You Are Not Alone(88)

“My name is Amanda.” Her voice shook. “Could I speak to someone in Homicide? I have evidence of a crime.”

As she headed uptown, Amanda continually scanned her surroundings. Her ringer was turned off but her phone kept buzzing in the side pocket of her dress, like a furious wasp. It wasn’t quite nine o’clock in the morning, but it was already so hot she felt her hair sticking to the back of her neck.

It was less than a fifteen-minute walk to the Seventeenth Precinct. She’d told the officer that she was on her way, though she didn’t provide her last name or any details about the felony she said she’d witnessed.

“You say your name is Amanda?” the woman had said. “Ask for me when you get here. I’m Detective Williams.”

But the detective had sounded weary and distracted, as if this was far from the first call she’d received from someone who sounded paranoid and made grandiose claims.

As Amanda traveled the city streets, the rancid smells of the summer-baked city swelled around her. Her phone buzzed angrily again and again, barely pausing.

Finally, Amanda couldn’t stand it any longer. She answered the call. She remained completely silent, but she couldn’t soften her heavy breathing.

“Amanda,” Jane said in a soft, gentle tone. “I’m so glad you finally picked up. I’m here with Cassandra.”

“Talk to us,” Cassandra said. “We’ll get through this. We’ll help each other, like we always do.”

“I can’t bear it any longer,” Amanda whispered. “I need to go to the police. I’ll keep you out of it. I’ll take all the blame.”

“Don’t be foolish,” Valerie’s steely voice cut in. “You’ll rot in a jail cell.”

“I’m sorry,” Amanda gasped.

“Listen to me!” Valerie ordered. “Stay right there on that corner. Do not cross that street.”

Amanda felt goose bumps rise on her arms. She spun in a circle, looking around.

“How do you know I’m on a corner?” she whispered.

Run.

The instinct slammed into her brain. She hung up and sprinted toward a deli. A man was arranging produce in baskets outside the door. She could ask him for help. Maybe he could hide her in a closet while she called the police again, she thought desperately.

But the sisters would find her.

Where else could she go? She’d almost reached the bodega when she heard the familiar whooshing sound beneath her feet: A subway train was approaching, spewing air through the sidewalk grates.

Amanda’s head whipped around; her gaze homed in on the forest-green pole marking the Thirty-third Street station. She raced down the stairs and headed for the turnstiles, her MetroCard already out.

But the first machine she tried malfunctioned, refusing to read her card. She moved to the next one.

Six seconds. That’s how long the delay cost her.

She raced onto the platform, her legs churning, her hand stretching out to try to block the car’s doors from closing. But their edges swept just past her fingertips and closed.

The train pulled away, its breeze blowing against her face.

Amanda looked around, her mind roaring with panic. The LED display showed another train would be coming in just a few minutes.

She began to edge down toward the mouth of the tunnel, where she’d be closer to it.

They’d known she was on a street corner. But how?

Stacey had installed spyware on James’s phone long before his death; maybe she was being tracked that way, too. Amanda hurled her phone onto the tracks, where the incoming train would destroy it.

Nothing else was in her possession that the Moore sisters could possibly use to locate her. She wasn’t carrying a purse. She didn’t—

She caught her breath.

Her hand rose to her neck, where a gold charm rested between her collarbones. Since the sisters had given the necklace to her months ago, she’d never taken it off; she’d forgotten she’d been wearing it. She ripped it off and let the delicate chain slide through her fingers to the concrete floor. Then she hurried toward a support beam that would help shield her from view.

A woman wearing khaki shorts and a red T-shirt came down the stairs, and for a moment Amanda’s heart jackhammered—then she realized the woman was a stranger.

Amanda glanced at the LED display again. Time was behaving strangely; it seemed to be standing still.

The woman began to walk toward Amanda.

A bulb in one of the overhead fluorescent lights flickered. Trash overflowed from a can.

Amanda could feel the rumble of the approaching train; it swelled up into her body from the concrete beneath her feet.

The woman in the red T-shirt was close to her now. She was tall and strong looking, with a pleasant face. Her presence felt comforting to Amanda, somehow.

Then Amanda looked beyond her.

Valerie was standing at the bottom of the staircase, her dark hair gleaming under the lights, just as it had when she’d been waiting for Amanda outside City Hospital.

If it had been Jane coming for her, or even Cassandra, things might have been different. Jane would have wrapped soft arms around Amanda and asked her to come talk to the others. Cassandra’s husky voice would have been sterner, but Cassandra would still have tried to reason with her.

But they had sent Valerie. They were cutting Amanda loose.