Wally took a deep breath and let it out in a rush. "Okay. Good," she said. "Nothing personal. I just now realized I wasn"t ready for it if you were. Not yet."
"You"re not ready because I"m not your mother," Dr. Rainer said kindly. "When you face her, you"ll know her. And you"ll be ready then. I"m sure of it."
When I face her. Wally"s mother was alive. She took a moment to let the reality of it sink in. It was hope that had driven Wally"s search forward, but in a corner of her heart she had always held on to a small amount of doubt, a lifeline to protect her in case her search ended in failure. That doubt was gone now, and Wally allowed herself to embrace the feeling of joy ... and antic.i.p.ation. The thrill of it raced through her, taking her breath away.
"Tell me everything," she said, barely able to speak the words.
SIXTEEN.
Detective Atley Greer pulled onto 88th from Columbus and parked in a loading zone, just a few doors away from the doctor"s address. He was seriously dragging after a long day of canva.s.sing on a home-invasion case, and when he spotted a Starbucks across the street, he headed in that direction for a jolt of espresso. He was early for his appointment and had plenty of time.
Atley was halfway across the street, just a hundred feet or so away from the coffee place, when he noticed that the shop was in the process of closing; the manager herded three teenage kids out onto the sidewalk and locked the door behind them. Atley stopped and scanned the street for another nearby source of caffeine but saw none, and was just about to head straight to Dr. Rainer"s office when something started to nag at him: hadn"t he seen those kids somewhere recently? He turned back to face the Starbucks and saw that although the shop had been closed, the teens were staying there, lurking outside the coffee shop as if waiting for someone. He looked them over again-still at a distance-and suddenly he realized who they were. These were Wallis Stoneman"s friends, the ones she had been with in the Greenport train station security camera footage. This coincidence struck Atley as especially unlikely; he"d been hunting them for over a week and here they were, outside an office where he was about to have a meeting that had to do with Wallis. What did that mean?
Atley looked away from them immediately, hoping they didn"t realize that he"d noticed them. After a few moments the teens abandoned their post in front of the Starbucks and began walking together down along 88th Street. They moved casually enough that Atley couldn"t tell if they"d made him or not. Following their movement in the reflection of a shop window, Atley waited until the teens disappeared around the corner at Amsterdam and jogged after them. He reached the corner and stopped there, peering down the avenue to confirm that the three kids were still far enough ahead of him that they would not feel him on their tail. They continued casually on their way down Amsterdam, not once looking back behind them.
Atley checked his watch. He still had half an hour before his appointment with the shrink and this was too good an opportunity to pa.s.s up. He started walking after the kids, south on Amsterdam at their same casual pace, keeping the distance between them consistent. They reached the corner of Amsterdam at 87th and turned left, moving out of view. Atley picked up his pace and reached the corner in less than ten seconds, but ... when he made the left turn onto 87th, he looked east down the street and saw no one in front of him, not on either sidewalk. No teenage street crew, no one. Empty.
"You gotta be kiddin" me ..." Atley mumbled angrily. He hurried along 87th, looking into doorways, scanning the recesses of walk-down bas.e.m.e.nt apartments, but the kids were nowhere to be seen. There were several storefronts nearby, including a dry cleaner, a pizza place, and an empty s.p.a.ce that used to be a bank, but a scan of these spots turned up nothing.
"Son of a b.i.t.c.h..."
Tevin, Ella, and Jake hunched low and motionless, hidden behind the half-size Dumpster in the pa.s.sageway behind the bank. Peering carefully out toward the street, they could see the cop looking around, p.i.s.sed off, wondering how they had lost him.
"How do we know this cop?" asked Jake.
"We don"t," answered Tevin. "I don"t, anyway."
"Me either. So why is he on us?" Ella asked.
As they considered the question, they watched the cop give up and turn around, headed back to where they had first spotted him: outside the Starbucks, across the street from the shrink"s office. Where Wally was.
"This is not good," said Tevin.
SEVENTEEN.
"I won"t leave here until you tell me everything," Wally said when Dr. Rainer had hesitated to answer her.
"I"ll tell you what I can, Wally," Dr. Rainer said. Wally could see that there would be boundaries to this interview; she would have to be cautious not to spook Dr. Rainer any more than she already had.
"You knew my mother very well," Wally began.
