Cold Vengeance

Another creak, this one higher and closer. No imagination: someone was definitely in the house — and they were coming up the stairs.

In her excitement over the papers, she’d forgotten to keep utterly silent. Had the person on the stairs heard her?

With exquisite care, she moved across the room to the closet standing open on the far side. She managed to get there without creaking any of the floorboards. Easing herself in, she pulled the door almost but not quite closed and then crouched down in the darkness. Her heart was beating so hard and so fast she feared the intruder might hear it.

Another stealthy creak, and then a faint groan. The door to the room was being opened. She peered out from the closet, hardly daring to breathe. After a long period of silence, a figure moved into the room.

Corrie held her breath. The man was dressed in black, wearing round smoked glasses, his face obscure. A burglar?

He walked to the center of the room, stood there, and finally removed a pistol. He turned toward the closet, raised the gun, and aimed at the closet door.

Corrie began to fumble desperately in her knapsack.

“You will come out, please,” the strongly accented voice said.

After a long moment, Corrie stood up, swung the door open.

The man smiled. He thumbed off the safety and took careful aim.

“Auf Wiedersehen,” he said.

CHAPTER 81

SPECIAL AGENT PENDERGAST SAT ON A LEATHER COUCH in the reception room of his Dakota apartment. The cut on his cheek had been cleaned and was now just a faint red line. Constance Greene, dressed in a white cashmere sweater and a pleated, knee-length skirt the color of coral, sat beside him. A soft light filled the room from behind scallop-shaped agate fixtures arrayed just below the ceiling molding. The room was windowless. Three of the walls were painted a deep rose. The fourth was entirely of black marble, over which fell a thin sheet of water, gurgling quietly into the pool at the base, in which floated clusters of lotus blossoms.

An iron pot of tea sat on a table of Brazilian purpleheart, along with two small cups filled with green liquid. The two conversed in low tones, barely audible above the hush of the waterfall fountain.

“I still don’t understand why you let him go last night,” Constance was saying. “Surely you don’t trust him.”

“I don’t trust him,” Pendergast replied. “But in this matter, I believe him. He was telling me the truth about Helen, there in the Foulmire — and he’s telling the truth now. Besides—” he went on in an even lower tone—“he knows that, if he doesn’t keep his promise, I’ll track him down. No matter what.”

“And if you don’t,” Constance said, “I will.”

Pendergast glanced at his ward. A cold hatred flickered briefly in her eyes — a flicker he had seen once before. This, he realized immediately, was going to be a serious problem.

“It’s half past five,” she said, glancing at her watch. “In half an hour…” She paused. “How do you feel, Aloysius?”

Pendergast did not answer immediately. At last he shifted on the couch. “I must confess to a most disagreeable sensation of anxiety.”

Constance looked at him, her face full of concern. “After twelve years… if it’s true that your… your wife cheated death, why has she never contacted you? Why this — forgive me, Aloysius — but why this monstrous, overarching deception?”

“I don’t know. I can only assume it has to do with this Covenant that Judson mentioned.”

“And if she is still alive… Would you still be in love with her?” Her face flushed slightly and she looked down.

“I don’t know that, either,” Pendergast replied in a tone so low even Constance barely heard it.

A phone on the table rang and Pendergast reached for it. “Yes?” He listened a moment, replaced the phone in its cradle. He turned to her. “Lieutenant D’Agosta is on his way up.” He paused a moment, then continued: “Constance, I must ask you: if at any time you have reservations, or can’t bear being incarcerated any longer, let me know and I will fetch the child and clear all this up. We don’t have to… follow the plan.”

She silenced him with a gentle gesture, her face softening. “We do have to follow the plan. And anyway, I’m happy going back to Mount Mercy. In a queer way I find it comforting to be there. I don’t care for the uncertainty and busyness of the outside world. But I will say one thing. I realize now that I was wrong — wrong to look at the child as your brother’s son. I should have thought of the boy, from the very start, as the nephew of my… my dearest guardian.” And she pressed his hand.

The doorbell rang. Pendergast rose and opened the door. D’Agosta stood in the entranceway, his face drawn.

“Thank you for coming, Vincent. Is everything prepared?”

D’Agosta nodded. “The car’s waiting downstairs. I told Dr. Ostrom that Constance was on her way back. The poor bastard just about collapsed with relief.”

Pendergast removed a vicuña overcoat from a closet, slipped it on, and helped Constance into her own coat. “Vincent, please make sure that Dr. Ostrom fully understands Constance is returning voluntarily — and that her departure from the hospital was a kidnapping, not an escape, entirely the fault of this phony Dr. Poole. Whom we are still looking for but are unlikely to find.”

D’Agosta nodded. “I’ll take care of it.”

They left the apartment and entered the waiting elevator. “When you get back to Mount Mercy, make sure she’s given her old room with all her books, furniture, and notebooks returned. If not, protest vigorously.”

“I’ll raise holy hell, believe me.”

“Excellent, my dear Vincent.”

“But… damn it, don’t you think I should go with you to the boathouse? Just in case there’s trouble?”

Pendergast shook his head. “Under any other circumstances, Vincent, I would accept your help. But Constance’s safety is too important. You’re armed, of course?”

“Of course.”

The elevator arrived at the ground floor, the doors whispering open. They exited the southwest lobby and walked across the interior courtyard.

D’Agosta frowned. “Esterhazy might be organizing a trap.”

“I doubt it, but I’ve taken precautions. In case anyone tries to interrupt us.”

They passed beneath a portcullis-like structure and through the entrance tu

Constance turned to Pendergast, kissed him lingeringly on the cheek. “Take care, Aloysius,” she whispered.

“I’ll be with you as soon as I can,” he told her.

She gave his hand a final press and slipped into the rear of the car.

D’Agosta closed the door after her, walked around to the other side. He gave Pendergast a last, intent look. “Watch your ass, partner.”

“I will endeavor to follow your advice — metaphorically, of course.”

D’Agosta got in and the car pulled out into traffic.

Pendergast watched the car disappear into the gathering dusk. Then he reached into his jacket, pulled out a tiny Bluetooth headset, and fitted it to his ear. Slipping his hands into the pockets of his coat, he crossed the broad avenue, entered Central Park, and vanished down a winding path, heading for Conservatory Water.

CHAPTER 82

AT FIVE MINUTES BEFORE SIX IN THE EVENING, Central Park lay under the drowsy enchantment of a Magritte painting: the sky above in vivid light, the trees and pathways below swathed in heavy dusk. The pulse of the city had slowed with the coming of evening; the cabs hushed by on Fifth Avenue, too lazy even to honk their horns.