The Cage
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Prologue
Part I
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Interval
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Part II
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Bonnie Kistler
Copyright
About the Publisher
Prologue
The fog hovered high over the city, invisible in the cold night sky except for the diffused reflection of the urban skyglow. The only surface it touched was Marketplace Tower, the city’s newest and tallest office building, where it painted a coat of rime over every sparkling facet of the spire. If anyone could see it, they might imagine a sugar-frosted fairyland. But no one could, in the fog, in the dark.
Down on the street, a van stopped at the entrance to discharge a crew of three men. As they unloaded their machines from the back and wheeled them to the door, one of the men, the new one, paused on the pavement and looked up, and up some more. The thirty stories that loomed over the street were dark except for two gauzy glimmers on the topmost floor. He craned his head back farther. The two lights glowed on opposite sides of the building, and as the fog drifted through the sky, they dimmed and brightened like lighthouse lanterns warning of two separate hazards.
In the building’s lobby, a guard sat at a security console that faced the three sets of revolving doors. CCTV videos lit up four screens in front of him; on the fifth he was watching the game. Behind him stretched the bank of elevators, five cars on either side with a destination dispatch console between them. Their doors were etched with a gridwork of black bars, an homage to the old cage-style elevators of the Edwardian era.
The three men buzzed for entry, and the guard looked up and pushed a button to release the lock. They signed in and stowed their coats in an empty office off the lobby, rubbernecked the TV, and asked for the score. Twenty-two–nothing, the guard told them. They whistled, then started up their machines and tugged on their headphones to listen to the game as they worked. The lobby floor was Siena marble inlaid with geometric diamonds of onyx, and the polishers glided over it like Zambonis.
Thirty floors up a woman stood very still at her office window. On a clear day she could see the Manhattan skyline. Tonight she saw nothing but her own reflection. She was in her early forties, slender and petite, with alabaster skin and faded blond hair cut in a stylish swoop. Although it was a Sunday night, her makeup was flawless, and she was dressed for a workday, in a silk blouse and tailored trousers and pointed-toe heels with the distinctive red soles that marked them as a high-three-figure purchase. She gazed at herself in the darkness, her face utterly still, until at last she turned and picked up her coat and pulled her office door shut behind her. A beep sounded as the electronic lock engaged, and she headed down the corridor.
At the far end of the same floor, on the side without a view, the other point of light shone over a different desk. Its surface was covered with stacks of paper flying flags of multicolored tabs on the margins and topped with Post-it notes. In the shadows six feet away stood a different woman, six inches taller and ten years younger. She looked even younger with her sloppy ponytail and pale bare-skin face. She, too, was dressed for a workday, though not in designer wear, and she, too, stared at her reflection in the glass, but her face wasn’t still. A muscle twitched at the corner of one bleary eye, winking on and off like a semaphore. She’d been at her desk for more than fourteen hours. Wearily she turned, slid some papers into a battered canvas bag, and picked up her coat. There was no lock on her office door, and she left it standing open.
As she trudged to the elevator, a hush swelled through the penthouse corridors, broken only by the abiding hum of the building’s mechanicals. They wheezed like a hospital ventilator on a comatose patient.
When she arrived at the elevator bank, the older woman was already there. She didn’t respond when the younger woman spoke to her. The center elevator arrived. The doors slid open. The women stepped on. The doors closed.
911. What’s your emergency?
We’re stuck in an elevator. The power’s gone out.
Okay. Can you tell me your name?
Shay Lambert.
What’s your location?
Marketplace Tower. We’re stuck in the elevator. The power’s completely out. I pressed the alarm button, but nothing happened. The intercom isn’t working, and the air compressor’s out, too, I think. We’re in total darkness.
Is someone there with you?
One other person. Lucy Carter-Jones. This is her phone I’m calling on.
Is she all right?
I’m not sure. She seems pretty upset.
Let me talk to her.
Okay. Hold on. I have to turn on the phone light so I can see where she is. Okay. There. They want to talk to you. [pause] I’m putting the phone to her ear.
Hello? This is the 911 operator. Can you tell me your name?
[no response]
Hello? Are you all right?
