CHAPTER 24
Late-morning.
Bryant Park.
A lull before the impending lunchtime crowds. A few office workers have already started to trickle in from adjacent buildings, sneaking away from their cubicles early. I watch them from my seat in the shadow of the New York Public Library, jealous of their camaraderie, their carefree lives.
It’s a clear morning, although still on the chilly side. The leaves that canopy the walkways have turned a dusty gold. Surrounding the trees are patches of ivy already girding for winter.
I spot Jonah on the other side of the park—a head of shining hair bouncing through the crowd. He’s dressed as if arriving for a first date. Checked shirt. Sport coat with pocket square. Burgundy chinos with rolled cuffs. No socks despite the fact that October’s shivery side has settled in. What a hipster douchebag.
I’m wearing the same clothes I wore yesterday, having been too tired to pick out something fresh. The call to Coop had calmed me enough to get some sleep, but even five or six hours wasn’t enough to erase the deprivation from earlier in the week.
When Jonah sees me, he smiles and says, “A co-worker and I bet ten dollars over whether you’d come or not.”
“Congrats,” I say. “You just won ten dollars.”
Jonah shakes his head. “My money was on a no-show.”
“Well, I’m here.”
I don’t even try to sound pleased. I sound like someone with either a serious sleeping problem or a massive headache. In reality, I have both. The headache sits just behind my eyes, making me squint Jonah’s way as he says, “So now what?”
“Now you have one minute to convince me to stay.”
“Fine,” he says, looking at his watch. “But before the clock starts, I have a question.”
“Of course you do.”
Jonah scratches his head, his hair immobile. He must spend hours grooming. Like a cat, I think. Or those monkeys forever plucking things from their fur.
“Do you even remotely remember me?” he asks.
I remember him staking out the sidewalk outside my building. I remember barfing at his feet. I certainly remember him telling me the true, horrible nature of Lisa Milner’s death. But other than that, I have no recollection of Jonah Thompson, which he deduces from my lack of a speedy answer.
“You don’t,” he says.
“Should I?”
“We went to college together, Quincy. I was in your psych class.”
Now that’s a surprise, mostly because it means Jonah is a good five years older than I first thought. Or else he’s sorely mistaken.
“Are you sure” I say.
“Positive,” he says. “Tamburro Hall. I sat one row behind you. Not that there was assigned seating or anything.”
I do remember the classroom in Tamburro Hall. It was a drafty half-circle that sloped sharply to ground level. The rows of seats were arranged stadium style, with the knees of the person behind you mere inches from the back of your head. After the first week, everyone more or less sat in the same spot every class. Mine was near the back, slightly to the left.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I don’t remember you at all.”
“I definitely remember you,” Jonah says. “A lot of times you’d say hi to me when taking your seat before class started.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. You were very friendly. I remember how happy you always seemed.”
Happy. I honestly can’t remember the last time someone used that word to describe me.
“You sat with another girl,” Jonah continues. “She came in late a lot.”
He’s talking about Janelle, who would sneak into class after it started, often hungover. On several occasions she fell asleep, head on my shoulder. After class, I’d let her copy my notes.
“You were friends,” he says. “I think. Maybe I’m wrong. I remember a lot of bickering going on.”
“We didn’t bicker,” I say.
“You totally did. There was some passive-aggressive thing going on between you two. Like you pretended to be best friends but actually couldn’t stand each other.”
I don’t remember any of this, which doesn’t mean it’s not the truth. Apparently it happened with enough frequency to make Jonah remember.
“We were best friends,” I say quietly.
“Oh, God,” Jonah says, doing a shitty job of pretending to piece it together just now. Surely he already knew. Two girls that sat in class in front of him, neither of them coming back after one October weekend. “I shouldn’t have brought it up.”
No, he shouldn’t have, and I would lecture him about it if my head wasn’t hurting and I wasn’t so eager to change the subject.
“Now that we’ve established how I have a poor memory, it’s time for you to tell me why I’m here,” I say. “Your minute starts now.”
Jonah dives right in, a salesman making his elevator pitch. I suspect he’s practiced this routine. It has the smoothness of multiple rehearsals.
