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  “Which hospital are you taking her to?” he asked.

  “NYU.”

  The doors shut and the ambulance sped off, its rotating lights ricocheting off the buildings lining the street.

  And that was it.

  No one asked for his name, or a statement, or anything of the kind. But the acid churning in the pit of his stomach told him he wasn’t getting off that easy. There’d be more. He was sure of it.

  As the ambulance disappeared from view and the gawkers left, Kyle made his way to the nearest avenue to grab a taxi. He raised his hand as soon as he spotted one.

  The EMTs said they were taking Allie to NYU, a hospital he was intimately familiar with having worked there some fifteen years ago. He didn’t keep in touch with many from his time there, but was still kind of close with one, Tom Jenkins. They didn’t speak much anymore, an email here or there, random run-ins with brief cordial chats. Nothing substantive, but enough that Kyle should be able to count on him to discreetly find out about Allie’s condition.

  After telling the cab driver where to take him, he scrolled through the address book on his BlackBerry and found Tom’s cell number, then wondered if he should wait for a more decent hour to call. After all, Tom was a bit on the surly side. But he was also a decent guy. And if the roles had been reversed, Kyle would’ve gladly helped the man out, regardless of the time. And Kyle needed help. He needed to know what happened and didn’t want to wait until the morning to find out.

  So he pressed the number.

  Tom picked up on the third ring. “Kyle?” His voice was groggy and confused, the call clearly having pulled him from a deep sleep. “What’s wrong? You okay?”

  “Yes,” Kyle answered. “I’m fine. And I’m real sorry to call at this hour, but … I just received a call from a good friend. She said her daughter collapsed outside a bar on the Lower East Side. She’s being rushed to NYU right now. I thought maybe you could put in a call or two and find out what happened.”

  There was a pause. Kyle wondered if he’d been wrong to call, if he’d pushed their collegial relationship too far. Or maybe Tom was simply going to ask why Kyle didn’t just head down to the hospital himself.

  But he apparently wasn’t giving the man enough credit. “She’s there now?”

  “She’s on her way,” Kyle said. “Her name’s Allison Shelton. She’s twenty years old.”

  “Sheldon?”

  “Shelton. With a ‘T’”

  Kyle heard a yawn. “Okay,” Tom said. “I’ll make a few calls. Let you know what I find out.”

  “Thanks, Tom. I appreciate it.”

  “Sure. Let’s just hope she’s okay.”

  Yes, Kyle thought, let’s hope.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The cab ride from the Lower East Side back to his apartment at West 116th Street took forever and cost a small fortune, the distance feeling like the equivalent of a cross-country trip.

  After putting a decent-size dent in the cash he was carrying, Kyle stepped out of the taxi and unlocked the lobby door of his walk-up. He still missed the doorman and elevator he’d taken for granted for so many years. When he’d been married to Sheila, her Wall Street salary had afforded them the comfort of living in a high-rise luxury building at the heart of the Upper West Side. But he wasn’t married to a Wall Street executive anymore. And although he could’ve gotten so much more in the divorce and afforded a much nicer place of his own, the emasculation of her cheating on him had been bad enough; he didn’t need the pile on of having to take her money, too. So he rented what he could afford, and even though it wasn’t fancy (hell, it wasn’t even on speaking terms with fancy) it was good enough. More importantly, it was only a few subway stops away from his thirteen-year-old daughter, Bree.

  He pushed open the door to the vestibule and stepped over the takeout menus that had piled up, then trudged up the five flights to his one-bedroom apartment, repeating to himself the same thing he always did as he made the hike—Think of the money you’re saving on a gym membership.

  He unlocked the door to his apartment, flicked on the lights and tossed his keys on the dining room table, then let out a yawn as he looked around his sparsely decorated place. Not that there was that much to decorate. The bedroom was barely big enough for his queen-size bed and computer desk, and the dining room was simply a small alcove with an IKEA table only slightly larger than a card table.

