“Come on, Kevin! Do you know how crazy this sounds?”
“Yes. And don’t say I’ve been watching too many movies. Besides, I know they heard your voice on the answering machine when I was hiding in the closet.”
Erica tapped her fingers on the steering wheel. “And you think they might have traced the phone call to my apartment.”
“I think it’s possible. For all we know, they could be over there right now.”
“This is crazy.”
“Tell me about it.”
“How about we continue this inside?” she said as she grabbed her purse. “It’s getting hot out here.”
Romanelli’s was one of the trendy new restaurants springing up around Houston with antique-looking knickknacks strewn about, bookshelves lining the walls, and so little light that identification of the food was difficult. The effect was supposed to be elegant privacy, but Kevin hated it. He just liked the fact that it was dark. As they entered, he saw that he’d been right to choose it. The lunch time rush hadn’t started yet, and most of the tables were empty. He asked the hostess for a dim booth in the far corner, close to the telephones.
They both ordered Diet Cokes and told the waiter they needed some time to examine the menu.
After the waiter left, Erica said in a lowered voice, “Are you sure these men were trying to kill you? You couldn’t have misunderstood?”
“I heard every word they said!” he exclaimed and then, realizing how loud he was, lowered his voice. “I know it was muffled in the closet, but I heard Barnett clearly. He said Kaplan should kill me if…” He looked at Erica’s concerned expression, and now he didn’t know if it was his safety she was worried about. “You don’t believe me.” The thought that she wouldn’t hadn’t occurred to him until this point.
“No, that’s not what I’m saying. I just want to make sure we have all the facts straight. Now, you said that this Barnett shot at you.”
He paused, not sure that he wanted to go on, angry that she even doubted him. But it was a fantastic story. He didn’t know if he would believe it if he hadn’t lived through it himself. And if she didn’t believe him, then the police wouldn’t either. He needed to convince her. “Either that or he blew out my window from fifty yards away with his finger.”
“But you didn’t hear any shots.”
“He must have been using a silencer. The car’s engine would have been loud enough to cover the sound.”
“How do you know that?”
Kevin shrugged. “I heard one at a shooting demonstration one time.” Erica gave him a puzzled look, but he didn’t elaborate. “Besides, I saw the bullet holes in the car door.”
“You could see them even with all the damage to the car?” she said.
“Yes.”
“Then why didn’t they just kill you in the apartment?”
She had a point. “I don’t know. I don’t even know why they would want to kill me in the first place. All I can figure is that it has something to do with the message from Dr. Ward and experiment NV117.”
“OK, let’s assume somebody was trying to kill you because of the email he sent you. Then the answer has to be there. What exactly did it say? Something about…”
“Shit!” Kevin said. “I totally forgot!” The printout. He still had it in his pocket. He dug out the crumpled and torn pieces of paper and flattened them on the table between them.
Erica furrowed her eyebrows and frowned as she read the message. Kevin focussed on the last line of the message and ran it over and over in his mind. DA483H3 is the… That had to be it. Nothing else told him anything. The code had to be the key.
“‘Is the’ what?” Erica said. “Are you sure he never used a code with you?”
“It could be anything for all I know. A combination, a locker number, something he mentioned to me once. But Ward was hiding this notebook from someone, and he was telling me how to find it. I’m sure of it. It has to be what these guys are after.”
“Or maybe they already have it and they didn’t want you to find out about it.”
“Then why would they ask me what the code means?” he asked, receiving only a shrug in reply.
Kevin looked at his watch. It was time to call Robley back.
Leaving the printout with Erica, he went to the phones and dialed the number Robley had given him.
“Detective Robley.”
“It’s Kevin Hamilton.”
“What are you trying to pull, Hamilton?”
This wasn’t the response Kevin was expecting. “What do you mean?”
“I checked with dispatch. Seems your Mustang was reported stolen at 9:30 this morning.”
“What!”
“Luckily, we’ve already found it. In the Fourth Ward.”
“The Fourth Ward? But it was out of gas. How did it…” Kevin ran his fingers through his hair, searching for an explanation. “They must have moved it. Did the officers who found it tell you about the bullet holes?”
“Yes, they did. They found exactly zero bullet holes.”
Kevin’s mouth dropped open. “That’s impossible. I know I saw two bullet holes in the door.”
“They also found zero doors on the vehicle. It was totally stripped. Dispatch said it looked like it had the hell beat out of it, too.”
“Detective, believe me. I know this sounds weird, even crazy. But this has something to do with Stein’s…”
“Hamilton, I don’t know what your angle is, and I don’t care. I just want to get the hell out of this hothouse. If you want a copy of the report for your insurance company, fine. Call traffic. I’m through with this shit.”
Kevin heard the phone slam down. He slammed his own receiver in return. Damn! Robley’s probably bitching about Kevin to his friends at this very moment. And since he was the one handling the Stein case, Kevin wouldn’t get help from anyone else trying to connect Ward’s and Stein’s deaths. If Kevin went to the police now, they’d throw him out of the station.
He plodded back to the table and slumped into the bench across from Erica.
She leaned forward. “What’s wrong?”
“They found the Mustang in the Fourth Ward, stripped. No evidence of any wrongdoing. Other than my car being stolen and vandalized. The theft was reported at 9:30 this morning.”
“9:30? But that’s almost two hours ago!”
“These guys have some connections if they can make the police believe something like that. I’m screwed. No, I’m dead. Maybe when Robley finds my body he’ll believe me.”
“Kevin, you’re not dead. This may just be some major screwup. I’m sure if you go down to the police station and explain…”
“Without evidence, I can’t go down there. They’ll just think I’m making it up. And now I can’t go back to my apartment. I can’t even go to your apartment. Neither of us can go home.”
Erica put her hand on his. “Kevin, there has to be a rational explanation for all this. Maybe this is all a big joke and you ran before they had a chance to tell you.”
“No, you don’t understand. You didn’t meet these guys. They were smooth. Man, were they smooth. They had to be professionals. Professionals sent to find me and bring me in. If they couldn’t do that, they were definitely going to kill me. I could hear it in their voices. When Barnett talked about killing me, he was cold. No emotion.”
The skepticism was still in Erica’s voice. “Then what are we going to do?”
“Unless we can find out what that code means and get that notebook, I have no idea.” Kevin sat back against the wall, put his leg up on the bench seat, and rubbed his face as he glanced around the sparsely populated restaurant. Two older women were busily chatting, almost talking over one another. A young man, obviously a student, hunched over a text, one of many stacked around him, and sipped a cappuccino. A couple shoveled spaghetti into their mouths, never saying a word. Three thirtysomethings sat…