"Not your concern. The Salvis are our biggest benefactors, so kindly hustle your aging Irish a.r.s.e to the kitchen and bring us a pot of fresh coffee. Oh, and ask Father Daniel to take the Ma.s.s for me."

"Yes, Father," she said, taking one last look out the window. "But you gotta wonder what he wants at this hour of the morning."

"I have no idea," the priest said.

"Sure as h.e.l.l he ain't here for confession," she said, cackling as she hustled her aging Irish a.r.s.e out the door.

Spinelli stifled a laugh. And good thing for me he ain't. I wouldn't have time to hear it all.

Three minutes later, Salvi stood outside Spinelli's door. "Good morning, Father," he said. "I was hoping to catch you before Ma.s.s."

"Father Daniel is celebrating the Ma.s.s this morning, but if you're attending, I'll get my vestments."

"I'm flattered, Father, but Teresa does enough praying for the two of us. I just came here to make a donation to the church. Ten thousand dollars."

"Praise G.o.d," Spinelli said. "And if I may ask, what is the occasion for such joyous tidings?"

"My son Enzo's diary. It means the world to us," Salvi said without a trace of joy in his voice. "I want to thank you for finding it and bringing a little piece of our boy back into our lives."

"Joseph," the priest said, "we'd be more than grateful to receive your gift, but I can't accept it under false pretenses. As I told Teresa, one of our parishioners found the diary. She turned it over to me to pa.s.s on to you."

Salvi nodded as if he'd just heard it for the first time. He took a checkbook from his breast pocket. "In that case, we'll make it twenty thousand dollars, but I want the donation to be in her honor. Please tell me who she is so Teresa and I can send a note of grat.i.tude."

"I'm sure she'd welcome that," Spinelli said. "Her name is Emma Frye. Let me go to my files, and I'll get her address."

Mrs. Sweeney entered, carrying a silver tray. "Good day to you, Mr. Salvi," she said. "And how's your lovely missus this morning?"

Salvi flashed his best benevolent community benefactor smile. "Wonderful. And you?"

He handed the priest a check, and Spinelli in turn handed him a three-by-five index card, which Salvi folded and tucked into his jacket pocket.

"I'm well. Thank you for asking," Sweeney said. "I brought you both some hot coffee and fresh-baked scones."

"I wish I had time," Salvi said, "but I must run. Peace be with you, Father."

"And with your spirit," the priest replied.

Salvi nodded politely at Mrs. Sweeney as he brushed by her and left the room.

I guess you got whatever it was you came for, she thought. And 'tweren't no f.e.c.king scones.

Chapter 47.

When I first met Cheryl, I decided she was totally out of my league. She had a doctorate from Fordham University; I had a tin badge from the Police Academy. She was salsa; I was mayonnaise. And, of course, she was married to Fred Robinson, and I had a flat-out policy about not hitting on women whose first name was Mrs.

But that didn't stop me from fantasizing. And then her marriage crumbled. Still, I held back. I told myself she needed time to adjust, but I think it all went back to my first impression-she was totally out of my league.

Apparently Cheryl didn't agree, and three months ago she invited me to go to the opera with her. It was a magical evening, and even before the fat lady sang, it was clear that the door to a serious relationship was wide open. But I wasn't ready to commit. That very same week, my ex-girlfriend joined Red as my new partner, and despite the fact that Kylie was happily married, I was still pitifully hung up on her.

For the next three months, Kylie and Cheryl and I all lived together. The three of us shared cramped, unsafe quarters inside my twisted brain. I wanted them both, even though I was sure neither of them wanted me.

Had I manned up and told Cheryl what I was going through, I'm sure she would have diagnosed me as certifiably bonkers, but I kept my feelings buried, which is a basic tenet of my white Anglo-Saxon Protestant upbringing.

But when I woke up that morning after dinner at Paola's, everything had changed. I felt different. Good different. Fantastic different. It was more than the morning-after euphoria that warms you when a night that looked as if it were going to crash and burn ends in heart-pounding s.e.x.

