Run Away(36)

“How is she?” Cornelius asked.

“Critical.”

“Better come inside.”

Simon wasn’t sure what he expected when he stepped into Cornelius’s apartment—something like the dirty hovel Paige had called home—but the interior was like stepping through a magic portal into another world. The place could have been featured on one of those home TV shows Ingrid loved to watch. Built-in oak bookshelves framed the windows on the far wall. A classic Victorian tufted sofa of green sat to the right. The embroidered accent pillows had botanical themes. Prints of butterflies hung to the left. A chess set sat atop an ornate wood table and for a moment, Simon could almost see Paige sitting there with Cornelius, the way her brow would furrow and she’d play with her hair when she concentrated on a move.

A cocker spaniel burst around the corner, tail wagging so hard she could barely keep her balance. Cornelius scooped her up and held her close. “This here is Chloe.”

There were photographs in front of the books on the shelves. Family photographs. Lots of them. Simon moved toward them for a better look. He stopped at the first photograph, a standard family shot in front of a rainbow backdrop—a younger Cornelius, a woman who looked to be his wife, and three smiling teenage boys, two of whom were already taller than Cornelius.

Cornelius put down the dog and joined him.

“This picture gotta be eight, ten years old. Me and Tanya, we raised three boys here in this apartment. They’re grown now. Tanya…she passed two years ago. Breast cancer.”

“I’m sorry,” Simon said.

“Do you want to sit? You look exhausted, man.”

“If I sit, I’m afraid I’m not going to get back up.”

“Might not be a bad idea. You need some rest if you want to keep going.”

“Maybe later.”

Cornelius placed the family photograph down gently, as though it were exceedingly fragile, and pointed to a portrait of a Marine in uniform.

“This here is Eldon. He’s our oldest.”

“A Marine.”

“Yes.”

“He looks like you.”

“That he does.”

“You serve, Cornelius?”

“A Marine corporal. First Persian Gulf War. Operation Desert Storm.” Cornelius turned and faced Simon full-on. “You don’t seem surprised.”

“I’m not.”

Cornelius rubbed his chin. “Did you see me?”

“Just a flash.”

“But enough to figure it out?”

“I think I would have guessed anyway,” Simon said. “I don’t know how to thank you.”

“Don’t. I saw Luther heading in, so I followed him. Should have taken him out before he shot Ingrid.”

“You saved our lives.”

Cornelius glanced back over at the family photos, as though the images might impart some kind of wisdom to him. “So why are you back here?” he asked.

“You know why.”

“To find Paige.”

“Yes.”

“She went there too. To that basement. Same as you.” Cornelius moved toward the far corner. “I never saw her after that.”

“And then Aaron ended up dead.”

“Yes.”

“Do you think they killed Paige?”

“I don’t know.” Cornelius squatted down. He opened a cabinet, revealing a safe. “But you should be prepared for bad news, no matter how this shakes out.”

“I am,” Simon said.

Cornelius pressed his thumb against the door. Simon heard the beep-beep as the safe read his prints. The door opened. “And you shouldn’t go in this time without backup.”

He reached inside and pulled out two handguns. He stood up and shut the cabinet. He handed one weapon to Simon and kept the other for himself.

“You don’t have to do this,” Simon said.

“You didn’t come here just to thank me, did you?”

“No.”

“Let’s go find Rocco.”

*



The Judge Lester Patterson Houses was one of the city’s oldest and largest low-income housing complexes, featuring fifteen monotonous high-rises of tired brick. The complex sat on more than seventeen acres and housed more than eighteen hundred families.

Cornelius led the way. The elevators in Building 6 were out of order so they took the stairs. The hour was early, but the place was alive. The stairwells were filled with laughing kids getting ready for school. Adults began their daily treks to the nearby bus and subway stops for the work commute. Most everyone was leaving, heading down the stairs, so that Cornelius and Simon had to swim upstream, two salmon on their way to the eighth floor.

Rocco’s mother and siblings lived in apartment 8C. Two children sprinted out the door, leaving it open. Simon rapped his knuckles on the door, and a woman’s voice told him to come in.

Simon entered. Cornelius stayed by the door. Rocco rose from a Barcalounger and started toward him. Again Simon was taken aback by the pure size of the man. A woman came out of the kitchen.

“Who’s this?” she asked.

Rocco stared daggers at Simon. “Don’t worry about it, Mama.”

“Don’t tell me not to worry about it. This is my house.”