The Hand on the Wall(38)

It had happened quickly, the debt. People were happy to front him credit, as he was such a good friend of Albert Ellingham’s, and George was always sure he would win it back. It was nothing at all to be five thousand dollars in debt, then ten, then twenty. . . .

He could have asked Albert for the money, of course. He thought about it. But the shame was so great. What if Albert said no? Then there was no money, no job, no credit, no friends—the life he had made for himself would be gone. He had to get the money. Twenty thousand.

About the amount that Albert Ellingham regularly kept in the safe in his office to pay the workmen at the school . . .

The plan had been so simple.

Andy and Jerry were two nitwits he knew from his days as a cop—wannabe made men who never quite made much of themselves, but perfect for a straightforward job like this. On the day of the job, they would get the signal from him and wait on the road for Iris Ellingham to drive by in her Mercedes. They were to grab her and hold her for a few hours in a farmhouse while George did the rest. After that, they would get paid and go home, have a steak dinner. Easiest money they’d ever make. No one would be hurt. Iris would laugh when it was over. She would tell the story forever. She loved adventure. This was her kind of thing.

The first problem was that Alice was there. Alice didn’t usually go along with her mother for her car rides. Iris probably got defensive because of her daughter—she probably fought back to protect Alice. Iris somehow got dead and wound up floating on Lake Champlain.

And then there was the kid—little Dottie Epstein. She should never have been in the dome that day. No one was. And she had jumped down that hole herself, out of fear. She busted her head in the fall. It was horrible to see. George had no choice but to finish the job.

And Andy and Jerry proved to have a little more upstairs than he had given them credit for. They jumped him when he turned up that night to get Iris and Alice and bring them back. They had hidden them away, and they wanted more money. The whole thing was out of control from the start. Two people dead, and Alice still missing.

Alice. His kid. Not Albert Ellingham’s. His kid.

Andy and Jerry had done a good job of hiding themselves for almost a year. There had been no sightings of them at all. Then, out of nowhere, one of George’s sources had called him a week ago to tell him that he’d seen Jerry near Five Points. George had come back to New York at once and had been working street by street. If you spread enough paper around Little Italy, someone would know something.

He took a taxi back uptown to Twenty-Fourth Street, where Albert Ellingham had one of his many Manhattan pieds-à-terre. Albert Ellingham bought apartments and houses in the way other people bought fruit. This one had been a rumored haunt of Stanford White, before he was shot on the roof of Madison Square Garden during the performance of a musical called Mam’zelle Champagne in 1906, over thirty years ago now. White was a creep who deserved what he got. The guy who shot him was a creep too. So many creeps in this town.

The apartment was small but perfectly outfitted. There was a handsome bedroom, a safe for cash, a modern little kitchen that never got used, and a first-rate radio. George turned this on the moment he came inside. The sound of a symphony filled the room. He didn’t care what was on—he just couldn’t handle the silence. He sat down in the dark room, coat and hat still on, lights off, and watched the falling snow. He ran through it again in his mind, for the thousandth time.

If Alice had not surfaced, there had to be a reason. Of course, she could have died with her mother, but that felt wrong to him. It would be easy to keep a kid, especially a kid like Alice who was small and gentle. You couldn’t ask for a sweeter child. He had played with her often. She showed everyone her toys and dolls, and always gave a hug and a kiss. She would take his hand and follow him around the grounds sometimes. She would be easy to hide somewhere. She wouldn’t even have to be very well hidden. Change her clothes, cut her hair, she could be any kid at all.

Little Alice. Now, his every memory of her had new meaning. His daughter. He had put her in harm’s way. It only made sense that he, her father, would come and rescue her again.

George Marsh fell asleep in the chair, watching the snow. When he woke, it was light again. The morning radio program was a history lecture about President Lincoln. It had snowed quite a lot during the night; the bathroom windowsill had at least four inches.

As he was still wearing his coat, there seemed little point in showering and changing. He would go right to the corner diner for breakfast instead.

As he approached the front door, he noticed there was something pushed underneath. It was a postcard. On one side was an illustration of Rock Point in Burlington, the place where he and Albert Ellingham had lowered a massive amount of marked bills down to a boat—a boat which then disappeared. He flipped over the card and read the following words, written in a blocky scrawl:

KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT IF YOU WANT HER.

George smiled grimly. The fish was tugging on the bait.





12


“WAKEY, WAKEY.”

Stevie opened her eyes, but she was still in the dark. There was a hand shaking her shoulder. It took her a moment to process that the hand and the voice belonged to David. Stevie had dozed off leaning against the closet wall in her stack of pillows, And Then There Were None open in her hand. She shook her head hard and tried to seem alert and together, though she strongly suspected she had been drooling and snoring. There was a stiff crustiness to her whole body, the kind you get from wearing the same clothes for a few days because you’ve been preoccupied, then spending a winter’s day inside a pool closet with a bunch of chemicals.