Career had come first, for both of them. Allie had come second. Then Jill had gotten sick—battled cancer for the better part of two years—and been rewarded with remission. A clean bill of health. Things were looking up.
Donovan’s financial history actually mirrored his personal and professional one. Funny how things either went completely a man’s way—or not.
His career on the rise, a young family in tow, their personal savings had filled his and Jill’s bank accounts at a steady rate—for everything was held jointly. Logan and Jill Donovan had socked away and saved. They had no debt—and when the commissioner’s father died, he inherited the brownstone on West Eightieth Street that he’d grown up in.
The commissioner was a tough guy’s guy. Eli felt absolutely nothing in common with him. Except, apparently, this: They both had gained their own small piece of Manhattan island, thanks to family. In Eli’s case, a rent-controlled apartment on the Lower East Side where, he was sure, he was going to live ’til they buried him.
Eli ripped open a bag of pretzel rods, put the end of one in his mouth. Stretched his arms, flexing his hands together and cracking his knuckles. The popping sound relaxed him. Then he toggled the screen, launching new windows of credit card and bank account data.
Jill’s illness began a downturn in their financial fortunes as well. Their checking account balance plunged. BC—before cancer—they kept about eight thousand dollars in checking at a given time, backed up by substantial savings and retirement funds. AC—after cancer—their checking account dipped perilously low. There were three overdrafts. They were seventy-eight thousand dollars in credit card debt. They traded in a late-model Audi for a secondhand Lincoln Navigator, and a space at the garage two blocks away for the hassle of alternate-side street parking. All these changes were a sign of how badly they needed cash.
Their spending habits changed—almost overnight. They used to do their weekly shopping at Whole Foods and Citarella. Instead, they frequented Fairway and Gristedes—in the process, cutting their grocery bill in half. Dinners out every Friday and Saturday night—at places like Bistro Rouge and Oxtail Farms—abruptly ceased. They ordered occasional take-out fare from Szechuan Kitchen and Fajita Grill. All charitable contributions stopped.
There were no more trips to the Bronx Zoo. No movies out. No Broadway shows. None of the fun things that parents tried to do with their kids. With illness in the house, they’d not been able to afford it. With illness in the house, they’d likely not felt up to it.
It seemed that every spare dime they had was sucked into Jill’s treatment. Her health insurance covered only a fraction of it.
It was a tragic story—but a perfectly normal one. Then Jill had died. The life insurance policy—taken out at the time of their marriage—had paid out the two million Donovan had admitted to receiving. And the money problems ended.
Eli closed out the window. In the interest of thoroughness, he checked whether Allie had any accounts. Parents tended to be split on how they handled their kid’s financial education. Some—his own dad among them—set up checking and savings accounts the day their child was born, stashing every gift, every dime of summer job earnings, into the account. Others waited, preferring to manage things themselves.
It took three clicks of the keyboard to figure out that the Donovans had favored Eli’s dad’s approach. Allie had a checking account, a savings account, and a credit card. Obviously her parents were named on the accounts as well—but Allie was an active account user.
The checking account had regular deposits and ATM withdrawals. The credit card racked up balances approaching seven thousand dollars some months.
Suddenly he felt a niggling sense of disquiet. Thirteen-year-olds didn’t spend money like that.
He checked the itemized charges on Allie’s Visa card.
Definitely not made by a thirteen-year-old girl.
Dinners out at different restaurants—located everywhere but the Upper West Side.
Purchases at Cosabella. Azaleas. La Petite Coquette. Places that Eli quickly figured out were high-end lingerie shops.
Then there were the hotel charges. The Mandarin Oriental. The Waldorf. And a few boutique places on the Upper East Side.
Eli never had an intuitive understanding of people—but he understood how they got and spent their money. How they earned it, where they stashed it or spent it, all reflected decisions that were the key to who they were. If he knew about their money, then he knew what motivated them. What frightened them. What they clung to when they were in trouble.
