet of conversation, a passing face that reminded her of his?

Or what if—

No. The possibility was too outlandish to even consider.

There were eight million people in this city. Even if her father happened to be here on vacation or on business or something, what were the odds that she'd run into him on the street?

Actually . . .

If you ruled out the boroughs and all the areas where tourists and visiting businessmen weren't likely to go, you'd come down to a couple of relatively condensed Manhattan neighborhoods.

This was one of them.

Allison had to at least wonder whether, if she were anywhere in the vicinity of her own flesh and blood, some deep-seated, primal awareness might take hold.

And so, as she and Luis walked on down Fifth Avenue, she found herself scanning the faces in the crowd, looking for him in the faces of strangers. After he left, her mother had burned every photo of him, relegating his image to an increasingly dim corner of Allison's memory.

He'd be older now—perhaps gray or balding. Would she even recognize him? If he was here somewhere, she didn't see him, and at last, the feeling of dread began to subside.

I
n this part of town, the blocks just west of Fifth Avenue were wider than the crosstown blocks east of the avenue. To Carrie, it always seemed to take forever to walk along Forty-second Street to reach the intersection with Sixth. Tonight, though, covering that same distance with Mack, she felt as though they'd covered that stretch in no time.

When the “Don't Walk” turned to “Walk” just as they reached it, meaning they didn't have to stop, she felt a pang of regret—which was ironic, because ordinarily when that happened, she'd welcome the efficiency of not having to stop and wait.

She hated to wait. For anything.

She'd grown up waiting. For
him
.

For all the things she had been promised; things that never came to pass.

“You know I'm trying to spend more time with you,” Daddy had said. “I'm doing my best. Bear with me. Be patient . . .”

You're full of shit, Daddy
, she wanted to tell him—but not, of course, at first. Back then, she listened to him, believed him, and tried to do what he asked her to do.

Be patient . . .

I was patient! And you—you were full of shit!

Can I say it now, finally? I've been waiting a long time to tell you.

Of course, it was too late for that.

But not for everything.

Tonight, at long last, she had patience. Tonight, she wouldn't have minded lingering at the crosswalk for a minute, prolonging the completion of her journey to the subway station at Times Square, where she would part ways with Mack.

“So I guess,” he said as they crossed the wide avenue, “it's pointless of me to ask for your phone number then?”

Carrie's heart skipped a beat. Unable to think of a light, flirtatious response, she said, “You can have my number if you want it.”

“Do you have a business card?”

When she shook her head, he reached into his bag again. He pulled out a pen and, after a bit of hunting, a manila folder to write on. It was full of papers, and it struck her that she didn't even know what he did for a living.

Yet she knew that his mother was dying.

She also knew, crazy as it seemed, that there was something about this stranger that had made her feel safe even before she found out his name.

She knew, too, that she wanted to see him again—the first time she'd ever met anyone and cared whether he was just passing through her life, or might possibly make a repeat entrance.

That was more than enough reason to give him her real phone number. Well, just her work number.

Despite her connection with him, she felt protective of her cell number, and of her home number, too. The walls she'd built around herself were designed to keep people out; to keep herself hidden away from those who might pry. They weren't going to come down easily—if ever.

Mack wasn't prying, though.

He was too caught up in his own problems to pry. Maybe that was part of the appeal. Maybe that was why she found herself fervently willing him to call her when he jotted down her number and said that he would.

“Do
you
have a card?” she asked, and he reached into his pocket and handed one to her.

She saw that he worked in midtown, in television advertising sales.

For some reason, that made her think of Allison.

Remembering why she was here in New York, she put his card into her pocket and picked up her pace, seeing the Times Square subway station up ahead.

Mack, too, seemed to have fallen back into his own reality, silent as they covered the final block.

“Well . . . it was nice bumping into you,” he said lightly.

“You too.”

“Thanks for listening.”

What was she supposed to say to that?

You're welcome?

Thanks for talking?

Better to not say anything at all.

Except, of course, good night.

Which she did.

As she descended the subway stairs, she forced herself not to look back over her shoulder. She had a feeling he'd already moved on, but she suspected she was meant to see him again.

