I'll Walk Alone - Mary Higgins Clark [18]
Alvirah seemed not to have heard the question. “Oh, look,” she exclaimed, “there he is coming in, the guy I’m looking for.” Then she shook her head. “Oh, you can’t see his face, and his collar is up. He’s got those dark glasses on. All you can see is that mop of hair.”
For the next half hour, she reviewed the rest of the tapes. They could easily distinguish the agitated figure of the woman Alvirah identified as Zan leaving the church. She was still wearing her dark glasses, but her head was bent and her shoulders shaking. Holding a handkerchief to her mouth as if she were trying to stifle sobs, she had rushed out of the church and out of the sight of the camera.
“She didn’t stay five minutes,” Alvirah said sadly. “She’s so darn afraid of breaking down. She told me that after her parents were killed in that accident, she simply couldn’t stop crying. She was afraid to go out in public. She said that if that happened again because of Matthew, she wouldn’t be able to work and she needed to work to keep herself from going insane.”
“Insane.” Fr. Aiden whispered the word so softly that neither Alvirah nor Neil could possibly have heard it. “I am an accessory to a crime that is ongoing and to a murder that is going to happen very soon. I don’t want to be part of it, but it’s too late to stop.” In the last two days that frantic statement was embedded in his mind.
“There’s that guy again, leaving. But you can’t tell anything about him.” Alvirah signaled to Neil to turn off the tape. “You see how upset Zan appears Monday night? Can you imagine how she feels right now with the news story about her kidnapping Matthew?”
That was the other thing the young woman told him, Fr. Aiden thought: You’ll read about it in the headlines. Had the murder she claimed she could not prevent already been committed? Had she already killed her own child, or probably even worse, was the poor thing still alive and about to die?
12
After Ted’s explosive accusation, Josh grabbed Zan’s hand and pulled her through the tables of shocked diners at the Four Seasons, rushed her down the stairs, through the lobby, and onto the street. “God, they must have followed me,” he muttered as paparazzi lunged forward and cameras began flashing.
A cab had stopped in the street in front of the entrance. Josh, his arm now around Zan, sprinted to it and the instant the previous occupant had both feet on the ground, pushed her into it. “Just move,” he snapped to the driver.
The driver nodded and started the cab, catching the light at Fifty-second Street and Third Avenue. “Make a right on Second Avenue,” Josh told him.
“Is she a movie star or a rock singer?” the cabbie asked, then shrugged when he did not get an answer.
Josh still had his arm around Zan. Now he removed it. “You okay?” he asked her.
“I don’t know,” Zan whispered. “Josh, what does it mean? Are they crazy? How could they possibly have a photo of me taking Matthew out of his stroller? For God’s sake, I have proof that I was at the Aldrich town house. Nina Aldrich had invited me over there to discuss doing the interior for her.”
“Zan, take it easy,” Josh said, trying to sound calm even as he visualized what it was going to look like when Ted’s outburst hit the news. “You can prove where you were that day. Now what do you want to do? I’m afraid if you go home, the paparazzi may be waiting for you there.”
“I have to go home,” she said, her voice becoming stronger. “You can drop me off, but if there are any photographers, have the cab wait and walk with me until I can get inside. Josh, what’s going on? I feel as if I’m living in a nightmare and I can’t find my way out of it.”
You are living in a nightmare, Josh thought.
They were silent the rest of the way to Battery Park City. When the cab pulled up to Zan’s apartment building, as Josh had anticipated the cameras were waiting for them. Ducking their heads, they ignored the cries to “Look this way, Zan,” or “Over here, Zan,” until they were safely inside the lobby.
“Josh, the cab is waiting. You go ahead home,” Zan told him as they stood