Have You Seen Me?

by Kate White

  The thought makes me reel, but I try to grab hold of the image. Still, as quickly as it came, it slips from my grasp.

  I’m at an intersection now, waiting for the light to change. I wonder if I should turn back.

  But before I can decide, there’s a jab between my shoulder blades, and then I feel something really hard being rammed into my back, knocking the air from my lungs and pitching me forward.

  A second later, I fly into the street.

  23

  I land hard and skid across the wet pavement, my palms burning as the asphalt tears my flesh. A horn blares, then another, and a car screeches to a halt only inches from my head, it seems. Terrified, I squeeze my eyes shut, as if that could protect me.

  I sense people scrambling, and when I open my eyes, I see that several pedestrians have clustered around me.

  “Are you okay?” a woman asks, squatting down.

  “Better not touch her,” a male voice says.

  “No, I’m okay,” I mutter, lifting my head. “I—” I’m having a hard time even catching a breath.

  More horn blaring, insistent and irritated.

  “Are you able to get up?” the woman says. She’s in her twenties, I guess, and I feel instantly grateful for her kindness.

  “Uh, I think so.”

  The man, who turns out to be middle-aged, and the woman help me struggle into a standing position and hobble to the other side of the street. The man has grabbed my umbrella and hands it back to me, still furled.

  “Did you see who did it?” I ask.

  “Did it?” the woman says.

  “Pushed me.”

  She shoots the man a look. “I think you slipped,” she says, glancing back at me. “The sidewalk’s really wet.”

  “No, I felt it,” I tell her. “A shove.”

  “A couple of people were trying to cross against the light,” the man says. “And I think one of them must have jostled you. Are you sure you’re okay? Can we call anyone?”

  “No, that’s all right. Thank you for your help.”

  They hurry off, but I remain there, still catching my breath, and trying to process what happened. Was I simply shoved aside by an asshole too impatient to wait for the light?

  I glance down. My palms are raw, and even in the dark, I can see that one of my pants legs is shredded.

  I sense someone else hovering near me and I turn to see an older woman with white hair tucked beneath a wide-brimmed vinyl rain hat. She seems to be standing preternaturally still, like an apparition only I can view.

  We make eye contact, and she takes a step toward me.

  “Are you sure you’re all right?” she asks.

  “I think so.”

  “You were pushed,” she says.

  “You saw? What did the person look like?”

  “I didn’t see it, but I felt it. An arm shooting out. You should call the police.”

  I survey the intersection. I can’t imagine anyone who would do that sticking around to face the consequences.

  “I think it’s too late for them to do anything.” There are probably CCTV cameras trained onto the corner, like Mulroney indicated, but since people were so tightly bunched together, the video probably wouldn’t reveal much.

  “Still, you should call them. They need to know what’s going on in this area. Good night.”

  Her concern seems to be more for the neighborhood than for me. As she turns away, water flicks off her rain hat. Moments later she melds into the pedestrian traffic, as if she was never here.

  I’m still breathing hard and my coat’s streaked with dirt, but I banish the urge to return to the apartment, wanting to get my bearings first. I hurry the remaining half block to the bistro, checking constantly over my shoulder. I collapse my umbrella and secure a table by the window so I can keep an eye on the street and whoever might be out there.

  But for the moment, I glance down at the metal table and mentally play back the scene from five minutes ago. Reaching the corner, feeling the shove—almost more of a punch—and the fear grabbing hold of me as I was launched into traffic.

  After the waiter takes my wine order, I inspect my palms. They’re red and raw, with a few crisscrossed, razor-thin lines where the skin’s been broken. And my forearms, which took the brunt of the fall, have started to throb like a headache. I gingerly peel off my coat and let it drape behind me.

  Who would want to hurt me? New York has plenty of crazies, of course, people who think nothing of hurling total strangers onto subway tracks. Did I simply look the wrong way at someone who was unhinged?

