Chase Baker and the Da Vinci Divinity (A Chase Baker Thriller Series Book 6) (19 page)

Finally, a cab appears on the
horizon of Houston Street. I hail it down and it pulls over. Opening the rear
door, I slip inside, and shut the door.

“Gramercy Park,” I say. “And step
on it, please.”

I peer at the driver’s seat, but
there’ no driver. Instead, the steering wheel spins by itself while a dash-mounted
computer lights up.

“Yes, sir,” says the tinny voice. “Gramercy
Park. Right away, sir.”

The car pulls away and heads uptown,
past the Bowery, then past Union Square, and finally to Gramercy Park where it
pulls over only a few doors down from my ex-wife and daughter’s six-story
townhouse.

The meter flashes “1.15 BTC” or bitcoins.
If I recall, one BTC equals one hundred bucks. Since when does a seven-minute
cab ride cost more than a C-note? There’s also the option to pay by credit.
Pulling out my wallet, I don’t slide the card, but tap it against the seatback-mounted
credit card device. Pulse pounding in my temples, I wait for the machine to
accept it. Of course, it doesn’t. Instead, it takes a photograph of me. Opening
the door to the sound of an alarm, I sprint away from the cab, praying the
police aren’t on my tail.

Less than a minute later, I face my
ex-wife, Leslie’s, home. The century old Victorian architecture, the red brick
exterior, the porch front, and the tall French doors and windows. There seems
to be no end to how bad, if not heartbroken, I feel about how our marriage
ended. But, while some ex-husbands might harbor animosity if not outright
jealously over their ex’s new life, I never did. I’m glad she met the man who
was to become her new husband. A banker named Brian. I was even happier he could
provide such a stable, if not wealthy, home for she and my daughter. My life
has always been filled with travels and adventures. I just can’t live any other
way. While those adventures gave birth to my books, they also brought an end to
my one and only marriage. But, that doesn’t mean I was no longer a dad to a
sweet little girl. Maybe I don’t get to see her every day, but she is still the
most important thing in my life.

My greatest creation.

Ascending the steps to the front
door, I depress the bell and wait for Leslie to appear. But when the door slowly
opens on rusted hinges, I’m surprised to see an old man appear before me.

“Yes?” says the gray-haired,
hunch-backed man. “Can I help you, son?”

My insides slide south. The face is
not the same, because it’s years older. Decades older. But there’s something in
the eyes that is most definitely the same, as though protected by the ravages
of time.

Brian.

I can’t help but gaze beyond his
arthritic posture into what used to be a bright and cheerful household that now
seems to have become a dark, musty, foreboding place. Pulling back my head, I
once again check the number above the doorbell, just in case I’ve come to the
wrong place. But I don’t need to see the number to know that this is the home
where my daughter and ex-wife live.

Brian, is that you?
I want
to say. But, something inside me is telling me this is all wrong. That I might
be making a big mistake here.

“Excuse me,” I say, “but I’m
looking for my ex-wife, Leslie, and my daughter, Ava.” Removing my sunglasses. “They
live here.”

The old man’s eyes go wide. He does
his best to straighten out his back, while staring into my eyes.

“You’re looking for your ex-wife
and daughter?”

“Yes,” I say. “Do you know them?”

When he nods, it reminds me of an
old dead tree branch that’s about to fall away from the tree trunk.

“I should know her,” he says, voice
gravelly, tight, sad. “I was married to her for thirty years.”

So I’m not wrong at all … I
haven’t made a mistake …

The solid wood floor beneath my
feet feels as if it’s turning to putty. My head spins, my balance is thrown off.
Raising my hand, I press it against the exterior wall as if to hold myself up.

“Brian,” I say, my voice hoarse
from a sudden lack of moisture. “What the hell’s happened? The whole world is
out of whack.”

He opens the door wider, steps out
onto the porch so his face and my chest are only inches apart.

“Chase,” he says. “Chase Baker? Is
that really you?”

“Yes, it is.”

He forms a smile. “We all thought
you were dead.”

“Dead,” I say. “I’m most definitely
not dead.”

He shakes his head. “Last we heard
you were on the trail of a cave in the northern Italian forest, and you were
never heard from or seen again.”

