At the curtain, she halts and turns to face me again. “Have you been enjoying the refreshments?”
“Oh, um . . . very much.” I try to slur my words a little, given that I’m holding an empty cut-glass flask of . . . whatever this was. Chances are it had been potent.
A nod follows my statement; I’ve given the correct answer. She claps once, and two men appear, as does a black velvet box in her hands. I swear she wasn’t holding anything three seconds ago. “You may deposit your cell phones in this basket for the duration of your audience; they will not be touched, and they will be returned. You’re also being inspected for weapons. Security, you understand,” she says, smirk still very much in place around her lips before taking a long, clove-scented drag from her cigarette holder. I wonder briefly if it’s even allowed for her to be smoking in here, but bigger things take over my mind in short order.
One of the men approaches, wielding what I assume to be a metal detecting baton, and waves it over my person. It hums quietly as he goes over me once, twice, and then over my hair at length. I’m not carrying anything metal, and I know all the surveillance gear is plastic, but my heart hammers nonetheless. I let out a little breath as the first man steps backward with a nod. The second man steps forward next, carrying a little black box with small green lights on it. As he approaches, some of the lights turn amber. He halts, looks down at the box, then me, and then holds it up and adjusts a dial.
The lights brighten, and he waves it up and down before me. The lights shine amber and then red . . . right as they pass over first my microphone, earpiece, and then button camera. Shit. He repeats the action over Ryan and Lawrence, though nothing except green light greets their person.
The second man speaks quietly into his wrist and then approaches me. “Surveillance is not permitted; you are being excused from these premises.” His eyes flick to Ryan. “You too, Mr. McCarthy.”
Ryan and I exchange glances. They definitely know who we are, costumes or no.
He turns to Lawrence and addresses him alone: “You are invited to a private audience.”
Before I can protest that this turn of events is insane, the man steps forward to block my view of the curtained opening, which is now parted for Lawrence to step through. “I suggest you leave quietly and don’t make a scene.” He steps back toward me, placing a beefy hand on my back and propels me forward.
“Lawrence!” I hiss, looking back over my shoulder.
Ryan and I are all but frog-marched back past the empty stage and through the chess set. No one in the crowd even looks twice as we pass. Either everyone’s been enjoying the refreshments, or someone brought their own. Just like at the first party, there are many people here now that seem a little too happy to have had just a few drinks in under a few hours.
We’re deposited unceremoniously back outside the front door, where a mass of people still waits against the building. As we emerge, a babble breaks out among the crowd, and not a few people start yelling questions at us.
The lights outside are just the standard streetlights, but they’re blinding after the soft black-and-glow from inside. I squint up at Ryan as the exterior security guard takes over where the interior ones left off.
“This way, if you please,” the beefy man who let us in growls before pulling a hand out of his coat pocket. Something hits the ground between us—a ziplock bag containing our phones. Once I scoop it up, he leads us down the block and ensures we cross the street. He turns and walks back to his post, but something inside me says we’re waiting for the other shoe to drop. These people just figured out I’m probably still working with the police, attempted to spy on them, and then . . . what? Held my other friend hostage? The whole thing has an aura of going south very quickly.
I immediately fish my phone out of the bag, and hand Ryan his. Lawrence’s is missing, which bodes well for my immediate course of action. I hope he somehow has managed to keep it on his person, though I suspect they confiscated his too.
“We’ve got to get to Lawrence,” I say. “This is too weird, and I have a bad feeling about it.”
“No shit, Sherlock,” Ryan mutters, jabbing at his phone screen.
“Are you calling Lawrence?”
“Uh . . . yeah. Yeah. I’ll call L,” Ryan agrees. He’s clearly about to call someone else. Maybe Matteo? But that is my job.
“I’ll call the police,” I confirm. “You get ahold of L and tell him to get his ass out here as soon as he can.” I text Matteo. 911. It’s not a code we agreed on, and I’m not sure of the delay on the feed from my camera, but it should be enough to spark him into instant movement. Three dots show up immediately, and I wait impatiently while I watch Ryan dial L’s phone several times with no answer.