See that?
Daddy's voice seemed to say, triumphantly.
If you hadn't listened to my advice—and your own instincts—you never would have met him.

Yes. Now if those same instincts could just lead her to Allison, she could set things straight—whatever that entailed—and get on with her life.

Rather, actually
have
a life. Build a life of her own . . .

Or, perhaps, with someone else.

A smile played at her lips as she fed her subway token into the closest turnstile.

Chapter Five

O
rdinarily, McSorley's wasn't Mack's idea of an appropriate restaurant for a first date. La Grenouille was much more fitting, or Daniel; maybe even Le Cirque.

Not that he was particularly fond of French food. His taste ran more to burgers and onion rings.

But most women, he'd discovered, enjoyed being extravagantly wined and dined. He had dated plenty of women, been infatuated with many, though not in love. Now, on the heels of his latest failed relationship, a disillusioned Mack had finally reached the conclusion that when it came to dating, it was a big mistake to go all-out from the very beginning. He was only setting up those women—and himself—for disappointment down the road, when his finances, not to mention his energy and his emotions, would inevitably be depleted.

He'd met Chelsea Kamm back in December, when he was Christmas shopping at Saks on his lunch hour. She was browsing the silk scarves as an attractive salesgirl helped Mack pick one out for his sister. When she stepped away momentarily, Chelsea leaned in and said, “That's not really for your sister, is it?”

Startled by the question, he looked up and found himself looking at one of the most beautiful women he'd ever seen.

“I thought you were an angel, standing there,” he later told her. Bathed in the glow of thousands of white twinkle lights, everything about her—from her white blond hair to her porcelain skin to her ivory cashmere coat—seemed ethereal.

“Sure it's for my sister,” he told her. “Why?”

“I thought you were just saying that because you were trying to hook up with the salesgirl and you didn't want her to know you were shopping for a girlfriend. Or your wife.”

“If you knew me, you'd know that I would never do that,” he said. “I'm a lousy liar.”

“So you really do have a sister?”

“Yup.”

“What about a wife?”

“Nope. Not even a girlfriend.”

“Kids?”

“Not unless you count Marcus.” He explained about the eighteen-year-old he'd met a few years ago through his volunteer work with the Big Brother organization. Marcus had graduated from high school in June, enlisted in the army, and just sent a Christmas card saying he'd finished basic training in Kentucky and was about to head overseas.

“I'm not counting Marcus,” Chelsea said.

He got her phone number on the spot, and they went out for almost three months—“out” being the operative word. Fancy restaurants, exclusive nightclubs on New Year's Eve and Valentine's Day, a couple of ski weekends in Vermont . . . his idea, all of it. Really, he only had himself to blame.

The whirlwind got the better of him when a cold snap set in just as the stress level at the office heated up. All Mack wanted to do on February weekends was curl up on the couch with a movie and takeout; Chelsea didn't see why they couldn't fly off to the Caribbean.

“No better R&R than that,” she crooned, resting her red-manicured fingertips on the sleeve of his suit coat.

“I'm exhausted, Chelsea, and I'm broke.”

“I'm exhausted, too, and I'm more broke than you are. I really need you to take me away for a few days. Come on.” Her fingers tightened on his arm, and he cringed as if they were bloody talons, finally acknowledging that his first impression of her had been wrong. She was no angel.

Whatever he said next—later, he didn't even recall what it was—launched the fight that resulted in her ceremoniously deleting every trace of him from her Palm Pilot and cell phone, thus ending the relationship.

Looking back and dissecting it, he knew he probably should have realized at the very beginning—when he bought his sister a silk scarf and Chelsea treated herself to a couple of them, same pattern, different shades of blue—that she had expensive taste and a petulant, self-indulgent streak. Those were her fatal flaws.

His own was that he'd always been a sucker for glamorous, statuesque blondes.

“What guy isn't?” his friend Ben asked, when the relationship was on the verge of crashing and burning a few weeks ago.

“Randi”—she was Ben's wife—“isn't a glamorous, statuesque blonde.”