[no response]
Hi, it’s me again. Lucy’s not talking. She seems really out of it. We need to get her out of here.
The Fire Bureau has been dispatched. Please stay on the line.
I don’t know. This phone’s about to die. It’s got like one percent charge left.
Stay on the line. Rescue workers will be there soon.
No. I better conserve the battery. I might need the flashlight again.
Best if you stay on the line, ma’am.
No. But thank you.
Hello? Hello?
Part I
Chapter 1
FEBRUARY 2, 2014
11:16 p.m.
The motor started up with a chug of gears that sounded like teeth gnashing. The lights flashed on, and I scrambled up off the floor and charged for the doors. The elevator plunged beneath my feet, so fast it felt like free fall, but I didn’t care. I wanted down, I wanted out. In seconds we reached the lobby level. The doors opened and I burst out—into a semicircle of waiting men.
They were a blur of uniforms: policemen, firefighters, security guard, men in coveralls with oval name patches on their chests. I stopped and stared at them, but they were all staring past me, into the elevator.
I turned. Lucy Carter-Jones was sprawled in the corner of the car. Her eyes were open inside raccoon circles of mascara, and she had a hole in her left cheek so neat it looked like someone had taken a paper punch to her face. On the wall above her was a splatter of blood and gore, and on the floor beside her was the gun, a snub-nosed revolver in a matte black finish.
I felt sick, and then I was sick. I doubled over and heaved out a stream of yellow bile all over the gleaming marble floor.
Two men lunged at me from either side, and they hoisted me up, their hands tight on my elbows and wrists. My toes dragged the floor as they propelled me across the lobby and through a glass door into an empty office. It was furnished only with a metal desk and a chair and a coat rack hung heavy with winter coats. I looked around for my own coat before I remembered it was back there, on the floor of the elevator, near the gun.
I looked down. My suit jacket started out that day as a solid boring beige; now it was leopard-print, or cheetah, or some other predator splattered with the blood of its kill. The sight of it made me want to vomit again. I tore frantically at the buttons, and the two men jumped to restrain me until they saw what I was doing. They helped me remove the jacket, and one of them bore it away as the other pressed me down into the chair.
“My coat,” I said. “My things.” I tried to remember what else I’d left behind. My briefcase. My purse.
“They’re being secured,” he said.
The first man returned and handed me a plastic cup of water. He wore the uniform of a police officer. I turned to the other man and saw that he did, too. The cup trembled in my hand, and the water sloshed from side to side like waves lapping at a dock. I gulped a mouthful and swirled it around my teeth and spat it back into the cup. My hands were shaking badly. I stared at them, then at my fingernails. They were torn and ragged, and I remembered how I’d dug my fingertips into the crack between the elevator doors, how hard I’d pulled and strained to open them. I’d broken every nail, and the door never budged.
“What happened?” one officer asked, while the other said, “What’s your name?”
A different uniform came through the door. This one was a firefighter, and he stayed only long enough to shake his head.
One of the officers stepped out into the lobby. I twisted around to watch through the glass door as he spoke into his shoulder-mounted radio. My brain wasn’t working right. It took until that moment for me to realize what the firefighter’s head shake meant. With a gasp, I spun to the remaining cop. “She’s dead?”
He watched me closely and didn’t answer, and that told me what the answer was.
“Oh, God.” I dropped my face into my hands. “I should’ve tried—I don’t know—could I have saved her?” My voice was strained and muffled against my palms. I looked up again. “It was dark,” I said. “I couldn’t see where she was hurt. Or even if she was hurt. I don’t know what I could have done. What should I have done?”
“What happened?” he said again.
I took a breath to steady myself. “She had a panic attack,” I said. “I guess that’s what you’d call it. When the elevator stalled and the lights went out. She was making these sounds—I don’t know—like a dog panting. I tried to get her to calm down. I told her that building security had to know what happened. We’d be out in no time. But it was like she didn’t hear me. The intercom wasn’t working, and it didn’t seem like the alarm button worked either, so I called 911. I told her help was on the way. But she didn’t respond. She was definitely hyperventilating by then. I was afraid she’d pass out. So I turned the phone light on to check on her. That’s when I saw the gun in her hand.”
