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Manhattan – November 2006
It was well after 8pm by the time he got to the bar and Mike knew that Amy was going to be pissed. He had tried calling her from the squad room to let her know he was going to be late but it had gone straight to voicemail and he wasn't sure if she genuinely hadn't been able to answer or had deliberately ignored him. The fact that he had to consider the latter possibility probably said a lot about their current relationship.
When he pushed open the door he saw her straightaway, sitting in a booth at the far end of the room, a half empty glass of wine and a scotch on the table in front of her, her face buried in her cell phone. "Hey," he said as he approached the table, grateful for the warmth inside after the cold night air of the city streets.
"You're late," Amy said, without lifting her head.
"I know, I'm sorry," he said, shrugging off his jacket and tossing it along the seat."I got stuck in an interrogation. I did try to call you..."
"I know. I decided not to answer."
Mike slid into the booth across from her, "Why not?"
"Because," she met his gaze, "I knew you were going to give me some lame ass excuse as to why you couldn't be here, like you just did, like you always do."
"Amy, I was at work," he said, "I was interviewing a suspect...what do you want me to do?"
"I want you to think about me sometimes," Amy pouted.
The exaggerated look of sadness on her face may have made other men fall over themselves to apologise and promise it would never happen again, but it only served to make Mike angry. Didn't she realise how difficult and stressful his job was? Did she really have no clue as to the things he had to deal with every day? He was about to issue a barbed retort to her childish comment when he suddenly realised that the answer to both of his questions was no. How could she? How could he possibly expect her to have an understanding of his work? She was a twenty-three year old film student for heaven's sake.
"Twenty-three?" his partner, Megan Wheeler, had said when he had told her. "Isn't that a little...?"
"A little what?"
"Young?"
"No," he had scoffed. Amy was drop dead gorgeous with long wavy blonde hair, big blue eyes, a generous chest and a tiny waist, not to mention the fact that she had clearly found something attractive enough about him to agree to go out with him. What did age matter when the chemistry was good?
Megan hadn't been convinced. "You met her at a children's birthday party."
"It was my friend's kid's party and she was dropping off her little brother."
"Exactly!"
Mike had waved away her concerns with a pig-headed determination and belief that this girl was going to be different from all the others. She would be the one to change everything, to provide that something that had been missing from his life since his divorce. So he had ignored the obvious signs that pointed towards disaster rather than bliss. The near thirty year age gap for one, brought all too startlingly to his attention when she had asked him if AC/DC was a branch of the NYPD. He had to admit now that perhaps Megan had been right all along.
"I do think about you," he said quietly, swirling the scotch in his glass.
"No, you don't," she huffed, "and to be quite honest, I'm getting tired of playing second fiddle to...to murderers and rapists and..."
"Amy..."
"No," she sat forward in her seat, "I mean it Mike. I like you but...but I don't think this is going anywhere. In fact...I've been thinking about breaking up with you for a while now. I'm sorry," she said, though her tone sounded anything but, "you're sweet and...and not bad in bed...but I think it's for the best."
"Fine," he said, sitting back, surprised by how little effect her revelation had on him, even if he would have rather she'd said he was great in bed as opposed to not bad. "If that's how you feel about it, fine."
"It is," Amy said, lifting her jacket. "I'm sorry. Take care of yourself."
"You too," he said as she swept away from the table, offering not even so much as a goodbye peck on the cheek. As he sat alone, listening to the chatter of other couples in the bar around him, he couldn't help but feel a small sense of relief at the fact that the relationship was over. Who had he really been kidding? Only himself.
Like a self-harmer, a cutter, who can't resist opening an old wound, he took the picture out of his wallet, the one that was so dog-eared that he was surprised it hadn't ripped, and looked at it for a long time before stuffing it back inside where it sat alongside the newspaper clipping of the incident that had led him to Staten Island. Draining his glass, he couldn't help but wish that things had been different. If he could go back, if he could change it, he would never have punched that councilman, for he knew that it was that one moment of madness that had precipitated his separation and eventual divorce from the only woman he knew he'd ever really loved. The woman he still missed every single day, even nine years on.
"Can I get you another?"
He looked up into the smiling face of the waitress, a girl in her early twenties, and shook his head. "No thanks."
Perhaps it was simply time to accept that he had had the best, he had let the best go and that was that.
XXXX
"Hey," Megan greeted him the following morning as he came into the squad room. "How was your night?"
"It was...not great," he admitted, sitting down at his desk.
"Was she mad?"
"Yup, so mad in fact that she broke up with me."
"What? Oh Logan...I'm sorry..."
"Forget it," Mike said, lifting the papers littering his desk and beginning to sort them into piles, "it's for the best. You were right all along."
"Well," she grimaced, "if it makes you feel any better, I don't feel good about it."
"Reckon I'm better off staying single."
"Don't say that."
"We can't all be as lucky as you and the dashing Colin." Glancing up, he saw Megan blush under her freckles. I remember what that feels like, he thought, that feeling you get when you think about the person you love.
"You'll find someone," she said confidently. "You must just need to, you know, raise your minimum age limit a bit."
Mike opened his mouth to reply, but was cut off by Captain Danny Ross appearing at his office door. "Logan, Wheeler...in my office. I've had a call from the Chief of Detectives regarding a case they want us to take from the local precinct," he explained once the door had closed behind them. "I'm not sure if either of you are aware of Madison Harley?"