Get to the station, we have enough on camera, we’re headed in. The text comes back.
I look at Ryan. “We’re supposed to head to the station, which is gonna be a trick, considering L has the keys to his car. The police are coming.”
Ryan’s jaw tightens. “I’m not just leaving L—” he cuts off, craning his neck back toward the entrance of the building.
I mimic his actions, trying to see what’s caught his attention.
It’s L, under his own steam, walking at a measured pace out of the building, down the block, and to us.
He crosses the street, doesn’t make eye contact, and continues past us toward the car.
Somewhere in the distance sirens wail to life, and I wonder if this is already Matteo’s crew. Are they coming to break up the party and search for drugs? To try and apprehend the Golden Arrow themselves? “Er, we’re supposed to go to the station,” I announce at large as we fall in line and head to the car.
Lawrence jerks his head in a nod.
Ryan and I exchange glances.
“L? Are you okay?”
“No.” The answer is clipped.
“Did they hurt you?” Ryan asks. We cross yet another street, the car within view now.
“No.”
“Did you . . . did you see him?” I hate the way my voice sounds hopeful, even after all the shit we’ve just seen. “Is it real?”
“It’s something, but I don’t know what this whole circus is. I saw someone, but it sure as shit wasn’t the Golden Arrow—or at least it better not have been.”
Ryan stumbles to a stop, mere feet from the car, and we both swing around to see why he’s frozen. “There was actually someone in that room?”
“Yep.”
“Did you talk to them?”
“Nope.”
“You just left?” This one from me, whose internal teenager can’t believe Lawrence left without even talking to the Golden Arrow—supposed or not.
“Yep.”
Lawrence throws open the driver’s door of the Challenger and gets in, cutting off our conversation. Ryan and I scramble to get in the car too, and I hazard a look around. The feeling of being followed is strong, and I suspect we’re not out of earshot from whomever is pulling the strings at that party.
“So, we’re all . . . going to the station?” I ask hesitantly at the same time as Ryan demands more information from Lawrence.
“Can you describe what you saw?”
Lawrence is grim as he finally glances around at us.
“We need to talk. Not here. Maybe not even at the station. I’m going to turn over what I know, and . . . figure out what to do from there. I might need to get outta Dodge for a bit. I’m not safe here right now; I’m going to have to deal with this myself.”
Chills seep down my spine. Not only is Ryan spooked about the whole thing, Lawrence is beyond spooked.
We drive in silence, Lawrence piloting us toward downtown.
“I have to ask; I can’t wait any longer. What did you see?” I’m picturing dead bodies. Murder scenes.
“Someone I think I knew, once,” Lawrence answers.
“What did they look like?” Ryan demands again. “Come on, if you’re going to tell the police, you can tell us.”
&nb
sp; “I’m not going to tell the police anything,” Lawrence spits. “I’m going to show them what I saw, and then I’m going to go take care of some business and do some research.”
“Show them,” I repeat. “Show them, how? I’m the one with all the surveillance gadgetry stuff.”
“Which is why you got your ass caught,” Lawrence confirms. His hands are tight on the wheel, and he keeps looking in the rearview mirror. “But you weren’t the only one with a camera; I just went low-tech. And we’d better pray to whatever deity you choose that they never figure out how smart I was, because if they do, my ass is grass.”
We wait.
L steers onto the interstate before he speaks again. “Before they figured out I hadn’t had enough of their refreshments to make me loopy, I got a picture.”
CHAPTER 17
“Well, we can’t technically arrest the guy if he refuses to help, but he doesn’t know that,” Rideout growls, sinking into the chair opposite the couch where Ryan, Lawrence, and I are sandwiched like sardines. I shove aside the pile of current magazines and rest my feet on the small table.
