No Second Chance

There it was again. Tara. Everything circled back to her eventually. I don’t know how she fitted into all this. I don’t know how her kidnapping was connected to Dina Levinsky. It probably wasn’t. But I was not turning back.

You see, Monica never mentioned meeting Dina Levinsky.

I found that odd. True, I am building this ridiculous theory on pure foam. But if Dina had indeed knocked on the door, if Monica had indeed opened it, you would think that my wife would have mentioned it to me at some point. She knew that Dina Levinsky had gone to school with me. Why keep her visit—or the fact that they had met—a secret?

I hopped up on the dryer. I had to both crouch and look above me. Dust city. Spider webs were everywhere. I saw the duct and reached up. I felt around. It was difficult. There was a web of pipes, and my arm was having trouble fitting between them. It would have been much easier for a young girl with thin arms.

Eventually I worked my hand through the copper. I slid my fingertips to the right and pushed up. Nothing. My hand crawled a few more inches over and pushed again. Something gave way.

I pulled up my sleeve and twisted my arm in another inch or two. Two pipes pressed against my skin, but they gave enough. I was able to reach into the crawl space. I felt around, found something, pulled it into view.

The journal.

It was a classic school notebook with the familiar black marble cover. I opened and paged through it. The handwriting was minuscule. It reminded me of that guy in the mall who writes names on a grain of rice. Dina’s immaculate penmanship—belying, no doubt, the content—started at the very top of the sheet and ran all the way to the bottom. There were no left or right margins. Dina had used both sides of every sheet.

I did not read it. Again that was not what I had come down for. I reached back up and put the journal back in its place. I don’t know how this would set me with the gods—if just touching it would unleash a King Tut–like curse—but again I didn’t care very much either.

I felt around again. I knew. I don’t know how, but I just knew. Eventually my hand hit something else. My heart thumped. It felt smooth. Leather. I pulled it into view. Some dust followed. I blinked the particles out of my eyes.

It was Monica’s DayRunner.

I remembered when she bought it at some chic boutique in New York. Something to organize her life, she’d told me. It’d had the customary calendar and datebook. When had we bought it? I wasn’t sure. Maybe eight, nine months before she died. I tried to remember the last time I’d seen it. Nothing came to me.

I jammed the leather planner between my knees and put the ceiling panel back in place. I grabbed the datebook and climbed down from the dryer. I considered waiting until I got upstairs into better light, but, uh-uh, no way. The datebook had a zipper. Despite the dust it opened smoothly.

A CD fell out and landed on the floor.

It glittered in the low light like a jewel. I picked it up by the edges. There was no label on it. Memorex had manufactured it. “CD-R,” it said, “80 Minutes.”

What the hell is this?

One way to find out. I hurried upstairs and booted up my computer.

Chapter 12

When I putthe disk into the CD drive, the following screen appeared:

Password: _ _ _ _ _ _

MVD

Newark, NJ

Six-digit password. I typed in her birthday. No go. I tried Tara’s birthday. No go. I put in our anniversary and then my birthday. I tried the code for our ATM. Nothing worked.

I sat back. So now what?

I debated calling Detective Regan. By now it was closing in on midnight, and even if I could reach him, what exactly would I say? “Hi, I found a CD hidden in my basement, rush over”? No. Hysterics would not work here. Better to show calm, to feign rationality. Patience was key. Think it through. I could call Regan in the morning. Nothing he could or would do tonight anyway. Sleep on it.

Fine, but I was not about to give up quite yet. I logged on to the Internet and brought up a search engine. I typed in MVD in Newark. A listing popped up.

“MVD—Most Valuable Detection.”

Detection?

There was a link to a Web site. I clicked it, and the MVD Web site came up. My eyes did a quick scan. MVD was a “group of professional private investigators” who “provided confidential services.” They offered online background checks for less than a hundred dollars. Their ads exclaimed, “Find out if that new boyfriend has a criminal record!” and “Where is your old sweetheart? Maybe she’s still pining for you!” Stuff like that. They also did more “intense, discreet investigations” for those who required such things. They were, per the top banner, a “full-service investigative entity.”

So, I asked myself, what had Monica needed investigated?

I picked up the phone and dialed MVD’s 800 number. A machine picked up—no surprise considering the hour—and told me how much they appreciated my call and that their office opened at nine in the morning. Okay. I’d call back then.

I hung up the phone and pressed the e: drive’s eject button. The CD slid into view. I lifted up by the edges and checked for, I don’t know, clues, I guess. Nothing new. Time to think here. It seemed pretty clear that Monica had hired MVD to investigate something and that this CD contained whatever it was she wanted investigated. Not exactly a brilliant deduction on my part, but it was a start.

Let’s go back then. Fact is, I had no idea what Monica wanted investigated or why or any of that. But if I was right, if this CD did indeed belong to Monica, if she had hired a private investigator for whatever reason, it would naturally follow that she would have had to pay MVD for said services.

I nodded. Okay, a better start.

But—and here is where confusion immediately set in—the police had thoroughly combed through our bank accounts and financial records. They had scrutinized every transaction, every Visa purchase, every written check, every ATM withdrawal. Had they seen one to MVD? If so, they decided not to tell me. Of course, I had not been a potted plant here. My daughter was gone. I, too, had examined those financial statements. There was nothing to any detective agency nor were there any cash withdrawals out of the ordinary.

So what did that mean?

Maybe this CD was old.

That was a possibility. I don’t think any of us checked transactions going back more than six months before the attack. Maybe her relationship with Most Valuable Detection predated that. I could probably check through the old statements.

But I wasn’t buying it.

This CD was not old. I was fairly certain of that. And it didn’t matter much anyway. Time frame, when I thought about it, was irrelevant. Recent or otherwise, the key questions remained: Why would Monica hire a private investigator? What was password protected on that damn CD? Why had she hidden it in that creepy space in the basement? What, if anything, did Dina Levinsky have to do with any of this? And most important, did it have anything to do with the attack—or was this all a big exercise in wishful thinking on my part?