The Inner Circle - Brad Meltzer [376]
Nora rowed away, the splashing of the oars distorted in the low, rocky cavern. In a few moments she came to a weed-choked opening between two rocks, just large enough to admit the boat. She pushed through and was suddenly on the broad expanse of the Hudson, the vast bulk of the North River plant rising above her, the great glittering arc of the George Washington Bridge looming farther to the north. Nora took a deep breath of the cool, fresh air. She could hardly believe they were still alive.
She glanced back at the opening through which she had just come. It looked like a tangle of weeds and some boulders leaning together—nothing more.
As she bent to the oars, the abandoned marina just coming into view against the distant gleaming towers of Midtown Manhattan, she thought she could still make out—borne on the midnight wind—the faint sound of Pendergast’s laughter.
epilogue: Arcanum
FALL HAD TURNED TO WINTER: ONE OF THOSE CRISP, SUNNY days of early December before the first snowfall, when the world seemed almost crystalline in its perfection. As Nora Kelly walked up Riverside Drive, holding hands with Bill Smithback, she looked out over the Hudson. Already, cakes of ice were drifting down from the upper reaches. The New Jersey Palisades were etched in stark sunlight, and the George Washington Bridge seemed to float above the river, silvery and weightless.
Nora and Smithback had found an apartment on West End Avenue in the Nineties. When Pendergast had contacted them and asked them to meet him at 891 Riverside Drive, they had decided to walk the two miles, taking advantage of the beautiful day.
For the first time since the hideous discovery on Catherine Street, Nora had felt a certain peace return to her life. Her work at the Museum was progressing well. All the carbon-14 dates on her Utah specimens had come back, and they were a gratifying confirmation of her theory regarding the Anasazi-Aztec connection. There had been a terrific housecleaning at the Museum, with a whole new administration put in place—except Collopy, who had somehow come through it all with his reputation and prestige intact, if not enhanced. In fact, Collopy had offered Nora an important administrative post—which she had politely declined. The unfortunate Roger Brisbane had been released: the arrest warrant voided a day before the election, after Brisbane’s lawyer provided airtight alibis for the time periods of all three copycat murders, and an angry judge pointed out there was no physical evidence linking the man to any crime. Now, Brisbane was suing the city for wrongful arrest. The papers were screaming that the Surgeon was still at large. The mayor had lost his reelection bid. Captain Custer had been busted all the way down to street cop.
There had been a flurry of newspaper stories about the sudden disappearance of Anthony Fairhaven, but the speculation had ended with an IRS raid on his company. After that, everyone assumed tax problems were the reason for his disappearance. Word was Fairhaven had been last spotted on a beach somewhere in the Netherlands Antilles, drinking daiquiris and reading the Wall Street Journal.
Smithback had spent two weeks at the Feversham Clinic, north of Cold Spring, where his wound had been sewn and dressed. It had healed surprisingly quickly. Pendergast had also spent several weeks recuperating at Feversham after a series of operations to his elbow and abdomen. Then he had disappeared, and neither Nora nor Smithback had heard from him. Until this mysterious summons.
“I still can’t believe we’re up here again,” Smithback said as they walked northward.
“Come on, Bill. Aren’t you curious to see what Pendergast wants?”
“Of course. I just don’t see why it couldn’t be someplace else. Someplace comfortable. Like, say, the restaurant at the Carlyle.”
“I’m sure we’ll learn the reason.”
“I’m sure we will. But if he offers me a Leng cocktail out of one of those mason jars, I’m leaving.”
Now the old house appeared in the distance, up the Drive. Even in the bright sunlight