The dizziness gets worse. My world
spinning out of control. My imagined world … my made up world. Or is it?

“I’ll say it again, Brian. I am
most definitely not dead. Now, can I please speak to Leslie and Ava?”

Another shake of his head. “You
okay, Chase? You wanna sit down?”

“Yah,” I say. “Maybe that’s a good
idea.”

He invites me into his house. The
curtains are drawn which explains the darkness. The only furniture consists of
a couple of easy chairs that share a common table and a couch that faces a
fireplace. There are floor-to-ceiling bookshelves crammed with books and
novels. I’m drawn to one shelf that houses a series of paperbacks. I go to
them, pull one down. It’s one of mine.
The Shroud Key
. It was published
a couple of years ago based on my adventures in revolutionary Cairo. But the
book I hold in my hand is old. Decades old, the spine broken, some of the pages
unglued, others torn, the print faded.

“My God, Chase,” Brian says. “You
remember bookstores? How much fun it was to browse around inside of them? I
remember that sad day, in twenty twenty-two I believe it was, when New York
City’s last remaining bookstore finally closed. The Mysterious Bookshop down
there on Warren Street near the Battery … which is now under water due to
the rising sea levels.” He puts on a pair of reading glasses. “
The Shroud
Key
,” he says. “Leslie bought that in the Mysterious Bookshop, if I’m
correct, during one of your signings.”

My hands are trembling, I turn to
the opening pages of the novel. There it is, my signature.

“To my girls, all my love…

Chase”

The ink has faded somewhat, but I
can still read it. I remember how strange it felt inscribing the novel to them
because it was the first time we were all together in the same place at the
same time. Me, my ex, Ava, and even Brian who stood on the opposite side of the
shop. But the memory is fresh in my mind because it only happened two years
ago.

Or did it?

I shelve the tattered book, turn
back to Brian. He looks me up and down.

“I have to tell you Chase,” he
says. “It’s good to see you. Good to see you’re not only not dead, but that you
look remarkable for a man who must be, what, eighty?”

I shake my head. “I’m fifty-one.”

He laughs, but it causes his lungs
to strain and the laughter turns into a coughing fit. He pulls a handkerchief
from his back pocket, spits something into it, then returns it to the same
pocket. He sits himself down in the far easy chair.

“Well, let’s see then,” he says. “If
you’re only fifty-one, that makes me fifty-eight.” Another smile. A sad smile. “I
was healthy back when I fifty-eight. No cancers, no heart problems. I was a
healthy working stiff who loved his job, his wife, and his stepdaughter like
she was his own.” His smile fades. “It’s amazing how all that can go bad so
quickly. Forget the cancer. It’s the children that can age you.”

I cross the living room floor, take
a seat beside him in the second easy chair.

“Brian,” I say, “what year is it?”

He tells me.

“Twenty forty-four,” I repeat. “I
must be on some kind of new drug because I seemed to have skipped the past
twenty-nine years. Or misplaced them anyway.”

“You’re talking to the king of
forgetfulness,” he says. “The brain isn’t what it used to be.”

My eyes drift to the walls. Photos
of my ex and Brian on their wedding day, Leslie looking beautiful and happy in
her long, white gown with her long, brown hair. Photos taken at the beach in
Cape Cod, Ava playing in the sand. Then some pictures that don’t seem real to
me. A young woman, who looks a lot like Ava, graduating from high school in a cap
and gown, and then another of her graduating college in a different cap and
gown. Yet another of her walking a church aisle arm in arm with Brian. He’s
wearing a classic black tux and she’s wearing a white dress just like her
mother wore, her hair also long and brown. That’s where the photos stop.

“Brian,” I say. “Ava is only ten.
These photos on the wall …” I let the thought dangle, he gets the point.

“She’s not ten anymore, Chase,” he
says. “If only it were possible for her to go back to ten years old.” He’s
shaking his head again. “Things might be so different for her.”

My stomach is beginning to ache,
along with my head. I stand.

“Brian,” I say, my voice raised, “where
the hell is my ex?”

“Take it easy, Chase,” he says,
holding out his hands like he’s signaling me to settle down. “She’s not here.”

“Well, where is she then? I’ll go
find her.”

“No, you don’t understand.”