“I didn't say you should marry them. Just that I get why you want to date them. Don't beat yourself up, Mack. You're only human.”

“I'm a walking cliché—and I'm dating one.”

“So what are you going to do about that? Dump her and only go out with mousy, unassuming brunettes from now on?”

“Maybe.”

He couldn't think of a better description for Carrie—or a reason not to give her a chance.

Of course, it wasn't just that he was open to a new type of woman when he met her last Tuesday night. Having learned hours earlier that his mother was dying, he was spiraling; she unwittingly wandered into his path, broke his emotional freefall.

In the days since, he'd found himself forcing his thoughts to go to her when they wanted to wander someplace darker. Forcing himself, too, as the weekend approached, to take out her number and dial it—to make a date, because that was what he usually did on Friday or Saturday nights, and he wanted some semblance of normalcy in the face of tragedy.

Or maybe he really was just lonely and isolated in his grief, wanting someone to talk to, selfish as that might be. Someone who would listen.

For the first time in his life, he was at a loss as to where else he might turn to find that human connection.

Not Ben, close as they were. It was one thing to confide in him about women, or work. But Ben had recently been promoted: he was no longer just Mack's friend and colleague; he was also his manager.

You don't cry on your boss's shoulder.

Mack would have to tell Ben about his mother eventually—he would need time off to be with her. But not just yet, when his emotions were so raw that he wasn't sure he could get through a conversation about his looming tragedy without breaking down.

There were other friends, too, of course—friends who were always happy to share a couple of beers or watch a ball game. But guys—at least, these guys—didn't summon each other to pour out their personal problems.

Nor could he turn to his father or his sister or brother-in-law, or even the dozens of aunts, uncles, and cousins back in Jersey. Some were closer to him than others, but they were all facing the same loss and seeking the same solace. He didn't want to commiserate. He wanted to make sense of what was happening, or forget that it was happening, or maybe he just wanted to purge.

Sometimes, when you needed someone, only a perfect stranger would do. Rather, a decidedly imperfect stranger.

Carrie had nice brown hair, pleasant features, and a decent figure that, when you added them all up, fell far short of beautiful, and even somewhat short of pretty.

But something about her appealed to him. She had struck him, Tuesday night, as—maybe not lonely. More like . . . alone. Isolated. Maybe not by choice. She was new here, probably didn't have a lot of friends. Even if nothing came of it . . . he decided to see her again.

“Hi,” he'd said when he called on Friday afternoon, “it's Mack. From the park. And the walk. The other night.”

Another woman—a woman for whom flirting was second nature—might have quipped, in return, “Hi, Mack from the park and the walk the other night.”

Not Carrie. She just said, “Hi.”

That was fine with him. He wasn't feeling flirty himself, and not in the mood to make small talk, so he got right to the point. “Do you want to get together tomorrow night? Are you busy?”

“No. I'm . . . not busy.”

Her stilted response made him wonder if he was making a mistake, but he forged on. “So do you want to?”

“That would be nice,” she said. “Where do you want me to meet you?”

That she didn't assume he was going to come to her doorstep to escort her, hand on elbow, was so refreshing—and such a relief—that it didn't strike him as unusual at the time.

Only now, when he walked into McSorley's and looked around for her, did it occur to him that she might have wanted to give herself an out. Or that she might not have wanted him to see where she lived, for whatever reason. Maybe she was destitute, or super-wealthy, or married  . . .

Not immediately spotting her, his mind raced through the possibilities.

He was right on time. Was she on her way, maybe running a little late?

Had she stood him up?

Taken one look around this place and fled?

With Saint Patrick's Day looming, the legendary Irish pub was raucous and even more crowded than usual. Nearly all the patrons were male; most of them guzzling dark or light ale from glass mugs, shouting at each other and the bartenders above the music and the other patrons who were shouting at each other and the bartenders. Those who weren't shouting or sipping were feasting on the bar's signature dish: wedges of orange cheese and raw onion served with saltines and hot mustard.

