One Cold Night

Prologue
    He watched her as she moved along Water Street, caught perfectly in the crosshairs of his camera’s telescopic lens. No part of her was beyond his view now. She walked quickly, as always, her paisley bag slung over one shoulder; she didn’t use a backpack like all the other kids. Her long blond hair seemed to float around her, light as cotton candy, and her skin was pale as a doll’s. From this distance he could not see her eyes, but his lens had once captured them and they were green. He shifted the camera to follow her as she neared his building. It was the same every morning, on her way to school. She would seem to grow larger as she crossed directly beneath his view, then diminish in size as she walked away.
    Today she gave him an unexpected gift: She stopped walking, dropped her bag on a patch of cobblestones where asphalt had worn away, and stepped into the middle of the street. A single car passed by and then she was alone again... or so she thought. Without hesitation, she did a jazzy kind of pirouette, landing with arms outstretched and bowing just slightly in thanks for imaginary applause. He took herpicture and felt a flush of excitement: He could do it now, right now, without being seen. But then a man in a suit and tie walked by, smiled, clapped a little, and she took another bow. She didn’t seem embarrassed and he loved that about her. She picked up her bag and kept walking, exhilarated, smiling. Then, like every other morning, she moved beyond the scope of his lens and he was overcome with sadness.
    He twisted the lens off his camera and set it down on a shelf of plants next to the tripod. He didn’t know why, but this morning felt worse than usual. Hopeless. He had been waiting three months without the right opportunity.
    Surveying the collage that covered one whole wall, his attention landed on an old four-frame photostrip. He picked up a pair of scissors from the floor, carefully cut off the fourth frame and slipped it into his pocket. A moment captured on film: an innocent kiss. Proof that he was more than just the monster they would all say he was, when this was through.

Chapter 1
    Tuesday, 6:33 a.m.
    Perched on a kitchen stool in her yellow chenille robe, Susan Bailey-Strauss listened as a loud creak announced the opening of Lisa’s bedroom door. Her little sister took seriously her new status as a ninth grader at the city’s top performing-arts high school and had been waking up even earlier than she needed to. Susan looked at the round clock that hung on the wall beside the fridge; a quick calculation told her that Lisa would probably be half an hour early to her first class if the subways weren’t delayed. Her footsteps receded into the hallway bathroom and the door banged shut.
    Dave, Susan’s husband, sat beside her at the loft’s black-granite kitchen counter, preoccupied by something in the morning paper and oblivious to the peal of noise. Normally she enjoyed Dave’s gentle morning silences, the long arc to full awakening he required before he could begin his day. But today she felt a low hum of nervousness beneath the comfortable surface of their routines. She had something difficult to sayand didn’t know where to begin. She wanted him to look at her, to pull his mind out of world events and talk about the bedroom door whose hinges he had neglected to oil as promised, to compare their schedules for the day, to thank him again for the beautiful birthday gifts he had given her last night: the teardrop diamond necklace and fist-sized bloodred roses and orchestra seats to the Broadway show it was impossible to get tickets to. She wanted the distractions of meandering chatter so she could find the exact right moment to tell him — “Dave, I want a baby” — and to experience with him the relief of his happiness, as he had practically begged her for children since they were married a year and a half ago. The problem was, she had something else to tell him first.
    She had a confession to make. To Lisa, in private. Then to Dave.
    But early morning on a workday and school day was the wrong time to begin any important discussion; she knew that, and as she thought it through — for the hundredth time — she reminded herself that it would be best to get them alone, separately, preferably when the other was out of the house. One thing at a time, the little voice in the back of her mind restrained her impatience; it’s only fair for Lisa to know first. Susan was just so