Read Online If You Were Here by Alafair Burke - Free Book Online Page A

for a bench holding one other person. His one person managed to occupy more than half the bench, but there was enough room for her to sit, and he was far too preoccupied by his newspaper to give her a second glance.
    Scanlin was the one who’d chosen the park for the meet, placing her smack-dab in the middle of a strip of action below Canal Street that was the heart of the Manhattan criminal court system. This territory used to feel like her heartland, too, pumping blood through her system. How many times had she carried a yogurt down to this park, or a bit farther south to Foley Square, just to breathe some fresh air and enjoy a brief respite from the courthouse’s fluorescent lighting?
    She used to know all the hot-dog vendors—not by name but by face, cataloged mentally by the characteristics that really mattered. Good mustard. Softest pretzels. The guy who stocked Tab.
    She knew which homeless people were regulars on the civil commitment and misdemeanor dockets, and which were harmless enough to become part of the daily banter. Back then Reggie was one of her favorites. “Whatchu gonna use to eat that salad with, my dear?” “I’m going to use this here fork, Reggie.” “Well, go on, then. Fork yourself!” Reggie would laugh and laugh and laugh, even though he used the same line four times a day, every single day.
    She looked around, wondering what had become of the man. She didn’t see him. She didn’t recognize anyone.
    She felt like an outsider. She was an outsider.
    When she’d caught Scanlin on the phone, he was just leaving the squad room to give testimony in a motion to suppress. “If it’s so important,” he’d said, “why don’t you meet me downtown?”
    He initially suggested meeting in the courtroom where he’d be testifying. But while she used to be able to whisk past security, asking the guards about last night’s Giants game, giving a self-satisfied wave to the defense attorneys waiting to enter, McKenna now had to line up with the rest of the citizens to be cleared for entry. Wasn’t there a more convenient place to meet? she had asked Scanlin. She’d been hoping for a coffee shop near the precinct, but he had insisted on a location by the courthouse, finally selecting the park. “You said it was important. I’m just trying to make sure you see me as soon as I’m done testifying.”
    She knew he took a certain pleasure in beckoning her to hostile territory that once was her home.
    S he wouldn’t have recognized him if he hadn’t looked directly at her from the courthouse steps and made a beeline to her park bench. “You need to be here, guy?” Scanlin asked. From behind his open newspaper, McKenna’s neighbor on the bench threw her an annoyed look. She shrugged, but one glance over the paper at Scanlin sent the man shuffling in search of a new spot to crash.
    “Well, how about you? You look pretty much the same. Not too many people can say that after a decade. You should be proud of yourself, ADA Wright.”
    McKenna didn’t know what to say. Scanlin had to know she wasn’t proud. She wasn’t an ADA anymore. She wasn’t even a Wright anymore. When she and Patrick married, she picked up on his preference that she change her name. In his world, that was what wives did. In her world, the whole thing seemed ridiculous, but she made the change anyway. Maybe her name wasn’t the only thing she was trying to change at the time. Her writing name would be McKenna Jordan. Not McKenna Wright, the disgraced prosecutor.
    She couldn’t return Scanlin’s compliment. She’d met him in person only twice, right after Susan disappeared—once when she’d shown up unannounced at Susan’s apartment, insisting on speaking to the detective in charge; and a week later, when she appeared unannounced at the precinct, accusing him of avoiding her phone calls based on what she’d considered a conflict of interest.
    The man she remembered had been close to fifty years old, with a well-groomed