Adding a visual note of chaos to the cacophony, a hodgepodge of paraphernalia—mugs, caps, framed vintage photographs and clippings—cluttered the walls all the way up to the high dark plank ceiling.

What the hell are you doing, Mack, inviting a girl here on a first date?

Trying to prove a point—to himself, and to her.

The point being:
Don't get your hopes up. This is as good as it gets, so take it or leave it.

Who'd blame her if she'd already left?

But she hadn't. Suddenly, he spotted her, sitting alone at a table in the back. No, it was more that he
recognized
her. He'd seen her and glanced right past her at first, not realizing it was she, because she looked . . . again, not beautiful. She wasn't beautiful. But now he saw that she was actually pretty.

Her hair was loose and she was wearing makeup, and a navy blue sweater with jeans—not tight, but her clothes hugged her figure in a flattering way. But she wasn't trying too hard. No, she was as unpretentious as the place he'd so deliberately chosen for their first date, and for him, tonight, it worked.

Gazing at the chalkboard menu, she didn't seem to see him as he made his way across the sawdust floor, enveloped in the familiar scent of beer and the lively chatter, and the familiar opening strains of one of his favorite U2 songs playing in the background.

He made his way past a group of drunken former frat boys, swaying arm-in-arm. On another night, Mack might have been right there with the likes of them, sing-chanting the familiar lyrics.
But I still . . . haven't found . . . what I'm looking for.

Not tonight, though.

Tonight—he had a feeling he might have found it.

A
nother Saturday night and I ain't got nobody . . .

The lyrics of the old Cat Stevens cover ran through Allison's head as she climbed the steps of her Hudson Street apartment building, holding an open umbrella in one hand and in the other, carrying a paper-in-plastic bag of Chinese takeout and a rented Blockbuster video.

The movies had been pretty picked over at this hour on a Saturday night—to get the new releases, you really had to show up before the start of the weekend. But she'd gone out with friends from work last night, and she was supposed to have a date tonight—a blind date with a biologist named Justin, who was a cousin of a friend of a friend.

He'd called to cancel last night, saying something had come up and he'd get back to her.

He hadn't yet, but she was hoping he would. He'd sounded nice and casual and normal on the phone, as promised by his cousin and her friend's friend. In general, she wasn't entirely comfortable with blind dates, but they seemed to be a necessary evil when you worked long hours in an industry that suffered a perpetual shortage of straight, eligible men.

So here she was, spending yet another rainy March weekend alone, trying to get the old song out of her head because it reminded her of her father, who'd constantly played that ancient
Cat Stevens Greatest Hits
cassette on the tape deck in his car.

“ ‘Another Saturday Night' was Stevens's remake of an oldie by Sam Cooke. It was released in 1974, the year I met your mother,” he would tell her. “That was a great year for music. Here, listen to another one from that year.”

Then he'd play Harry Chapin's “Cat's in the Cradle,” and they'd sing all the lyrics together.

And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon . . .

She loved that song.

Then, anyway.

After he was gone, she couldn't bear to hear it.

When you comin' home, Dad? I don't know when . . .

Yeah. She'd hated that song for years now.

At the top of the stoop, Allison shifted the umbrella to feel in her pocket for her keys, and raindrops spilled down her cheeks like tears.

Another Saturday night and I ain't got nobody
 . . .

But on a raw, blustery night like this, she'd just as soon stay home. She'd been hoping to rent a good scary movie like
The
Sixth Sense
, but it wasn't out yet on video, and she'd already seen
Stir of Echoes
, the only other recent thriller they had in stock. So she'd settled on a romantic comedy, deciding she might as well live vicariously through Julia Roberts. It wouldn't be the first time.

And she wouldn't be the only one, according to Luis, who was a huge Julia fan.

“What woman wouldn't want to be Julia? I would if I were a woman.”

“You mean, you'd want to be the characters she plays,” Allison told him. “Although—that's probably the same thing.”

“Not at all. Julia is an amazing actress, Allison. She's going to win an Oscar one of these days. You mark my words.”

“Yeah, sure, Luis. I wouldn't hold my breath for that if I were you.”