Central Park by Guillaume Musso (ebook reader macos .TXT) 📕

“Dunn is there? At Sebago Hospital?”

“That’s what the boss told me, anyway.”

“The boss?”

“Katherine Koller, the hospital assistant director.”

“Do you know who shot him?”

“No idea, man. They don’t like it when we ask questions here, you know.”

Gabriel thanked the security guard and hung up.

“Let’s go,” said Alice. “We’ve got him this time!”

She was about to close the laptop, when she suddenly changed her mind. “Just a minute…” She would check her e-mails while she was online. More than five hours had passed since her phone call to Franck Maréchal, the regional transportation police chief. Maybe he’d gotten hold of the images of her car from the security cameras in the Franklin-Roosevelt parking garage.

In all honesty, she didn’t have much faith in Maréchal’s diligence. But she was proved wrong; there was an e-mail from him in her in-box.

From: Franck Maréchal

To: Alice Schafer

Subject: Vinci/FDR security footage

Hi, Alice,

Here are the images from the security cameras corresponding to the license plate number you gave me. The video file was too big to send by e-mail, but I’ve attached a few screenshots. I hope it’s enough.

Cheers,

Franck

There were four photos attached.

Alice put her face as close to the screen as possible. At 8:12 p.m., two pictures showed the Audi entering the parking garage. The quality of the images was not as bad as Seymour had claimed. Alice could see her own face through the windshield quite clearly, and it was obvious that she was alone. At 12:17 a.m., two other photographs showed the Audi exiting. This time, Alice was not alone—and she was not driving. She looked as if she had collapsed; she was slumped in the passenger seat. A man was behind the wheel. His face wasn’t visible in the first picture, but in the second he was looking up.

Alice opened the image on the full screen and used the touchpad to zoom in.

Her blood froze in her veins.

There could be no doubt about it.

The man behind the wheel of the Audi was Seymour.

21The Veil

THE MUSTANG MOVED through darkness.

The storm lashed against the mountain with devastating power. The wind buffeted the car, the rain hammering noisily against its windows and the plastic sheet.

They had reached the summit of the mountain a half hour ago and begun the long descent to the valley. The road, made slippery by the rain, swept vertiginously through endless curves.

Alice held a printout of the image from the parking garage in one hand and stared at Seymour’s face, illuminated by the pale light of her phone. She had tried calling her friend several times, but each time it had gone straight to voice mail.

She looked again at the picture, this time at herself sitting next to Seymour in her Audi. She looked drunk, a crumpled figure but not completely unconscious.

How could she have no memory of this incident that had happened only last night? She tried again to unfreeze this part of her memory, but her way was still barred by the same gauzy veil. Through force of will, however, the clockwork of her brain suddenly seemed to come unblocked. Alice’s heart raced. Yes, the memories were there! Hidden in the misty maze of her subconscious. The truth was there—she could discern its outline, circle it, but whenever she came close to grasping it, it would wither, scatter, dissolve inside the freezing car.

She felt like Tantalus.

Suddenly, a flash of crimson diluted the night’s blackness. Alice turned; the red gas warning light was blinking on the dashboard.

“Shit,” breathed Gabriel. “We might not have enough to get to the hospital. This car is a real gas-guzzler!”

“How much farther do you think we can get?”

“Thirty miles, max.”

Alice shone her phone light on the road map. “Look, it looks like there’s a gas station just here. You think we can make it that far?”

Gabriel squinted at the map. “It’ll be tight, but we might be able to. We don’t have much choice.”

The wind tried to infiltrate the Shelby. The rain kept bucketing down. Eyes glued to the road, Gabriel spoke: “I have to admit, with that Seymour guy, I never felt like he—”

Alice sighed wearily. “You don’t know him.”

“He just always seemed kinda shifty to me.”

“You’re talking out of your ass. Let’s hear his version before we judge him.”

“What difference does it make what his version is?” Gabriel demanded testily. “He’s been lying to you from the beginning. Lying to us! Fuck, maybe everything he told us today is bullshit!”

Alice thought anxiously about this possibility. Gabriel fumbled in his shirt pocket, found a cigarette, and lit it without taking his eyes off the road. “Same goes for your father!”

“That’s enough. Leave my father out of this.”

He exhaled a few smoke rings that drifted and dissolved inside the car.

“All I’m saying is that you’re surrounded by people who are lying to you and putting you in danger.”

Now that they were back in the valley, there were other vehicles on the road. A truck was coming in the other lane now, its high beams on.

“And you keep making excuses for them!” Gabriel went on.

Exasperated, Alice defended herself angrily. “Without Seymour and without my father, I wouldn’t even be here. How do you think someone can keep living after a madman has stabbed her, killed her child, and left her for dead in a pool of blood?”

Gabriel tried to argue his point, but Alice talked over him: “I was devastated after Paul died, and they were the only ones who supported me! How can you not understand that?”

Gabriel let it drop. He continued smoking his cigarette in silence, his face pensive. Alice sighed and turned toward the window. The rain drummed on the glass. Memories bombarded her mind.

I remember…December 2011–July 2013

I remember.

I remember being certain that I was going to end it all.

I couldn’t imagine any other outcome; as soon as I got home, I would take my service pistol and fire a bullet into my head.

One shot, and at least I wouldn’t slip any closer to hell.

I had played this movie over and over again