Connor swallowed, hard. "Holy shit. That is weird."
"Oh, I haven't even gotten to the weird part yet," Seth said. "About that vidcam, uh… you don't know anything about it, do you, Con?"
"What the hell are you talking about? Why would I? What is it about the goddamn vidcam? Spit it out, Seth!"
"It's yours," Seth said bluntly. "I sold it to Davy, and he passed it on to you. It's the one that got stolen in that burglary at your house a few months ago. I know it's yours. Because I marked it."
Connor tried to find space in his mind for that piece of info. His brain refused to accommodate it. "Huh?"
"Is there something you're not telling me, Con?"
Seth's voice had a cold, suspicious edge to it that Connor had never heard, at least not directed toward him. Panic jolted through him, at the thought that even Seth might abandon him.
"Fuck, no!" he burst out. "I didn't plant that thing. Not me!"
"Good." Seth's relief was palpable. "That's sort of what I figured. A hidden vidcam in a girl's bedroom isn't your style. It's more like something I would do. You're too much of a tight-ass Dudley Do-Right for a dirty trick like that."
"Thanks for your touching faith in me," Connor said.
"Anytime, man, anytime. The first thing you need to do is to turn on your phone so I can scramble you. It makes me nervous to talk—"
"I don't have the phone," Connor said. "I gave it to Erin."
"You gave the phone to Erin?" Seth repeated slowly.
"Yes! I did!" he yelled. "Will you guys please stop giving me shit about the rucking phone?"
"And she has it on her now?" Seth persisted.
"How the hell should I know? She put it in her purse last night. I assume she has it. Why shouldn't she?"
Seth started to laugh.
"What is so goddamn funny?"
"You just solved all our problems in one blow," Seth said. "We'll use the phone to find her."
Connor's hand tightened on the phone. "Come again?"
"There's a beacon in your phone. It feeds off the battery, so if it's been charged recently, it should be transmitting."
"You planted a beacon on me? Why?" he demanded.
"You never know when you might need to find your friends in a hurry." Seth's voice was defensive. "I put 'em in Davy's and Sean's phones, too, so don't take it personally. Besides, you get your ass in a sling on a regular basis. I felt more than justified."
Connor started to grin. "I'm gonna pound you when this is all over for planting shit on me," he warned.
"Yeah, but right now, when I'm useful, you love me and I'm golden. I've heard that tune before. I'll head home and key the code into my computer. Get over here, and we'll mobilize."
"Call Sean and Davy for me," Connor said.
"Watch yourself," Seth said.
Connor bounded down the remaining two flights like his feet were on springs. It was beautiful, it was amazing, it was awesome, that his pathologically sneaky gearhead friend had actually had the brilliant good sense to plant a bug in his phone. He dodged and spun around gurneys and wheelchairs, leaving shouts of furious protest behind him. He sped toward the parking garage and dug out his keys.
The door of the gray SUV with tinted windows parked next to his car swung opened, and discharged a tall, black-clad bald man.
Connor reeled back with a gasp. The guy was a hideous apparition: pallid and hairless, blue eyes burning out of dark pits, a scarred, grotesque face. A gap-toothed leer.
Georg Luksch.
Georg's arm flashed up, took aim. Connor heard a popping sound, felt a stab of pain, an explosion of helpless fury. A dart was poking out of his chest. He fought it, but he was already sagging onto the asphalt.
Shadows overtook him. The world melted into formless darkness.
"Punctual, as always," Tamara murmured, when she met them at the door. "And who is this?"
"This is my friend Tonia Vasquez," Erin said. "Tonia, this is Tamara Julian. I told you about her."
"How do you do? What a fabulous outfit," Tonia gushed.
Tamara gave her a lofty smile. "How kind of you to say so."
Tamara was dressed in black, a severe high-necked jacket paired with a billowing black taffeta skirt. The heels of her shiny, pointy-toed boots clicked over the dizzying swirls of antique tile on the mosaic floor. She glanced back over her shoulder. "I'm relieved that you made it. Mr. Mueller was distressed when you ran away last night. He was afraid he'd offended you. We weren't sure you'd be back."
Tonia slanted her an odd glance. "Ran away? What's this?"
"It's a long story," Erin said stiffly. "It had nothing to do with Mr. Mueller, though. He needn't have worried."
"I see." Tamara's face looked pale and drawn beneath her flawless makeup. Her emerald eyes looked haunted and shadowy.
Or maybe it was just Erin's own bleak perceptions, reading ominous portents into every innocuous thing. The dread in her belly got heavier. Flutters of the panic that had mastered her the day before stirred inside her, and she clamped down on them ruthlessly. She would get through this job, close this chapter gracefully, and that was all she would ask of herself. Professional suicide or not, once she delivered that report, she would be politely unavailable to Claude Mueller forevermore. She would refer him to other experts who would all fall over their feet in their eagerness to consult for him. In the meantime, she would be taking typing tests, filling out W-4 forms for temp secretary and paralegal jobs. And she would be cheerful about it if it killed her. Yippee. What a joy. You shape your own reality, she reminded herself.
Unless you allow other people to shape it for you. The thought flitted through her mind like a bat's shadow, almost too quick to catch.
God, how she hated this house. It seemed to give her a constant, low-level electrical charge, just enough to feel nauseous and dizzy, and determination alone wasn't enough to manage it. She'd bolted out of the place in a full-blown panic attack last night, like Cinderella fleeing the ball as the clock tolled midnight. But here she was again, putting one foot in front of the other, cold sweat trickling down between her shoulder blades. Trying to act like a grown-up.
Tamara stopped in front of the door to the salon. The heavy, ornate door was like the mouth of some monstrous creature, gaping wide to swallow her whole. Erin stomped down on the childish, queasy surge of panic, and tightened her belly into tempered steel.
Mueller was staring out the window, as he'd been the day before, the deep-in-thought-aristocrat pose. He turned, and smiled as he came forward to greet her. "Ah, excellent. I wasn't sure I would see you again," he said. "I am sorry if I upset you yesterday. You look pale."
"I'm fine, thanks." See? Polite, pleasant, nothing wrong with this picture. Novak is dead, on the other side of the planet. Everything here is perfectly normal. I will not let someone else's fear control me. It raced through her mind in the blink of an eye. "I'm so sorry about that. I don't know what came over me."
His teeth looked so sharp when he smiled. "And who is your lovely companion?"
"Tonia Vasquez. Glad to meet you," Tonia said, when Erin took too long to reply. "I'm Erin's shadow today. I hope I'm not in the way."
"Not at all. Any friend of Ms. Riggs is welcome. One can never have too many beautiful women in one place."
"That depends," Tonia purred, "on the circumstances."
So Tonia was going to flirt with him. Fine. It made her flesh creep, but if it diverted his attention from her own unhappy self, she could weep for gratitude. Soon this would be over, and she could retreat to her dingy mouse hole at the Kinsdale and lick her wounds in the dark.