The call had been unexpected. The reference—a friend of a friend of a friend—too complicated to follow. But the job—if it turned into a job—was simple enough, a missing person. Or so the caller had said. But Perry Christo, former NYPD homicide detective turned private investigator, knew nothing was ever simple.
It was six years now since he'd left the NYPD. That was the way he always said it: I left the police department six years ago. As opposed to the truth: that he had been fired. More specifically: asked to leave before he was fired.
Pericles Alexandros Christo, Perry to his friends (though he didn't have many—his choice). His mother was the only one who had dared call him Pericles (and live). Forty-four years old, disgraced cop, divorced, one of those men who saw his child every other weekend and sometimes less. His fault. He tugged his collar up against the wind as he cut across Third Avenue. It was the kind of winter day that reminded residents Manhattan was an island surrounded by water, icy water, an unprotected twenty-four square miles of land that had nothing to shield it from the chill other than glass and steel skyscrapers that only helped create wind tunnels and loncly corridors.
But the address Perry was headed for, 720 Park Avenue, only a
dozen or so blocks from his Yorkville one-bedroom, could have been a hundred miles away in every conceivable way and buffered by something special: money.
The call had come the night before.
It's my daughter. She's mising and—
Dia you call the police?
No. It's.. a family matter. And I want to keep it that way.
How long?
How long.. what?
How long has she been missing?
Oh. A week. No. Closer to two. (
Perry thought: Two weeks. If his daughter were missing for two days he'd have called out the National Guard.
That's a long time.
A pause. Well, my daughter, Angel, has a tendency to.. wander.
Now and then.
Wander?
Yes. Take a trip, go off with a friend. She's not a child. She's twenty.
And she doesn't live with me.
Who does she live with?
Her father.
And I presume he hasn't heard from her.
You presume correctly.
Have you checked with her friends?
Of course. The words barked.
Perry could tell this would be no ordinary mother-and-child reunion.
You will help me, Detective.
It was not a question. And Perry had not answered it. Instead, he waited for her next command, which followed.
Come see me. Now.