  At least the living room was a decent size with an exposed brick wall giving it a nice rustic feel. But most of the room was taken up by the new sectional couch he’d purchased, which converted into a bed for Bree when she slept over. It was just like the one he’d slept on when he visited his grandmother as a child, which only served as a reminder that he’d become a secondary parent and shifted back a tier in Bree’s life, no longer with her every day.

  He kicked off his shoes and was sitting down on the couch when he heard the electronic tunes of his BlackBerry break the silence of the empty apartment. He knew it was Tom without even having to look at the caller ID.

  “What did you find out?”

  “Looks like the leading candidate is a ruptured aneurysm. A brain hemorrhage,” Tom said, completely alert now. “She’s still unconscious.”

  Kyle sunk back into the cushions and squeezed the bridge of his nose. “How?” he asked. “What caused it?”

  “They’re not sure. But there’re no signs of trauma. Could’ve been something in her system. Maybe drugs. Or it could be she was taking blood thinners, or it might’ve been alcohol related. Or maybe it runs in her family. They’ll have to do the usual checks.”

  “Is she going to make it? Did they get it in time?”

  “Too early to tell. But she’s still breathing. Vitals seem to be okay.”

  “But they have no idea what kind of damage it might have caused?”

  “Not at this stage, no.”

  “Her parents,” Kyle asked. “Do you know if they’ve been contacted?”

  There was a pause. Kyle realized the mistake as soon as he finished the sentence. He hadn’t been thinking.

  “Didn’t you say her mother was the one who called you?”

  “I did.”

  “So why ask if her parents have been notified?”

  Kyle could’ve lied again. He could’ve said he was mistaken, or that he was just tired. But the lies were already spiraling out of control. He needed to put on the brakes.

  “What’s really going on here, Ky?”

  Kyle sighed. “Probably just what you’re thinking.”

  “Shit—she’s a student, isn’t she?”

  “She is.”

  “You were there with her?”

  “I was meeting her, yes.”

  “At one in the morning? Christ. What the hell were you thinking?”

  “I don’t know,” Kyle said. “But whatever was going to happen, never did.”

  “Because she collapsed?”

  “Yes.”

  There was silence. Tom was still close enough to Kyle to know the tough times he was going through. Or at least most of it. He knew about the divorce. He knew that Kyle had shut down his practice, and he probably knew why. He probably knew about the patient who died, and the lawsuit that followed.

  So maybe the indiscretion wasn’t that much of a surprise. Maybe Tom expected it.

  “Yeah,” Tom said, breaking the silence, the disappointment evident in his voice. “The parents were notified. The mother’s already there.”

  “I appreciate the help, Tom. I really do.”

  Tom gave a halfhearted “any time,” and to Kyle’s relief didn’t follow up with a lecture or warning. They weren’t that close anymore.

  After hanging up, Kyle turned to his laptop, focusing on what had happened to Allie. Tom said alcohol could’ve caused the hemorrhage, but Allie hadn’t appeared drunk. Not that drunk, anyway. Her texts were clear and her gait steady. She might’ve been tipsy, but not wasted. And he didn’t think she was on drugs. But he could’ve been wron
g about that. You never knew. Maybe she was taking Ecstasy or something. Possible, but his gut told him no.

  He did a Google search for burst aneurysms and found a site called brainaneurysms.com, where he saw just what he’d expected to see. An aneurysm, which was essentially a blood vessel in the brain that balloons and bulges out, wasn’t that rare. But a ruptured one was. Very rare, even more so in someone so young. Almost all ruptured aneurysms happened to people north of thirty-five.

  He stared at the laptop, realizing that there could’ve been other reasons for the aneurysm to burst. Maybe she had a hereditary disease. Or maybe the man in the alley had done something.

  But what?

  Allie couldn’t have been there for more than a minute. Probably even less. So what could he have really done? There was no sign of an assault or trauma. Maybe there was a needle prick somewhere? Perhaps he injected her with something then ran away? But what would work so fast?

