there. He retrieved the hollowed-out copy of The Monetary History of the United States from the bedroom bookshelf. It contained his birth certificate, his certificate of name change when he legally became Henry Torrance, a lock of hair from Jenny Gulli, the first girl to really disappoint him, all the way back in high school, and the Polaroid he had of Corbin standing over the corpse of Claire Brennan. It was their insurance, of course, since Corbin owned a similar photograph of Henry, but Henry had always thought it was something more. A pact. A promise. He wondered where Corbin kept his Polaroid. Probably in a safe-deposit box somewhere. Henry knew that he should do the same, but he liked looking at it too much; he liked to have it close.
He paced the apartment with the photo in his hand. He hated being alone in his place; he’d hated it ever since his exciting visit with Audrey Marshall. Knowing suddenly what he was going to do, he logged onto his business e-mail account and canceled his meetings for the following day with the family law firm in Waltham. He packed his backpack with everything he needed. He was going to move in with Kate.
Chapter 32
Henry walked across the park in the dusk light. It had rained earlier, and there were puddles on the walkways and rain dripping from the trees. He crossed Beacon Street and then walked the one block of Charles that took him to Bury. He turned, and there was Kate, coming directly toward him. He lowered his head and kept walking. She never looked at him. Her eyes had that glazed emptiness of someone deep in thought. He almost followed her, just out of curiosity, but decided instead to take the perfect opportunity that had been given to him. He continued to walk toward the apartment, nearly bumping into a man about his age, hurrying along as though he was late for something. They each apologized at the same time, Henry catching a glimpse of a gaunt face, dark eyes.
He walked past the apartment building and through the two alleys that brought him to the back entrance. No one was in the basement, as usual. Henry’s feet were wet and muddy, and left tracks on the floor. He found an old stiffened rag behind one of the water tanks and cleaned his shoes off, then wiped away the tracks. He took his time, confident at this point that the residents in this building rarely visited their storage units. Why did they need these units when their apartments were so massive? Some didn’t even have locks on them since they were probably unused. Corbin’s unit—the door stenciled with 3d—had a stainless steel padlock on its flimsy door. Could that possibly be where Corbin kept the photograph of Henry with the body of Claire? He decided to visit the unit when he got a chance. The lock would be easy to pick.
Henry entered Corbin’s dark apartment, or Kate’s apartment, since it was now hers. He removed his shoes in the kitchen, wrapped them in one of the plastic bags he’d brought, and put them in his backpack. He knew the apartment well, and had already decided that the best place for him to hide would be in the north-facing guest room, the larger of the two guest rooms. There was a relatively deep closet; one side had shelving that held linens and towels, but the other side was recessed slightly, and empty. Two suits, in plastic garment bags, hung on the closet rod, and if he positioned them carefully he’d be able to stand in the recess and be hidden, so long as no one moved the suits.
The guest bedroom was mostly covered by a large pile rug, beige and with a fleur-de-lis pattern. The bed was a four-poster with about two feet of clearance underneath. Henry thought he could comfortably sleep under the bed. He stashed his backpack in the closet and walked through the entire apartment, automatically picking out quick hiding places—behind curtains, a walk-in pantry—that he could use if he had to. He wasn’t too worried about it.
He went into Corbin’s obscenely large bedroom. He studied the framed pictures on top of the low bureau, even though he’d looked at them before. There were many of Corbin when he’d been young, and some of him when he was college age, the age when Henry had first met him. The pictures were almost humorously upper class; most