One Small Sacrifice

by Hilary Davidson

  “What is?”

  “She was wearing gloves,” Bobby said. “Black gloves.”

  “If it were winter, sure,” Alex said. “But it’s still like summer.”

  “I really think she had gloves. It’s not like I studied what she was wearing. I saw her for, like, a nanosecond, man. Maybe it was a shadow. But it looked like gloves.”

  “This is important, Bobby,” Alex said, his voice pleading. “Emily’s life might hang in the balance. Are you one hundred percent absolutely, completely sure you saw her on the stairs? Could it have been someone else?”

  Bobby thought about that. He liked Emily. It wasn’t as if he’d ever want to see something happen to her. And while he didn’t like Alex, a part of him felt bad for the man, who was clearly worried out of his mind about his girlfriend. But Bobby had to look out for himself. If he admitted any doubt, next thing the cops would be back at his door, and they would pull the truth out of him, and he’d be in deep shit. Michelle Turlock wasn’t the only lady who’d called the cops about him, and once the NYPD put it together, he was done. He wasn’t one of those stand-up guys who could withstand torture. He couldn’t miss lunch and stay upright.

  “There’s no doubt in my mind,” he said. “It was Emily, all right.”

  “There’s one other thing,” Alex said. “Why’d you tell the police we were fighting?”

  Bobby considered him carefully. This was why he hated dealing with Alex. Sometimes, you could have a conversation with the guy, and then, without warning, it could all turn on a dime, and Alex would be eyeballing you like he was calculating the force it would take to snap your neck. Bobby gulped. “You guys . . . you fought. I mean, Raj complained to me.”

  “Raj complained about everything.” Alex sounded disgusted. “Emily and I weren’t fighting.”

  “Well, then . . .” Bobby would’ve made a joke about noisy sex if Alex hadn’t been staring at him so intently. “What happened?”

  But Alex didn’t answer him. He turned on his heel and headed out. Bobby exhaled for the first time in what felt like a minute. Being completely honest, he was afraid of Alex. And he was starting to be afraid for Emily.

  CHAPTER 34

  SHERYN

  When Sheryn finally got home that night, there was a storm cloud hanging over her head. Her husband spotted it the moment she came through the door of their apartment.

  “You want to talk about it?” Douglass asked. In eighteen years of marriage, he’d seen her like this often enough to be wary.

  “Not really. I might explode.”

  “Dinner’s in the microwave,” Douglass said. “Martin’s studying for a math exam. Mercy’s getting ready for bed. I’m in the middle of grading papers. When you want company, let me know. Oh, this has been calling your name.” He handed her a glass of red wine.

  She took a sip. “Malbec? You might just have ESP.”

  “I’d better, by now.” He kissed her on the lips. “Last thing I want is you exploding. Don’t mess up my kitchen.”

  He left her alone, and she sank into a kitchen chair. She was exhausted after a long day, but that wasn’t the cause of her mood. The storm cloud had a name, and it was Will Sipher.

  She sipped more wine and forced herself to get up. All she had to do was heat the lasagna that was waiting for her, but it felt like a lot of effort, and every muscle in her body ached. In spite of adroitly hopping a six-foot fence that evening, she felt ancient, as if she’d seen everything play out too many times already and couldn’t deal with another rerun.

  Will Sipher. Thoughts of the man were coiling around her brain like a serpent. She still didn’t buy the idea he was behind Cori Stanton’s death—he hadn’t faked that fractured ankle, after all—but she was looking at his connection to Emily Teare in a new light. Everyone involved in this case had a shady side they were covering up, and that included the victim. CJ Leeward was holding something back, and she was willing to bet it was on that very subject. Bobby Costa, the superintendent, was bugging her; that guy was all flavors of weird, and he seemed to have an unhealthy interest in the missing woman. Most of all, it was Kevin Stanton who upset her. He’d been furious when she wouldn’t arrest Alex Traynor on his say-so.

  She took a bite of her lasagna and could barely taste it, she was so preoccupied. Because there wouldn’t be any warrant to search Will Sipher’s house now. They wouldn’t be able to follow him or come within a hundred feet of him. Kicking the rock Sipher hid under had brought a boulder down on her head.

