“Hello?”
“I know what you did. And I’m coming.” He closed the phone, then turned to the laptop.
The trace program was silent for thirty seconds. Then the transmitter he’d put in Ian’s phone sent the number the guy was dialing. There was a pause as it ran the number against a reverse directory, and a name appeared. McDonnell, Mitchell. Twenty seconds, then the line disconnected. No one home. Ten seconds later, another number appeared, and another name. Kern, Alex.
Bennett smiled.
God, he loved predictable people.
CHAPTER 23
JENN WAS PAINTING HER TOENAILS and trying not to think.
She wasn’t a high-maintenance girl, one of those shiny chicks perpetually ready for a fashion shoot, blushed and mascaraed and highlighted, tanned and toned and bubble-butted. She’d had a girlfriend once who, when a boy would stay over, would set the alarm so that she could get up, put on her makeup, and come back to bed dolled up. Even did it with steady boyfriends, guys she saw for months. Everything about that sounded exhausting to Jenn.
But she liked to paint her toes. It was a summer indulgence, a celebration of sundresses and strappy sandals. She did it with the TV on something low-calorie, Inside the Actors Studio today, Matt Damon up onstage being charming. And she needed indulgence, needed something pleasant and routine to distract her from the steady rhythm of fear and guilt that beat through her. Ever since the robbery, her dreams had been nightmares, bright flashes and dark red liquid, shadows looming and reaching. Then the scene in the bar. And finally last night’s conversation with Ian, the man panicking about a crank call. He’d been breathless and sputtering as he told her, and all she could think of was his coke habit. She’d reassured him it was nothing, but as always, the fear hit in the middle of the night, telling her that it could be more.
Which was why it felt important, justified, to sit calmly on her couch and paint her toes. A way of holding back panic. When the phone rang, she finished the nail she was on before setting the brush in the bottle and reaching for the cordless.
“Ms. Lacie?”
“Yes,” she said, fanning her toes with a magazine and readying herself to hang up on the salesman.
“You’re a friend of Mitch McDonnell?”
Something in the tone made her wary. She uncurled herself, put her feet on the floor. “Yes. Who is-”
“He’s been hurt.”
“What?”
“I’m sorry, my name is Paul, I work at the Continental with Mitch. He’s been hurt and he’s asking for you.”
“What do you mean, hurt?”
“My manager just gave me your number and asked me to call.”
“But… hurt how? Like he fell or something?”
“I really don’t know. I just know that he’s asking you to come down here right away.”
“OK.” She stood, looked at the clock on the cable box. A few minutes after one. Saturday traffic wouldn’t help any. “I’m leaving now. I should be there by about one thirty.”
“I’ll tell him. He’s in a conference room on the second floor. The Atlantic.”
“Is there a doctor-”
“I really don’t know, ma’am.”
“All right. Thanks.” She hung up the phone and threw it on the couch. In her bedroom she shucked off cotton pajama bottoms and hopped into jeans, jammed her feet into flip-flops, grabbed her purse off the dresser, and bolted for the door.
Outside, it was a perfect summer day, the kind where nothing could go wrong. She tagged a passing cab, gave him the address, and asked him to step on it. To her surprise, he did, running yellows and weaving through traffic.
What could that mean, Mitch was hurt? It couldn’t be too bad, or they would have taken him to a hospital. It was kind of odd, him asking for her. They’d only just started, and it seemed like already she was getting the girlfriend treatment.
Unless… Did it have something to do with the robbery? Or with the call from last night?
The thought hit cold, and she bit her lip. If Johnny had found out, he might have come after Mitch. God, he might have-
It was a long ride.
Finally, the cab pulled up in front of the hotel. A man wearing the uniform she’d come to associate with Mitch hurried over to get her door. She paid the cabbie, tipping him an extra ten bucks, and hurried out of the car. “The Atlantic conference room?”
“On the second floor, ma’am. The elevator is-”
She didn’t hear the rest. The hotel was gorgeous, the kind of place people had honeymoons and affairs in. She saw a staircase and hurried up it. There was a sign with room names etched in it and arrows in either direction. Atlantic was to the left. Something about the place made the idea of running seem impossible, so she settled for a sort of awkward power-walk. Two heavy wooden doors led into the conference room, and she threw one open and shouldered through-
To see Mitch and Ian beside a long mahogany table, Ian with his hands up like he was describing the size of a fish he’d once caught. They both turned. Ian’s mouth fell open, and Mitch’s eyebrows scrunched in.
“Jenn?”
“Are you OK?”
“What are you doing here?”
They had all spoken at the same time, and froze, then started again in unison, and stopped again. She jumped into the silence.
“Are you OK?”
Mitch looked at her, then at Ian. “What? Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I.” She stopped. “I got a call from your friend. He said you’d been hurt.”
“Hurt? What? Who said?”
“Someone named… Paul?”
Mitch shook his head. “I don’t know any Pauls.”
“So-what…” The adrenaline was fading, leaving Jenn’s shoulders tense. She looked at Ian. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m meeting someone.”
“Who?”
“A guy I know.” Ian looked at them, saw that they weren’t going to let it go. Sighed. “Katz. The man I got the you-know-whats from. He called and told me to get over here right away.”
There was a knock on the door, and then it pushed open enough for Alex to stick his head in. “Detective Bradley-” He froze when he saw them. His eyes darted from one to the other, and his face underwent a weird series of emotions, finally settling on a stony mask. “What are you all doing here?”
“We’re trying to figure that out,” she said. “I got a call saying Mitch was hurt. Ian was supposed to meet some guy named Katz. What about you, Mitch?”
“One of the bellmen told me a manager wanted to see me.” He looked at Alex, jerked his chin. The tension crackled between them like electric current. “You?”
Alex stepped into the room, let the door whisper closed behind him. “What the fuck is going on?”
“You didn’t answer the question.”
“What does it matter? The point is that someone brought us all here.”
“It matters, Alex, because we need to figure out who.”
“Guys.” Jenn put all her exhaustion into it.
Alex said, “A cop called and asked me to meet that detective here.”
“The one from the other night.”
“No, the one who was gonna mow my lawn. What do you think?”
“I think you’re an asshole.” Mitch paused. “No, I’m pretty sure of it.”
She shook her head. “Enough. We did this the other night.”
“Gentlemen.” The voice came from behind, and she spun to look. A stranger stood in the doorway. He wore a charcoal suit and an open-collared shirt of subtly textured white cotton, and had the breezy good looks of a cologne model. He nodded to Jenn. “And of course Ms. Lacie.”
“Who the fuck are you?” Alex said in his best bouncer voice.
The man smiled, strolled into the room. Behind him, face hard and red, walked Johnny Love. Two men in suits followed, taking up positions on either side of the door.
Spiders crawled through her chest. Nobody spoke, and she could hear the faint honking of a car horn outside, the hum of the air conditioner. The smiling man strode to the head of the table. Johnny hit Alex with a baleful look.