Now You See Her Read Online Free PDF Page A

the
     same as scuba in a Y pool.
    “Think about it. Oh, before I go—here, Biscuit. Here, girl.” He digs in a pocket. “Dog treat.”
    The dog bites, ecstatic. “What is that thing?”
    “Pig ear.”
    “Cute. But what is it really?” As Stark goes to the door, I look closely at the dried, wrinkled yellow-tan triangle. Good
     God, it is an actual pig’s ear. “Disgusting.”
    “Better than bones. Easy on her stomach. Pure protein. Bye, Cutter.” He’s outdoors at the curb. The engine roars. He’s gone.
     I’m left hoping he keeps Peter Wald and Henry Faiser on his mental “ask around” list.
    A dog on a leash is excellent cover. By noon, I separate Biscuit from the vile chew-toy ear and head to Eldridge Place, which
     claims a whole city block and rises ten stories in pinkish granite that glints in early afternoon sun. Turnpike traffic murmurs
     in the background. Islands of evergreens soften the main entrance of glass and columns. The security cameras are concealed
     in stonework niches.
    I walk halfway down the block and back again. Not a sign of a former crack house, a chop shop, a murder. Every trace of the
     violent past that Devaney described is long bulldozed. Eldridge Place now means city living for the right sort of people.
     Ironic that I myself might have lived here in my former life.
    A familiar scenario plays out when two bulky men in crested navy blazers burst from the lobby to meet a Lexus. The taller
     one opens the driver’s door and takes packages from a honey-haired woman in a slate linen suit. The thickset one slips behind
     the wheel to take the car to the underground garage.
    To think that such synchronized blazers once pampered me.
    I slowly stroll past. Too slowly, because here comes yet another blue blazer, a wiry redhead with eyes the color of seaweed.
     “May I help you?”
    I assume my Regina Baynes expression. “I’m tracing an ancestor who lived on Eldridge Street long ago. I’m looking for the
     house where he once lived.”
    “Sorry, there’s no houses on Eldridge. We’ve got both sides of the whole block.”
    The borrowed “we” of the staff. He looks at Biscuit as though she might squat and foul his grounds. I pick her up. Twenty
     feet away, a slender man in khakis prunes pine branches. “Do you know anyone who might remember the street from years ago?
     Perhaps a groundskeeper?”
    “We sub all that out. What did you say your name is?”
    “I’m Regina Cutter.”
    “Well, Ms. Cutter, I’m sorry we can’t help.” He escorts me across the cobbled drive. The pruning clippers bite, and the air
     smells like Christmas trees.
    I’m not through. The sidewalk runs the whole block, and I put Biscuit down and stroll past the entrance, stopping to put on
     sunglasses against the glare. I’m three-quarters down the block when I feel it—the heat at my ribs. Warm, then hot. Bearable
     but insistent. So very there. I’m alongside the Eldridge Place pink granite wall. A small stand of bone-white birches marks
     the spot where the burning sensation rises. I cross slowly, pass the spot, feel my ribs cool. Back to the birches, and I feel
     the burning heat.
    This is the spot. I know it. Literally speaking, I know in my bones that this is where Peter Wald died.
    This is my own knowledge, personal carnal knowledge. My fiery ribs are the divining rod for murder thirteen years ago. The
     burning tells me young Peter Wald was gunned down right here. He fell, bleeding, to this very ground. And a possibly innocent
     man has been wrongly imprisoned all these years. If so, it’s crime piled upon crime, the loss of two lives. Both the prisoner
     and the victim were younger than my son, Jack, is now. And these birches, merely a landscaper’s accent—they’re an accidental
     shrine. Fitting for an environmentalist.
    But a secret shrine. The Eldridge Place residents don’t have a clue. Who else knows this is a death site?
    The killer? Accomplices?
    I’m supposed to sit at home