Page 58 of The Writer

“I don’t hear from you within an hour, I’m sending someone else to pick him up. I’m not risking any more blowback.”

It will take him at least five hours to get to the city. “Understood.”

The moment Daniels hangs up, Cordova dials Declan. He gets in his car, half expecting the call to roll to voicemail, buthis partner picks up on the second ring. “You see Lucero?” he asks. “What did he tell you?”

Cordova exits the prison parking lot and gets on I-87. “Daniels has been holding back information. I’ll fill you in when I see you. At the moment, we’ve got a much bigger problem, something we’ve got to deal withright now.” He tells Declan about the witness.

“She’s wrong.”

“That all you got to say?”

“What do you want me to say? Either she’s mistaken or she’s in on it. How well does she know Denise Morrow? Are they friends?”

“You need to cut the bullshit, Dec. This is too much. It’s just too much. Take a step back and look at the evidence like a homicide detective, like it’s all on someone else—you know we would have hauled them in by now.”

“It wasn’t me. I wasn’t anywhere near that building. I told you, I was in the park—”

“Taking a walk. Right. Where the hell were you really? No more bullshit, Dec. They want me to bring you in and if I do, there’s a good chance you’re not leaving this time. Not on your own.”

Seconds tick by. Then:“I was at the Eighty-First Street subway station, the one under the museum. On the platform.”

“That station’s not even open that late,” Cordova fires back. “Why would you…” Then it clicks. He gets it. Every cop on the force knows about that station and can rattle off a list of officers who ended their lives there.

End of watch.Nobody ever calls itsuicide. It’send of watch.

Cordova’s gut twists in a knot. He wants to pull off the highway,but he can’t stop. He has to get back to the city. He flicks on his flashers and speeds up. “Christ, Declan. Why?”

Declan doesn’t answer that. He doesn’t say anything.

Cordova checks the dash clock. “I’m five hours out. I’ll call the LT back and tell him I’m bringing you in myself. Tonight. The moment I get back to the city. This is what I wantyouto do: Go to my apartment. Stay there. Don’t go to your place. Nothing public. We don’t want to risk Harrison sending someone for you or Hoffman trying to get a photo op of you on a perp walk. Go straight to my apartment and wait for me. Just keep your head down until I get back.”

Declan still says nothing.

“You still there?”

“Do what you gotta do, Jarod.”

When Declan hangs up, Cordova beats both fists on his steering wheel.

This kidwantsto go down.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

DECLAN REMOVES THE BATTERY and SIM card from his phone. Satisfied it can no longer be traced, he slips the various pieces into his pocket.

He spent the day on a bench in Central Park with a clear view of the Beresford building across Central Park West. He watched the joggers and the mothers, fathers, and various nannies pushing strollers. He watched the groundskeepers come and go like little elves, trimming trees and flowers, mowing, edging, making bits of litter disappear. He wondered how many times Ruben “Lucky” Lucero had walked by this very bench. That fucker—he wasn’t so lucky anymore. And he wondered how many times Maggie Marshall had walked pasthere, how many times she had safely crossed the park until that one day she didn’t.

Daniels has been holding back information.

No shit.

Daniels.

And Roy Harrison.

And Cordova too, for that matter.

They’re all holding pieces of the truth, but not one of them is willing to step up. Nope. They’d rather throw him under the bus.

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