Undertow (The UnderCity Chronicles) Read Free

she was conducting her research despite your warnings, and despite my warnings, to be frank. I understand that you’re undermanned and don’t want to place your men in danger. But Captain, I can’t just forget about her. There must be something we can do.”
    Monroe stared coldly across at her. She held it. “Ms. Sterling, I really don’t think I can help you…” he began, but his eyes darted to a battered old Rolodex tucked against his computer. She pressed for the advantage.
    “Please, Captain,” she pleaded, “if you can think of anybody who could find her, anyone at all, I need to know.”
    Monroe stared back, setting his jaw as if weighing his options. “There is one guy,” he said after a moment, though by his expression he was already regretting his words.
    “Who is he?”
    “His name is Jack Cole. Used to be a professor.”
    Lindsay froze, went as stiff as the bodies of the homeless that turned up every day now on the city’s icy streets. “Did you say Jack Cole? Jack Andrew Cole?”
    Monroe’s hand hovered over the Rolodex. “You know him?”
    “Yes,” she replied, fond memories softening her initial shock. “We used to be best friends back in high school. I haven’t seen him in”—she did the math—“eighteen years. He’s a…a scientist?”
    “Anthropologist. Expert in urban subcultures.” Monroe set the Rolodex in front of him and began flipping. “Did a lot of work around the world. London, Paris, Rome, Moscow and here in New York. Nobody knows more about the underside of cities.”
    Lindsay shook her head in wonder. “That’s the kind of work he always said he was going to do. He could find Seline, couldn’t he?”
    “If he wanted, though I doubt he will,” Monroe said. “I guess you could say he’s retired.”
    “Retired?” Lindsay echoed.
    “About three years ago, Dr. Cole went missing in the underground during one of his expeditions. We searched for him as best we could. After a couple of weeks, we simply didn’t have resources to keep it up. He was presumed dead, and that’s the way things stayed till early last year when he finally surfaced.”
    “He spent two years underground? What happened to him?”
    Monroe eyed one of the cards, then shook his head and kept flipping. “He didn’t say.”
    “What do you mean he didn’t say?” Lindsay asked. That wasn’t the Jack she’d known. He would’ve popped up, those lion-like eyes of his bright with enthusiasm, and begun telling the world of his adventures.
    “I’m saying he didn’t say,” Monroe growled. “End of story.”
    Not for her. She’d find him and he’d help her. He wouldn’t let her down. She knew that much about him.
    “Yeah, here it is.” Monroe stopped at a card and began patting the papers in the hunt for a pen.
    Lindsay produced her own pen and paper.
    Monroe smirked as he jotted down the address. It was a few blocks from Gates Avenue, in Bed-Stuy. Though parts of Bedford-Stuyvesant were wonderful places to live, featuring beautiful tree-lined rows of century-old brownstone homes and tight-knit communities, Gates Avenue was infamous for its poverty and crime rate. She didn’t need to be a psychologist to see Monroe doubted that a professional white woman, dressed like she’d stepped off the pages of a fashion magazine, would dare set foot there.
    “You have his phone number?”
    “No,” Monroe said flatly. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a lot of work to do today.”
    Lindsay had the address memorized before she reached the door. As she was leaving, the captain called out to her.
    “Make sure you go yourself.”
    She turned in the doorway. “I beg your pardon?”
    “I said you’ll need to go there yourself. Cole isn’t likely to help you, Ms. Sterling. He definitely won’t if you hire someone to go talk to him.”
    What did he take her for? Thirty years on the force and he hadn’t figured out that appearances meant nothing. “I learned long ago that if I wanted anything