“After is okay too.”
I smiled. Zia sat on the edge of the bed. I told her what had happened. She didn’t offer a theory. She didn’t throw up a question. She just listened, and I loved her for it.
I was just getting to the part about being a serious suspect when my cell phone started ringing. Both of us, because of our training, were surprised. Cell phones in the hospital were a no-no. I reached it for quickly and brought it to my ear.
“Marc?”
It was Rachel. “Where are you?”
“Following the money.”
“What?”
“They did exactly what I thought,” she said. “They dumped the bag, but they haven’t spotted the Q-Logger in the pack of bills. I’m heading up the Harlem River Drive right now. They’re maybe a mile ahead of me.”
“We need to talk,” I said.
“Did you find Tara?”
“It was a hoax. I saw the kid they had with them. It wasn’t my daughter.”
There was a pause.
“Rachel?”
“I’m not doing so good, Marc.”
“What do you mean?”
“I took a beating. At the park. I’m okay, but I need your help.”
“Wait a second. My car is still at the scene. How are you following them?”
“Did you notice a Parks Department van on the circle?”
“Yes.”
“I stole it. It’s an old van, easy to hot-wire. I figured it wouldn’t be missed until the morning.”
“They think we did it, Rachel. That we were having an affair or something. They found photos on that CD. You in front of where I work.”
Cell-phone-static silence.
“Rachel?”
“Where are you?” she asked.
“I’m at New York Presbyterian Hospital.”
“Are you okay?”
“Banged up. But I’m fine, yeah.”
“The cops there?”
“The feds too. A guy named Tickner. You know him?”
Her voice was soft. “Yes.” Then, “How do you want to play it?”
“What do you mean?”
“Do you want to keep following them? Or do you want to turn it over to Tickner and Regan?”
I wanted her back here. I wanted to ask her about those photos and the phone call to my house. “I’m not sure it matters,” I said. “You were right from the beginning. It was a con job. They must have used someone else’s hair.”
More static.
“What?” I said.
“You know anything about DNA?” she asked me.
“Not much,” I said.
“I don’t have time to explain it, but a DNA test goes layer by layer. You start seeing things match up. It takes at least twenty-four hours before we can really say with any degree of certainty that there’s a match.”
“So?”
“So I just spoke to my lab guy. We’ve only had about eight hours. But so far, that second set of hairs that Edgar got?”
“What about them?”
“They match yours.” I wasn’t sure I heard correctly. Rachel made a sound that might have been a sigh. “In other words, he hasn’t ruled out that you’re the father. Just the opposite, in fact.”
I nearly dropped the phone. Zia saw it and moved closer. Again I focused and compartmentalized. Process. Rebuild. I considered my options. Tickner and Regan would never believe me. They would not allow me to go. They’d probably arrest us. At the same time, if I told them, I might be able to prove our innocence. On the other hand, proving my innocence was irrelevant.
Was there a chance my daughter was still alive?
That was the only question here. If she was, then I had to resort to our original plan. Confiding in the authorities, especially with their fresh suspicions, would not work. Suppose there was, as the ransom note said, a mole? Right now, whoever had picked up that bag of money had no idea that Rachel was onto them. But what would happen if the cops and feds got involved? Would the kidnappers run, panic, do something rash?
There was something else here that I should be considering: Did I still trust Rachel? Those photographs had shaken my faith. I didn’t know what to believe anymore. But in the end, I had no choice but to treat those doubts as a distraction. I needed to focus on one goal. Tara. What would give me the best chance of finding out what really happened to her?
“How badly hurt are you?” I asked.
“We can do this, Marc.”
“I’m on my way, then.”
I hung up and looked at Zia.
“You have to help me get out of here.”
Tickner and Regan sat in the doctors’ lounge down the hall. A lounge seemed a strange name for this threadbare dwelling with too much light and a rabbit-ear TV set. There was a minifridge in the corner. Tickner had opened it. There were two brown-bag lunches in it, both with names written on them. It reminded him of elementary school.
Tickner collapsed on a couch with absolutely no springs. “I think we should arrest him now.”
Regan said nothing.
“You were awfully quiet in there, Bob. Something on your mind?”
Regan started scratching the soul patch. “What Seidman said.”
“What about it?”
“Don’t you think he had a point?”
“You mean that stuff about him being innocent?”
“Yes.”
“No, not really. You buy it?”
“I don’t know,” Regan said. “I mean, why would he go through all this with the money? He couldn’t have known we’d learn about that CD and decide to track him with E-ZPass and find him at Fort Tryon Park. And even if he had, why go through all that? Why jump on a moving car? Christ, he’s lucky he wasn’t killed. Again. Which brings us back to the original shooting and our original problem. If he and Rachel Mills did this together, why was he nearly killed?” Regan shook his head. “There are too many holes.”
“Which we are filling in one by one,” Tickner said.
Regan made a yes-no with a head tilt.
“Look at how many we plugged today by learning about Rachel Mills’s involvement,” Tickner said. “We just need to get her in here and sweat them both.”
Regan looked off again.
Tickner shook his head. “What now?”
“The broken window.”
“The one at the crime scene?”
“Yeah.”
“What about it?”
Regan sat up. “Play along with me, okay? Let’s go back to the original murder-kidnapping.”