He started with the simple figures. Slowly, they would grow clearer. And the moment they fell into patterns of behavior, then Eli knew.
The person whose finances he was studying would no longer be a figment of his imagination. No longer a mystery.
His problem right now was: The pattern of spending—filtered through Allie’s credit card and checking account—had started three years and two months ago.
It was clear that someone had been having a long-time affair. Perhaps multiple affairs.
They’d been pretty sloppy about disguising it. And the affair had stopped—rather obviously—at the time of Jill’s death.
But the card numbers didn’t reveal the culprit.
The charge card in question didn’t issue unique numbers. Logan, Jill, and Allie each had an identical credit card number.
So who was having the affair? Had it been the commissioner—or had it been Jill, despite her illness?
And whatever the answer, did it figure somehow into Allie’s kidnapping?
Chapter 38
Public Courts, East Harlem
Fifty-eight minutes to deadline. Mace was taking it down to the wire.
He had left Vidocq headquarters in search of the only person he knew who might actually be able to lay his hands on two million dollars—cash—on the night before Thanksgiving. While he’d talked a big game in front of Eve and the team, now that it was put up or shut up time, doubts began to creep in.
He didn’t bother calculating the odds that this guy might actually loan him the money. He knew they were long.
The guy’s name was the Professor. He was forty-two, rail-thin, and five-foot-nine. He wore a faded navy hooded sweatshirt, his sneakers were caked in dirt, and his jeans were so thin they were almost transparent. So seeing him sitting courtside at the public hoops on East 115th and Lexington, which was more or less his working office, you’d never know that he had millions tucked away in a vault inside his Harlem brownstone. Or that he was the brains behind the Queen Street Bloods—one of New York City’s most powerful gangs.
Maybe the Professor was bad company, but Mace had spent plenty of time in bad company.
Besides, life was complicated. Kind of like Queen’s Bloods themselves. They made most of their money from the drug trade, but they also had legitimate business interests that even the most stuck-up social reformers admitted were good for the community. Hip-hop. Streetball. And nightly patrols, to keep the neighborhood safe—and not just from outsiders.
From the police.
Mace had known the Professor since his own stint with the Queen’s Bloods over twenty-five years ago. The guy hadn’t changed: He still wasn’t much of a talker, but his nickname was no joke. The Professor might not be the official leader of the Queen’s Bloods, but Mace knew one thing: Anything the Professor wanted, the Professor got. Further evidence that the quietest guys could be the most dangerous.
The thin figure in the navy hoodie was guarded by Afrika, who sat with his legs splayed, fingers locked behind his head. It was his best don’t mess with me pose—and he had about two hundred eighty pounds of muscle to back it up.
Mace approached. Afrika looked at the Professor. A particular kind of nod was exchanged.
Then Afrika grinned. His gold tooth gleamed. “Shit, man. Almost didn’t recognize you in those white-man threads. You ain’t dressed for hoops.”
“I schooled some guys down at the cage this morning.
Now I’m dressed for the holiday,” Mace answered with an easy shrug.
“More like you’re dressed for church with your grandma,” Afrika returned.
The Professor had eyes as sharp as a fox’s. They narrowed now. “You ain’t here to play ball.”
In other words, Why are you wasting my time?
Mace got to the point, explaining what he wanted and why. He was careful to point out the significant political upside from helping the commissioner of the NYPD, if the Professor agreed.
Then he waited, his body tense.
The answer was some version of what he’d expected. Two giant hands seized his wrist.
Mace might have plenty of muscle, but he knew Afrika was even more lethal—and could snap his wrist like a dry twig. So Mace didn’t move.
“I’ve got questions. Lie and I’ll break your wrist.”
“I ain’t no liar,” Mace said quietly. He wasn’t even breathing hard. He knew how this was supposed to go. The key was to man up. Not panic.
“First question: You alone?”
