She slid the magazine into the gun, then opened her purse.
If she dumped most of the junk out, she could just fit the pistol into her bag.
As she pulled out her cell phone, it went off. Startled, she fumbled to open it. On the screen was another number she didn’t recognize. She hit the connect button and held the phone to her ear without saying anything.
She listened to the silence for a long time before it was broken.
“You should have heard her scream,” a voice said. Michael’s voice. “It was exquisite.”
Taylor felt dizzy again. She grabbed the headboard with her free hand to steady herself. She took a deep breath, let it out slowly, then spoke.
“I’ve been waiting for your call,” she said softly, evenly.
“I sliced off her clit with an X-Acto knife,” he whispered.
Taylor reached over and picked up the pistol. It felt solid, heavy in her hand.
“And I’m next,” she said. “Right?”
He laughed. My God, she thought, the son of a bitch is actually laughing at me.
“Oh yes,” he said. “You’re next. We’re going to have a lot of fun.”
Taylor gritted her teeth, hard. “Listen to me, you disgust-ing fuck. You’re not laying a finger on me. Remember? I’m the one with the bag. I’m the one with the hundred thousand in small bills. I’m your ticket out of here.”
“You mean there was actually money in that bag?” He sounded almost incredulous.
She stood up, the cell phone in one hand, pistol in the other. “Hell, yes, you sick perverted pile of dog snot. And I’m through making deals with you. I’m the one calling the shots now. Here’s how it’s going to go down. If you want to get out of here alive, you’ll take the money and disappear.
I’m buying my life back for a hundred thousand dollars and I want you out of it. That’s the deal. If you don’t take it, I’m coming after you. I’m coming after you and I’m going to kill you, I’m going to cook you, and I’m going to fucking eat you. Understand?”
There was a long silence over the phone. “My, my,” he said finally. “I’ve never heard you talk like this before. It’s kind of arousing.”
“Make a choice,” Taylor said. “You got one shot to live.
Take it or leave it.”
“This is a side of you I’ve never seen before,” he said.
“You’re running out of time, Michael,” she snapped.
“Make up your mind. Yes or no.”
“Okay,” he said. “Cool your jets. It’s a deal. But this time, I’m not running if you’re not alone. I spot a cop or another of those FBI pricks, then I’m just going to kill you before they take me out. We both go down together.”
“Where do we meet?” Taylor demanded. “Let’s get this over with now.”
“No,” Michael said. “Not in the daytime. Tonight.”
“All right,” Taylor said. “You call me at nine o’clock tonight. Don’t be late.”
She hit the disconnect button and flipped the phone closed.
Taylor looked down at the pistol in her hand. She wasn’t shaking anymore.
Hank Powell stripped off his booties, mask, and latex gloves, then stepped outside the front door of Brett Silverman’s brownstone and walked quickly down the steps to the sidewalk. He needed air, fresh air, and he needed it badly.
He’d never seen anything like this. Horrible didn’t even begin to describe what he’d seen upstairs. He didn’t even want to begin to think about what the victim had gone through.
One of the plainclothes NYPD Homicide detectives walked up to him as he leaned against a cast-iron fence that ran the width of the property. “You okay?” he asked.
Hank looked up at him. “Yeah, just got a little light-headed.
I’m okay.”
The detective pulled out a cigarette pack and held it out to him. “No, thanks,” Hank said. “Gave ‘em up years ago.”
The cop nodded toward the murder scene. “Be a good day to start again. You ever seen anything like that?”
Hank shook his head.
“We had a uniform actually throw up in there. Guy’d never seen a homicide scene before.”
“Oh, Jesus.” Hank winced. “Imagine that being your first one.”
Hank’s cell phone went off. He pulled it out of his coat pocket and flipped it open.
“Powell,” he said. “What? What the hell are you talking about? Goddamn it, you were supposed to be watching her!”
The detective watched as Hank Powell’s face grew red and-even in the cold, heavy wind coming off the Hudson River a few blocks away-his forehead broke out in a sweat.
“Well, when the hell did it-” Hank paced a few feet away.
“All right, damn it, look, get out an APB or whatever the hell you can do. Send a squad car to her building. She’ll probably go there first. We’ve got to find her, and quick.”
Hank flipped the phone shut. “Everything okay?” the detective asked.
“I’ve got to go,” Hank said. “It’s hit the fan.”
He spotted Joyce Parelli coming out of the brownstone and ran up the stairs to meet her. She, too, looked drawn and shaken.
“What’s up?” she asked.
“Taylor Robinson’s disappeared.”
“Christ almighty!” she snapped, her eyes widening. “How the fuck did they lose her?”
“C’mon, let’s head for her place.”
Joyce followed as Hank started for the corner of Tenth Avenue and Twenty-fourth, where Joyce had left the car earlier.
As they walked, Hank pulled out his cell phone and dialed a number.
“C’mon, damn it, answer! Taylor, pick up the phone.”
Taylor Robinson stopped in the entranceway of her building and stared out through the dingy glass. It looked clear outside, as far as she could tell. She walked outside, past a building almost completely covered in a rainbow of graffiti, up to the corner. She flagged down a cab and climbed in. As she did, she looked out the back window of the taxi.
An NYPD blue-and-white squealed to a stop in front of her building. Two cops jumped out and ran to the front door.
The taxi pulled away. “Where to, lady?” an older, dark-haired driver asked.
“East Side. East Sixty-second.”
“Which block?”
“All the way over. The Bentley Hotel.”
“Oh, yeah. I know it.”
Taylor tried to sink into the seat. As the taxi pulled to a stop at a light, her cell phone went off again. She flipped it open, recognized the number as Hank Powell’s, and hit the button to send the call to voice mail.
Right now, she didn’t want to talk to anyone.
Twenty-five minutes later, the cab pulled up in front of the Bentley, a small boutique hotel where Delaney amp; Associates had an account. Inside, she tracked down her contact in the sales department and arranged for a room to be held in Joan Delaney’s name, hinting that some big celebrity author was coming into town and didn’t want to be noticed. Taylor took the key and went upstairs.
They gave her a tenth-floor room looking east. She locked the door and opened the draperies. The room looked out on the Queensboro Bridge, the traffic streaming across it in a continuous line as the afternoon rush hour approached. Taylor lay down on the bed and tried to relax. She mentally calculated how much sleep she’d had since Michael called her Thursday afternoon. An hour here, a couple of hours there …
She felt numb all over, numb and brittle. She felt herself dozing in and out for a while, then suddenly realized she was getting chilled. She kicked off her shoes and pulled back the covers, then eased under the blanket, staring out at the city lights as the sun went slowly down.
Soon, she drifted off.
When her cell phone went off again, she awoke with a start. She felt a sharp spike of panic. Where was she? Outside the window, the brilliant scatter of lights off the bridge and the surrounding buildings looked like gun bursts. She fumbled for the phone, hit the connect button.
“Yes,” she said, trying to sound awake.
“Am I late?” Michael’s voice sounded relaxed, professional, far too calm for the circumstances.