I felt something I hadn't felt in months. Centered. I finally knew what I wanted, and what I wanted was the bright, funny, incredibly hot, s.e.xually adventurous woman lying next to me in bed, her thick black hair cascading over her smooth bronze shoulders.

I headed for the shower. Two minutes later, Cheryl, wearing nothing but a mischievous grin, joined me. One thing led to another, and I didn't question how lucky I was. I just accepted it.

Two hours later, I was in Matt Smith's office with Kylie.

"I pulled together a list of people Parker-Steele called on her cell phone, her landline, and her office phone," Smith said, "and I cross-checked to see if any of them owned black SUVs. A lot of her contacts live in Manhattan and don't even own cars, and of the thirty-seven who do, one drives a ten-year-old black Jeep Patriot. Her dentist."

"What's his name?" Kylie asked.

"Her name is Jo Ann Kinane," Matt said. "We're not looking for a female, and besides, the way the victim's teeth were mangled, do you really think her dentist would-"

Cates opened the door.

"Captain," Smith said, "we were just-"

"Save it," she said. "You people all know who Rachael O'Keefe is? She was accused of murdering her daughter, and the jury acquitted her?"

She didn't wait for an answer. Half the world knew who Rachael O'Keefe was.

"She was kidnapped last night at gunpoint. She was in Jersey with her sister. Two masked men stormed in at about three a.m. and took Rachael. They tied up the sister, and it was five hours before she managed to get loose. She was smart enough to call the Manhattan DA instead of the local cops. The DA called the commissioner, who called the chief of D's, who called me. We could be dealing with Hazmat. This one is different from the first four kidnappings-the other victims weren't taken by force, but if anyone sounds like a candidate for a couple of days of torture and a video confession, it's Rachael O'Keefe. I want you to get out to Jersey and interview her sister."

"It's not our jurisdiction," Kylie said. "You think we'll p.i.s.s off the locals or the Feds? It's a little early to be crashing their party."

"Well, well, well," Cates said, "look who suddenly wants to play by the rules. Do you think I have time to ask some police chief in Leonia, New Jersey, if I can trample through his sandbox? It's my job to worry about the political bulls.h.i.t. It's your job to get out there before the locals or the Feds have it on their radar. I already have a CSI team on the way. I want you two to dig up anything you can that relates to the Hazmat case, then get the h.e.l.l out fast."

"Who knew where Rachael was going once she was released?" Kylie said.

"Just a handful of people, but it was on a need-to-know basis. It was supposed to be a well-guarded secret, but secrets have a habit of leaking."

"Maybe the sister told someone."

"I don't think she'd be that dumb, but if she did, find out who and track them down."

Kylie and I headed for the door.

"And just in case preventing another homicide isn't enough incentive for you two," Cates said, "let me remind you that Election Day is only six days away."

Chapter 48.

"d.a.m.n," Kylie said as we got into the Ford Interceptor. "I could kick myself."

"Because you were trying to suck up to the boss by pretending to care about the rules, and she called you on it?"

"I wasn't sucking up to her, and she already knows I'm not exactly a Girl Scout when it comes to following directions. But I figured if she tore me a new one because of Damon Parker, I should at least let her know that I'm aware of the rules I'm going to break. She's sending two New York City cops to investigate a high-profile kidnapping that happened across a state line. We're about to violate more jurisdictions in one morning than most cops do in their entire careers. It's not just the locals we're s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g with. Everyone is going to want a piece of this-the Bergen County sheriff, the Staties, and, of course, the Feds."

"Sounds like your kind of fun," I said. "So why are you kicking yourself?"

"Because I knew this was going to happen. I knew Rachael O'Keefe was going to be kidnapped."

"And when was this?" I said as I got on the FDR at 96th Street.

"Monday night when the verdict came down. Everyone on the planet knew O'Keefe was guilty, and the first thing I thought when the jury let her off with nothing more than a slap on the wrist was, I'll bet the Hazmat Killer could have a field day with her."