  Maybe that’s all this was, and I need to mentally move on. Though I try to sandbag my swelling panic, it sloshes over the walls, threatening to spill. I should call Hugh, I think, let him know what happened, but I don’t want to pull him away from a work event. I could try Gabby, I guess. But she’s in bed sick.

  My phone rings, and to my shock, Damien’s name appears on the screen. My first instinct is to forward the call to voice mail, but I change my mind and answer.

  “Hey,” he says, “I wanted to apologize for leaving on such a weird note the other day. It wasn’t fair of me.”

  “That’s all right.” What does he want? I wonder. “I appreciated you checking on me.”

  “Where are you, anyway?”

  “At a bistro near Lincoln Center. Uh . . . I’m about to have a glass of wine.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You don’t sound very good.”

  It’s true, I realize. My voice is quivering.

  “I fell—well, someone pushed me—into the street. A couple of minutes ago. I’m not hurt, but it freaked me out.”

  “Where are you, exactly? I’m coming right now.”

  “Damien, no, it’s not necessary.”

  “I’m not that far. I just left a client at Eighty-Fifth and Columbus.”

  The name and address spill from my lips. I can’t believe I’m doing this. But I could use the company for sure.

  While I wait for him to arrive, the scene from the intersection plays on a loop in my brain. Closing my eyes, I try to recapture the exact sensation I felt in between my shoulder blades. Hard like a fist. Is someone possibly after me?

  It’s only then that I recall the sense memory that was triggered seconds earlier, when I glanced at the sleeve of my coat in the rain: in my mind I could see myself dabbing at my blood-covered fingers. I can’t be sure, though, if it’s really a memory or simply an image I conjured up from thinking so much about those tissues. I glance back at my coat, bunched behind me on the banquette, but it stirs nothing now.

  I’m halfway through my wine when I catch sight of Damien through the window, shaking out his small umbrella. A few seconds later he bursts through the door, and to my dismay, my heart skips at the sight of him.

  He plops into a chair across from me, not bothering to take off his khaki raincoat. His face is dewy and his hair slightly darkened from rainwater.

  “You sure you’re okay?” he asks, his voice soft.

  “Just rattled. Thanks so much for coming.”

  “Like I said, I wasn’t far away. How scary.”

  I snicker. “This must seem like déjà vu to you. Me wet and disheveled again, looking like a total mess.”

  He flashes a smile. “Well, it’s definitely not your usual look. Or, I should say, your usual look when I knew you. Did you see who pushed you?”

  “No, and—maybe I’m wrong. There’s a chance someone accidentally knocked me over. But it didn’t feel that way.”

  “Could it have been a random crazy person?”

  “Maybe.”

  “You don’t have any enemies, do you?”

  “I didn’t think so. Though what do I know? Everything these days seems so jumbled.”

  “Because of what you went through last week?”

  “Right—and . . .” Am I really going to go into it all with him? Yes. “Do you remember what happened to me wh
en I was nine? Finding that little girl’s body?”

  “Of course.”

  I give him the entire update: what I remembered about the timeline, my meeting with the police yesterday.

  He’s quiet when I finish. God, is this going to be like Hugh’s reaction all over again? But then he reaches for my hand. The rough calluses on his fingers make me realize he must still play the guitar.

  “I’m sorry that you had to dig that all up again,” he says. “I always sensed it bothered you more than you let on.”

  “I really appreciate that.” And I’m not simply being polite. His words are comforting.

  “Do you think what happened tonight is connected somehow?”

  “I’m not sure. If what I told the police this week got out, it could be threatening to whoever killed Jaycee. Which might be her mother or the mother’s boyfriend. And for the last twenty-four hours, I’ve had this weird sense that someone is watching me.”

  “I want you to be careful, Ally. Do you promise?”

  “Yes, I intend to,” I say, though I have no clue how I’m supposed to do that. “Look, I better go.”

  “You want me to walk you back to your building?”

  “I can get back on my own, thanks.” It wouldn’t be good to have Hugh see me accompanied home by Damien.