"Yes. Since she was your age."
"In Russia. You and Benjamin Hatch both knew her."
Dr. Rainer was surprised to hear Hatch"s name come from Wally.
"Yes. Benjamin and I ... we were together in those days. During our years at the Emerson School. Benjamin and I worked there. For a time, he and I ..." But the doctor"s thoughts drifted for a moment, and she didn"t finish her sentence.
"And my mother ... do you have a picture of her?"
The question seemed to catch Dr. Rainer off balance. Strange, thought Wally, since it seemed like a simple yes-or-no.
"I"m sorry, no," Dr. Rainer finally said.
"But you still know Yalena. She"s here."
A pause. "Yes."
"Do I know her?" Wally had a lump in her throat now, her voice cracking a little; she hated being in the grip of something so beyond her control. "Do I know her, Doctor?"
Dr. Rainer shifted uncomfortably in her seat. "I have questions too, Wally."
"No, you don"t understand," Wally protested. "I have to find her. Who is she, Doctor?"
"I can"t tell you that, Wallis," Dr. Rainer said. "I made that promise. And it wouldn"t be safe. If you had that knowledge, there are those who would do anything to make you tell, you see?"
It was obvious that Dr. Rainer would not compromise on this point, and Wally couldn"t afford to lose her as an ally.
"Okay," Wally said, trying to hide her impatience. "Then what can you tell me about her?"
"What do you want to know?"
"Well ..." Wally had too many questions. Where to begin? The beginning. "What was my mother like? Back then, in Russia."
Dr. Rainer thought back. "Smart. Pretty." Dr. Rainer looked up and set an appraising look on Wally, obviously making a comparison. "A lot like you, Wallis. Lovely, but ... more conventional. She had a worldly education; her own mother worked on the staff of the Emerson School, so Yalena practically grew up there, among the Americans. She was athletic. She played the piano well. She was a reasonably good student. Boys liked her, but she was ... reserved. By nature."
"How did things go wrong for her?" For the past week, Wally had been weaving imaginary narratives in her mind, trying to imagine the sequence of events that had resulted in Yalena Mayakova giving up her own child, her own flesh and blood.
"She had been raised by a single mother," Dr. Rainer said. "And Yalena craved a strong male presence in her life. She was drawn to men, not boys."
"She found someone," Wally said.
Dr. Rainer gave a dreadful sigh. "Someone found her."
"And there was trouble."
"Not at first, but yes. Bad trouble."
"What was the man"s name?"
Wally watched as Dr. Rainer wrestled with this question. Did she have to right to reveal the name to Wally? Did she have the right not to?
"Klesko." Dr. Rainer spoke the name with reluctance, as if it were a dark spell that she feared might conjure the man himself. "Alexei Klesko."
"Klesko." Wally repeated the name out loud, feeling it. She paused, then asked, "And Klesko is my-"
"Please don"t ask me, Wally," the doctor said, insistent. "I"m sorry, but it"s not my place."
"It"s not your place to keep it from me, either ..." Wally said, fighting to keep control of her frustration. At that moment she had another thought. She reached into her shoulder bag and pulled out the photo from the Brighton Beach file, the grainy black-and-white surveillance photo of the man she had encountered in the Hatches" house. She held the picture up for Dr. Rainer to see, and the woman went pale.
"Is this Klesko?" Wally demanded. "Is this my father?"
"My G.o.d ..." Dr. Rainer was terrified by the image. "Where was that picture taken? When was it taken?"
"Tell me, Dr. Rainer. Is this my father?"
"Yes, Wally," Dr. Rainer relented. "That is Klesko. That is your father."
Wally absorbed this news. She held the photograph before her and looked on it with new eyes. The man whose path she had crossed in Shelter Island-the man who had virtually radiated a sense of menace and violence-was her own flesh and blood. For some reason, the shock of this realization was not as overwhelming as it might have been, and now Wally realized that from the moment she had seen the man"s photograph in the Brighton Beach file, there was the smallest voice, deep inside her, that had already told her this truth. The revelation, however frightening, was something Wally was ready to embrace. She welcomed knowledge-even painful knowledge-over the ignorance she had endured for most of her life.
"What happened between Klesko and my mother?"
