Page 30 of Two Kinds of Stranger

‘She won’t survive in there,’ said Bloch.

It sounded even more like a factual statement coming from Bloch, who was clinical with both her language and her thought.

‘She may not have a choice,’ I said. ‘We know a few inmates who can look after her.’

‘But we don’t know anyone in maximum security,’ said Harry.

Shit. He was right.

‘Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. Kate, how much can Elly raise for a bond?’

‘Like I said, she has savings, but not serious bail money. I already discussed with Elly setting up a GoFundMe, or askingher followers for donations. That’s a double-edged sword. She thought about it and doesn’t want to take the risk. Right now, that’s the right call. She may change her mind after a night in Rosie’s. Asking the public for bail money might get her out, but it’s going to throw gasoline on the media frenzy happening around this case.’

I nodded, said, ‘Let’s hope we don’t get a crazy judge who’ll set bail above a million. As a back-up, I’ll talk with the usual bail bondsmen–see if there’s something we can work out.’

‘Are you going to appeal to their better nature?’ asked Harry. ‘Don’t bother. Bondsmen are as tough as they come. They’ve heard every sob story on the planet.’

‘I’ll bear that in mind. If the angels of their better nature can’t be reached, maybe I can find one who is on the side of the devil.’

8

Logan

While he pretended to look at his phone, Logan admired his butterfly.

She had long blond hair in tight curls and wore a floral-print dress and a bright green cardigan. She’d worn that cardigan last week. It suited her. Large, coke-bottle glasses. A line of freckles crossed her nose, from cheek to cheek. A backpack with a fake sunflower pinned to it sat in her lap, and in her hands a romance novel with a thick, transparent plastic sleeve on the cover, obviously borrowed from the library. She must’ve finished the book he’d seen her reading last week, the one with the crown on the cover. This one had a woman wrapped in a shawl watching the sunset on the prairie. He couldn’t read the title or the name of the author because of her thin fingers wrapped round the book. A pink butterfly tattoo wrapped its wing round her right wrist.

He tried to think whether he had noticed this detail before. He thought he must have, and had not given it any further thought. It was, after all, an innocuous detail, but perhaps that tattoo was what had reminded him of that butterfly summer, and had prompted him to give her that nickname.

Her legs were crossed, and Logan could see a hole had worn almost the entire way through the sole of her Converse sneaker.

Logan thought she was very beautiful, in a strange and perhaps sad way.

He’d first seen her a couple of months ago.

He still remembered that day. He’d taken her picture, performed an image search. Even an enhanced search using AI.

She wasn’t online, far as he could tell. No photos anyway. He wondered why, considering she was so stunningly beautiful. Perhaps she had ventured onto social media, and her looks brought the wrong kind of attention. Logan had noted which train she had ridden, and when, and had looked for her the next day. Sometimes he got on the right train, sometimes not. Sometimes, like today, he would catch the right train but not the right car. He would see her getting off at 42ndStreet. Headed back to her apartment, or to her part-time job waiting tables in a steak house.

Sometimes extraordinary people caught Logan’s attention.

Not long afterwards, they ended up dead.

Logan was buzzing from the meeting he’d just aced with Hartfield’s. And today was the first time he had sat opposite her. He had never gotten this close.

Her face was so full of life it made him wonder what she would look like dead. He had done the same thing that magic summer, when he was seven and his parents had gone on vacation. Logan had managed to trap one of those beautiful butterflies from his garden. He’d taken it in his hand, and slowly crushed it.

He noticed her eyes would occasionally flick away from the pages of her book, down and to her left, toward the bag of groceries on the floor of the train. The bag sat in between the feet of a middle-aged woman in jeans and a thick brown waterproof coat. A ring of dirt and grime surrounded the cuffs on the woman’s coat. She was huddled into it for warmth, and she was dozing.

Then Logan realized what had distracted the young woman from her book, and why she kept looking down at the bagof groceries. With the motion of the subway car, a packet of noodles had wiggled its way to the top of the grocery bag and with every sway of the train, it got closer to falling on the floor.

A squeal of brakes sounded in the carriage as the young woman leaned down, grabbed the noodles before they fell and then tucked them deep into the grocery bag.

The older woman with the bag at her feet didn’t open her eyes.

Before his butterfly went back to her book, she looked straight at Logan. Perhaps she had felt his eyes upon her.

She smiled, but it was not merely a polite acknowledgement. Logan knew that he had a handsome face, and he liked to dress well.