False front, p.10
False Front, page 10
His brow furrowed. “You’ve never had one before, correct?”
“Never. I remembered,” oh God, this was going to be hard, “a cage, and a man holding my hands when I poked them through the grate.” Her father looked desolate, so she hurried to the pertinent information. “I remembered a very small tattoo. Here.” She pinched the soft flesh between her thumb and index finger. “I think I could maybe even draw it.” She went to him and wrapped her arms around his waist, but he didn’t return the hug. He was normally very affectionate—surprisingly supportive and functional for a titan of industry—but he seemed paralyzed. “Daddy?”
“Have you called Neil?”
“I will tomorrow.” He was right. Her therapist should be the first one to know she’d recovered a memory. He put his arms around her then, like he had forgotten to do it.
“Good.” He sighed heavily. “I guess this is good news, sweetheart. I don’t know.”
“I think it is.”
“It’s because of Bishop. He’s triggering memories from your childhood.”
“I know.”
“I’m concerned that it’s all . . . too much for you.”
“It’s not. I swear it’s not.” He picked up on her overly emphatic tone.
“I’m not sure you’re in a position to judge.”
“Let me do the story. I’ll be out of his world by August.”
“Okay, sweetheart. I trust you. Nathan’s a good man. Truth be told, I trust him too.”
“Me too, Dad.”
He paused, looking down at her for a moment. He tweaked her nose with his knuckles, the benign gesture belying the serious look in his eyes.
“He contacted me, you know.”
“Nathan?”
“Yes. Many times.” He squinted up at the ceiling, recalling. “On your ninth birthday—that would have been his fourteenth, you were still missing. Then again about six months later.”
Emma thought he was finished, so she stepped away, but he kept going.
“Then, every year on your birthday. Though he stopped calling when he went into the Navy, and just sent emails.”
“What did he say?”
“He used to want to leap to action. Asked what he could do, what was being done, that sort of thing. Eventually, I stopped taking the calls, and he would just leave a message with Janine. The emails, well, they were different, more resigned. I can forward them to you. They are mostly just well-wishes.”
“He gave up.” She didn’t know why the thought broke her heart.
“Hardly. I think he may have . . .” He stopped himself from finishing the thought. “I think he thought I would contact him if I received any new information. I don’t think he had given up hope.”
“I don’t know why, but that makes me feel so . . . relieved.”
Her father smiled. He knew why.
“I regret not telling him the truth, but I had to draw a line and his father . . . I hated to punish Nathan for Henry’s behavior, but I just couldn’t risk anyone else knowing.”
“I understand, Dad.”
“It may be time to expand our little circle of trust.”
“You’d be okay with that?”
“Yes, but think long and hard about it. You can’t unring that bell.”
“I will. I promise.”
“Good.” He gave Emma a probing look but kept his thoughts to himself. He was about to say something else when the sound of the key in the door stopped him. Caroline came through the door with a small, black French Bulldog on a leash.
“Don’t ask. Oh, hey, Mr. Web. What brings you by?” She held up a hand. “Kidding. I just won a bet with myself. I had you showing up sometime between her second and fourth interview with Nathan.” She gave Emma’s dad a hug, still not acknowledging the dog.
“Caroline, you look beautiful as always. How are things at CNN?”
“Eh. Can’t complain. For every day I have to take my producer’s dog to the acupuncturist, there’s a day I get to interview Clark Rhodes.”
Emma poked her head into the fridge and retrieved a bottled water.
“I take it today is an acupuncture day.”
Caroline nodded her head in big deliberate moves, urging Emma to process to the rest of her comment.
“Wait. You seriously get to interview Clark Rhodes?”
She squealed so loudly the dog winced. “He hates Christine because, on the Black Dawn press junket, she basically told him his wife left him during the interview. His manager told Frank he wanted a completely non-confrontational interview with someone new.” She brushed her hands down her body from head to toe in a that’s me gesture.