“C’mon, man, show me a little respect. I know the rules. No one here but this beautiful, six-foot-seven-inch Adonis.”
“Okay, smartass. Second question: If the commissioner don’t even know about this visit, how can you make promises for him?”
“Technically, guess I can’t. But I can tell you this is a guy whose only child is in the hands of a lunatic.” Mace gave that a moment to sink in. “If you ask me, our neighborhood’s seen too many brothers dying.”
Mace didn’t point out that one of them had been the Professor’s nephew. Some things didn’t need to be said.
“The commissioner’s my enemy. Not somebody I’m gonna loan money to,” the Professor stated without emotion.
“That’s one way to look at it,” Mace acknowledged. “Then again, strikes me this is an opportunity: a partnership between a grateful police commissioner and the local boys in the hood. A game changer to turn things around. Save lives, make things better.”
Afrika shook his head. “You’re a regular do-gooder now, huh? First you save a few mangy dogs; now you’re gonna save all of East Harlem. Third question: How do we know the Professor’s gonna get his money back?”
“The Professor’s a gambler. Puts up money and risks it. This time, it’s for a win-win situation.”
Afrika considered it. “What if you don’t catch the kidnapper, recover the money?”
“What if pigs fly and fish climb trees?” Mace countered.
“Cocky bastard,” Afrika muttered.
The Professor and Afrika considered that, too. But there were obvious advantages to what Mace was proposing.
“Play for it, under the streetlights,” the Professor finally said.
“Excuse me?” Mace played competitive ball all the time. Usually for the occasional Benjamin. Not two million dollars.
“One on one,” the Professor decided. “Against my pick.”
The Professor was actually a master manipulator. This wasn’t the equivalent of a coin toss to decide whether Mace could or couldn’t borrow the money. This was about making sure Mace still understood who he was. That he remembered where he came from. Where—ultimately—his allegiances ought to lie.
“I ain’t dressed for ball,” Mace pointed out.
“No kidding. You look like a damn one-percenter who just escaped Wall Street.”
“I also don’t have much time,” Mace said.
The Professor shrugged. The implication was clear: Not my problem.
Ninety seconds later, Mace was back on the court, matched up against Deacon—a player built like a tank, nicknamed for the tattoos of different crosses that lined his forearms.
Mace focused on defense, but Deacon got off a fade away from the left block that banked in for the first score.
“That all you got?” Deacon smirked. “Ain’t no match for me.”
“In my church, deacons don’t talk smack.” Mace blocked his next shot, caught the ball one-handed—then dribbled, spun 180 degrees, and arched the ball straight through the hoop with a swish. They were evenly matched, taking turns with the ball. It was close—but Mace sent the winning shot through the net.
No one moved for what seemed to Mace like an eternity. Then the Professor nodded. “Better get home and get ready. Afrika will stop by your crib with a car and your dough.”
The Professor didn’t like cops. But he understood the situation: A hero cop was being targeted by a batshit-crazy nutjob. That gave him the chance to make a power play. Take advantage of weakness. Meanwhile, maybe a kid or two would get home alive.
So Mace didn’t bother thinking about favors owed.
He was halfway off the court when the Professor raised his hand, waved Mace back. “You can’t ever fool me, Julius Mason. You’re still one of us. Don’t forget,” the Professor said. His voice was quiet. Intense.
“I think about it every day,” Mace replied—and was actually sincere. Not a day went by that he didn’t thank God that he’d escaped his former life before he ended up dead. But now all he could think of was how he was going to plant two million dollars cash in a can and take down this son of a bitch. At the moment, that felt pretty good.
The commissioner had better goddamn appreciate it.
Chapter 39
Parade Staging Zone
“Have you seen this boy?” García approached a cotton candy vendor at the corner of West Eighty-first Street and Columbus. Showed him a photo from just that afternoon, of Frankie Junior sitting tall on one of the metal bleachers along the parade route.
