The Night Shift(71)
“I’m ready,” he says. “Are you?”
It’s a good question, one she doesn’t know the answer to. What will she do if this is Him? And what if he is the killer—isn’t approaching him dangerous? It’s dawned on her that Mr. Nirvana is in the U.S. at the same time as the ice cream murders. A dreadful coincidence or something else?
Chris is searching her face. Her nerves are on fire, she’s almost sick with unease. She decides that it’s time to confront her fears. She starts by saying His name for the first time in fifteen years: “Vince Whitaker.”
Chris looks at her, confused.
Ella grabs his arm and they run toward the man.
CHAPTER 63
CHRIS
The moment of truth.
Mr. Nirvana is holding up his camera, narrating, his back turned to them. So close now.
Chris looks at Ella. Behind her steely resolve, he sees trepidation. He realizes that for him, this could be a reunion with a long-lost family member, a fabled hero in his story. For her, it’s something else entirely. A reunion, of sorts, yes. But with someone she’s long believed shattered her life.
He takes her hand, squeezes it. “You don’t have to come.”
She catches his gaze. “No, I do.”
They face one another and, with a mutual nod, walk hand-in-hand toward Mr. Nirvana.
His back is still to them, the camera aimed at a castle-like structure. He’s saying something to his viewers, his fans. Chris sees a few park dwellers up ahead pointing to Mr. Nirvana as well. They’re not the only people who’ve found him.
“Vince,” Chris calls out.
The man doesn’t respond, but Chris swears there’s a nearly indiscernible reaction, a hitch in the man’s step.
They near the vlogger, who continues narrating his livestream. He has the same build as Vince. His voice sounds familiar, but it has been so long.
“Vince!” Chris says, louder. He feels Ella’s grip on his hand tighten.
The man spins around. “Sorry, bro. I don’t know who you’re looking for, but I’m in the middle of filming.”
After so many years, longing for this moment, practicing what he would say, how he would say it, how he would manage to hold back the tears and the pain and the loss, and embrace the brother who kept him safe, the older sibling who insisted that Chris work hard to find a way out, to find nirvana.
At last, that day is here.
But it’s not Vince.
CHAPTER 64
Chris and Ella walk in silence through the park, hungover from the booze and raw emotion. Disappointment swells in Chris’s chest. Ella paces trancelike next to him. Neither has said anything in a long time.
Ella’s phone chimes. She examines the caller ID, hesitates like she’s considering ignoring the call. “It’s my mother,” she tells Chris. “She never calls, so I’d better take this.” She puts the phone to her ear.
Chris watches as her face tightens with concern.
“Right now?”
An ambulance, siren blaring, barrels by. Ella puts a finger in her ear, anxious to hear whatever her mother’s saying. Her tone becomes more panicked. “What’s going on? Is something— Yes. I’m in the city.” She listens. “Okay, I’ll meet him at the apartment.” She clicks off.
“Everything okay?”
“I’m not sure. I’ve never heard my mom sound so frantic. She needs me to come home. She’s having a car pick me up at our apartment.”
* * *
Ella and Chris arrive at her mother’s estate in Summit at nine-thirty. Chris stares at the grounds, taken aback for a moment. Amid the grandeur, there’s a fleet of law-enforcement vehicles. A loud rattle of generators powering portable floodlights fills the night air.
Ella lowers the limo’s privacy barrier. “What the hell’s going on, Charles?” she asks the driver.
“You should talk to your mother,” the driver says.
Ella looks at Chris. She appears rattled, disoriented. Chris decides he should take charge of the situation, which is crazy because he remains rattled and disoriented, himself, not to mention concussed.
“Let’s go see what’s going on,” he says.
They walk up the steps to the porticoed entrance and are stopped at the front doors by an agent wearing a blue windbreaker.
“I’m sorry, Miss, but I’m not permitted to let anyone—”
“The hell you aren’t,” says an older woman from behind the agent, Ella’s mother, Chris presumes.
Behind her are two men in expensive suits—lawyers, Chris is certain. The gray-haired attorney puts a hand on Ella’s mother’s shoulder but she shrugs it off.
The lawyer addresses the agent. “The warrant is for the exterior only.” He says it with the calm confidence of the powerful. A lawyer of some stature, though Chris doesn’t recognize him. “There’s no reason to bar my client’s daughter from the house. They can stay on the main level, out of the way, like Ms. Monroe.”
Chris realizes that the agents are executing a search warrant. What the hell? He peers out over the estate grounds. The lights are clustered in a section that’s fronted by what looks like lattices for a rose garden.