Hedging (A Smith and Wetzon Mystery)

jacket was hanging from the back of a chair in the small office. “Sorry, Lucy.” She put it on. She needed it more than Lucy did right now. There were gloves in one pocket and a woolen ski cap in the other. And a wallet. The moral dilemma held her for only a moment. She took the cash—sixty dollars—and the MetroCard. That was all. It was bad enough she was stranding Lucy without a coat.
    But she had no choice. Her life was in danger. If she lived, she would find some way to make it up to Lucy.
    Down the hall to the elevators. Total quiet here. She pressed the down button, pulled the knit cap over her ears. If she made it to the lobby without seeing anyone, she’d be home free, or at the least, on the street. She had no thought of anything else, otherwise she might have wondered what she would do on upper Madison Avenue late at night without a place to go. Or maybe even if her loss of memory, her trauma, had made her so paranoid that she wasn’t thinking straight.
    The street was a wide, white ribbon in spite of the occasional car and the surreal lights of a bus heading uptown. Snow reeled lazily in the wind, dazzling her eyes, fuzzing the light from the street lamp, the night crystal like frozen tears. The gloves were wool and stretched to fit her hands.
    She started walking. Some coffee shops were open twenty-four hours, but where? Bus and train stations. Grand Central Station. She would wait out the night over a cup of coffee and maybe by daylight she would have a plan.
    She hurried along Madison Avenue, passing only a few pedestrians, some protected by umbrellas, all with heads down against the icy wind and snow. It would be safer, she thought, to cross over to Lexington on Eighty-sixth Street at this time of night. That gave her pause. Her real life was definitely here in New York. She was familiar enough with the city to think of Grand Central Station and to know that the bus went downtown on Lexington. Maybe things would begin slipping back to her. She would be sitting with her coffee in Grand Central Station, and pow, her memory would be back and she could just go home.
    By the time she got to the bus stop on Eighty-six and Lexington, the Keds were sodden and her feet were icicles in her sopping socks. An elderly woman, her head covered by a hood, had flattened herself against the window of the Hot and Crusty to take advantage of the narrow eave. She held two shopping bags high, trying to keep them from getting wet, but she wasn’t succeeding.
    “Have you been waiting long?”
    The woman shrugged, her eyes glued uptown, desperate for a glimpse of a bus. A small sigh, then the hazy headlights of a bus came out of the mist moving slowly toward them.
    Lucy’s MetroCard got Temporary Jane on the bus without a problem, and there was enough left on it for two full rides. But when she took it from the machine, the blue ID hospital bracelet slid into view. She pulled the sleeve of the ski jacket over her wrist and as she moved into the bus, she tried to tear the ID off. She took a seat, tried to chew it off. No luck. She needed scissors or a sharp knife. She tucked it out of sight.
    In the front of the bus the old woman settled herself behind the driver, bunching her wet shopping bags on the seat next to her. In the sudden warmth, the bags relaxed and began to drip.
    A couple of Hispanic kids were murmuring and necking in the back of the bus. Otherwise, it was empty. As it made its way down Lexington, more people got on, but as is often the case in inclement weather, each person becomes too involved in his own comfort to even notice another.
    She left the bus at the Grand Central stop and made her way into the terminal. Shops and coffee bars were scattered around the entire area, though not in the magnificent main terminal. Some of the shops, the produce stands and places that sold meat and fish, were closed. But the terminal was a Mecca for night people, some going to work, some homeward bound, some going nowhere, like her. And no one took any notice of her as she walked around looking for a place where she could sit over a cup of coffee.
    Main Street Coffee was only a sliver, four stools in front of a black granite counter, two tiny tables with chairs only small bottomed people would find comfortable. Here’s your brew and what’s your hurry.
    A slight young woman stood behind the counter, scrubbing the surface with a wet cloth. Her hair was a deep walnut, a mass of shimmering sausage curls banded, for