  I quickly pay the check, and as we emerge from the bistro, I notice the rain has eased into a light, misty drizzle.

  “Oh, just so you know,” I say, breaking the sudden, stilted silence, “that call to your PR person? It definitely had nothing to do with any of my projects. I found out the caller was actually this intern I’m using, but she’s doing it for a story of her own.”

  His eyes widen almost imperceptibly. “Oh yeah? What’s the topic?”

  I’d promised confidentiality to Sasha, and I can’t violate that now, but I still feel compelled to offer Damien a warning.

  “You’d have to ask her. She’s an amateur but she’s trying to make a name for herself doing financial pieces. Looking for stuff that isn’t on the up-and-up. Go figure.”

  That’s the most I should say. If he’s smart—and he is—he’ll follow the lead.

  He nods, that’s all.

  “But, Damien, just to reiterate, I wasn’t involved.”

  “Take care,” he says. No brush of lips on my cheek this time. “I’m going to watch as you cross the street.”

  I thank him and dart away, my panic mushrooming again as I hurry toward home. I’m careful at each intersection, always checking behind me. Less than ten minutes later, I’m unlocking my apartment door. And finally exhaling.

  Hugh’s not home, but then, it’s not even eight o’clock yet. I ease through the apartment, flicking on lights, opening the door to the den. It’s stupid to feel scared in my own home, but I can’t shake the fear.

  In the bedroom, I tear off my still-damp trench coat and hang it on a hook in my closet, though I can’t imagine wearing it ever again. My pants, I see, are beyond repair. I toss them on the floor, planning to trash them later.

  I wash my hands and knees next, and as I’m spreading a dab of Neosporin on each palm, my phone rings from inside my purse. I do my best to dig it out without smearing the screen with the ointment. It’s Mulroney calling.

  “Now a good time?” he asks. He’s in a car, I can tell, because his voice is echo-y from using Bluetooth.

  “Yes, always,” I say, tugging on a pair of sweats with my free hand. “Have you got news?”

  “I do. But first, anything from your end?”

  For a split second, I toy with telling him about what just happened but remind myself that it’s probably irrelevant to what he’s working on.

  “No, nothing. I did have a moment tonight when I thought I was remembering something to do with the tissues, but it never quite materialized.”

  “Maybe in time. Tell me, have you been back yet to that communal office space you use?”

  “No, but I’m hoping to go in tomorrow. Why?”

  “I think that’d be a good idea. Because you put in time there on Tuesday.”

  “Are you sure? My intern was there Tuesday afternoon, and she said I wasn’t around that day.” Could I have come and gone before Sasha arrived?

  “I’m not talking about the afternoon,” Mulroney says. “Seems you spent the entire night at that location.”

  “I was there all night?” I say, stunned. Though WorkSpace is filled with people doing startups and working weird hours, I’m usually out of there by six or so. “How do you know?”

  “I was able to convince someone there to check your key card history for me. You were on the premises from around nine P.M. to six A.M.”

  I don’t like the idea of someone being so indiscreet, even though it’s of value to me in this case. But that’s the least of what bothers me. The facility doesn’t have anything like sleeping pods on the premises, so the revelation from Mulroney means that if I slept part of the time, I must have done it sprawled across my desk or even on the floor.

  At least I was out of harm’s way.

  “But not Wednesday night?”

  “No, your key card wasn’t used again during the period we’re looking into. But we have a bigger chunk of info to work with now. You’re definitely going in there tomorrow?”

  “I’ll make a point to go. First thing in the morning.”

  “Can you take a good look around your office? See if you find any receipts, notes, anything that offers a clue.”

  “Okay. . . . But what about Wednesday night?” I ask again. I know my tone sounds almost peevish, but I’m desperate to know. “Is it possible I slept on the street that night—or on a park bench or something? My coat reeked.”

  “I’m still following the thread to Wednesday night. It’s going to take a little more time, but we’ll figure it out. By the way, I should have asked you earlier to download your credit card statement. Sometimes charges take a few days to post and I want to see if there are any charges besides that café on Seventh Street.”

