End of Secrets (34 page)

She returned to Bolíva
r’s
transcripts, and this time she studied the names of the professors who had taught each course. She was
n’t
looking for anything in particular, just a name or a course that inspired a feeling stronger than the others. What she found was much more straightforward than that. There was one professor who had taught Bolívar in four different courses over his three-and-half years at the school. Carl Tierney, professor of Computer Technologies and Society. She checked the schoo
l’s
current directory and found that he was still listed as a professor.

FORTY-EIGHT

Professor Tierney welcomed Kera into his office the following afternoon. The room was small, but it had a large window overlooking Washington Square Park. Peculiarly for a man who carried the banner for the digital future, the cramped office was overrun by physical books and paper files. The inescapable burden of academic bureaucracy, she supposed. She thanked him for seeing her and sat in a chair wedged against the wall, where she had to keep her legs tucked under the seat to avoid brushing against his feet beneath the desk.

“I looked you up, Ms. Mersal,” Professor Tierney said. “I confess, I was
n’t
familiar with the
Global Report
. It seems they have you covering quite a wide range of subjects.”

“A sign of the times, Professor. The news is not what it once was.”

“Tha
t’s
very true. But you know, in my courses I encourage students never to bemoan the changing times. Ther
e’s
always good reason that the past has gone away, and in any event, no amount of hand-wringing will bring it back. Better to approach any criticism of the present with the future in mind. I think tha
t’s
saying something from an old guy like me.” As if catching himself being professorial in front of a young woman who had not enrolled in his class, he frowned. “But I understand you are, in fact, here to discuss the past.”

“Tha
t’s
right. As I noted in my e-mail,
I’m
preparing a piece on Rafael Bolívar, and
I’v
e run into a dead end. It appears that Mr. Bolíva
r’s
academic records are incomplete. They simply end a semester shy of graduation. Maybe i
t’s
nothing, but I noticed that h
e’d
taken several of your courses. I was hoping you might know what happened?”

Professor Tierney looked at her from across his desk, perhaps weighing whether it was ethical to get into a conversation about a former studen
t’s
records. “
I’m
afraid I do, Ms. Mersal. Mr. Bolívar dropped out.”

“Voluntarily?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because I gave him a D on his final assignment in my Digital Innovation course.”

“He dropped out of college because of a bad grade?” Kera was now familiar with all of Bolíva
r’s
transcripts. H
e’d
received straight As in everything else. Dropping out over one anomaly seemed extreme.

“Obviously, it must have been more complicated for him than that.
I’m
not sure I understand it myself. I wo
n’t
lie; i
t’s
bothered me over the years.”

“What was the assignment?”

“The assignment, which I still assign to classes each semester, was to design an Internet-based innovation, such as a website or an application, and write a thesis to defend its originality and societal importance. He presented his theory on paper quite passionately, but he was unable to complete a functional prototype. You see, he made the enginee
r’s
crucial flaw—he overreached. The thing he was striving for was impossible. Frankly, I was charitable in giving him the D instead of an all-out failing mark.”

“Were you surprised when he dropped out?”

“At first, yes. But I should
n’t
have been. You see, Rafael Bolívar was not motivated by a need to adhere to social conventions, like getting good grades or earning a diploma. Not because he did
n’t
care. In fact, I suspect he cared too much. I think he probably thought that if he did
n’t
drop out, it would be a sign to himself, if no one else, that he did
n’t
believe deeply enough in his theory.”

“You keep saying
‘w
a
s’
and
‘d
id
n’t.’
Are you referring to him in the past tense intentionally?”

“Ah, yes. Well, there was the man who wrote that thesis and put everything on the line to defend it. And then ther
e’s
the man who got rich selling reality shows and infotainment programs through his television networks. These cannot possibly be the same man.”

There it was, she thought. The same contradiction she herself had noticed in Bolívar—his public persona versus the man she had witnessed in private.

“When was the last time you spoke to him?” she asked.

