Where Are You Now?

“I guess everything. Yesterday I told Dr. Abrams, my psychiatrist, that I didn’t want to be protected anymore. I can sign myself out of here anytime, but I’d rather absorb everything that I have to know while I can talk it through with him.”

This was the mother I thought I had lost, the one who kept Dad sane when Mack disappeared, the one whose first thought was for me when she knew Dad was lost on 9/11. I had been a junior in Columbia then and had by chance slept home and was still asleep when the first plane hit. Horrified, Mom had watched it by herself. Dad’s office was on the 103rd floor of the North Tower, the first one to be hit. She had tried to phone him and actually got through to him. “Liv, the fire’s underneath us,” he said. “I don’t think we’ll make it.”

The co

This was my mother as she was until year after year, the a

“Mom, if you’re comfortable here, I wish you’d stay a while longer,” I said. “You don’t want to be on Sutton Place the way it is now, and once the media got word you were back at Elliott’s apartment, they’d be gu

“I understand that, but Carolyn, what about you? I know you wouldn’t come here, but isn’t there someplace you can get away from them?”

You can run but you can’t hide, I thought. “Mom, I think it’s necessary for me to be around and visible,” I said. “Because until we have absolute proof to the contrary, I am going to believe and publicly swear that Mack is i

“That’s exactly what your father would do.” Now Mom smiled, a real smile. “Come on. Let’s sit down. I wish we could have a cocktail, but that’s not going to happen here.” She looked at me, a bit anxiously. “You know that Elliott is coming?”

“Yes. I’m looking forward to seeing him.”

“He’s been a rock.”

I admit I felt a twinge of jealousy and then felt guilty about it. Elliott was a rock. Two weeks ago, Mom had said that I was her rod and staff. My guilt faded as I remembered that Elliott might just be about to a

But when he arrived, everything I feared turned out to be totally wrong. In fact, in his endearing, formal way, he was looking for my blessing to marry Mom. He sat next to her on the couch, and addressed me earnestly.

“Carolyn, I guess you know I’ve always been in love with your mother,” he said. “I always thought she was a shining star beyond my reach. But now I know that I can offer her the protection of a husband at a very difficult time in her life.”

I knew I had to warn him. “Elliott, if Mack were ever to go on trial as a serial killer, you have to be aware that the publicity will be awful. Clients of the caliber you have may not be pleased that their financial advisor is in the tabloids on a regular basis.”

Elliott looked at my mother, then back at me. With something of a twinkle in his eyes, he said, “Carolyn, word for word, that is the same speech I heard from your mother. I can promise you this: I would rather tell all my distinguished clients to jump in the lake before I give up one day of being at your mother’s side.”

We had di

Again there was no sign of the media on Sutton Place. I went to bed and listened to the eleven o’clock news. A clip with part of my statement to the media was shown, and I sounded strident and defensive. By now it had leaked out, or been allowed to leak out, that Leesey had named Mack as her abductor.

I turned off the television. Love or money, I thought as I closed my eyes. That’s what Lucas Reeves said were the causes of the majority of crimes. Love or money. Or lack of love, in Mack’s case.

At three A.M., I heard the buzzing of the intercom. I got out of bed and rushed downstairs to pick it up. It was the concierge. “I’m so sorry, Ms. MacKenzie,” he said. “But someone just handed a note to the doorman and said it was a matter of life and death that you have it immediately.”

He hesitated, then said, “With all the publicity, this may be someone’s terrible idea of a joke, but-”

“Send it up,” I interrupted him.

I stood at the door and waited until Manuel came down the hall and handed me a plain white envelope. The note in it was handwritten on plain bond paper.

It read, “Carolyn I am sending this by messenger because your phone may be wiretapped. Mack just called me. He wants to see both of us. He’s waiting on the corner of 104th Street and Riverside Drive. Meet us there. Elliott.”

68

T here he is,” Barrott exclaimed, “on the street in front of the Woodshed the night Leesey disappeared. If you look from the angle the security camera caught him, he could see DeMarco’s table. And there he is again, in the same frame as DeMarco, watching Leesey when she was posing for her roommate.”

Accompanied by the security guard, who had been given permission to admit them, they were in Lucas Reeves’s office. They had studied hundreds of pictures in the wall montages, until they could pinpoint the face they were seeking.

“Here’s another one that looks like him, but the hair is shorter,” Gaylor said, a note of excitement detectable in his voice.

It was half past ten. Knowing they had a long night ahead, they hurried back to the office to begin to process information on one more potential suspect.

69

L ucas Reeves did not sleep well on Wednesday night. “Love or money” was the phrase that ran through his head in a singsong way. At six A.M., as he was waking up, the question that had been eluding him popped into his head. Who would be interested in having a person who is dead seem to be alive?

Love or money.

Money, of course. It was begi

“Can an inheritance trust be broken, or is it always sacrosanct?” Lucas asked him abruptly.

“They’re not easily broken by any means, but if there’s a good and valid reason for dipping into it, the executor will usually be amenable.”

“That’s what I thought. I won’t disturb you any further. Thank you, my friend.”

“Any time, Lucas. But not before seven next time, okay? I get up early, but my wife likes to sleep.”