“What don’t I understand, Brian?”

“You see, Chase, she’s passed on.”

The news hits me like a swift punch
to the gut.

“She died,” I repeat, as if saying
the word will help it sink in. “She … died. When? How?”

“She died, not long after …”

I take hold of his arm. It’s skin and
bones, but that doesn’t stop me from squeezing it.

“Not long after what?”

“After Ava fell off the wagon.”

“The wagon. What’s that mean, for
Christ’s sake? Tell me Brian, how did my ex-wife die?”

“She died of a broken heart.”

“Over what?”

“Over Ava. Over what’s happened to
her after she lost her husband and only child.”

There’s a big brass band playing
inside my head now. The noise is deafeningly loud. Painful. I need to get out
of this place. This museum of horrors. I need to find my daughter.

I go to the front door, Brian
trying his best to keep up with me. I grab hold of the opener, but before I
turn it I look back at him. Look him in the eyes.

“Brian, where’s Ava?”

He bites down on his bottom lip,
exhales a deep breath.

“Okay, Chase,” he says, “you’re her
biological father so you have a right to know, but that doesn’t mean you’re
going to like it.”

“Tell me, Brian,” I insist. “Tell.
Me.”

“She’s at Bellevue,” he says. “The
psyche ward.”

Brian lends me one thousand dollars’
worth of bitcoins. Tells me I can pay him back whenever I get the chance.
Somehow, I feel like I’ll never get the chance. That one, or both, of us won’t
have the chance to live long enough. I exit the house knowing in my gut, I’ll
never see him again.

I don’t know how it’s possible I’m not
falling down the steps to the sidewalk. That’s how off kilter I am. I get in
and tell the computer to take me to Bellevue Hospital on 1
^st
Avenue.
Truth be told, I could walk there in less than fifteen minutes, but I want . .
.
need
… to get there as soon as possible. Sooner than soon.

The cab pulls up out front. I use
the bitcoins to pay a fare that also includes the one I skipped out on. The
computer must recognize my face, or voice, or both. My guess is, it’s
programmed to recognize any language and respond in kind. Maybe it also
recognizes criminals, or suspected criminals, and fugitives from justice. Maybe
I should have walked.

When my balance is settled, the
machine tells me to have a nice day. I tell it to go to hell, to which it doesn’t
respond at all. I almost miss having to tip a real driver.

The hospital entrance is outfitted
with more security than an international airport. I’m required to remove my
belt, my shoes, my wallet, and just about anything else that isn’t biologically
attached to my body. Then, when I’m finally through the scanners, a blue-uniformed
cop runs a metal detector up and down my body.

“Overkill don’t you think?” I say.

“Tell it to somebody who cares,
buddy,” he replies. “We didn’t fight and win the terrorist wars just to let our
guard down now.”

The terrorist wars. I want to ask
him how long it took to finally defeat radical Jihad, but he’s a cop and he’ll
think I’m off my rocker. Which I am. But then, I’m in the home of ‘off your
rocker.’ Break out the straitjackets.

I go to the information desk and,
with heart in throat, ask for Ava Baker.

The woman at the desk checks her
computer, comes back with the room, floor, and wing number. Then she asks me if
I’m family, and if I am family, why hasn’t she seen me before?

“Identification,” the middle-aged,
blonde-haired woman insists.

I reach into the interior pocket on
my bush jacket, pull out my passport, hand it to her through the slot at the
bottom of the glass. She takes it, looks it over, her eyes going from my
passport photo to me in real-life, real-time, back to the photo again.

“This document is sorely out of
date and totally obsolete,” she says with a shake of her head. “Everybody
requires a chip since the terrorist wars. You should know that.”

I have to think quick here, or else
the cops are going to escort me out.

“I’m on the list, believe me,” I
say. “I’ve been working in Africa building homes and schools for over twenty-five
years.” I smile. “The time flies when you’re doing some good for humanity.”

She cocks her head.

“I have to admit,” she says, “every
now and again I come across an old passport someone’s trying to pass off as ID.
People who live under a rock.” Her eyebrows perking up. “Heed the warning my
friend, you didn’t hear it from me, but you get caught with one of these, it
will mean instant jail time. Go get your chip.”