"Yalena was with Klesko for seven years. In the beginning their relationship was ... workable. But over time Klesko changed. Something emerged from inside of him, something dark. It became clear over time that his family"s business was with the Vory-the Russian criminal network-and the deeper he dove into that world, the more brutal he became. Yalena tried to leave him, of course, but he never allowed her to escape. By the time she became pregnant with you, she was resolved that she would raise you alone, that Klesko would never be part of your life. This is where Benjamin Hatch became involved. Ben had some business connections that he used to help Yalena get out of the country. The cost turned out to be terrible."
"What?"
"It was supposed to be cash. Benjamin"s business had gone to h.e.l.l; all he had was debt. He agreed to get Yalena out of the country, but for a price. To pay, she had to use Klesko"s money, and the only way to get away with that was to get him out of the way. Yalena was privy to details of a deal Klesko and his a.s.sociates had put together-some sort of smuggling operation-and she betrayed Klesko to the authorities. She brought Benjamin with her when she went to where Klesko kept his reserves-there was a cache hidden on the grounds near his dacha-which was a mistake. Once Benjamin saw what Klesko had there-"
"Alexandrite ..." Wally blurted her guess. It had occurred to her suddenly, a single critical item that might tie every aspect of the story together: the gem she"d received from her mother in the Brighton Beach file. Where had it come from? Had there been more?
"Yes," Dr. Rainer confirmed. "Once Benjamin saw Klesko"s cache of stones, he wouldn"t settle for anything less. Your mother had no choice. She was desperate."
"But Benjamin got the stones, right?" Wally said, trying to piece it all together. "He was paid, and Klesko was out of the way? Then why did she leave me behind?"
"Things went terribly wrong." Dr. Rainer sighed grimly. "Klesko"s a.s.sociates came after Yalena. In their minds, Klesko"s money was their money. They tracked her down; they would never stop. Yalena was faced with an impossible choice-"
Dr. Rainer was interrupted at that moment by a woman"s voice, calling out loudly from the direction of the building"s atrium. Her exact words were not clear from behind Dr. Rainer"s heavy office door. Dr. Rainer rose from her desk and made her way out of the office, onto the balcony hallway. Wally followed. As they reached the balcony, the woman"s call sounded again, and this time they could hear.
"h.e.l.lo?" came the woman"s voice. "Who"s there?"
Dr. Rainer and Wally stepped to the balcony and looked up two floors to find a Middle Eastern woman, in her mid-thirties and wearing a business suit, leaning out over the railing. She spotted Dr. Rainer and Wally.
"I hate when they do that," the woman said.
"Do what?" Dr. Rainer asked.
"Some guy rang my line from down at the front door," the woman said. "He said who he was, but I couldn"t understand his accent. I shouldn"t have buzzed him in, but I figured it was a delivery or something. None of those guys speak English anymore."
Now Dr. Rainer and Wally peered down toward the floor of the atrium, looking for whoever it was who lied his way into the building. The place was quiet and empty.
"h.e.l.lo?" Dr. Rainer called down toward the ground floor, her voice echoing in the high atrium s.p.a.ce. No response. She was anxious now, and Wally was too.
"I"ve been saying for years that we should have a doorman." The Middle Eastern woman spoke down toward them, sounding put out but not actually worried.
"Call the police right now," Dr. Rainer insisted.
"Oh," the woman said, taken aback by the urgency in Dr. Rainer"s words. "You think so? Okay, I-" The woman turned slightly away from the balcony, ready to walk back toward her office, but never made it any farther than that. A thunderous gunshot echoed through the atrium and a bullet tore through the woman"s chest, splattering blood on the railing as her lifeless body dropped out of view.
Wally and Dr. Rainer gasped and screamed in horror at the sudden, breathless cruelty of a life being taken before their eyes.
"Oh my G.o.d ..." Wally could barely choke out the words.
"It"s him," Dr. Rainer said, her face gone white in terror. She grabbed Wally and pulled her back through her tiny waiting room and into her office, slamming and locking both doors behind them. Within moments they heard someone kicking away at the outside door, trying to get in.
Wally imagined the man from the Hatches" house-a man who radiated terror-and struggled to process the reality of her situation: he was her father, and he was a killer. Was he here for her? For Dr. Rainer? It didn"t matter. He was coming in, now.
