Burn (Michael Bennett 7)

I put down the file and took out my cell phone. This was one call I really didn’t want to make.

After seven rings, Chung’s secretary finally picked up and told me he was in a meeting and would call me back.

Gunny, a summa cum laude graduate of Fordham Law, was a sharp-as-a-tack former federal prosecutor who did a lot of pro bono work for the New York Catholic Charities, which was where he had met and befriended Seamus. Gunny was a middle-aged, professorial Korean American gentleman who favored tweed jackets and bow ties and was just incredible with kids. My guys absolutely adored him.

Good old Gunny would figure this out for me, I thought after I hung up. Right? I certainly hoped so.

I leaned back in my creaky old office chair and stared up at the bedroom ceiling, worrying about everything. I was still in the same position when the secretary called back.

“Mr. Chung is in the middle of a civil case, Mr. Bennett. He said he’ll get back to you maybe late tomorrow or the next day. Sorry.”

“Yep,” I said, sitting up. “Me too.”

CHAPTER 39

I WOKE THAT NIGHT well before dawn, at around five a.m.

At first I took a crack at falling back asleep, tried to do some deep, peaceful breathing, even got up and splashed a little cold water on the back of my neck. But after five minutes of watching the occasional headlight sweep across the ceiling of my darkened bedroom, I sat up, knowing more sleep just wasn’t going to happen. Not for me. Not now. Not a chance.

I cringed as I glanced at Chrissy’s adoption file still open on my desk. I was even more wrecked with worry than the moment I’d finally put my mind-blown head down on the pillow the night before. I thought about Chrissy still sleeping peacefully on the other side of the apartment, how she was always smiling and bright-eyed and spunky and open.

Then I thought of her being taken away from her sisters and brothers, of having to say good-bye to her in some courtroom, and I closed my eyes and shook my head.

As I sat there continuing to rip myself up inside with stress and worry, my little dark night of the soul was interrupted by a sound. It was a kind of whining coming from outside my door. I stood and followed it until I came to the hall bathroom. I wasn’t the only one up and worrying this early, I saw as I knelt down.

It was the adorable border collie puppy I’d brought home. The cute little dummy was curled up and crying on a bunch of balled-up newspaper by the baby gate we’d put up to fence him in at night. We still hadn’t decided on a name. His whines subsided as I began petting him, his fuzzy little spotted tail slapping happily against the newspaper.

“See, it’s OK,” I said to him. “Everything is going to be OK. I think.”

When I came back into my room, holding the puppy in the crook of my arm like a baby, there was a soft flicker of light on my nightstand, followed by a chiming sound. I lifted my phone and opened the text Jimmy Doyle had just sent me.

hey boss. just spoke to du maurier the third. some new info. we may have a lead.

“What lead?” I said a moment later, after Doyle picked up his phone.

“Sorry to bother you so early,” he said. “I didn’t think you’d be awake.”

“Neither did I,” I said as the puppy started licking and then nipping at the inside of my elbow. “What’s up?”

“Du Maurier called me all frantic about an hour ago. Said he’s been speaking to some people on the street about the whole cannibalism thing,” he said.

“And?”

“Apparently, there’s a homeless guy who lives in one of the Amtrak tunnels on the West Side who said he saw the same thing as Du Maurier. A bunch of well-dressed men having a dinner party alongside the Hudson River with a tied-up girl.”

“When was this?”

“About two months ago.”

I thought about that. The unbidden image of Naomi slumped at her desk flashed in my mind.

“Mike, you there?” Doyle said.

“Do you have the witness’s name?”

“Yeah, and a map he drew me.”

“Let’s do it, Doyle,” I said. “We need to find this homeless guy.”