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CHAPTER 56
Manhattan, NY Wednesday, July 7, 2021
AVERY SAT AT THE SMALL DESK IN HER HOTEL ROOM. THE PHOTOS OF Walt lay before her, scattered across the surface. Avery had carefully scrutinized each picture. As André indicated, they told Avery everything she needed to know. The first photo was of Walt in jeans, windbreaker, and ball cap. In the background were the headstones of Green-Wood Cemetery. He had followed her the day after their first meeting when she’d gone to visit her mother’s grave. A second photo was of Walt crouching next to Christopher’s headstone while he held a cell phone to his ear. The next was an image of Walt standing in the shadows between two brownstones in Brooklyn. Finally, there were photos of Walt sitting behind the wheel of his SUV, sunglasses covering his eyes, and Ma Bell’s cabin in the background.
He’d followed her to André’s brownstone. He’d followed her to the cemetery. He’d followed her out to Lake Placid. Some combination of disbelief, anger, and embarrassment befell her as she paged through the photos. Had she been so naive to believe that the United States government would stop searching for her father? Had she believed that her amateurish attempts to fly under the radar on this trip to New York would really deceive the Federal Bureau of Investigation? The feds had tracked her down in LA a couple of years earlier and asked a slew of questions about her father. She hadn’t lied when she told them that she had no idea where her father was. At the time, she didn’t. Only after the postcard arrived had Avery figured it out.
Bile bubbled up her esophagus and deposited a bitter taste in the back of her throat at the notion that Walt had slept with her in order to gain information about her father’s whereabouts. More acid followed when she admitted that she had allowed herself to feel something for him. Was she such a poor judge of character to miss all the red flags? Was she so desperate for companionship that she allowed his story of betrayal to resonate with her own? Was that part of Walt’s past even true? Couldn’t she see how convenient it all was? That the detective in the Cameron Young case, now a retired agent of the FBI, was so eager to help when she called? Had her ego as a respected television journalist clouded her reason?
“Dammit!” she shouted as she swiped the photos to the floor.
Just then there was a knock on the door. She looked up from the desk and froze. After a moment, another knock came—three hurried taps. Avery quickly gathered the photos from the floor, noticing that one had slid under the couch. She stuffed them back into the envelope and then reached beneath the couch to retrieve the last photo. Coincidentally, or perhaps an omen of the situation she had found herself in, when she reached under the couch to retrieve the photo, she also discovered her father’s postcard. The photo that had skidded under the couch was of Walt in his SUV, studying the cabin when he followed Avery out to Lake Placid.
She pushed away the worry about what it all might mean—that not only Walt Jenkins, but the United States government, knew everything about what she had painstakingly planned for the last year. Another knock came from the door. She stuffed the photo and the postcard into the manila envelope and dropped it on the desk. She checked her reflection in the mirror, frustrated that her red-rimmed eyes and bloated face revealed her vulnerability and would allow him to see that his actions had hurt her. Avery hated the feeling of weakness, but there was no way to hide it, and she wasn’t about to run from this confrontation. In fact, she longed for it. She walked over to the door and ripped it open.
Natalie Ratcliff stood in the hallway.
“Hi,” Natalie said. “Is this a bad time?”
Avery blinked a few times. “Uh, no.” She shook her head. “I wasn’t expecting to see you, that’s all.”
“Everything okay?”
Avery recognized the concern in Natalie’s voice. Where men may retreat in paranoia at the sight of a woman crying, women pounce on the opportunity to help.
“Working out some man-related crap, that’s all,” Avery said.
“Is there another kind?”
Avery forced a smile.
“Can I come in?” Natalie asked.
Avery nodded and moved to the side. Natalie walked past her.
“How did you know where I was staying?”
“Pulled some strings,” Natalie said.
“Meaning?”
“Meaning I needed to talk with you after how you left things the other day. And I didn’t want to wait for a call back, so I figured out where you were staying.”
“Fair enough.” Avery closed the door. “What’s on your mind?”
“You can’t do what you’re about to do.”
Avery opened the minifridge and pulled out a bottle of water, took a sip. “What am I about to do?”
Natalie took a deep breath and exhaled it audibly. “You think you know the whole story, but you don’t.”
“Oh, I’m sure I don’t know the half of it. But I’m pretty sure I figured out the most important part. Victoria is not dead, is she?”
There was a stretch of silence that filled the hotel room, interrupted only by the occasional car horn that penetrated up from the street.
“Victoria was in an impossible position. She was no saint, and I’d never argue otherwise. She was having an affair with a married man. But she was looking at going to prison for a crime she didn’t commit.”
Avery saw Natalie swallow hard, on the verge of crying.
