Serena had to imagine what the suite would have looked like when it was fully furnished. There were hints in the multicolored kaleidoscope of the tile and the pistachio colors of the painted ceiling. She thought of flowing draperies behind honey sofas laden with pillows. Wrought-iron hanging lamps. Rich lapis vases. All that and a five-hundreddollar hooker would make any high roller feel like a sultan.
“Keep going,” Blake said.
He pushed them through the deserted suite to the far wall leading to the outdoor patio. Serena slid through open stained-glass doors and stepped outside with Claire beside her. Blake followed. They were immediately bathed in a rainbow of light from the giant Sheherezade sign flashing above them. Each letter in the name was mounted on its own frame and must have been thirty feet tall. They flicked on and off in a rhythm of darkness and color that made Serena think of a nightclub dance floor.
There were twelve-foot walls on three sides of the huge patio, all decorated in Moroccan tile, leading up to the actual roof of the hotel. She could see a barbed-wire fence on the roof, preventing trespassers from creeping down from the roof to the high roller’s suite. The fourth side of the patio, on her right, had a much shorter wall topped with scalloped icons. That wall faced the street and created the distinctive notch in the roofline of the Sheherezade.
The patio, like the rest of the suite, had been largely stripped of its decorations. There were still date trees that had been planted into stone circles cut directly into the floor, and marble fountains, now turned off, carved into the walls. The pool was filled with water that had turned dank and green from lack of care.
She noticed that Blake was staring into the murky water. Thinking of Amira.
“I’m sorry,” Claire said.
Blake looked up. “For what?”
“That you lost your mother. I never knew my mother either. It’s hard growing up that way.”
Blake was silent. Serena wondered how many times he had made secret visits to this place in the past few weeks. It wasn’t his first time, she was sure of that. She could imagine him alone in the hotel, here by the pool, obsessing over his mother’s death.
“I think I know what you want,” Claire continued, “but you won’t get it from him. I know him too well. He won’t confess. He won’t apologize. He’ll never tell you the truth.”
“We’ll see,” Blake said.
“He betrayed me, too, Blake. I hate him like you do.”
Serena thought again about the schism between Boni and Claire and wondered what terrible thing he had done. Whatever it was, Claire still carried the baggage. Serena had felt it from her since the first day they met. It was always there. Even when they were in bed together, Serena felt this aura of loss emanating from her, as if she were haunted. That was what made them kindred spirits.
“He hasn’t rejected you,” Blake said. “He hasn’t denied your very existence.”
“No, it was worse than that.”
Claire’s intensity made Blake hesitate. Then his face became a hard mask again. “I guess we’ll both find out how much you really mean to him,” he said. He pulled a phone from his pocket and dialed.
“Hello, Boni,” Blake said. “You know who this is, don’t you? I’m here where it all started. I’m home. If you go out on your nice penthouse balcony, you can see us all down here. By the pool. Where you had my mother murdered.”
Blake paused. “What do I want?” he said. “I want to see you face to face. Right here. You’ve got twenty minutes. Or else I kill your daughter.”
FORTY-EIGHT
Stride parked across the street, outside the hurricane fence. He stared through the windows of his truck up at the roof of the hotel, trying to see if anyone was watching from behind the parapet, but his eyes couldn’t penetrate the shadows at night. He had to take the chance. He got out of the Bronco, pulled his gun, and crossed the street, taking cover behind the plywood wall that surrounded the property.
He made his way to the gate, which was unlocked now and open. He slipped inside the demolition site and took a quick survey of the lot. Other than Blake’s Impala, there was nothing and no one around, just him and the eerie hotel shell marked for destruction. Stride jogged across the pavement. He stopped at the Impala, pulled a Swiss army knife from his pocket, and sliced through the valve on the right rear tire. Air began hissing out. He scuttled to the front of the car and did the same with the right front tire. Blake wasn’t driving out of here.
The roof?
Those were the last words he had heard from Serena on her cell phone before the call died. It was enough. He figured they were upstairs in the penthouse suite.
Stride made his way inside the hotel. He knew he was guilty of doing what Amanda had done, what he never did himself. He was going in alone, without backup, without letting Sawhill or anyone else know where he was. This was different. Serena was up there. Stride didn’t know what would happen if Blake felt trapped and surrounded, but he was deeply afraid that Claire and Serena would both wind up dead before they could mount a successful operation.
They might be dead now-but he couldn’t afford to think like that.
He looked for the elevators and spotted the elegant bank of gold doors on his left. He headed in that direction, then ducked as he saw twin beams of headlights shining through the lobby as another car drove into the hotel lot. When the car turned, he saw that it was sleek and black, a limousine. Stride hurried past the gaping hole in the wall until he was out of sight. He found a secluded hallway across from the elevators that had previously housed a bank of pay phones and waited there. Less than a minute later, he watched from the dark corner as a small, elegant old man strode purposefully for the elevators.
Boni Fisso.
“Boni!” Stride hissed before the man could push one of the buttons.
Boni turned around, startled. “Detective Stride. Were you invited to this little party, too?”
Stride shook his head. “Serena’s up there with Blake and Claire. She was able to let me know where they were.”
“Is Metro sending in an entire squad?” Boni asked, concerned.
“No, I haven’t alerted anyone yet. I thought this might turn out better without a crowd.”
Boni inclined his head. “My thoughts exactly. Thank you, Detective. I don’t care what happens to Blake. The only thing that matters to me is getting Claire out safely.”
“Technically, I shouldn’t even let you up there,” Stride said. “You become another hostage as soon as you walk through that door. Blake wants you dead.”
“You won’t stop me,” Boni said. “You want Serena back, just like I want Claire back. And after all, it’s my hotel. Besides, if I’m not up there in five minutes, Blake will kill Claire and probably Serena, too. I think he’s a man of his word.”
“Are they inside the suite?” Stride asked.
“No, oh the terrace outside by the pool. That’s where Amira was killed.”
“Tell me about the layout.”
Boni described the high roller’s suite and the patio area in detail from memory, as if it were still 1964 and the hotel was brand-new. The part that interested Stride was the fact that the roof of the hotel looked down on the patio area on three sides.
“Is there any access from the roof down to the terrace?” Stride asked.
Boni nodded. “There’s a locked gate and an emergency ladder near the parapet at the front of the hotel.”
“I don’t suppose you have a key to the gate.”
Boni smiled. “It’s a combination lock. One-two-one-six. My birthday. I like to make sure I have access to everything, Detective. Now we’d better go. The clock’s ticking.”
They took the elevator up to the top floor of the hotel. Stride waited out of sight until Boni signaled that the doors to the penthouse suite were closed and Blake was nowhere to be seen. Stride followed Boni into the hallway. He noted a green EXIT sign at the far end of the hall to his left.