That was all. Just my name. A single syllable that she let hang in the air, wrapped up in a tangle of emotions—compassion, anger, and, above all, the trademark raw grit that makes Kylie MacDonald a woman you want at your side and a partner you want at your back.
I slowed down, caught a red light, and turned to face her. She lifted her hand from my knee. I couldn’t tell for sure in the dark, but it looked as if my partner’s eyes were a little on the watery side. My tough-as-nails, take-no-prisoners partner.
“I know what you’re going to say, Kylie, and I’m there. Number one priority—we have to find her. Alive.”
“Whatever it takes,” she said. “I don’t care how many stupid-ass rules we have to break.”
But then I already knew that.
Mick Wilson’s assistant lived at 47th Street and Ninth Avenue. There was a Starbucks directly across the street, but at 4:15 a.m., it was as dark as the rest of the city. Maybe if I’d had a cup of coffee or a few more hours’ sleep, it might have dawned on me that the young lawyer we were going to interview had a familiar last name. But it’s a common enough name—especially in the New York City Police and Fire Departments.
We identified ourselves over the intercom, took the stairs to the third floor, and knocked on the door. She didn’t open it.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t just let total strangers in,” she said. “If you’re real cops, you’ll understand. I need an ID. Hold it up to the peephole.”
Kylie went first, then I held up my badge and ID. But that wasn’t enough.
“They look real,” she said from the other side of the door, “but just tell me why you’re here.”
I recognized the syndrome. Somewhere in her life she’d been a crime victim, and she’d never gotten past the trauma. I mouthed three words to Kylie. She’s been mugged.
Or worse, Kylie said silently. She waved me away from the door and centered herself in clear view of the peephole. “Meredith, we’re sorry to barge in on you in the middle of the night, but we can’t wait till the morning. You were part of the DA’s team in the Rachael O’Keefe case. She was kidnapped, and we need your help.”
A lock clicked. Then another. The door opened.
“Come in,” she said. “Sorry if I got all paranoid on you. Mick told me what you’d been asking about. I told him to tell you that when Rachael got released, I knew where she was going, but I wouldn’t tell anyone.”
“Mick neglected to pass on the message,” I said, “so as long as we’re here, we’d like to get it straight from you.”
“Sure,” she said, conjuring up a smile that did nothing to hide her frazzled nerves.
I was frazzled, too, but I knew I couldn’t come on like a storm trooper. “Meredith,” I said in the calmest voice I could muster, “you just said you knew where Rachael was going, and you wouldn’t tell anyone. We know your reputation, and we’re sure you wouldn’t.”
“I’m an officer of the court,” she said.
“And I’m sure if you’re working with Mick Wilson, you’re a damn good one. He’s a pretty demanding guy.”
She laughed. “That’s a very generous way to characterize an unrelenting, perfectionist taskmaster, but yes, I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to work with someone of Mick’s caliber.”
“So let’s get back to that night,” I said. “What did you do after the verdict came down?”
“What do you think?” she said, forming her right hand into the letter C and tipping it toward her mouth three times.
Despite the hour and her state of mind, Meredith looked terrific without putting on makeup or brushing her thick red hair. It was a good bet that someone this pretty wasn’t drinking alone.
“That’s what I would do too,” I said. “Find a bar and drown my sorrows. Who’d you go out with?”
“Just insiders. Colleagues. Some who knew where Rachael would be hiding out, some who didn’t. It was a tough case to lose, so yeah, we all got pretty wasted, but we didn’t talk about where Rachael was going. Mostly we just bitched and moaned about the Warlock.”
“The what?”
“The Warlock—Dennis Woloch, the defense attorney. He totally worked his legal voodoo on the jury and convinced them that there was reasonable doubt. He did it pro bono. Rachael was lucky to get him.”
Real lucky. If she’d had any other attorney, she’d have been convicted, stayed safely in jail, and not been kidnapped two days before the real killer confessed. Hats off to Mr. Warlock.