Jack looked at Caroline with a raised brow. “Is non-confrontational a good quality in a reporter?”
“It’s good that’s how they think of you. The scariest shark is the one you don’t see.” She winked at Emma’s father, and he gave her an uncomfortable smile. He knew the truth of that statement all too well.
“I thought you hated Clark Rhodes.”
“You know our love story, bitch. Sorry, Mr. Web. At first, I loved him. In tenth grade, I wanted to invite him to winter formal. Actually, Mr. Web, you were the one who pointed out that a twenty-nine-year-old man might not look too good going to a school dance with a sixteen-year-old girl.”
“Not to mention, I was a little concerned he would accept.” He winked back.
“Then, when he attacked that bartender in the Meatpacking District, I hated him. I mean of all the spoiled temperamental things.”
Emma chimed in, needing her to hurry up the story. She had heard it a dozen times and was actually surprised Caroline was giving her father the edited version. There were at least three more bouts of love and hate in the full story. “Land the plane, Caroline.”
“Right. Anyway, since I started at CNN . . . I mean, not Clark Rhodes specifically . . . I’ve just learned things aren’t always as they seem. We can’t judge a situation unless we know the whole truth.”
The whole truth. Emma stared at her dad. The truth was practically a stranger to her. Her dad loved her, and he was doing whatever it took to keep her safe, but he was also keeping her from having any meaningful connection to another person. How could she even contemplate a relationship when she wasn’t even a real person?
“Stop spinning out, Em.” Caroline knew the look on her face all too well. “Your situation is . . . unique.”
“I’m not truthful.”
Her father checked his phone.
“You’re not a liar, either. You’re like a superhero with a secret identity.” Her eyes lit up. “You’re Incognito!” Emma rolled her eyes at Caroline’s proclamation, so Caroline continued. “Just stop whining or I’m changing it to The Incredible Sulk.”
Jack Webster chuckled and finally acknowledged the dog who was currently chewing on one of Emma’s stray flip flops.
“Can that beast survive an hour on his own so I can take my two best girls out for dinner?”
As if understanding the question, the dog moved to the couch, curled into a ball, and stared at a pigeon perched on the sill outside. Emma plopped next to him and scratched under his collar. He voiced his approval with a contented grumble.
“His name’s Wendell. I just have to drop him at the place. The trainer is picking him up.”
Her father rolled his eyes. He was one of the richest men in the country in his own right, but even he could see the absurdity of extravagance. That, and he disapproved of substituting money for hard work. “That dog needs a ball and a park.”
“I know, Mr. Web, but I’m just a lowly newbie. All I can do until I climb the ladder is smile and nod.”
“Come on. I’m starving.” Emma gave Wendell a parting pat and pushed up off the couch.
“How ‘bout that burger place on Mott?” her dad asked.
“Perfect,” she and Caroline chorused.
“Jesus, finally.”
Mac Ferguson thought he was at the point in his career, and certainly his life, when the down-and-dirty private detective crap was behind him. He had flunkies to do this shit, but the client, more precisely the client’s money, had been too enticing to hand this job off to a subordinate. Once again, his instincts had paid off. He stepped into the doorway of a rundown apartment building and placed a call.
“Yes?”
“I found her.”
“You’re sure.”
“I’m sure. Told ya, the key was the father. It’s like WITSEC. Eventually, they all break routine or do something dumb. Unless he’s got a thing for much younger tail, Daddy just paid her a visit. Man, she’s a looker.”
“My employer will be quite pleased.”
“Yeah, well, if that gal’s your employer’s ex-wife, I’m the Pope, but as long as the money’s green.”
“Black on one side, green on the other, Mr. Ferguson.”
“I’m going to stay on them for another hour or so. I’ll meet you at the coffee shop by your hotel at, say, 10:00 p.m. I’ll give you the pertinent information.”
“The alley just beyond. We don’t need a nosy waitress monitoring our actions.”
“Agreed.”
