“Oh, Zach,” she said, touching her hand to her chin. “That’s amazing. And then what?”
“We both stood there. Neither of us said a word. I don’t know how long, but it was a while. I didn’t want to stare at him, so I just kept looking down at all those pills floating in the bowl. Finally, I looked up at him and said, ‘Are you going to flush?’ And he looked back at me with these big sad brown eyes, and he said, ‘Give me a goddamn minute, will you? This ain’t as easy as it looks.’ Then he gave me this big bear hug, we broke, he flushed, and he went into his bedroom to call a rehab. My first intervention, and I’m batting a thousand. I’m thinking after this cop gig, maybe I should hang out a shingle and open a practice.”
“What will it say—‘World’s Worst Therapist’?”
“Criticize all you want, Dr. Robinson, but you can’t argue with results.”
“You’re right. Maybe the sign should just say ‘World’s Luckiest Therapist.’”
“I may not be classically trained,” I said, “but you have to admit, I’ve got some redeeming qualities.”
“I vaguely recall that you do,” she said, taking me by the hand and pulling me up from the sofa. “But you’re going to have to refresh my memory.”
“You know, I think you’re right,” I said as she led me toward her bedroom. “Tonight, I definitely am the world’s luckiest therapist.”
Chapter 65
I was in the office by 7:00 a.m. Kylie tumbled in ten minutes later, looking like a zombie on Ambien.
“If I didn’t know better,” I said, “I’d guess you spent the night sleeping in a homeless shelter.”
“I wish,” she said. “I spent the night in an eight-thousand-dollar-a-month apartment—not sleeping. I was crazy worried about Spence.”
I wanted to tell her that I was pretty crazy worried about Spence myself, but it’s never a good idea to tell a control freak that you tried to take control of her life.
“I finally dozed off at two,” she said, “but I woke up at four and was awake the rest of the night, thinking how much I’d like to be out there tailing Donovan and Boyle.”
“Not a great idea in your condition,” I said. “Yesterday you almost got us killed driving the Batmobile into Queens, and that was after a good night’s sleep.”
We still had three people to interview who knew that Rachael would be in New Jersey. The one recovering from an emergency appendectomy was just a few blocks away at Lenox Hill Hospital. It took us less than half an hour to run over there and clear her.
Two to go—Mick Wilson, the stubborn-ass senior ADA, and the young lawyer assigned to work with him. According to Wilson’s office, they were driving upstate to the Great Meadow Correctional Facility in Comstock to interview a prison snitch. It’s in Washington County, a four-hour drive from the city.
I know Mick well. He was a rock star in the DA’s office, and a front-runner for the top job when the current DA retired.
He didn’t return my voice mails, so I texted him, explaining how important it was to talk to him and his junior lawyer.
He texted right back.
Was I not supposed to tell anyone where O’Keefe was holing up? I guess I should never have posted it on Facebook. Off the grid and won’t be back till late tonight. You can arrest me then.
“Cute,” Kylie said.
“It’s Mick’s way of telling me I’m an asshole for even questioning him,” I said.
“How about the lawyer he’s with? She’s the last one on our list.”
“I would hope that Mick would vet her on our behalf, but I’m sure he thinks anyone he handpicked to work with him is just as above suspicion as he is. We can try to contact her tonight, but I think we’re coming up dry.”
“Then Matt was right,” Kylie said. “Last night he told me whoever kidnapped Rachael might not be connected to the DA’s office. He said it would be easy enough for a pro to hack into the Correction Department’s computer.”
“How come you didn’t tell me that last night?”
“I don’t know. You were so down on Matt I decided not to—”
“Jordan! MacDonald!” It was Cates, using her preferred method of interoffice communication—yelling down the hall.
We went to her office, and she waved at us to shut the door and sit down.
“We may have a break,” she said. “But it’s a delicate situation. I have a friend, Alma Hooks. I’ve known her since she was a kid. She got pregnant at fifteen, had the baby, and worked hard to keep her life on track. She got a master’s in library science from Pratt, and she’s now an assistant librarian at the 125th Street branch of the New York Public Library. Alma is twenty-nine now, a single mom. Her son, Shawn, is thirteen, and she just called to tell me that the boy witnessed the Tinsdale abduction.”