24

CARMEN DRIFTED IN and out of consciousness. When she was awake, sometimes she was lucid, sometimes she wasn’t. When she knew what was happening, damn, it hurt so bad! She couldn’t stand it. But not for herself. She thought only of Papi, wherever he was-home, somewhere, looking for her, waiting, going crazy. He must be tearing at his hair, pounding himself with his fists. Every second she felt Papi’s agony. She imagined her captor, saw his cold eyes, remembered the gun he’d brandished at her. But in her mind she wasn’t herself; she was her father, consumed by these terrible worries about his daughter. She saw her own death, bullets piercing her flesh. But she was Papi, visualizing her murder while sobbing over her dead body. It was his pain she experienced, not her own.

Eventually time stretched out and lost its meaning. Carmen began hallucinating. She knew she was hallucinating, but that didn’t matter. The visions were blindingly real. A woman started visiting her in the closet, a woman who looked strangely like her dead mother. But she didn’t talk like Mami had. This woman talked fancy, whereas Mami’s English had barely been passable. And this woman was mean, whereas Mami had been very loving.

“Life is a nanosecond,” the woman said. “Death is what lasts. Don’t fight it.”

“I can’t die. Papi would be too sad. You already left him. He needs me.” Carmen said this, even though she knew this woman was not her mother but rather a stranger masquerading as her mother.

“We don’t choose when to die, Carmen. Death finds us, just like this man found you. When he comes back, he’s going to kill you.”

“No. I don’t think so. Not right away anyway. He needs me to do something for him first.”

“You’re not going to do it, are you?”

“I have to. Otherwise he’ll kill Lulu. He told me.”

“And you believe him?”

“Of course I believe him. He killed Whitney and Brianna. He has the devil inside him, I know.”

“Then you’re making a deal with the devil. That’s not smart, Carmen. You’ll burn in hell. Resist him, say no. Let him kill you. It’s not so bad where I live. Come, and we’ll spend time together.”

“Please, don’t tell me to do that!” Carmen cried. “I need to save Lulu! I need to see Papi again! What the man’s asking is wrong, but it’s not so terrible. Who will it hurt if I do what he asks? Then maybe I could even escape-”

“Escape? You’re a foolish girl if you think that’s possible. Look at the way he tied you up. You’ll never get out of this closet,” the woman said.

“He has to take me out eventually, if I’m going to do what he’s asking. Maybe I could escape then.”

“No you can’t. He has a gun.”

“So maybe he won’t use it.”

The woman just laughed, an ugly cackle, nothing like Mami’s.

“What’s so funny?”

“You are, the way you fool yourself. How much time do you think you have left, Carmen? A day? A few hours? You don’t even know how long ago it was that Whitney and Brianna died, do you? You have no clue.”

“It can’t be that long, because I’m still alive. If I’d gone a week without food and water, I’d be dead. I mean, I am still alive, right?…Right?” Carmen asked nervously.

“I’m not going to tell you the answer to that one.”

“Someone will find me!” Carmen cried, in tears. “Someone will come rescue me, I know!”

“What are you talking about? Stupid girl! What makes you think anybody’s even looking for you?”

25

THE TEAM HAD AGREED to stage out of a pub a block from the Worth Street subway stop. When Melanie and Linda arrived, the place was overflowing with drunken Wall Streeters who’d begun their Christmas revels early. Melanie stood near the door and scanned the crowd. After the bracing wind outside, the sudden heat and noise made her dizzy. No sleep and very little food-she was running on fumes. She shrugged out of her coat, taking a deep breath.

“You see your friends?” Linda shouted over the din.

“Not yet. Looking.”

“Hey,” Linda called after a moment. She leaned closer to Melanie. “There’s a major hottie in the corner checking you out like you’re a thick, juicy steak and he’s a starving man.”

“Where?”

“Over there, but-No, don’t look, you no-brain!”

“That’s Dan.”

“What?”

“C’mon,” Melanie said, grabbing Linda by the arm.

Dan was staring at her. And somehow, in these clothes, in this place, she could handle it. As she walked toward him, their eyes locked, and everything else fell away. Blood pounded in her veins. She forgot about their almost love affair, their sort of breakup, the nights she’d spent alone obsessing over the way things had ended. She looked right back at him and let herself remember how he kissed.

“That’s him? His body is sick,” Linda said.

“Shut up now, or I’m gonna smack you,” Melanie said.

Bridget Mulqueen and Trevor Leonard, sitting on bar stools beyond Dan, popped into view as they drew near. She waved to them, not even trying to make herself heard over the racket. Dan stood up.

“Look at you,” was all he said, but there was a soft light in his eyes that she wanted to memorize.

“My sister dressed me up so I could pass muster. This is Linda. She’s gonna get us into Screen.”

Dan shook Linda’s hand. “Pleased to meet you.”

“Likewise,” Linda said. “Mel mentioned you once or twice.”

“Oh, yeah?” He glanced at Melanie, looking gratified.

“Enough small talk,” Melanie said. “We need to go over our plan.”

“Was she always so serious like this?” Dan asked Linda.

“Yeah, since she was a kid. That’s how she got into those fancy schools.”

“I admire that about her,” he said.

“Will you guys stop?” Melanie said, though she was eating it up. “Let’s talk business.”

She had told Linda that they were investigating heroin dealing at area nightclubs but given no indication that Esposito himself was their target or that the case was relating to the Holbrooke girls’ deaths. She’d disclosed enough to warn Linda of the risks of the operation, without giving her details that could compromise their plan or put Linda in additional danger.

“So how do you know where Screen is?” he asked Linda.

“A friend of mine deejays for Expo sometimes, and he gets me in. Tonight they’re set up in this abandoned subway station a few blocks from here. They bribed some guys from the MTA. You get on a certain train, and if you’re on the list, they let you stay on when they go out of service. When they turn around at the end of the line, they open the doors for you-and presto, you’re in Screen.”

“It must be the old City Hall station,” Dan said, nodding. “It was the jewel of the IRT before they shut it. The tile work on the arches is some of the most beautiful you’re ever gonna see.”

“Have you been in there?” Melanie asked.

“Yeah. Buddy of mine in the transit police took me on a tour once.” He leaned closer to Melanie. “I know you think I’m about as sharp as a marble, but I’m really interested in stuff like that. I’ll even go to an arty movie now and then.”

“I don’t think that,” Melanie said, looking up into his crystal blue eyes.

“You don’t?”

“No.” She shook her head.

“So listen,” Linda shouted. “My buddy Fabulous Deon can get a few of us in, but I’m not sure how many. And everybody has to look the part.” She studied Dan, frowning.

“I don’t fit the bill, huh?” he asked.

“To me you’re a little too big and clean-looking. Honestly, you look like a cop,” Linda replied.

Dan looked handsome and respectable in khaki pants and a navy V-necked sweater with a T-shirt under it. Melanie felt offended on his behalf.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she protested to Linda. “He looks like every one of these traders in here. I bet they could get into Screen, so why can’t he?”