He said "we," but he was staring directly at Kylie and me when he said it.

"Can you do it, Detectives?" Diamond asked about as casually as a guy asking his buddies if they could come over and help paint the garage. "Can you?"

"Sir," I said, "NYPD will do everything in our-"

"I don't care if you can do it!" the mayor erupted. "I only care if you can do it while I'm still in office. I need to be there for the victory dance, and it d.a.m.n well better happen before Election Day, because after that, I don't give a flying f.u.c.k!"

He stormed out of the studio with Irwin Diamond right behind him.

Cates looked at us and shrugged. "Like I said-crazy as a s.h.i.thouse rat. Keep me posted," she said, and followed them out the door.

Sh.e.l.ley Trager hadn't said a word to us since we came in. Now he walked over to Kylie and put a hand on her shoulder.

"I'm going back to my office," he said softly. "Meet me there in five minutes. We have to talk."

He too left the studio, and Kylie and I just stood there.

"I'll wait for you in the car," I said. "You go talk to Sh.e.l.ley."

"No," she said, looking as close to sh.e.l.l-shocked as I'd ever seen her. "Go with me. Please."

Chapter 55.

"At least the haystack is getting smaller," Kylie said as we walked past the carpenters' shop toward Sh.e.l.ley's office.

"I'm not up on all the hip cop talk," I said. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means we've been looking for a needle in a giant haystack. On Monday we had about eight million suspects. But this lead narrows it down to a handful of people who could have known where Rachael was going. It's a much smaller haystack."

"And we're looking for two needles," I said.

We entered Studio 1 and took the elevator to the fourth-floor production offices. Kylie led the way down the hall to Sh.e.l.ley Trager's corner suite. The door was open. "We're here," she said.

Sh.e.l.ley looked up from his desk. "We? Oh...Zach."

"Do you mind?" Kylie asked. "Whatever you have to tell me, you can say in front of Zach. He knows everything."

"Not at all. Come in. Both of you," Sh.e.l.ley said.

The room was big and bright, wrapped with eight picture windows-five on the 21st Street side and three on the Queens Plaza side. Directly outside, I could see the steel and stone of the Ed Koch Queensboro Bridge, a magnificent century-old New York City landmark that cantilevered across the East River, straddled Roosevelt Island, and finally disappeared into the skyline of midtown Manhattan.

"I was going to call and give you an update," Sh.e.l.ley said, "but when I heard you were coming here, I decided it's easier in person. Have a seat."

"How's Spence?" Kylie said as we sat in the two black leather chairs in front of Sh.e.l.ley's desk.

"Spence is okay, but he's in full-blown denial," Sh.e.l.ley said. "As much as I love him, I run a business, and I can't have him back in the studio until he cleans up his act. He's a major liability. And on the personal side, I hate seeing him do this to himself, so I'm happier if I don't have to watch."

"I understand," Kylie said. "I wish I didn't have to watch either."

"You don't," Sh.e.l.ley said. "We have a nice little apartment on East End Avenue. You can move in there for a while."

"A nice little apartment?" Kylie said. She turned to me. "Zach, you should see it. Tenth floor, view of the river, and it's got three bedrooms."

"Two bedrooms and a conference room," Sh.e.l.ley explained to me, as if calling one of the bedrooms by another name would make it sound smaller. "It's a corporate apartment. We use it all the time when the big stars fly in to shoot here. It's nicer than a hotel."

"Zach, I've been there," Kylie said. "Trust me, it's nicer than most New York City apartments."

Sh.e.l.ley shrugged. "So it's nice. So it's big. If I had something smaller and not so nice, I'd be glad to give it to you, but this is all I've got."

It was cla.s.sic old school New York charm, and Kylie smiled. "I don't know, Sh.e.l.ley," she said.

"Look," he said, "we're between celebrity guests, so the place is empty. It costs us a bundle whether it's being used or not, so if you move in for a few weeks, you'd be doing me a favor. What do you say?"

She didn't say anything.

Sh.e.l.ley threw up his hands and turned to me. "Zach, help me out here. Explain to your thickheaded partner that both she and her husband could use a little s.p.a.ce for a while. Go ahead. Tell her."

I turned and looked at my thickheaded partner. "Kylie," I said, "please explain to your extremely generous friend that I'm only here as moral support, and you'd appreciate it if he didn't upgrade me to marriage counselor."

"Sh.e.l.ley, Zach's right. This is a decision I have to make with Spence."

"Honey, right now Spence isn't up to making decisions about anything," Sh.e.l.ley said. "And if you don't get a couple of good nights' sleep, you won't be up to it either. It'll be a lot easier for the two of you to sort things out if you each take some time to decompress. Do me a favor. At least take the apartment for a few days."

Kylie looked at me for an answer. I shook my head. "Sorry," I said. "This one's your call."

She let out a sigh. "Okay," she said. "I'll give it a shot. One night. We'll see how it goes."

Sh.e.l.ley came around the desk and gave her a hug. "The doorman already has your name. He'll give you the keys, and I'll have the concierge stock the refrigerator."

"Thank you," she said. "I have no idea how I can ever pay you back, but I owe you one."