“Sorry.” The vendor was scrubbing down the sidewalk in front of his cart with bleach. “Only kid I remember from tonight is the greedy punk teenager who ordered three pinks and a blue, then hung around and got sick. Vomit ain’t good for business, you know?”
García noticed the five-foot radius in front of the candy man was now spotless, reeking of bleach, but the sidewalk was still a mess of litter. Candy wrappers. Mustard-stained napkins. A half-eaten hot dog. And a gooey substance that probably was gum.
Junk that reminded him: He needed to keep his strength up. He pulled an energy bar out of his pocket.
The vendor wrinkled his nose. “Man, that smells nastier than the shit I just cleaned!”
“Peanut butter, banana, kale, and flax.” García chewed the last bit of the dark brown energy bar. It was fuel to him. Nothing more.
The vendor screwed up his face in disgust. “Nobody needs to be that healthy.”
So far, no one had seen Frankie Junior.
Which only meant García had to look harder.
Chapter 40
The Donovan Brownstone
KEEP OUT. YOU WOULDN’T UNDERSTAND, ANYWAY.
Maybe not—but Haddox at least intended to try. He decided to check Allie’s public records first, so on his own computer, he ran through a series of password protocols and called up a master database managed by the FBI. Called DIVS—Data Integration and Visualization System—it drew from a multitude of data sources.
Haddox relied on this directory. He was a skip tracer extraordinaire, capable of tracking down people others failed to find. People who’d gone to extraordinary lengths not to be found. He clicked at the keyboard, his fingers moving at their usual 120 words per minute.
His goal was simple. Identify the kidnapper. Put a name to the person who had targeted Allie and the commissioner. Whose primary objective—at least on the surface—was the two million dollars in insurance money the commissioner had just received.
Right now the kidnapper was invisible. Entirely cloaked by a stolen Macy’s rain jacket, pilfered cellphone, and computerized voice box. So Haddox turned his attention to the flip side of the problem: the kidnapper’s target.
Allie, luv, when I know about you, then I’ll know more about him.
Allie—Alison Rose Donovan, officially—was an only child, thirteen years old, and in the eighth grade at PS 334, a school just blocks from her home. Apart from her b
irth certificate and school records, New York State kept a copy of her speech therapy diagnosis and treatment reports. Early intervention, the state called it. Her address had not changed since birth: This brownstone on West Eightieth had always been her home.
She had a U.S. passport. Her travel records on it were normal: A brief trip to England, Scotland, and Ireland. Another to Mexico and some Caribbean islands.
Haddox scanned all available documents in the database. Allie’s name popped up on a few documents that her father had been required to file as a senior police official. Before the commissioner had gained access to classified information, he—and those closest to him—had been stringently vetted. The family attended a Catholic church two blocks away. Allie’s grandparents on both sides were deceased. An uncle—Jill’s brother—was on the English faculty at the University of Montana. There had been some concern within government circles about his radical socialist agenda, but ultimately he had not been deemed a security threat.
Not a lot of information on the official databases. Which for a thirteen-year-old girl was more or less what Haddox would expect.
So Haddox turned his attention to Allie’s computer. There were plenty of games on the hard drive: Minecraft, SimCity, and a role-playing adventure based on The Lord of the Rings. There were homework folders for each of her academic subjects. He found a lab report in the folder titled BIOLOGY. A term paper on Julius Caesar within ENGLISH. A project on Rosa Parks and the Civil Rights movement within HISTORY.
Once again, exactly what Haddox would expect.
Next he checked her Internet browser for bookmarks and history.
The first odd thing: They were empty. No history whatsoever. No bookmarks other than the factory default settings: CNN. AOL. Google and the like.
Nothing personal. Too clean. Someone had wiped the cache.
Of course, he had software for that. A program designed to bring bits and bytes back from the dead. It was effective—but it took time to work its magic. So for now, he moved on.
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