After dinner, the three of them walked off their cheeseburgers window shopping on Spring Street. Her dad groaned.
“Good thing I’m only allowed one of those a month. I’m about to fall asleep. I was hoping to get some work done on the drive back.”
Shortly after Emma was rescued, her father had sold the Connecticut house where they lived and moved them to the estate in Georgia where she spent the rest of her childhood. He also bought a large but less imposing home in Amagansett in the Hamptons, so he could take her inconspicuously by helicopter to the beach—well, as inconspicuously as one could manage, traveling by helicopter. He kept the Nantucket house for eleven years, in the hope that the man or men pursuing her would be caught or killed, and they could go back one day. Then unexpectedly, on her twentieth birthday, he’d sold it without remorse or regret. It had broken her heart a little. Nathan’s father had sold their place on the island when Nathan’s mother left him. Selling the Webster home closed the book on a very happy chapter in Emma’s life. In any event, her father now divided his time among the Hamptons house, a London brownstone, and a house in Bermuda that she had never seen.
“You’ll wake up. It’s only 8:30. Do you want me to grab you a coffee?” She tilted her head toward a corner Starbucks.
“Actually, yes, Beauty. A half-caf.”
“Be right back.”
Caroline pulled on Jack Webster’s sleeve. “Oh, Mr. Web, come look at this tie in the window at Thomas Pink. I thought Dad would love it for Father’s Day.”
Emma heard her father grouse as they rounded the corner, “You’re actually going to give him a tie?”
Emma walked right up to the counter of the nearly empty coffee shop where a still perky barista greeted her. She placed the simple order and waited while the teenager poured the drink. She glanced through the glass and caught sight of a man. Standing across the street, he was wearing a cheap Mets bomber jacket and just staring into the coffee shop. He creeped Emma out, but he was so unabashed about his staring that she took him more for a deviant than a threat. She took the coffee and headed outside.
Joining in the debate over acceptable Father’s Day presents, they made their way back to the apartment.
Upstairs, after hugging her father goodbye on the sidewalk, Caroline and Emma both changed into sweats and T-shirts and plopped on the couch for some bad TV and good girl talk; the man outside the coffee shop was completely purged from her thoughts. A perfect night.
At 10:00 p.m. sharp, in an alley that smelled of rotting garbage and piss, Mac Ferguson handed over a food-stained paper file containing his findings. He was so focused on the envelope of cash in the other man’s outstretched right hand, he didn’t notice the syringe in his left.
Neil Tyson’s office should have been the most relaxing place on earth. The walls were a soft sage, and photos of long grass blowing in a meadow decorated the walls. A small water sculpture gurgled in the corner, and the chairs, couch, and loveseat were an inviting taupe suede. It was all so soothing. Emma imagined most of his patients fell asleep mid-session.
Emma was a nervous wreck.
She sat in the corner of the big couch with her legs folded underneath her and chewed on a cuticle. Neil made a note on a yellow legal pad and then placed it under the iPad on his lap. She idly thought she must have so many issues he needed more than one way to take notes.
“Care to tell me what’s going on, Emma?”
Neil had been her therapist since she’d gone away to college. He was a specialist in abduction trauma and had been thoroughly vetted by Jack Webster. He knew everything and was loyal not only out of professional obligation but also because of a sincere concern for Emma’s wellbeing.
“Well, lots.” She knotted her hands in her lap. “I’m interviewing Nathan Bishop for a series of articles for The Sentry.”
“I see. And how is that going?”
Emma met his gaze then, and, with a surety that she felt in her soul, she said, “I love him.”
Neil sighed and smiled kindly. “I know you do.”
“Not like that,” she protested.
“Elaborate.”
“I’m in love with him.”
“How much time have you spent with him?” It was an innocent question.
“Um, a few interviews and a couple of dates, I guess?”
“You guess?”
“He came to my apartment once, and we went to a street fair.”
“Really?” He seemed pleased.
“Yes, he surprised me.”