"The fire escape," Wally said. She rushed to the office window and unlocked it, heaving it up on its tracks. There was an iron security grate attached outside the window, but she couldn"t get it open until she figured out that there was a release lever inside the office. Wally pulled the lever and the iron grate swung up and away from the window, clearing a path for escape, but ... she immediately heard the sound of footsteps coming up the metal stairs of the fire escape. Wally looked down to see someone charging up the steps toward her, his long black hair whipping through the air-it was the younger man from the Hatches" house.
"s.h.i.t!" Wally said. Now she tried to close the iron grate, but it had swung completely away from the window and she couldn"t quite reach it. When she turned back around, she was surprised to see Dr. Rainer pulling a 9mm handgun from the bottom drawer in her desk.
"For this day," Dr. Rainer said, answering Wally"s look.
The doctor reached out the open window and, looking like someone who had practiced on a firing range but never actually shot the handgun in the real world, fired three quick shots downward. The sound of footsteps climbing up from below stopped, at least temporarily, but from the direction of Dr. Rainer"s waiting room came a crashing sound-someone bursting through the outside door-and now the second person was in the waiting room area, kicking hard at the door to the inner office, where Wally and Dr. Rainer were now trapped.
"These offices connect ..." Dr. Rainer whisper-yelled to Wally, and stepped to a closed door on the side wall of her office. She pointed her gun at the lock on the side door, grimacing with both hands on the grip as she squeezed the heavy trigger and blasted the lock with two deafening shots. The side door swung open, revealing a lawyer"s office next door.
Dr. Rainer charged into the lawyer"s office s.p.a.ce and Wally followed her. Wally shut the door behind them and with Dr. Rainer"s help tipped a big metal file cabinet down to block it, and just in time. They heard footsteps in Dr. Rainer"s office and angry words being exchanged in Russian. Suddenly the door they had just pa.s.sed through began to shudder as both men heaved against it, each effort shoving the file cabinet back an inch farther. Within seconds they would break their way into the lawyer"s office.
"The balcony," Dr. Rainer whispered. She and Wally rushed through the lawyer"s waiting room and headed toward the front door that would deliver them back on the atrium balcony, but just as Dr. Rainer"s hand reached out and gripped the doork.n.o.b, footsteps sounded out on the balcony, arriving outside the lawyer"s door, inches from where Wally and Dr. Rainer were standing. This pursuer started kicking at the door from the outside. The two women were blocked in again, this time trapped in the lawyer"s office.
Dr. Rainer took a step back and fired two blind shots at the door-some curses in Russian sounded from outside, curses of anger not pain-and soon the kicking at that door began again. By now the first pursuer had shoved the file cabinet a foot back and was just inches from having it open far enough to squeeze through. He grunted like an enraged beast with each monumental effort.
Until that moment Dr. Rainer had held herself together-had been strong on the outside, anyway-but now she began to tremble, and tears flowed out of her eyes.
"Oh G.o.d ..." she said. "He"ll make me tell. He"ll do anything. ..."
"There"s another connecting office," Wally said, seeing that the office had a side door similar to the one in the lawyer"s office.
Dr. Rainer seemed incapacitated by fear at that moment, so Wally grabbed the gun from her hand and stepped to the side door, firing two more shots into the door lock. The door swung open, this time revealing the working studio of some sort of craftsman-a builder of architectural models, which were arranged everywhere in the small s.p.a.ce-plus a worktable covered with materials for modeling, including paints and solvents.
The women ran into this next s.p.a.ce, where the only piece of furniture big enough to block the door behind them was a huge, metal blueprint locker, too heavy for them to move. Wally looked around and discovered a softball trophy atop the blueprint locker. Wally grabbed the trophy and jammed the narrow top end-the figure of a softball player crouched in a batting posture-in between the door and the floor, like a doorstop.
Wally turned back toward Dr. Rainer, who had flung the craftsman"s window up and was now trying to pull the latch under the window that would release the security grate. It was jammed shut. Wally joined in the effort, but the lever would not budge. The fire escape was blocked to them.
There was no second side door to this office, only a front door-where one of the men was already trying to break through-and the door back to the lawyer"s office, jammed shut by the softball trophy, but now that door was under a.s.sault also, the second man kicking and heaving himself against it, the sharp edge of the trophy digging into the floor but slowly inching backward, giving in to the pressure.