"Who?" Mike asked.
"Madison Harley," Ross replied dryly. "My eldest son reliably informs me that she's the hottest thing since Britney Spears. He has her calendar on his wall, apparently."
"I still have no idea who you're talking about."
"Madison Harley," Megan said, looking between them. "She's the latest pop princess. Her debut album went triple platinum last year. Don't tell me you've never heard her song Cry Baby on the radio? It's practically a teen anthem."
"I must have missed that one," Mike said, thinking that she and Amy would have gotten on well. "So, what's the case?"
"Pop princess or not, Madison Harley gave birth to a baby girl, Maya-Rose, six weeks ago. Last night she and her boyfriend were out at a party when someone broke into their home, assaulted the nanny and took the child."
"Abducted her?" Megan asked.
"Right from under the nose of Ms Harley's security team," Ross continued. "No doubt a lawsuit waiting to happen. Anyway, given the high profile nature of the case, the Chief of D's wants us on it. Local precinct are on the scene now."
"Has there been a ransom demand?" Mike asked.
"Not yet, but kidnap for ransom seems the most likely scenario given Ms Harley's public standing. So," he smiled at Mike, "let's get in, get the details and get on it. I don't want anyone's head turned by the alluring Ms Harley."
"How old is this kid?" Mike turned to Megan.
"Nineteen."
"Well, no problem there, Captain," he smiled at his boss, "Twenty-five's my new minimum."
XXXX
"Madison Harley, twenty-one, gave birth to Maya-Rose six weeks ago. Father's one Joey Rand, bit part actor," the detective from the local precinct filled them in as they climbed the staircase to the second floor of the singer's 5th Avenue home. "Madison and Joey attended a party last night thrown by her record company, leaving Maya-Rose in the care of their nanny, Paola Martinez."
"Where was the party?" Megan asked.
"Allure, it's a nightclub in Chelsea. They left here at seven-thirty, arrived back at midnight to find Paola unconscious on the floor and Maya-Rose gone." The detective stopped outside a door. "They're in there. They're both pretty upset but, if you ask me, Rand's on something."
"Thanks," Mike said. He pushed open the door and found himself stepping into what could only be described as trashy opulence. Clearly no expense had been spared in the decoration of the room, but it was a matter of opinion whether or not taste had been spared too. The carpet was thick and white, the furnishings white and gold, large gilded mirrors hung on every wall and there was a huge photograph of a young, blonde woman above the fireplace. Seated on a large couch in the far corner was the woman in the photograph, her face chalk white, coloured only by the streaks of mascara that were running down her face. "Ms Harley?" The woman nodded. "I'm Detective Logan, this is Detective Wheeler. We're from the Major Case Squad."
"Major Case?" Madison peered at them through red-rimmed eyes.
"It means they're the best," a man chipped in from the other corner of the room. "Only the best to find Maya-Rose."
"You're Mr Rand?" Mike asked.
He nodded, shifting from foot to foot and wiping his nose viciously, "Joey. Maya-Rosa's dad."
"We're very sorry about what's happened," Mike continued. "Is there anything you can tell us about last night?"
Madison shrugged, "We were going to the party at Allure. My record company organised it as a precursor to the release of my new album...we left here at seven-thirty...everything was fine. I'd fed Maya-Rose, she was sleeping and Paola..." she broke off as fresh tears came over her.
"And you got back around midnight?" Megan asked, sitting down on the couch next to her. Madison nodded. "Did you notice anything unusual either when you left the house or before you came back inside?"
"No," Madison said, "everything was normal."
"How about you?" Mike directed the question to Joey who shook his head. "You have on-site security?"
"We have bodyguards," Joey replied. "There were two here last night, not that they did any good!" he kicked out at a small table, causing it to spin across the room.
"Joey, stop it!" Madison exclaimed.
"Take it easy," Mike said, holding his hand out.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Joey said. "I'm just...I'm just a little strung out here...about Maya-Rose," he added.
"We'll need to speak to the bodyguards," Megan said, turning back to the detective who had led them in. "Are they still here?"
"In the other room," he replied.
"We hired them through a reputable agency," Madison said. "I've been using them ever since I first hit it big, you know? There's never been any problems with my security..."
"What about your nanny, Paola?"
"She's been with us since just before Maya-Rose was born," Madison replied. "She came highly recommended. She used to work for Cindy Crawford. When we saw her..." she put her hand over her mouth..."there was so much blood..."
"Well, we're going to need to talk to her too," Mike said. "And, you haven't had a call? No-one demanding money for Maya-Rose's return?"
Madison shook her head. "You think...you think that's what this is about? Money?"
"It's a possibility," Megan said, "you're a high profile, wealthy figure."
"Obviously, we want to get this out on the news as soon as possible," Mike said. "Make sure that everyone's looking for Maya-Rose. Hospitals, airports, train stations...do you have a recent photograph?"
Madison nodded and, getting to her feet, crossed the room to the mantelpiece where a large gilded frame contained a photograph of a baby squinting at the camera. With shaking hands, she handed it to Mike. "You're going to find her, right?"
Looking at the photograph, he couldn't help but think that she looked like every other baby he had ever seen, but when he looked back at Madison, he saw the raw fear that only a parent who had lost their child could feel. He patted her on the arm in an attempt at reassurance, "We're going to do everything that we can, I promise."