“Any anxiety about that?”
“Not really. I told him I hated surprises.”
Neil cocked a brow.
“What?”
“I’m just gratified you were so forthcoming.”
Emma guessed that qualified as forthcoming for her. She shrugged.
“Emma, I want to choose my words carefully here. There is not a doubt in my mind that you love him, are in love with him,” he amended. “I also don’t doubt that Nathan could have deep feelings for you. Even as children, you seemed to have an indescribable connection.” He paused and set the things on his lap onto the table next to him, then leaned forward on his elbows. “You’ve spent years guarding your identity, but you’ve never had to guard your heart. Frankly, I’ve always been a little relieved that your romantic life hasn’t added another complication to your recovery.” He rubbed a hand over his bearded jaw, like what he was saying wasn’t coming out right. “I guess what I’m trying to say is that at some point you were going to have to risk your heart, and while I absolutely want you to have those experiences, I also worry.”
“I’m sure about him, Neil.”
“I’m glad. You’re a strong woman, Emma, but parts of you are very fragile. I want to ensure those continue to mend.”
“I’m hoping Nathan can help there too.”
“How so?”
“I had a flashback.”
Neil’s face revealed nothing, but his shock was palpable.
“Go on.”
She described the scene to him. The cage, the man, the voice, the tattoo. He diligently wrote down everything she said.
“This is wonderful news, Emma.”
“It is?”
“Yes. Your mind is letting you know you are ready to handle memory. In the flashback, do you recall how you felt?”
“Um, physically?”
“Either physically or emotionally. Do you recall any feelings you had?”
“I wasn’t afraid. I think I was curious.”
“Curious?”
“I don’t know. I think his accent and his tattoo and his clothes made me curious. I’m sure I hadn’t seen anyone like him before.”
“His clothes?”
“Hmm?”
“You said his clothes.”
The color drained from her face and recognition dawned.
“In my mind, I was thinking why is a man wearing a dress? Neil, I think he was wearing a dishdasha.”
After her session, Emma walked out onto 57th Street and ducked into the corner bodega. Inside the store, she maneuvered past boxes of breakfast cereal and toilet paper and around a mop and a bucket, to the cooler in the back where she found the Fiji Water and grabbed two bottles. She also clipped a bag of the caramel corn Caroline loved and a copy of Business Week that had a picture of Nathan on the cover. She had resisted buying it the day before because she didn’t want to read another interviewer’s take on him. In the photo, he was behind a desk taking a monster bite out of an apple. He was staring directly at the camera, his emerald eyes in sharp contrast to the red of the apple skin. Various red items caught the reader’s attention: a partially obscured file marked ‘Top Secret’ on the desk, the ribbon of a military medal tossed to the side, and in the periphery, barely visible on the floor, a red-soled stiletto. In bold letters across the bottom of the page read the headline: When Does Nathan Bishop Sleep? Okay, maybe there was another reason she didn’t want to read it. Nevertheless, she folded the magazine under her arm and carried the items precariously as she rounded the corner to the register and immediately slammed into a man holding a shopping basket. The water bottles and the magazine hit the floor as she snagged the popcorn in midair. They both immediately squatted to retrieve her things.
“They need a traffic light here,” the man quipped in a cultured accent.
“Sorry about that.”
“My apologies, I’m new to the neighborhood and still finding my way around. That includes the local market.”
She quickly grabbed the things and moved to walk around him. This man was older and unthreatening, late fifties she guessed, and impeccably dressed; still, casual encounters, no matter how benign, made Emma wildly uncomfortable.
“Have a good night.”
“You, too, little one.”
Her blood ran cold at his endearment. She turned to look back at him, but he had already disappeared down the aisle, continuing his shopping. She immediately shook it off. Her shrink had told her countless times not to see a threat around every corner. It was the surest way to drive herself insane. Neil and Emma agreed it would be impossible for her to trust her instincts if every little thing set off alarm bells, so she paid for her items and left the store.