  Kyle closed his laptop and began to crack each one of his knuckles as he leaned back on the couch, just like he always did when things weren’t sitting right with him. And things definitely weren’t sitting right. His gut was telling him there was something more going on, something else that had happened.

  But what that something was, he wondered as he cracked his last knuckle, he had absolutely no idea.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The next few days were uneventful in terms of Allie’s condition. She was still in a coma, and they apparently didn’t know much more.

  He thought about mentioning her condition to his class, but decided against it. Allie didn’t seem to be that close to any of them beyond superficial hellos. And that made sense. It was a summer class. She went to Michigan and was only taking the class to avoid a heavy load for her upcoming senior year. Kyle remembered seeing the big yellow “M” on her dark blue T-shirt during the session’s introductory lecture. Sitting in the front row, she had a cheery smile that easily outshone the bored glazed-over looks from the other students, those in the summer session caring much less about the nuts and bolts of psychology than his full-time students. She was also undeniably gorgeous. Tall, thin, high cheekbones, with bright green eyes framed by flowing long blond hair. Not that Kyle would let his eyes linger for long. Whenever a pretty student caught his attention, he usually did his best to ignore them. And Allie wasn’t the first attractive student he’d had, or the only one to hit on him. Kyle had thick, dark blond hair with a narrow nose below deep brown eyes and kept his six-foot frame fit with bike rides up and down the Palisades.

  So, yes, there had been other overtures in the past, but he had never acted on them. But it was different with Allie. He allowed himself to banter with her after class and even believed her when she said she always had an interest in the workings of the mind, that it was a hobby of hers. That she found it fascinating.

  And he enjoyed their conversations, convincing himself that she was mature beyond her years. Even then, he wouldn’t have acted on it if she hadn’t asked for his cell number. But she had. The class had a test coming up, and Allie wanted to know if she could call him in case she had any questions. Kyle knew that wasn’t the real reason, but he didn’t care. He gave her the number. He couldn’t not give it to her.

  That’s when the flirtatious texts started. And what he was too inhibited to say in person, he felt emboldened to say in a text. He played the game, and enjoyed it. They never spoke about it in class. She would just flash a smile here or there. It was fun. And he’d been lonely, starved for the attention, desperate for the companionship, regardless of how superficial it was. But he thought he’d just use the racy texts to take care of business at home. Alone. That that would be enough.

  Unfortunately, it hadn’t been.

  As he slung his bag over his shoulder and started to leave the classroom, the bag’s strap pressing against his light blue button-down, he heard the electronic tones of his BlackBerry. He glanced down at the display. The number wasn’t familiar.

  “Kyle?” a man asked as Kyle answered. “It’s Liam. Liam Murdock.”

  Kyle couldn’t place the voice, or the name. “Do I know—”

  “Allie Shelton’s uncle,” the man cut him off. “The one in your class. The one in a coma right now.”

  Coma. The word stung with guilt, sounding so much more real than how he thought about it in his mind—that she just hadn’t woken up yet.

  “I saw her texts to you in her phone.”

  And there it was.

  He was surprised it wasn’t the cops calling or stopping by unannounced to talk to him. Wasn’t that the way things went? Maybe they were on their way.

  He didn’t even know how to explain. He didn’t know where to start.

  So he played dumb. “Texts?”

  “Yeah,” Liam said. “The ones about Sheldrake.”

  “Sheldrake?”

  “Right,” Liam said. “Rupert Sheldrake. I saw you guys exchanged some texts about him a few weeks ago.”

  Kyle remembered now. He’d mentioned Sheldrake’s theories about the workings of the mind during a lecture on holistic approaches to healing anxieties—things like meditation, Reiki, Deeksha. Allie had said she’d tried some holistic approaches herself and was curious about how the process worked from a neurological standpoint. They may have been the only non-flirtatious texts the two of them had exchanged, and were probably under a different thread than the chain he’d deleted.