“Tha
t’s
easy. The day he learned
I’d
given him a D on the assignment.”

“Just like that? You have
n’t
heard from him since?”

He shook his head. “I wo
n’t
pretend I have a clear conscience about it. When yo
u’v
e been a professor as long as I have, you see a lot of promise go unfulfilled. Rafa Bolíva
r’s
, though; that was a real loss. I know, anyone will say h
e’s
gone on to do just fine for himself without the approval of a passing grade in my course, but that incident has always remained a little unsettling to me.”

“Do you still have the thesis he wrote?”

“
I’m
sure i
t’s
saved in my e-mail archives. But I do
n’t
keep it laying around, if tha
t’s
what yo
u’r
e asking.”

“
I’v
e imposed plenty on your time, Professor Tierney. But if you find a moment to dig it up,
I’d
be curious to have a look.” She passed him her card, then pulled out her tablet. “Just one more thing, and i
t’s
probably a stretch. Do you recognize this young man? I do
n’t
think he was in any of your classes, but he was a roommate of Bolíva
r’s
at the time.”

Professor Tierney looked at the photo of Charlie Canyon on Ker
a’s
tablet for long enough that by the time he answered, she had grown hopeful. “Yes. I would
n’t
know his name. But he was one of Bolíva
r’s
friends. I saw them together often. With another boy too.”

Ker
a’s
phone rang in her bag. The volume was low but audible, and she reached down to silence it. When she did, she noticed the call was coming from an unfamiliar number with a Manhattan prefix. “Another boy?”

“Yes, outside of class. Whenever I saw Bolívar around campus, he was with these friends. Always the three of them.”

Kera thanked him again and invited him to e-mail her if he found Bolíva
r’s
thesis or thought of anything else.

Outside she reached for her phone to call Jones and noticed the previous caller had left a voice mail. The display said that the message was over a minute long. She brought the phone to her ear as she waited to cross the street into Washington Square Park.

“Kera. Kera. I
t’s
me,” the voice mail began. It was difficult to hear clearly over the traffic, but she could tell it was Parker. “I did
n’t
want to use my phone, just in case. I got it for you. I
t’s
big. You can use it for a story. Come by the apartment. Can you do tha
t . . .
today? I
t’s
important. Right when you get this.
I’l
l show you everything. The
y’l
l fire me for this, but now I know what the
y’r
e doing with the bunker and why it has to be stopped.
I’l
l have to quit, just like the quant did. But
I’m
not afraid of them. Not if you can write a story—”

Kera stood frozen on the curb, straining to listen. When his voice cut out, she pressed the phone harder against her ear. Nothing. The message had terminated far short of a minute. What had he been talking about? She brought the phone down to try to play the message through again, and tha
t’s
when she noticed something was wrong.

Her voice mail in-box was empty.

Then she ran.

FORTY-NINE

Parker had decided to wait to hit rock bottom before he quit drinking. This surely was it. But there was some relief in that—knowing that in a day, or perhaps a week or a month, things would get better again.

H
e’d
spent the entire night at a terminal in the basement, and then h
e’d
spent the day at his desk, working as diligently as a sleepless night allowed. If anyone noticed anything amiss, they did
n’t
let on. He just needed to get to five
o’c
lock and get out of the building without drawing any suspicion. Once he handed everything over to Kera, once it was all out in the open, he would be untouchable.

Heading downtown, he pulled up his jacket collar against the wet chill. Dusk stalked the city several hours ahead of schedule. The light that managed to seep through the clouds was the sort that sucked color from everything. Buildings were indistinguishable. Glass, metal, concrete—all the same shade of ashy gray.

On the way to the subway, he kept seeing women who he thought for an instant were Kera. Confident, purposeful women navigating the damp city in long jackets, their dark hair tucked under hats or sheltered by umbrellas. The whole city seemed to be filled with women like this. But on second glance, none of them were Kera, none of them even close.

He told himself not to hope that she might reconsider leaving him.