  “What’s wrong, Mommy?”

  “Wrong?” Sheryn’s head swiveled at the sound of her daughter’s voice. “Nothing’s wrong, baby. Mommy was just thinking things over. Why are you wearing a tutu? Daddy told me you were getting ready for bed.”

  “I am. I have to practice before bed,” her daughter answered reasonably. “I know you were thinking about work.”

  “You’re pretty smart,” Sheryn said. “How’d you figure that out?”

  “When you worry about work, you get a line there.” Mercy’s soft little index finger landed on Sheryn’s face, in the furrow between her brows. “When you worry about other things, you pray.”

  “You’re way too smart for an eight-year-old.”

  “You can tell me about it.” Mercy pulled out a chair from the table and plunked herself down. “I’m a good listener.”

  “Yes, you are, baby. I know that.” Sheryn couldn’t suppress a smile. She was picturing a Charlie Brown cartoon, only with Mercy taking Lucy’s place next to the sign that said THE DOCTOR IS IN. Mercy would also be drawn with a tutu and ballet slippers, given how obsessed she was with dance.

  “What happened?”

  “How about you tell me about your day?” Sheryn said. “I’d like to hear that.”

  Mercy shook her head. “It was bad.”

  Sheryn’s heart fluttered into her throat. “Did somebody hurt you?”

  “No, Mommy. One of the cats died.”

  “The cats?” With a start, Sheryn remembered the feral cat colony near Mercy’s school. She worried about cat-scratch fever and other ills and always told her daughter to stay away from the cats, no matter how cute.

  “It got run over,” Mercy said. “Teacher said not to touch it, even though we wanted to give it a funeral. Everyone was sad.”

  “I’m so sorry, baby.”

  “You don’t even like the cats,” Mercy pointed out.

  “That’s true, but I also don’t want them to come to harm.”

  “Okay, your turn. What about your day?”

  Sheryn felt her resolve failing. She wasn’t sure how healthy it was to tell a child about her cases, even a sanitized version. “Right now, my partner and I are looking for a missing woman.”

  Mercy’s own brow furrowed. “Was it her husband? Because it’s usually the husband.”

  “Where’d you get that from?”

  “TV.”

  Sheryn contemplated that. “Well, it’s sometimes the husband, or the boyfriend. I thought it was the boyfriend. Now I’m not so sure.”

  “Maybe somebody kidnapped her?”

  “Why would they do that, baby?”

  “To hurt the boyfriend,” Mercy answered confidently. “Or maybe it’s a stalker.”

  “Are all these ideas coming from TV? Because I’m going to check up on what you’re watching.” Sheryn tried to keep her tone light, but she was alarmed at the idea of the spot of sunshine that was her daughter speaking so nonchalantly about crime. Had Sheryn herself been like that at eight? She was certain she had not; her jaded facade was armor she had earned a little later in life. But she was struck by the fact that Mercy had essentially articulated her feelings. Because if Alex Traynor wasn’t responsible, who was? Everyone she talked to sang Emily Teare’s praises; they had yet to find an enemy. At the same time, the strange pattern of calls and meandering money trail suggested that Dr. Teare had a double life. What was still hiding in the shadows, eluding her?

  After putting Mercy to b
ed, she went into her bedroom, shrugged off her blazer, and stood in front of the dresser, trying to calm her mind. When her husband appeared in the doorway, she hadn’t budged.

  “Hey,” Douglass said softly. “Is there something you want to talk about?”

  “Not really. I’m just tired.” Embarrassed, she took off her watch and set it on the silver tray on top of the dresser.

  “You are a terrible liar.” He stepped inside. “Not that I’m doubting you need some rest. But there’s something else going on.”

  “No, there isn’t.”

  “You’re obsessed with this case,” Douglass said. “More accurately, you’re obsessed with Alex Traynor. You ever stop for a moment to think about why?”

  Sheryn didn’t answer that.

  “You’ve told me enough about Traynor that I feel like I know him, and I’ve never met the man,” Douglass continued. “I know he has PTSD, and he can be violent. He’s responsible for killing two women. He’s a ticking time bomb, and he reminds you of your father.”