"You want to pay me back?" he said. "Go out and find this crazy Hazmat person. Then me and the rest of this fakakta city would owe you one."

Chapter 56.

"Tieni i tuoi amici vicino, ma i tuoi nemici pi vicino," Joe reminded Teresa before he sent her off to thank Emma Frye for her act of kindness.

Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer-that, Teresa could live with. But thank her? She wanted to grab the Frye woman by the throat and scream, "How did you get my dead son's journal?"

Joe gave her instructions on how to play it. "Just be nice to her. Remember, you can catch more flies with honey," he said.

She loved her husband, but every time he laid that "more flies with honey" line on her, she wanted to say, "Is that how you win people over, Joe? With honey?"

Teresa didn't call in advance. She simply arrived at Frye's house. The woman almost peed her pants when she opened the door.

"Mrs. Salvi," Frye said, even though they'd never been introduced.

Of course she knows me, Teresa thought. The Salvis are Howard Beach royalty.

"I just came to thank you. Mother to mother," she added, letting her voice catch.

Emma Frye, of course, invited her in for coffee and apologized profusely that the house was such a mess. Teresa in turn apologized for showing up unannounced. They bonded like long-lost sisters.

After ten minutes, Teresa got to the crux of it all. "So how did you come to find my Enzo's journal?" she asked offhandedly.

"It was in my son's room," Emma said. "My husband and I are renovating, and I was collecting all of Gideon's old things when I found the journal."

"Gideon," Teresa said. "I remember a boy named Gideon, but not Frye."

"Oh, my first husband, Gideon's father, pa.s.sed away two years ago. We owned the flower shop on Cross Bay Boulevard."

"Cross Bay Flowers? I've ordered from there many times."

Emma beamed. "I know. I'm the one who takes your orders over the phone."

"What a small world," Teresa said. "Now I know who your son is. The name Frye threw me off."

"I'm remarried now."

"How wonderful that you could find happiness so soon after your loss," Teresa said. "I had no idea that our sons were friends back in high school."

"Me either. You know teenage boys. They don't tell their mothers anything."

Irish boys, maybe. But Enzo told me plenty. Our sons were never friends. Ever.

Teresa sipped her coffee. "This explains how Enzo's journal wound up in your son's room. The boys were probably hanging out together."

Emma shrugged. "I guess so."

"And how is your Gideon doing these days?"

"Fine..." Emma hesitated.

"You say fine, but it sounds like something is wrong," Teresa said.

"No, no. I was about to say I only wish I could see more of him, but that's such an insensitive thing to say to a woman who can never see her son. I'm so sorry, Mrs. Salvi."

"No apologies necessary, and please, you must call me Teresa. All my friends do. But now I'm curious why you can't see more of Gideon. Did he move away?"

"Oh no, Gideon is living in Manhattan. But he's so busy saving everyone else, he barely has time for a phone call from his mother."

"So he's a doctor," Teresa said.

"If only," Emma said. "Then I wouldn't have to worry so much. Gideon is a New York City police officer. Very dangerous job, but he loves it."

Teresa's hand shook, and she set down her coffee cup before she dropped it. She forced a smile. "It's always good to see a boy make something of himself. I only wish I had been able to see my Enzo do the same, but thank you for bringing a little piece of my son back to his family. It's a great comfort to all of us."

Teresa stood up, the smile still plastered to her face. She thanked Emma one last time, then bolted from the house.

She couldn't wait to tell Joe that the Mick b.a.s.t.a.r.d who had Enzo's journal all these years-and the one who probably murdered him-was a f.u.c.king cop.

Chapter 57.

Mommy's coming, Kimi. I'm sorry for what happened. Mommy's coming to make it better. Mommy loves you so much.

Rachael O'Keefe knew she was going to die. She knew it as soon as they stripped her down and put her in a white Hazmat suit.

Then they gagged her, chained her to a pipe, and left her without food, water, or hope.

Talking to Kimi made it easier. Those two words-Mommy's coming-became her mantra. They were on a loop in her brain, and she chanted them silently, hoping they could lull her to sleep. But the blinding light, the damp cold, and the stench of mold made it difficult to sleep.

And the fear made it impossible.

Mommy is in a dungeon, Kimi. But don't cry. Pretty soon Mommy will...

The lights went out with a thunk that echoed off the corrugated metal door. Rachael inhaled sharply. Were they back? Were the lights on a timer? What now?

A hum. A motor. And then she felt it. Air. Warm air blowing down on her from above.

Thank you, Kimi, thank you, Kimi, she chanted. Her head dropped, and she let her body sink into the blessed warmth and darkness.

She was just crossing the sleep threshold when the barking began. She jerked awake. A second dog joined in with a low, threatening growl, and she screamed in terror, but the only sound that made its way past the gag was a m.u.f.fled whine.

The barking grew louder and closer, and Rachael tried to wrench herself free. The chains around her wrists, ankles, and neck tore into her flesh as the room exploded with the sound of a pack of snarling, angry dogs. The silent screams continued, and then she lost control of her bladder, just as she had when she was attacked by her neighbor's pit bull at the age of nine.