He called her from the pay phone outside of L@Ho. As her phone rang and rang, he recalled the first time h
e’d
wandered into the bar and how h
e’d
liked the feel of the place immediately. Now he craved it almost as much as he craved sleep, even though it no longer satisfied him to sit and chat and think about the day. His favorite bartender was no longer there. Parker had read in the news that morning that the man had disappeared along with the other missing.

Hearing her voice on the recording had stung him more than h
e’d
expected, as if sh
e’d
been gone for years. His message rambled. He was
n’t
sure how much to divulge over the phone.

He walked the remaining four blocks and climbed the steps to their—his—apartment. It had been nearly thirty-six hours since h
e’d
been home. The keys were in a pocket of the leather courier bag he carried to work every day, a gift from Kera the previous Christmas. He retrieved them and let himself in.

Two men were sitting on the bar stools at the kitchen counter, and they said they just wanted to talk.

FIFTY

Kera threw a twenty over the seat and slid out of the cab as it was still rolling to a stop in front of the apartment building. She took the stairs two at a time and put her ear to the door before knocking. She heard nothing.

She knocked four times and listened again. Silence.

Using her own key, she tested the dead bolt, which she and Parker both had a habit of always locking, even when they were home. It was not engaged. The door knob, which locked automatically, clicked loudly when she turned the key. As soon as the door swung on its hinges, she could smell burnt gunpowder in the air. The odor was unmistakable; it reminded her immediately of the firing range at the Farm. She threw herself flat against the hallway wall, a safe distance from the door, at first bracing for gunfire and then, when it did
n’t
come, crouching to strike low at anyone who emerged from the apartment. Between breaths, she strained to hear any movement that would give away a threat.

But there was no rustling of clothes, no creak of the floorboards, no voices. Just a terrible silence that hung heavy with the acrid odor.

Moving cautiously, Kera entered the apartment and leapt for the shelter of the kitchen, which she could see was clear. The living room, just on the other side of the bar counter where she had ducked for cover, was still. She tested a few glances into the open space and then, staying low and against the wall, crept out far enough to see that the living room was also clear. The bedroom was next. Again, she approached it as though it contained a shooter, and again she found herself alone, the only sound her pulse thumping in her ears.

By the time she reached the bathroom, she knew what she would find.

She expected it to be bad, and it was far worse. She had an overwhelming urge to run to him and touch him, to shake him and haul him out of the bathtub. He did
n’t
belong there. This was all wrong. A wave of nausea stopped her. For all her training, she had never seen a corpse in the field. There was nothing but the real thing, she thought, that could prepare anyone for the first time they see what a bullet at close range can do to a skull and the matter it holds. What had not been contained by the walls of the tub had soiled the lower half of the curtain and part of the tile wall. She spun away and then shielded her eyes to avoid looking at herself in the mirror. It seemed indecent to be seen like this, even by herself.

For several moments Kera concentrated on getting her breath back. This was a crime scene, she realized. She had to pull herself together. She had to think clearly.

She turned and took a few steps toward the tub, keeping her eyes on the bathroom floor. Then she drew them up carefully. The gun was in his hand, which had fallen across his chest. She could
n’t
bring her eyes up any higher to look at his face, and was glad of that in the moments that followed, when she needed to be very careful and not make any mistakes.

She called 911 and heard herself tell the operator that her fiancé had shot himself in the head. Her words felt disconnected from herself, a voice faraway and down a tunnel. While she answered the operato
r’s
questions, she retraced her steps through the small rooms, this time looking in closets and behind furniture. Everything was almost exactly the way Parker would have had it. Almost. There was one thing amiss: Parke
r’s
work bag was not in the apartment.

She kept looking for it until she could hear sirens. Then the operator said it was OK to hang up and she did. She sat down on the side of the couch that was farthest from the bathroom and hugged her legs against her chest. There was nothing more she could do now; it was OK to start letting go. Her sobs came in awful, desolate bursts, seizing her chest until she could hardly breathe.