  Kyle relaxed a bit. “Yes,” he said. “I remember the messages, and forgive me for not mentioning before how sorry I am about what happened to your niece.”

  “Right. Me too. But listen. You obviously know about Sheldrake, right? And about his theories on energy transfers, right?”

  Kyle was confused as to why it mattered, but said, “I do.”

  “Awesome,” Liam blurted. “That’s exactly what I was hoping for. You’re my guy, then.”

  “Guy?” Kyle asked, surprised by the man’s upbeat tone. “Guy for what?”

  “Guy for convincing the N.Y.P.Dopes that someone attacked my niece.”

  “Attacked?”

  “That’s right. She was attacked. And I know how it happened.”

  “But I thought there were no signs of trauma.”

  “There weren’t. No physical signs at all. Not even a bruise on her head when she fell.”

  “So I don’t get it.”

  “Didn’t expect you to,” Liam said with an oddly chipper tone. “You don’t know enough yet. I haven’t told you anything. But I will. And it’s gonna blow your effing mind away, man.”

  “How? What are you talking about?”

  “I know what caused her to stroke out like that. I know what caused the aneurysm to rupture. I need to speak with someone who’s equipped to handle this stuff, and the cops aren’t getting it.” The excitement in Liam’s voice rose as he spoke. “Now, I don’t know who did this to them yet, but at least you put me on the right trail.”

  “I did?” Kyle asked. “What did I do?”

  “Your texts. They gave me the road map.”

  “Road map for what?”

  “All in good time.”

  “And what do you mean them? Who else are you talking about?”

  “The others who are being killed,” Liam said. “That’s who.”

  “Killed?”

  “That’s right,” Liam said. “Killed. Friggin’ murdered, man. At least four of them in the past few months.”

  Kyle’s eyes widened as he let the words reverberate in his mind. Killed? Murdered? The man couldn’t be serious. “I don’t understand.” He started pacing around the empty classroom, wondering what the hell was going on.

  “You will,” Liam said. “But we shouldn’t talk about it now. Not over the phone. We should talk in person. We don’t want any uninvited guests listening on the line.”

  “What uninvited guests?”

  “People who don’t want this stuff getting out.”

  “Liam, I’ve gotta be honest here. I’m extrem
ely sorry about what you’re going through, and I want to help with Allie in any way I can. But I don’t have a clue as to what you’re talking about.”

  “You will tomorrow. I’ll be at your office at noon. We’ll talk then.”

  Liam hung up before Kyle could ask another question. His head was spinning as he took a seat and tried to make sense of what he’d just heard. Attacks? Murders? Allie had only been alone for a minute, probably even less. There were no signs of an attack, and definitely nothing to indicate that someone was trying to kill her. Hell, the one thing everyone seemed to agree upon was that there wasn’t any evidence of trauma. And what was with Liam’s tone? Why did he seem so comfortable on the phone even though they’d never met before?

  Was his story just a pretext for something else? Maybe he’d discovered the texts Kyle had deleted and made up the whole “attacked” story to keep Kyle off guard and not let him prepare for the real confrontation that was coming.

  Whatever it was, Kyle could feel some kind of storm brewing. A feeling that was unfortunately becoming all too familiar.

  CHAPTER SIX

  After Liam’s call, Kyle headed down into the city’s maze of subway tunnels and snared a seat on the F train, taking it to Brooklyn’s Carroll Gardens.

  The ride over only took about a half hour, and the walk to the familiar adjoining twin four-story red brick townhouses only about ten minutes more. Both buildings belonged to Eddie Guida, his best friend since college. The outside entrances for each were separate, but inside was a connecting archway that allowed the young girl in the wheelchair greeting Kyle to use the first floor of the adjacent townhouse as a large bedroom. The girl was Eddie’s eleven-year-old daughter, Celia. The wheelchair was the result of a car accident almost five years earlier. Eddie had purchased the adjacent townhouse after the accident so Celia would have the space she needed without having to worry about stairs.