  There was an audible gasp. Sheryn belatedly realized it had come out of her mouth. She wanted to deny the truth of what he was saying, but she couldn’t. Her father’s ghost always lurked in the back of her mind, even when she examined Alex Traynor’s apartment.

  Douglass moved toward her. “I’m sorry. You never want to talk about your father. But I believe he’s the reason you’re taking this case so personally.”

  “You never met him,” Sheryn said softly. “He wasn’t a bad man. He came back from war with demons, and they ended up devouring him. It’s why he killed himself. It’s why he killed . . .”

  Douglass wrapped his arms around her. Sheryn laid her head on his shoulder so that her forehead rested against his neck so tightly that she could feel his pulse. They stayed like that for a long time.

  When Sheryn finally pulled away, she said, “This case has me questioning everything. I told you Traynor killed two women. Now . . . I don’t think that’s true. He’s not a murderer. But he’s still dangerous. Any man with PTSD is like a ticking time bomb.”

  “You’re still talking about your father,” Douglass said. “I’m not telling you your business, but I think you need to set all those feelings aside and start fresh.”

  “You’re telling me to ignore my instincts?”

  “No, just treat your gut with suspicion. People talk about their instincts like they’re foolproof, but they’re not. Think of all the black folks who’ve died because somebody had a bad feeling about them.”

  “That’s not the same thing,” Sheryn objected.

  “It’s a close cousin,” Douglass said. “Instinct’s not a superpower. It’s made of experience and memory and belief. Prejudice is part of that. Believe me—I see it with my students all the time. In this case, I think the pain and hurt you feel about your father’s death have been transferred over.”

  “I should’ve seen it coming. With my father, I mean.” Sheryn swallowed hard. “And you have a point. With Alex, I’ve got that same feeling I had before . . . only this time, I can do something about it. I couldn’t with my father.”

  “Babe, you are brilliant at what you do. You are fearless and relentless. I know you give yourself over to the job completely. But in this case . . .” Douglass leaned in so close that she could feel his warm breath on her face. “You need some distance. Whenever your gut tries to tell you something, argue back. Put it in its place.”

  Sheryn leaned forward a millimeter and kissed him. “Right now, my gut’s telling me to tear off your clothes,” she murmured. “You want to fight with that?”

  CHAPTER 35

  EMILY

  Time had no meaning in that bleak cellar. She was dying of thirst, but she wouldn’t give in. Think about something else, anything else, Emily ordered herself. The last day she remembered was Friday, but who could tell how many had passed since? As she lay in her cell, pretending to be unconscious, she tried to reason how much time had passed. It felt like an eternity to her, but it could only have been a few days. The police had to be looking for her. Alex would be out of his mind with worry. The thought of him made her panic. What if he started using heroin again? She’d brought him back from the brink once before, but she knew he’d go off the rails worrying about her.

  Would anyone figure out what had happened?

  The police would, in the end, but that might be too late for her. There was evidence, nothing that would ever draw notice in day-to-day life, but enough that would damn her if the police took her life apart. They would find the prescriptions she’d written, and her career would be ruined. She would probably go to jail . . . if she ever got out of that cellar, which seemed like an ever-unlikelier prospect.

  The question was, would they find the man who’d ruined her life? She was sure he’d never talk to the police. He’d been in enough legal trouble already. But she also knew he would sell her out in a heartbeat.

  She thought of all the times she’d gone to his disgusting little apartment over the past few months, the stench of sweat making her gag. She didn’t know how she’d gone through with it. No, that wasn’t true. She’d done it for Alex. She had to protect him.

  Stop calling me. I’m telling you it’s over.

  Emily would be the first to admit her sense of timing was off. But she’d panicked when Alex had shown up at her office, brandishing the prescriptions she’d written as if they were scarlet letters. How could she deny what was in black and white? It had to stop. She had to cut it off, go cold turkey.

  She had no idea how impossible that would be.

