CHAPTER
FORTY-THREE
Tuesday, December 18
I’ve lived in New York for years, but I never knew this tucked-away garden existed.
The West Village Conservatory sounded like a place that would be filled with people. And maybe it is, in the summertime. But as I wait for Thomas on a raw, gray afternoon, feeling the damp wood of the bench seep through my jeans, I’m surrounded only by the husks of bushes and barren branches. They look like giant spiderwebs stretched across the bleak sky.
I thought I could trust Dr. Shields. But in the past forty-eight hours, I’ve learned she lied about so many things: Not only didn’t Ben transpose those phone numbers, but there isn’t even a study right now. Dr. Shields isn’t married to the bushy-haired man in the photo in her dining room; she’s married to Thomas. And I’m not anything special to her. I’m just useful, like a warm cashmere shawl or a shiny object to be dangled in front of her husband.
What I want to learn today is why.
Don’t tell her anything, Thomas instructed me.
But I’m not going to let him call the shots.
I have to stall Dr. Shields until I figure out what’s going on. So I told her Thomas replied to my text and wanted to get together. But I didn’t say it would happen today; she thinks I’m still waiting to hear back from Thomas to confirm a time.
He appears on the path leading toward me at precisely four o’clock.
He looks much like he did when we first met at the museum and again at the bar: a tall, athletic-looking, thirty-something guy in a heavy blue overcoat and gray slacks. A knit cap covers his hair.
I glance behind me, suddenly fearful that Dr. Shields may appear again, just as she did outside her town house when I was talking to Thomas on the phone. But the area around me is empty.
As Thomas approaches, a pair of mourning doves burst into the air, loudly flapping their wings. I flinch and put a hand to my chest.
He sits down next to me, leaving a foot or so of space between us. It’s still a little closer than I would like.
“Why did my wife send you to follow me?” he asks immediately.
“I didn’t even know she was married to you,” I say.
“Did you tell her we slept together?” He looks even more scared than I feel about the possibility of Dr. Shields finding out.
I shake my head. “She’s been paying me to help her with her research.”
“Paying you?” He frowns. “Are you in her study?”
I’m not sure I like the fact that Thomas is asking all the questions, but at least it’s telling me how little he knows.
I exhale and watch my breath form a wisp of white. “That’s how it started. But now . . .” I don’t even know how to explain what I’m doing for Dr. Shields.
I switch gears: “That day at the museum, I didn’t realize until I saw you at the diner that she must have wanted me to meet you. I never would have, uh, reached out to you had I known.”
He grinds the knuckles of his right hand into his forehead.
“I can’t get into Lydia’s warped mind,” he says. “I left her, you know. Or maybe you don’t.”
I think about the two coffee cups Dr. Shields cleared away the first time I went to her town house, and the lightweight men’s jackets in her closet.
And there’s one more thing.
“You were with her just last night!” I blurt.
I could hear clanking noises in the background when I’d phoned Thomas yesterday, the rattle of pots and pans and the running of water. It sounded like someone was cooking. And there was something else that at first didn’t seem significant: classical music, but not the somber, almost tense kind. It was . . . cheerful.
I heard the same bright, energetic notes again later when I called Dr. Shields.
“It’s not what it seems,” he says. “Listen, you can’t just leave someone like Lydia. Not if she doesn’t want you to.”
His words send an electrical charge coursing through me.
“You said she preyed on young women like me,” I say. I swallow hard. My next question is the hardest to ask, even though it’s the one that has been consuming me. “What do you mean, exactly?”
He abruptly stands up and looks around. I realize Ben kept doing the same thing in the coffee shop.
Both men had strong ties to Dr. Shields, but now both claim to be adrift from her. More than that, they seem wary of her.
The Conservatory is nearly silent; there isn’t even the rattle of leaves blowing in the wind, or the chatter of squirrels.
“Let’s walk,” Thomas suggests.
I start to head in the direction that will lead us out of the park, but he reaches for my arm and pulls it. I feel the hard pinch through the fabric of my coat: “This way.”
I slip my arm out of his grasp before I follow him deeper into the gardens, toward a stone fountain with frozen water in its base.
A few yards past it, he stops and looks at the ground.
I’m so cold now that the tip of my nose is numb. I wrap my arms around myself, trying to contain a shiver.
“There was another girl,” Thomas says. His voice is so low I have to strain to hear it. “She was young and lonely and Lydia took to her. They spent time together. Lydia gave her gifts and even had her over to the town house. It was like she became a little sister or something . . .”
Like a younger sister, I think. My heart begins to pound in my chest.
A sharp cracking noise sounds somewhere to my left. I whip my head around but I don’t see anyone.
Just a branch falling, I tell myself.
“The girl . . . she had some issues. Thomas slides off his glasses and rubs the bridge of his nose. I can’t see the expression in his eyes.
I struggle against the sudden, almost overpowering urge to turn and run. I know I need to hear what Thomas is saying.
“One night she came by to see Lydia. They talked for a while. I don’t know what Lydia said to her; I wasn’t home.”
The sun has set and the temperature feels like it has plummeted ten degrees. I shiver again.
“What does this have to do with me?” I ask. My throat is so dry it’s difficult to force out the words. And somewhere, deep inside, I don’t even need an answer.
I already know how this story ends.
Thomas finally turns and looks me in the eye.
“This is where she killed herself,” he says. “She was Subject 5.”