“You’d think a photo manager at Walgreens would be happier to help the police in an investigation.” From the eye Rideout casts over L, I get the sense he’s not too happy at the turn his evening has taken. Well I’m not too thrilled to be stuck in a room with him or his boring tan slacks either. Basic judgy bitch.
“I doubt he gets many calls at midnight for his expertise,” Matteo responds dryly before turning back to L. “Okay, we’ve done what you’ve asked. We found someone totally unrelated to the police force to develop the film from the pin thing.”
“Pinhole camera,” Ryan corrects. “Bloody brilliant. A modified pinhole camera in your necklace. Where did you get the idea?”
“How about that story later? Let’s talk about what you saw, if you please,” Matteo interrupts, steering the conversation back to the party. “You have my word that no one except us can hear us in this room.”
My palms sweat again. It doesn’t bode well that Lawrence insisted on a private meeting—no cameras, no recordings, no nothing. He’s not even allowing Matteo to take notes. I’ve never seen him like this, truth be told. There’s a hard edge, a wariness, a predator lurking inside the affable exterior of my best friend. I’ve seen it only once before, and only on film. The finale of Peter Wu’s Drag Divas, L had this look.
L is talking to Matteo about going away for a while, which sounds a lot like running from something. I think I might be the only one to pick up on the notion that L isn’t running. He’s going hunting. And that’s more unsettling to me than almost anything I can think of. L doesn’t go looking for trouble without a damn good reason.
“I’ve seen it before. That ‘eat me, drink me’ stuff,” L says, his body barely moving. It’s like someone’s cast the Imperius Curse on him, forcing him to speak. It’s creepy as hell.
“Okay,” Matteo agrees, eyes locked on Lawrence. “Tell me about the last time you saw it.”
“I . . . it was a long time ago. At a party.”
The hairs on my arm prickle. A long time ago. “Like, thirty years ago, a long time ago?” I ask, turning in my seat to face L.
One single nod confirms my hunch.
Thirty years ago, Casey Senior, original author of The Hooded Falcon, had been murdered. No one was more familiar with the timeline than the people in this room, since we’d all just tracked down the dirty DEA agent whose father had pulled the trigger, so to speak.
Matteo sits back, grasping the gravity of that comment. He opens his mouth to speak, but Rideout jumps in.
“Okay, so a party thirty years ago. What kind of party? This guy . . . one of your kind? What makes you so sure it’s the same person?”
Lawrence’s mouth snaps closed with an audible click. All of us pivot to face Rideout.
“What?” he asks when even Matteo raises his eyebrows.
I’m seeing red, and my restraint on whatever modicum of congeniality I attempt to keep when Rideout is present slips off. “I’m sorry—your kind?” I ask, attempting to keep my voice level.
Rideout sits back, looking surprised at the venom in my voice. “Oh, uh, I didn’t mean—”
“You meant what you said, but you didn’t think about it before it came out. And L here isn’t any one sort of kind to have. He’s a human, so if you meant, was this other human a human, the answer is yes.” I’m just winding up for the pitch. I can’t keep it from coming out, even though I know it’s going to be bad. Bad, bad, bad. “And if you cannot be a decent human being and treat your informant with a little more humanity and understanding, you can just get out.”
I can’t stop it. I’ve just ordered a detective out of his own interrogation. I can’t help it. I am always defensive of L. At bars, at shows. It drives me crazy when people try to treat him like anything other than a person whose hobby is dressing up in glitter and prancing majestically to music. People celebrate it when women do it; why get so judgmental when anyone else enjoys it too? Rideout embodies all I hate about the general populace.
You could have heard a pin drop.
Rideout gives a halfhearted cough-laugh before realizing I’m serious.
“Get out,” I reiterate, this time with complete composure. “If you want this interview to continue, you may not be present anymore.”
“You can’t be serious. Kildaire—”
Matteo sorta hooks his head over his shoulder. “Maybe go follow up with the photo guy.”
Rideout looks around the room like someone’s just spit on his burger and called it a special. No one moves. He puffs up his chest and storms out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
“He didn’t mean it like that,” Matteo offers after a moment of ringing silence.