"You should have said something."

"To who? And even if I did, what good would it have done?"

"Exactly. n.o.body would listen to you, and even if they did, n.o.body would have done anything," I said. "So stop kicking yourself."

Kylie's cell rang. She looked at the caller ID and muttered two words. "Oh, s.h.i.t."

She answered. "h.e.l.lo, Sh.e.l.ley. What's wrong?"

For the next sixty seconds, she just sat there listening. I had no idea what was going on, but I knew who Sh.e.l.ley was. Sh.e.l.ley Trager was born in h.e.l.l's Kitchen and grew up to be one of the richest and most likable TV and film producers in the business. Over the years, Sh.e.l.ley's company, Noo Yawk Films, provided jobs for tens of thousands of New Yorkers who would otherwise have gone hungry or, worse yet, been forced to move to LA. One of his most successful proteges was Spence Harrington, Kylie's husband.

"Which hospital?" Kylie said into the phone. "No, I'll get there as soon as I can. Thanks for calling."

I pulled over to a narrow gra.s.sy strip on the left and stopped the car.

"It sounds like something happened to Spence," I said.

"Something did. He's in an ambulance on the way to Elmhurst Hospital. He was on the set, stumbled over a light stand, hit his head on the studio floor, and got cut up by the broken gla.s.s. Why are we stopping?"

"We're three-quarters of a mile from the George Washington Bridge. I don't have time to run you to Queens, but I can get off at 179th and drop you at the bus terminal. From there you can catch a cab to the hospital."

"I'm not going to the hospital," she said.

"You sure?" I said. "It sounds like Spence got hurt pretty bad."

"Drive," she said.

"Look, I can handle O'Keefe's sister on my own. You go check on Spence, and then we can catch up after you-"

"Zach, Spence didn't just fall. He was so high on painkillers he couldn't see straight, and this time he destroyed thousands of dollars' worth of equipment and put his life and the lives of others at risk. Spence has a problem, and my going to the hospital to hold his hand is not going to help it. I told you this on Monday, and I'll say it again. This is the best d.a.m.n job in NYPD, and I'm not going to screw it up because of my drug addict husband. Now do me a favor."

"Anything. What?"

"Shut up and drive."

I shut up, pulled back onto the highway, and drove up the ramp for the bridge to New Jersey.

Chapter 49.

Driving onto Harold Avenue in Leonia, New Jersey, you'd never know that this anonymous little patch of suburbia was a powder keg that would explode all over the next news cycle.

A black van was parked in the driveway of the last house on the left. It was pulled in tight against a clump of high hedges so that the gold letters that spelled out NYPD Crime Scene Unit on the side panel were out of sight.

Our old friend Chuck Dryden looked up when he heard our car approach, and instead of burying his nose back in his work, he walked down the driveway to greet us.

"Detectives," he said with an uncharacteristic smile. "We meet again."

"I'm surprised to see you here," Kylie said. "There are no bodies to slice and dice."

"Ah, Detective MacDonald," he said. "I realize you think of me as a people person, but I have other talents you may not yet be aware of."

Kylie laughed as if it were funny instead of downright creepy.

"I've been told to sweep the place and make a hasty retreat," Dryden said. "I'll have a prelim for you in five minutes. The sister is inside."

Elizabeth O'Keefe, a recognizable face since Rachael's arrest and throughout her trial, was waiting for us in the kitchen. She was sitting on the only chair that was still upright.

"Don't come in," she said. "I just wanted you to get a good look."

We stood in the doorway and took in the mess. The room reeked of wine, and the floor was wet, slick, and covered with broken gla.s.s. The cabinet doors on one side of the room were splintered, and the lower half of the stainless-steel refrigerator door looked as if it had been rammed by a Toyota.

"There's some cheesecake over there," she said, pointing to a creamy yellow blob jammed against one of the downed chairs. "Take a slice back to the DA and tell him to shove it up his a.s.s."

"Ms. O'Keefe," Kylie said, "we're here to help find your sister."