  “Gosh, I never thought of that.”

  Mulroney chuckles. “That’s why you’re paying me the big bucks.”

  I find myself smiling, something I’ve barely done lately.

  “Is there anything else I can do to help?” I ask.

  “Just be patient. I hope to have more information for you tomorrow morning. One last thing: did you find any references to the Forty-Second Street area in your emails?”

  “I looked, but there was nothing.”

  “Got it. Let’s talk tomorrow once you’ve had a chance to check your office. I’ll be on my cell all day.”

  “Okay . . . Thanks.”

  “Was there something else?” He’s picked up the hesitancy in my tone.

  “No. At least nothing to do with the case.”

  “Tell me. All I’m doing is driving to an appointment.”

  I find myself blurting out a choppy recap of tonight’s incident.

  “I’m glad you looped me in. Your gut says it was definitely a shove?”

  “Yes. I’d had a sense, too, of someone watching me. And . . .”

  Without having really planned to, I also tell him briefly about Jaycee Long, the case being reopened, and the fear I’d expressed to Damien: that someone might see me as a target.

  I hear Mulroney sigh. “It’s possible there’s a connection. The girl’s killer could have tracked you down. But there’s something else I need you to be aware of. There’s a small chance that the shove tonight could be related to an event that happened during the time you were missing. I’m thinking of those tissues.”

  I’ve been so busy thinking this had something to do with Audrey Long and Frank Wargo, I hadn’t even gone there.

  “You mean I was a witness to a crime?”

  “Yeah. Maybe one big enough to traumatize you, and one someone doesn’t want any witnesses to.”

  My heart freezes.

  “So that would mean I’m definitely in danger.”

  “
Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. The person who pushed you is probably your basic New York City weirdo. But I don’t like coincidences, so it’s important to stay alert. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  For a few minutes after we sign off, I sit frozen on the edge of the bed. My heart’s finally beating again, but fast and loud. Am I really in danger? Have I put Hugh in danger? I have to do what Mulroney advises. Be alert. But what exactly does that entail?

  Finally, I propel myself off the bed and into the alcove, where I grab my laptop from my desk. I log into my credit card account and download the statement.

  To my surprise, there is another charge. On Wednesday, at a place called Pairings. There’s no way of telling from the statement what time I was there, though if I ate lunch at Eastside Eats, it probably would have been later. I type the name into a new browser window. It’s a restaurant. On East Fifth Street. So I was still in the East Village.

  I text Mulroney the update and hurry to the great room, where I grab the pad I’ve been using to write my timeline. Two more pieces to add to the puzzle.

  MONDAY

  evening: dinner, TV, argument

  TUESDAY

  7:00: still in bed

  9:00-ish: took call from Dr. Erling

  9:00–9:17: sent emails

  9:30: hung out at café

  11:00-ish: left for 42nd Street

  Before 3:00: possibly witnessed someone get injured???; lost phone

  3:00–3:30-ish: called WorkSpace

  9:00–6:00 A.M.: spent night at WorkSpace

  WEDNESDAY

  Noon-ish: bought food at Eastside Eats, East 7th St.

  Afternoon: walked near Tompkins Square Park

  Maybe evening: ate at Pairings

  THURSDAY

  8:05: arrived at Greenbacks

  Finished, I flop back onto the couch and think for a second. Was that charge really posted late or did Hugh decide not to share it with me for some reason? It can’t be the latter. There’d be no reason for Hugh to lie.

  Though he lied to me about Ashley Budd, didn’t he? A revelation that in my panic tonight I’ve let slide out of view. He said she was simply a law school acquaintance whom he’d bumped into at a lecture, so why would he have her number in his phone?

  Of course, as I’d tried to convince myself earlier, he could have taken it down that night, simply to be polite. Which means he hasn’t deceived me. And why would he? Hugh’s a straight arrow.