First Born(17)

‘You guys went out or something?’ I ask. ‘What the hell happened to her?’

‘No, wait. Nothing, I mean . . .’

‘You dated her? You wanted to date her?’

‘No. There’s a photo up?’

I point to the photo pinboard. To the Polaroid. To the T-shirt.

‘Oh, that,’ he says, laughing uncomfortably. ‘No, you see, that was a night when her friends were here and I came upstairs for a minute, no big deal, they were playing music. Her boyfriend was here too, so no. Scott was here then. It was nothing, I swear.’

Some alarm goes off on Shawn’s phone.

‘You know KT’s boyfriend?’ I say.

‘I don’t know him, I just met him a coupla times, he was always hanging around. He smokes so I’d see him outside, you know. No smoking in the building, Mom’s rules.’

‘Do you like Scott, Shawn? He a good guy? He ever hurt KT in any way?’

‘What? No. Not that I heard about. Listen, this isn’t anything to do with me. I just live here, man. Sbarra’s one of those guys, you know the kind. Like a ladies’ man, seems like he never had any problems, no obstacles, just cruising through life and all the doors opening, you know? Like a car driving through green light after green light. Listen, I gotta go now. It’s work, I’m sorry. I gotta lock this place up.’

‘Was Scott up here the day KT died, Shawn?’

Shawn looks at the bed, then at the window.

‘Listen. I gotta go, it’s—’

‘Was he here?’

‘Scott Sbarra? Six foot four, blue eyes, two-twenty? Yeah. Scott was here. Hard to miss the guy.’





Chapter 10


Leaving KT’s apartment feels permanent. Like closing the book on her life. I get a knot in my stomach just thinking about it.

Mum and I linger on the building steps while Dad tries to hail a cab.

‘How do you feel?’ asks Mum.

How do I feel? How do I feel? Lost, angry, terrified, alone. Desperately sad. Like my twin was stolen from me by this neighbourhood, this mass of people. I feel like flying straight back to London and locking myself inside my apartment to decompress.

‘I think it helped just a little,’ I say to Mum. ‘To make sense of things. Seeing her life here.’

Mum gives me a hug and her earring catches on mine. ‘Sorry,’ she says pulling away. ‘It’s never been easy for you to let your emotions out – you have your father to blame for that. Katie had the opposite problem. My fault, I suppose.’ Mum starts crying and laughing at the same time. Dad gestures that he has a cab waiting.

‘The detective kept asking questions about jealous boys and money problems,’ says Mum. ‘Did Katie mention Scott’s jealousy to you?’

I shake my head. ‘I didn’t even get to ask many questions. The detective did all the asking. He said she had some bruising to her face.’

Mum holds my hand. ‘We saw that,’ she says. ‘It was very faint, sweetie.’

I watch the fringe of Central Park fly by. We pass by the Lincoln Center: hundreds of carefree tourists taking selfies in front of the fountains.

The scent of her stays with me. That shawl. And in this taxi, squashed into one side of the back seat, I vow to avenge all that has happened. Everything is out of kilter. Skewed. I need to seek out those who are responsible for the pain in her life and help put the world back into balance. She’d have done the same. This cannot go unpunished.

We reach our hotel and there’s vomit outside my parents’ door. A man is cleaning it up best he can with a mop and bucket but it’s already soaked into the carpet tiles. He apologises and Mum says, ‘It’s not your fault, dear.’

They want to take a nap. I explain how I’ll go out for a while. Explore the city. Get some air and stick to the safe, touristy areas. Mum looks so much older all of a sudden. Twenty years older. I’m lucky to have her. Always selfless and reliable. The family rock.

I check Scott Sbarra on my phone. He’s not a difficult person to find on the internet. Not like me. From his LinkedIn page I can glean where he interned last summer. On Facebook I find a string of ex-girlfriends or ex-flings; most of them look something like KT – something like me. He’s done charitable work in Kenya, building some kind of school, and he’s made damn sure we all know about it. He lifts weights. Scott Sbarra takes good care of himself and he rows for the Columbia heavyweight squad. I’m a competent researcher. I get results. I check the rowing team website. Location of the training grounds. Their boathouse. I check their schedule and their coach’s details. He should be finishing a session soon. I look up bus routes and timetables because I refuse to take a subway.

The hostel is quiet when I sneak out.

A substantial part of me wants to return to the relative safety of my room. To quit. But a larger part needs answers. Needs to dig deeper. To interrogate this man.

The Midtown lunch rush has ended but not much changes. It seems to always be a rush out here. People walk even faster than they do in central London. Phones fixed to ears, small backpacks: urban confidence.

Unfortunately the bus I’ve researched leaves from Times Square.

I find the right place with help from my friendly local street vendor. He tries to sell me a smoothie but I politely turn down his offer and promise I’ll buy one later on.