One Cold Night

his behind. Had to tie him down more than a few times to keep him still.”
    Beads of sweat gathered on Dave’s face so quickly they trickled down his temples. He wanted to run, to take action, but first he had to understand. Was it possible? Could he be standing in the childhood home of the groom? Was that blond boy with the angry scar on his cheekbone the scar-faced blond man Ramos and Bruno had sought on Water Street on Monday? Someone had ordered chocolate apples sent to this location, and requested the special note with the delivery, and whispered those same words on the phone to Marie Rothka. Theo Childress. Did the groom now have a name?
    With his perfectly wrong timing, Braithwaite chose that moment to speak. “She made the best apple strudel, your wife.”
    Childress lit up. “Yes, indeed, she did!”
    “She sliced the apples real thin and they melted right in your mouth. Not too much sugar and no cinnamon at all.”
    “That’s where you’re wrong, sonny boy. She used a sprinkle of cinnamon. Just a sprinkle.”
    Childress positioned himself in front of Braithwaite now and leaned forward to get a close look at him.Braithwaite looked solidly back, nodding; two men seeing each other with decades peeled off.
    “Randall Braithwaite!”
    “It’s Rufus, sir.”
    “Rufus Braithwaite! Used to play around the orchard with Theo!”
    “Mostly Andy.”
    Childress pulled back his head and nodded slowly. “That’s right, it was you and Andy. Had a tetherball set up out back, if I recall.”
    As the two men spoke, Dave moved away from them and stood in front of the gaping door. The screen mesh had come away from the door frame at one side where the edge had frayed. He could see the massive treetops of the forest from here, but not the road.
    “Yep,” Braithwaite said.
    “Andy wasn’t too interested in the orchard. It was Theo I always thought’d be the one to stay.”
    “Where are they now?” Braithwaite asked.
    “Andy got it in the first Gulf War.”
    Dave turned around. Braithwaite’s already pale skin had blanched even more at that news.
    “Theo’s some kind of computer consultant, works overseas. Said trees weren’t enough of a challenge.” Childress shrugged his bony shoulders. “They always challenged me.”
    “Didn’t Theo plant a few apple trees of his own, way back when?”
    “A few trees? I gave that boy his own orchard across the road! I kept it going after he left home, but when Althea died, there was no point.”
    “I remember now,” Braithwaite said. “A dozen apple trees planted in a semicircle in a clearing across the road.”
    “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” Childress said bitterly. “Well, that old chestnut’s rotten to the core, isn’t it?”
    “What did you say?” Dave asked.
    Childress looked at Dave; he seemed a bit surprised to realize that the New York City detective was still in the room. “Sometimes I think it was my grandpa coined that old cliché. He started this orchard in 1871, taken over by my father, then by myself, and when I had two sons, well, it was a given one of them would stay on. The apples stayed on the orchard, stayed by the tree.” He shook his head. “No more. When I’m gone, it’s over.”
    “Can you show me the orchard?” Dave asked.
    Childress reared backward. “Just step out that door! It’s all around you!”
    “No,” Dave said. “The small one. Theo’s orchard.”

Chapter 26
    Wednesday, 6:06 p.m.
    Pebbles and sticks bore into the soles of Lisa’s bare feet as she was hustled through the woods, a riot of autumn leaves quickly absorbing them into hidden territory. Walking behind her, he pressed the gun firmly into her back, just to the right of her spine, nudging her forward. She understood that he might pull the trigger at any time and realized that there was one thing she wanted from him before he did whatever he was going to do. No, two things. She wanted to know if he was really her birth father. And she wanted to know if he was the man Dave had lost last year, the one who had kidnapped that girl Becky. Lisa wanted to know if she carried the genes of a killer, because if she did, if he was that man, then she didn’t know how she would be able to live with herself. If he was that man, and if this was the day she was going to die, knowing she was tainted might help her go more easily.
    “Where are you taking me?”
    “To a special place.”
    Special. What could be special to a man like him? Even if he