“Of course.”
“The Bud who worked for Jay Esposito?”
“For who?”
“Jay Esposito, the nightclub owner.”
“Bud worked for a nightclub owner?”
“Yes, the same one your daughter was dating. Esposito was murdered last night.”
“Whitney was dating a nightclub owner who was murdered? I never heard any of this! Are you making it up?”
“No. Of course not! Listen, Mrs. Seward, please, this is extremely important. You say Bud was here that night. What can you tell me about him? Do you know his last name or where he lives? A telephone number, a physical description? Anything, anything at all that might help us locate him.”
“Are we talking about the same man? Bud Hogan! He was Whitney’s guidance counselor at Holbrooke! I remember now. I came home in bad shape. Whitney took me to my bed. I heard a voice calling, and it sounded like Carmen. I’ve known the child for years, you see. Then it just…stopped, like she’d been silenced. I asked Whitney about it, and she told me I was hallucinating. Which was entirely possible, given everything I’d ingested that night, so I believed her. I passed out. And then, sometime later, I woke up to find Bud standing over my bed, going through my pill bottles. He told me I was dreaming and to go back to sleep. So I did.”
“Harrison Hogan is Bud?” Melanie said.
“Yes, that’s what Whitney called him. And he killed my daughter!”
60
AS SHE LEFT the Sewards’, Melanie reached Detective Leary on his cell phone and explained what she’d just learned. She needed a patrol car dispatched to Harrison Hogan’s apartment right away. But there was a problem. Charlotte Seward hadn’t known Hogan’s home address, and it turned out his telephone number was unlisted. That meant that the fastest way to get the address-short of asking somebody at the school, which might tip Hogan off-was sending a rush subpoena to the telephone company. But by the time Melanie could get back to her office, type a subpoena, and fax it over, Hogan would be long gone with the money, and Carmen would probably be dead. No-their best bet was intercepting Hogan at the school before he could transfer the ten million.
Detective Leary agreed and said he would back her up as soon as he could get there.
“But I’m on the Williamsburg Bridge now, heading for that warehouse Esposito owned,” he said. “Remember? The one we found the key to? I just got a call from the blue-and-white that checked the scene. Whole place is drenched with blood.”
“Blood? From…from who?” Trevor!
“Don’t know. It can’t be from Deon Green, because he was killed in that subway station. But they didn’t find no other body. Somebody got seriously hurt there, that much is clear, and not too long ago neither. So when you think this money transfer is gonna happen? Should I just come straight to you and leave this for later?”
“No. What you’re doing is much more important. I have a witness missing. It could be related.” She told him about Trevor.
“Okay, I’ll be on the lookout for a body matching that description.”
That was not what Melanie wanted to hear, though she couldn’t ignore the terrible ring of truth to it. She wouldn’t let herself think about Trevor dead. Not now. There was still work to be done, and she needed to hope in order to function.
“However you want to play it,” Detective Leary was saying. “But if I’m not gonna back you up myself, let me find you some other guys.”
“Yes, but here’s the problem: If the school’s suddenly crawling with cops, this scumbag will just disappear with the missing girl. We’ll never find her, or my witness either, since he definitely knows where both of them are.”
“I can ask for plainclothes instead of uniforms, if that helps.”
“That would be better,” she said.
“Let me see what I can do. With Christmas and all, not a lot of guys working overtime. Give me your cell number, and I’ll call you soon as I know something. But do me a favor, okay? Hang back till you hear from me?”
“I’ll try. But hurry, okay?”
Melanie needed every second between now and seven-thirty to prepare for what was coming next. The worst thing she could do would be to walk into an encounter with a known killer with no backup and no way to defend herself. She of all people knew how stupid that would be, because she’d done it once before, on the Jed Benson murder case. She’d survived, but she’d rather not make that same mistake twice.
Rushing toward her apartment, Melanie called Dan’s cell phone but only got his voice mail. Even under these crazy circumstances, Dan’s voice on the recording thrilled her. God, she was gone on this guy. It scared her how much. She took a deep breath and left him an all-business message detailing what she’d learned and what she planned to do. This call was just intended to keep the team in the loop, after all. But before she hung up, she couldn’t resist adding something more private.
“Hey, listen, I hope you’re not mad that I ran off. I had no choice. Like you said, I step up when my name’s called. There’s something I want you to know, though, something I want to tell you before-”
Her other line beeped.
“Oh. Hold on,” she told Dan’s voice mail, and picked it up. “Hello?”
“Melanie?” said a young girl’s voice.
“Lulu? Where are you?”
“Listen, something bad is going down. Dr. Hogan is messed up.”
“Do you know where he is? Or where Carmen is? You need to tell me!”
“I think he’s gonna take her to Holbrooke to try to get some money. Then I’m afraid he’s gonna kill her.”
“Yes, I know. I’ll be there to stop him, don’t worry.”
“Me, too! I’m going over now.”
“Don’t, okay? Let me handle it. I’ve got the police coming and everything. Just go home. I promise you, I’ll protect Carmen.”
“I know my way around the school. I can help.”
“Lulu, no. It’s not safe.”
“Yeah, whatever,” Lulu said, and hung up.
Damn. Lulu wasn’t going to listen. Melanie clicked to the other line, but Dan’s phone had cut off. She’d reached her apartment by now. She’d better go in, and fast. She needed something from her closet, and it wasn’t an outfit.
Melanie unlocked the front door and walked into darkness.
“Hello?” she called, flipping on the light.
Silence echoed back at her. A note taped to the mirror above the front-hall table read, “Maya much better. Took her to my place for the night. Steve.”
Her stomach hurt with how much she longed to see her daughter. But it was a quarter to seven. She didn’t have a moment to spare if she wanted Carmen to live.
In her bedroom Melanie stripped off the pants and top she’d put on yesterday, in her room in the El San Juan after having sex with Dan. Don’t think about that now. They wouldn’t pass muster if she planned to crash the Holbrooke gala, especially not in their current bedraggled state. The invitation she’d borrowed from Charlotte Seward was unequivocaclass="underline" black tie required. She took a two-minute shower, as much to wake herself up as to get clean, and slicked her wet hair into the pretense of an elegant knot at her neck. She did her eyes in five seconds flat, stroked on some killer red lipstick, and headed for the closet. Linda’s outfit from the other night was the best she could do. She pulled it on, then reached for the thing she’d really come home for.
It rested in a locked metal box hidden at the back of her closet-the nine-shot Beretta she’d bought in a fit of anxiety in the aftermath of the Benson case, when she was dealing with the emotional consequences of having killed a man, of almost getting killed herself. She’d never once fired it, and she didn’t plan to now. By the time they got to the gunplay, the real cops would have arrived. But it made her feel cold and hard and equal to the task before her.