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“I try not to.”
“Your mother said you were eight years old when you last saw him. Is it possible this man following you is—”
“Don’tcall that man my father.”
Taken aback by her vehemence, Jane regarded Amy in silence. The young woman stared straight back at her, as if daring Jane to cross some invisible line.
“Was he that awful, Amy?” Jane finally asked.
“You should ask my mother that question. She’s the one who put up with his abuse. Who got all the bruises and the black eyes.”
“Do you know where he is now?”
“I have no idea. And I really don’t care.” Abruptly Amy stood up, a clear signal the conversation was over. “I’d like to go home now.”
“We’ll escort you to your car,” said Jane, also rising from her chair. “But let me have a look around first. To make sure he’s not still in the area.”
Jane threaded through the tightly packed bodies crowded at the bar, inhaling their clashing scents of perfumes and aftershave and stale booze, and stepped outside. It was a relief to breathe fresh air again as she scanned the busy street. On this Friday night, the dinner crowd was out in force strolling the sidewalks, women in short skirts and high heels, businessmen in ties, roving wolf packs of young men.
And then she spotted him, off in the distance: a man in a gray raincoat, walking away from her toward the Boston Common.
She started after him.
He was too far away for her to be certain it was the man from the cemetery, but he had the same lanky build. Jane tried to keep him in sight as he bobbed and weaved through the sea of pedestrians, but he was moving at a brisk pace, straight toward the gloom of the Common. If he crossed into the park, she would lose him in those shadows.
She began to run, pushing past pedestrians who were too oblivious to move aside. She tried to slip through a tight knot of people and slammed into a man’s shoulder.
“Hey, lady!” he snapped. “Watch where you’re going!”
That encounter was just enough to distract her. When she refocused on her quarry, he’d vanished.
She ran to the corner of Newbury and Arlington, dashed across the street to the Common. Where was he, where was he? A couple ambled past, arm in arm. A circle of teenagers sat on the lawn, trading songs on their guitars. She scanned the area and suddenly saw him, standing on the opposite corner. As she crossed the street toward him, he looked up and smiled, but his smile wasn’t directed at Jane. It was meant for a different woman, a woman who walked straight to him and gave him a peck on the cheek. Then he and the woman linked hands and walked together, right past Jane.
The wrong man.
Swiftly Jane surveyed the street, but Cemetery Man was nowhere in sight. If indeed he was ever there at all.
—
“Amy could be wrong,” saidFrost. “Maybe she saw the same guy you did, and she thought it was the man from the cemetery.”
“She insists she’s absolutely certain.” Jane sighed. “And if she’s right, it means we’ve got ourselves a problem.”
She and Frost sat in her car outside the Antrim residence, where they had just escorted Amy to the care of her mother and father. This was a neighborhood of handsome houses and mature trees, with neatly tended gardens and shrubs, a neighborhood where violence seemed a million miles away. In truth, there were no such neighborhoods. Even here, on this quiet street, Jane could feel the threat of it closing in on that house. On Amy Antrim.
“If that really was him on Newbury Street, that’s no coincidence,” she said. “He didn’t justhappento find her in that shoe shop.”
“She said she drove there straight from home. If he followed her there—”
“It means he knows where she lives.”
They fell silent. Both of them stared at the Antrim residence, where Amy and her parents were still sitting in the living room. They were shaken, of course, but perhaps not fully aware of just how dangerous Amy’s situation might be.
“It’s got to behisburner phone. He made those calls to the Antrim residence,” said Jane. “And when Julianne answered, he hung up. Because the person he really wanted to talk to was Amy.”
“Their house has an alarm system,” said Frost. “The residence should be secure.”
“What about when Amy leaves the house, like she did today? They can’t watch her every second.”