I open my mouth, but L cuts me off. “I don’t need you to defend me, MG. I mean . . . thanks, girl. I know you have my back, but I can fight my own battles. And I know he didn’t think about what he said, but ignorance doesn’t absolve anyone of being an ass.”
Matteo concedes the point and wisely decides to move on. “Will you tell me about your recollection about the party?”
L nods. “Shortly before Mr. Casey died, he called me into his office and told me he was going to a Halloween party. He wanted to take me instead of whomever else he’d planned on taking. I can’t help but wonder now if it was because he suspected someone was after him, but I can’t be sure. He just told me he wanted me there in an undercover security capacity. Most people knew at this point that Mr. Casey had taken me in, but not everyone knew I was working for him, or that he’d paid for defense training.”
Matteo’s fingers twitch, and I just know he’s itching to write this down. Respect for L’s wishes wins out; he sits quietly until L is ready to continue.
“So, this party—pretty standard fare Halloween party for rich people. Costumes, themes, that sort of stuff. This particular party happened to be a Through the Looking Glass theme, so we got all dressed up—Mr. Casey was a playing card, and I didn’t have a costume so he just gave me this tall hat that he said the other person was supposed to wear.”
Matteo and I exchange glances. This is the second time Alice In Wonderland has surfaced in as many days. My Spidey-sense says it isn’t mere coincidence; there’s more here.
“We arrived at the party, and it definitely felt weird. Off. We didn’t stay long. But while we were there, the refreshments were served on trays that looked a lot like the trays at the party tonight. At first, I thought it was coincidence, but now I’m not so sure.”
“What about them was similar? Be as detailed as you can.”
“The wording. ‘Eat Me,’ ‘Drink Me.’ That sort of thing.”
Matteo nods. If he were Sherlock, he’d be filing something away in his mind palace.
“So, tonight it weirded me out to see it again, but I told myself it was coincidence. It’s in a famous book and all that. But I wasn’t so sure after I got this.” He flicks the card f
rom the caterer at Matteo. “Something about this seems so . . . wrong.”
Matteo takes the blank black card and examines it.
“Black light–activated, we think. It says ‘Hat Trick Entertainment,’” L explains.
“And what does that mean to you?” Matteo asks, tucking the card in his pocket. “In light of this case, I mean.”
“Well, it’s just that the tie-in to that specific party seems a little too coincidental. I haven’t told you the whole story yet. In the parking lot on our way out, a car tried to run Mr. Casey and me over. I’d chalked it up to an accident—it was dark, people had been drinking, that sort of thing.”
“But now you’re not so sure?”
“I’d already started to wonder after Mr. Casey died. But it was ruled a heart attack, so I put it out of my mind. Then when the whole Muñez thing went down this summer, I thought about it again, but it didn’t seem to matter anymore since they ended up wearing stripes. So, this is the third time I’ve wondered if someone were trying to hit Mr. Casey on purpose that night, and, well, it seems plausible and relevant at this point.”
“I’m still not following what all this has to do with the Golden Arrow,” Matteo says, running his hand through his dark hair. I feel the same; the “ah-ha” moment hasn’t hit me either.
“This is where it gets dicey as a theory. I’m operating on pure gut and imagination at this point.” L pauses for permission to continue, given this admission, looking between Matteo and me.
“Intersection of pure gut and imagination is where I live,” I quip. “Matteo is fully capable of handling the crazy theories, I assure you.”
“Well, okay. The party tonight was weird. The refreshments were weirder. But when we got to the back room . . . you know about that part, right?”
“The camera recorded up until MG left the theater.”
“Well, I was ushered into this side room. And there was a guy in there sitting in a big chair, like a king taking an audience from his throne. More than that, though, it’s like he . . . knew me. Like he’d specifically been looking to come face-to-face with me.” L sounds rattled all over again, and gooseflesh breaks out on my arms.
The Queen Con (The Golden Arrow Mysteries Book 2) Page 17