I closed my eyes and took another deep breath. “I couldn’t believe she had a gun. I didn’t know what she meant to do with it. Shoot her way out? But then she was turning it, pointing it under her chin, and I realized she meant to shoot herself. I shouted ‘No!’ and I grabbed for the gun. But she fought me. She fought me so hard. And then—and then—” I stopped and took another swallow of water from the paper cup, but it tasted of vomit, and I hurried to spit it out.
“She killed herself, you’re saying.”
I squinted at him. Did I not make that clear? “Yes!”
He took out a notepad. “Do you know her name?”
“Yes. She’s Lucy Carter-Jones.”
“Lucy Jones,” he said, jotting.
“No, Carter-Jones. With a hyphen. It’s one of those double-barreled British names, you know?”
He looked up, blank-faced. “Friend of yours?”
“She’s the HR director of our company.”
“What company’s that?”
“CDMI.” When he looked blank again, I explained: “Claudine de Martineau International. The fashion giant? We own most of the major labels around the world. Our design headquarters are in the city, but our administrative headquarters are here.” I pointed upward. CDMI occupied the top five floors of the building.
“What’s your name?”
“Shay Lambert. I work in the Law Department.”
His eyes narrowed. “You’re a lawyer?”
I nodded.
The other cop returned to the room. “CID’s been alerted.”
His partner pointed at me. “She’s a lawyer,” he said.
The two men exchanged a look, and as one gave a nod, the other pulled a laminated card from his pocket and began to read: “You have the right to remain—”
“Wait.” My eyes darted between the two men. “You don’t think—? No—she killed herself!”
He kept on reading in a monotone. “—silent. Anything you say can and will be used—”
“I tried to stop her!”
His partner left the room again and went into a huddle with two newly arrived uniformed officers. The three of them went through the revolving doors to the street.
“Yes, I understand my rights,” I said when the officer was done reading. “I waive them. I’ll tell you everything. I tried to stop her.”
“Wait here.”
He exited the room, but he didn’t go far. He stopped and stood just outside the door. He was standing guard, I realized. He was standing guard over me.
Chapter 2
The principal residence of J. Ingram Barrett, Jr., was in Rye, a classic white Colonial, three stories tall, its facade uplit with a dozen well-positioned landscaping spots that made it look like the star of the street. Another set of lights shone on the fountain in the middle of the circle drive that looped around to the front entrance. Thanks to a submersible heater, the water cascaded all through the winter.
In the master suite on the second floor, Barrett slept in a California king with his phone under his pillow. The phone was equipped with a bed-shaker ring, like those in alarm clocks for the deaf. This allowed him to receive middle-of-the-night phone calls without disturbing Melanie, asleep on the far side of the bed. Running a company with production facilities in Southeast Asia meant he often received middle-of-the-night calls, and Melanie wasn’t pleased when it happened. As much as she enjoyed the income that came with his position as senior vice president and general counsel of CDMI, she resented any reminder that he had to work for it.
The phone shook him awake, and he pulled the blanket over his head before he looked at the screen. The caller wasn’t on the other side of the globe. It was Jack Culligan, and since he was head of corporate security for CDMI, a call after midnight had to mean a crisis.
Barrett slipped out of bed and stole into his separate bath and through to his dressing room before he answered. “I’ll call you back,” he whispered, and disconnected.
He left by the other door directly into the hall and past the four empty bedrooms that nominally belonged to his children, though they seldom occupied them. He trotted down the helical staircase and skidded when his foot met wet floor at the bottom. “God damn it,” he snarled as he caught himself on the newel post of the banister.
The maid was on her hands and knees scrubbing the travertine floor tiles in the foyer. “Sorry, mister. So sorry!” She crouched back on her haunches and cowered behind her upflung arms.
“Oh, for God’s sake,” he said. He would have preferred the cleaning to be done while he was at the office, but he knew that Melanie ordered the wet work to be done during the wee hours of the morning so as not to interfere with any of her activities during the rest of the day. “Relax,” he told the maid. “I’m not mad.”