The Betrayer by Daniel Judson Page B

going, then.”
    “Call me after,
even if you don’t find anything.”
    “Will do.”
    “And be
careful.”
    Cat wasn’t sure
if he meant don’t get caught or keep a sharp eye out .
    It didn’t
matter; she planned on doing both.

Chapter Six
    Immediately upon entering the
apartment on West Tenth Street, Cat smelled something. Perfume, maybe. Or body
wash. It was faint, and strangely familiar, but there was no mistaking that
whatever it was, it was feminine.
    She began to
look around, knew she needed to remain focused on her task, but it was
difficult for her to be here and not be overwhelmed by memories. More so, in
fact, than she had anticipated.
    She’d done
so much to leave all this behind.
    This had been their
father’s apartment, the place where he had lived after his discharge from the
army back in ’74. Shortly after that he had joined the FBI. He had married late
— in ’80 at the age of thirty-five — and bought the house in Ossining where Cat
and her two brothers were raised.
    Growing up, she
had idolized her father — he had worked long hours in the city, was often gone
for days at a time, was a man, her mother reminded her frequently but gently, who
was doing what he had to do in order to support his family. It wasn’t till Cat
was a teenager that she learned what her father actually did to make his
living, the risks he had taken in a war on organized crime, both before meeting
their mother and then after that. At that moment Cat knew exactly what she wanted
to do with her life.
    It was during her
childhood that she first experienced the pain-pleasure cycle — missing her
father terribly, craving his company and attention, then having it, intensely
if all too briefly, only to have him leave again, after which the pain would return.
This pattern, burned into her during her youth, was one that she sought out as
an adult — a common story, this she knew. But as aware as she was of this
pattern, of how it had begun and what it meant, she could never really find a
way to break it. Affairs with unavailable men were the best way for her to
recreate this cycle. And for whatever reason, it seemed that unavailable men
were as drawn to her as she was to them.
    But she did her
best now to fight this rush of memories, needed to focus on why she was here, but
this apartment, in its strange way, was a keystone in her life. For the longest
time it had been a place of mystery to her, where he father had lived his
second and secret life. Living here, as though he were still a bachelor and not
a husband and father of three, had helped maintain his various covers — and protected his family, all but hidden up in Westchester. Cat had not even seen this
apartment until she was twenty, and only then because her father no longer played
any part in undercover operations. An agent could pull off only a few of those,
at the most. John Coyle Sr., a legend in the Bureau, was a veteran of ten.
    Off-limits for
so long, the place where her father had lived without her, had slept, if he
really slept at all, while his life was in danger daily — how could being here
not trigger countless memories for her? Even now, technically, she shouldn’t be
here; even now there was danger in her simply having entered and taken a look
around.
    She checked her
watch, saw that she’d been here for fifteen minutes already. Had she really lost
track of that much time? She decided that she’d better get to it and do a
serious search. She needed to find something that would tell her without a
doubt that Jeremy had been living here. The perfume could have meant he had a
live-in girlfriend, or it could have meant that he had simply spent last night
with some stranger. If that were the case, Cat thought, maybe she had more in
common with her troubled kid brother than she realized.
    But the
presence of lingering perfume could also have meant that Jeremy had simply sublet
the place to a woman, or maybe a couple, for the quick cash.
    Then Cat saw