  As she lay there, eyes closed but facing the light bulb and the camera, she forced herself to stop thinking about it. If she got out of there—when she got out of there—she would fix things. Alex never needed to know. No one did. Instead, she focused on how she would take her captor down. Her one fear was that he’d enlisted a helper, some drug-addled wreck who’d kill for a fentanyl patch. That would be a problem, because in her weakened state she wouldn’t be able to take two men on. Emily wasn’t even certain she could take on one weaselly one who probably weighed less than she did, but she had to try.

  She didn’t know how long she’d been lying there when she heard a door creak open. The one thing she didn’t understand was how little noise seeped into her prison. She occasionally heard a car faintly in the distance. Was the building that well insulated? She lay there, playing possum, while he came down the stairs, his steps hitting like thunder. Or was she so far removed from the world that the slightest noise reverberated inside her head?

  She opened her eyes just the tiniest of cracks to see him, but all she could make out was a huge shadow coming toward her, blocking out light like an eclipse. She could feel his heavy breathing as he crouched to stare at her. There was a crinkling sound and a soft thud as he set a protein bar and a bottle of water in front of the bars. Emily opened her eyes and sat up, her arm shooting through the bars. She grabbed him by the collar and tried to yank him forward. In her reverie, she’d convinced herself she could smash his face against the bars. But he pulled free, and her hand grabbed at air, then dropped to the ground.

  Before she could recover, he thrust a stick at her arm, and her body jolted back from the voltage he shot into her system. She cried out, but what emerged from her lips was a caw like a crow would make.

  “Bitch,” he muttered as she slid into unconsciousness. The pent-up hatred in that word would’ve sent her reeling if the fire under her skin wasn’t burning through her synapses. Her body went limp as she passed out.

  WEDNESDAY

  CHAPTER 36

  ALEX

  When Alex woke up the next morning, he reached for the turquoise earbuds on his nightstand. He’d gone to sleep the night before threading the cord between his fingers, holding it with a reverence he’d seen others accord prayer beads. Were they Emily’s, he wondered, or was he being a fool, tending lovingly to a pair of earbuds some random person had dropped or thrown away as garbage? His hand touc
hed the top of the table and found it . . . empty. Alex sat up as if a gunshot had rung out. There was Sid, on the floor, tangled up in the cord and biting it playfully.

  He had to wait for a minute for his heartbeat to slow down. “You’re tampering with evidence, you know,” he told the dog. Evidence? Even to his own ears, that struck him as a strange choice of words. If Emily had gone running on Friday night and didn’t come home, what did that mean?

  Sid barked at him, and Alex forced himself to get up. Having a dog wasn’t a cure for depression, he knew, but it created a situation in which staying in bed for hours, struggling to get up, wasn’t an option. He pulled on his jacket and took Sid out for a quick walk. When they returned, he went straight for the kitchen cupboard, remembering belatedly that Will was now in possession of his cache of pharmaceuticals. He was left with a variety of herbal ingredients—mushrooms and ginseng and the rest—which he was certain helped, but there was nothing to give his brain that firm but gentle nudge that two drops of LSD did. The thought that he was on his own without it, for the first time in months, left him on edge. He took a shower, hoping to clear his head, but thoughts nagged at him. The truth was he felt guilty about the fact he’d never mentioned his microdosing regimen to Emily. He knew she’d never approve. She stayed away from his shelf of herbal remedies, often telling him that if he thought they helped, that was the important thing. She clearly regarded them as placebos, even though she never came out and said so.

  That made the thought of Emily writing prescriptions for opiates and sedatives even stranger. Emily generally avoided alcohol because of what had happened to her parents; she never used illegal drugs, to Alex’s knowledge. What the hell had Emily been doing?

  Back in the bedroom, he picked up the turquoise cord and threaded it through his hands. What kind of evidence was it, really? The police would laugh at him if he walked in with that. Alex saw only two possibilities about Friday night: either Emily had gone out for a run and never come home, or she’d come home from that run and had gone out again. At that point, the trail ran cold. He’d tried to follow her, but there were no other steps of Emily’s to retrace. As far as he could gauge, she’d kept her usual routine on Friday. All of it was standard, except for the fact she’d disappeared from his life.