“You’ve made it very clear you don’t want to talk about what happened to you. I understand that and I accept it. This isn’t about your situation, Quincy, although you know I’m here if you ever do want to discuss it. This is about Samantha Boyd and her situation.”
“You said she was lying to me. About what?”
“I’ll get to that,” he says. “What I want to know is how much you know about her.”
“Why are you so interested in Sam?”
“It’s not just me, Quincy. You should have seen the interest that article about the two of you generated. The internet traffic was insane.”
“If you mention that article again, I’m leaving.”
“I’m sorry,” Jonah says, the base of his neck slightly reddening. It makes me happy to see that he’s at least a little embarrassed by his actions. “Back to Sam.”
“You want me to spill some dirt on her,” I say.
“No,” he says, the too-high pitch of his protest telling me I’m right. “I simply want you to share what you know. Think of it as a profile of her.”
“Would this be off the record or on?”
“I’d prefer it to be on,” Jonah says.
“Too bad.” I’m getting irritated. It makes my headache pulse just a little more and sends restlessness coursing through my legs. “Let’s walk.”
We start to stroll away from the library toward Avenue of the Americas. More people have crowded into the park, filling the slate walkways and angling for the coveted chairs that line them. Jonah and I find ourselves pushed tightly together, moving shoulder to shoulder.
“People want to know about her,” Jonah says. “What she’s like. Where she’s been hiding all this time.”
“She hasn’t been hiding.” For some reason, I still feel the need to defend her. As if she’ll know if I don’t. “She was just laying low.”
“Where?”
I wait a split second before telling him, wondering if I should. But that’s why I’m here, isn’t it? Even though I keep telling myself it’s not.
“Bangor, Maine.”
“Why did she suddenly stop laying low?”
“She wanted to meet me after Lisa Milner’s suicide,” I say, quickly realizing my mistake. “Murder, I mean.”
“And you’ve gotten to know her?”
I think of Sam painting my nails. We’re friends, right?
“Yes,” I say.
It’s such a simple word. Three little letters. But there’s so much more to it than that. Yes, I’ve gotten to know Sam, just as she’s gotten to know me. I also know I don’t trust her. And I’m pretty sure she feels the same way about me.
“And you’re positive you’re not going to share what you know about her?” Jonah asks.
We’ve come to Bryant Park’s ping-pong tables—one of those only-in-New York things. Both tables are occupied, one of them by an elderly Asian couple and the other by two office drones, their ties loosened as they smack the ball back and forth. I spend a moment watching them as I try to form a suitable answer to Jonah’s question.
“It’s not that simple,” I say.
“I know something that might change your mind,” Jonah tells me.
“What do you mean?”
It’s a stupid question. I already know what he means. The big lie that Sam’s been telling me. That Jonah has information I don’t annoys me to no end.
“Just tell me what you know, Jonah.”
“I’d like to, Quincy,” he says, again scratching his head. “I really would. But good journalists don’t readily share what they know with sources who aren’t cooperative. I mean, if you really want me to give you some top-secret intel, I’d need a little something in return.”
More than ever, I want to leave. I know it’s what I should do. Tell Jonah to leave me alone and then head home for a much-needed nap. Yet I also need to know just how much Sam’s been lying to me. One overrules the other.
“Tina Stone,” I say.
“Who’s that?”
“Samantha Boyd’s name. She had it legally changed years ago, to avoid people like you. That’s how she was able to keep a low profile all those years. Samantha Boyd technically no longer exists.”
“Thank you, Quincy,” Jonah says. “I think I’ll do some digging into the life of Tina Stone.”
“You’ll tell me what you find out.”
It’s not a question. Jonah acknowledges that with a terse nod.
“Of course.”
“Now it’s your turn,” I say. “Tell me what you know.”
“It concerns that article I swore I’d never mention again. Specifically the photos that ran with it.”
“What about them?”
Jonah takes a deep breath and raises his hands, proclaiming his innocence before saying a word. “Remember, I’m just the messenger,” he finally says. “Please don’t kill me.”