“How’s it going? Any luck?” she says on the Volvo’s speakerphone.
Atticus’s voice comes from the overhead speakers: “I haven’t found any connection between Arpeggio and the Dairy Creamery victims. I’ve started going through cell records. Madison Sawyer and her sister made no calls or texts to Arpeggio or a burner phone. I just got through all the logs for the last month on Madison’s cell, and I’ve skimmed through her texts—Mintz downloaded them to the evidence portal. I’m about to go through her little sister’s call logs and texts.”
“Nothing?”
“Not yet. I’ll tell you, though, from the texts, Madison wasn’t the nicest girl. I hate to speak ill of the dead and all…”
“Teenage girls can be mean as shit.”
“One interesting thing: the sisters were in a fight about something. Madison said she was going to tell their mom about it.”
“What?”
“It’s not clear. They talk in code. I’ve googled all the weird abbreviations they use but haven’t cracked it. How was the meeting with Rusty Whitaker?”
Keller debriefs him on the proffer.
“Is Hal going to make the deal?” Atticus asks. “And what about you all on the federal charges?”
“Not if I can help it. Did you see my text about getting me the address?”
“Yeah, just sent it. What’s up?”
“A long shot. I’ll keep you posted. Let me know if you find anything in the cell records or a connection between the girls and Arpeggio.”
Keller disconnects the line and follows the GPS link Atticus sent her, pulling into the driveway of a home in Elizabeth ten minutes later.
She bangs on the front door.
It opens tentatively. “I told you I have nothing to—”
“We’ve arrested Rusty Whitaker. He’s about to sing. Once he does, any deal for you is over. It’s now or never. And I know…”
There’s a long pause. The man hesitates, cricks his neck, then opens the door for Keller to come inside.
CHAPTER 62
ELLA
Ella glances at Chris, who’s staring at his phone. They’re bouncing around in the back of a cab, which just hit the exit to Forty-Second Street in Manhattan.
“He’s somewhere in Central Park,” Chris says.
That’s a stroke of luck. Ella’s family has an apartment on the park. She spent many weekends there as a kid, knows the terrain. On breaks from college, she’d stay there to avoid Phyllis. It made her popular with the kids in the dorm, a free place to crash on the Upper West Side. She’s kept in touch with none of them.
“Comments in the feed say his fans are already giving chase,” Chris adds.
Ella asks Chris for the phone. She examines the screen. It’s too dark to recognize anything. Mr. Nirvana’s in a dark area of the park. It’s dead quiet.
The traveler walks in silence as the screen moves down a path that soon turns black except for the light from the camera. There’s bramble on either side. The camera zooms in on a rat next to a trash bin. It doesn’t scurry away despite the light.
The traveler walks up the ominous path.
“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t scared,” Mr. Nirvana says, narrating the live feed.
A voice bellows from the woods. “Can you turn that fucking light off?”
The traveler turns out the light and fast-walks, the sound of wind brushing into the microphone.
The camera turns off, then back on. The traveler shines the light on a lamppost. The camera’s focus resolves on a placard with a number on it: 7802.
“If you know anything about the park, that’s a clue where I am,” he says. The camera pans the area. It’s crowded, but no one seems to be focusing on him.
Ella says, “He’s at East Seventy-Eighth.”
“How do you know that?”
“The lampposts have numbers. My dad taught me. The first two numbers are the street. If it’s an odd number you’re on the west side; even, you’re on the east side.”
Chris nods, impressed.
Ella says, “Seventy-Eighth. That’s near the Shakespeare Garden.”
That’s confirmed when the camera focuses on a small plaque surrounded by beautiful flowers and featuring a quote from The Winter’s Tale.
“How far away are we?” asks Chris.
Ella stares out the window looking for street signs. “Five minutes.”
In the stop-start traffic, her mind goes to her childhood, watching Shakespeare in the Park with her father and big brother. Renting remote-control boats at the pond, Shane standing too close to the water’s edge, even then flirting with danger. The two of them climbing the rocks, Dad calling after them to be careful.