Bex wasn’t deterred.
“We have to start with the body, Jeanne. Zane was too healthy to have had a natural heart attack, therefore something caused it. That cause could either be accidental or deliberate. We have a substance that can cause heart attacks and yet leave no trace except a raised sodium count.”
“Not so fast! We don’t know that the drug wouldn’t leave any other traces. That’s not a fact, that’s a guess.”
“Humor me, Jeanne. At least admit it’s an educated guess. So how could the substance get into Zane’s body? How did they apply the substance during the trials?”
Jeanne returned to her laptop, fingers striking the keys in a quick flurry of motion. “I thought I read this, and I was right. The drug is soluble in liquid. The trial participants drank a 50 millimeter quantity twice a day.” When she sat back, her face looked dismayed. “I’m sorry if I let you down with the toxicology report. Because his death seemed straight forward, I didn’t analyze his stomach contents. We knew the time of death, so there was no point. I’ve got no record, not a hint as to what Zane might have ingested that contained the potassium drug.”
Bex’s body quivered with the need to bleed off the excess nervous energy building inside her. She managed a short circuit from the bed to the door and back.
“You said the drug produced side effects within an hour. It’s less than an hour to my folks’ house in Armonk, so we didn’t stop anywhere for food or drinks. It must have been in whatever he ate or drank at the Manhattan Club with Walt, but not something that Walt ate as well because Walt didn’t complain of any symptoms. I remember seeing a bottle of beer on the table when I got to the restaurant. The beer could have disguised the taste.”
“Who had access to his food? Restaurant staff obviously, but could someone have come into the restaurant and added something to the beer without the staff seeing it?”
Bex did the short, choppy pace from bed to door before turning to square up to Jeanne. “Wait! Walt and I were talking about it yesterday. There was a new server at the restaurant, one he hadn’t seen before. I remember she poured a coffee for me when I arrived, but looked annoyed that Zane drank it instead of me and I didn’t want a replacement cup.”
There was a tense pause, before Jeanne spoke, picking her words carefully to nail the right sequence of events.
“Let me get this straight. She poured a coffee for you, not Zane. You didn’t drink it. Zane did.”
“Yes. Walt told Zane not to let it go to waste when I had to shift the car. Long story and not pertinent to what we’re discussing.”
“Did Zane have anything else to drink besides the beer and your coffee?”
“I couldn’t say for certain, but I do know the coffee was definitely the last thing he drank. We left the restaurant straight after that.”
“Did he complain about the taste?”
Bex shook her head. “No, nothing seemed out of place at the time. It was just a regular trip to my parents before Christmas.” The old familiar pain of loss burned through her chest. She shook her head again, regaining her focus. “The drug could have been in the coffee. That would make it the right time frame for the effects to kick in. Although why someone would target Zane is still a mystery.”
The look of astonishment on Jeanne’s face made Bex pause.
“What is it?”
“Girl, you’re missing the obvious. Zane drank your coffee. Seems to me if the coffee was drugged, it was meant for you.”
Chapter 20
Crowne Plaza Hotel, Times Square
Thursday, 26 April
After a night of shredded sleep, Bex rose just after 5:00 a.m. Bypassing the rows of elliptical machines, treadmills and stationary bikes in the hotel gym, she headed straight for the free weights. Pushing, pulling, straining her muscles until all thoughts were scoured from her brain and burning pain was all that existed. She pushed her body to breaking point.
Only when her jellied muscles couldn’t lift the plated bar one more repetition did she hunker down on the floor to catch her breath and guzzle a bottle of water. She could feel the throb of blood ebbing and flowing through her veins and wondered how long she would be able to maintain such workouts. At some stage she would have to modify her exercise program because of her pregnancy.
Last night she had called Walt after Jeanne left and together they had dredged over her final cases with the NYPD to determine if she’d made serious enemies. She didn’t disclose to Walt that she was looking for someone with enough motive to lace her coffee with a potentially deadly drug.
“Bex, why in hell are we reminiscing about past cases instead of talking about tactics for your court appeal? It’s late and if you’ve got nothing better to say I’m hitting the sack.”
“Walt, it’s not too late for you to drop by the Manhattan Club and track down an ID for that waitress who served me coffee the day Zane died.”
She waited until Walt ran out of expletives and breath before jumping in with an explanation of how Jeanne and she managed to conclude a drug could be responsible for Zane’s heart attack.
“How the hell you talked a sane woman like Jeanne into your paranoia is beyond me, but you’re not roping me into more of your madness. Listen to me, Bex, you have plenty of problems to worry about right now without making up new ones.”
“Humor me, Walt. If there’s nothing to it, I’ll move onto the appeal. But I’ve only got a few more days in New York so I need to move fast.”
Walt had continued to grumble, but Bex knew he would visit the restaurant.
When her phone rang, she hurried to unzip her gym bag and drag it out, hoping it was Walt with some news. It was Cole.
“Sorry about not returning your calls. My phone battery must’ve died.”
Bex winced at the lie. She didn’t want him to think she was blowing him off, yet she couldn’t bring herself to tell Cole her genuine reasons. If Cole was suspicious about her motives it didn’t show in his answer.
“What’s important is that you’ve answered now. I’ve got some news about Sophie Dresden that I need to disclose to you if you’re still in New York.”
“Yes I am. I’ll be here for a couple more days. Cole, I have something to tell you that I think will help with Dresden.”
“Let me speak first. This is important. Dresden caught a flight to New York on Monday. I haven’t had a confirmed sighting of her since she left the airport, and I can’t disclose any more details, but you need to take care. I don’t think she’s tracking you. In fact, I doubt she’s aware of your presence in the city and I think you should aim to keep it that way.”
Bex drew in a jagged breath. Cole’s news made her own hunch even more likely!
“Cole, I came across a medical facility in the city doing research that would interest Dresden. Quest Biorobotics Enterprises.”
She heard his breath hiss. “Where did you hear that name?”
“The details aren’t important. I can email you a link to their website if you think it’s helpful.”
“That won’t be necessary.”
“That won’t be necessary because you know she’s not there, or that won’t be necessary because you’ve already investigated the facility and come to the same conclusion as me? QBE would be a perfect fit to help Lander Dresden regain his mobility.”
Still crouched on the gym floor, Bex stretched her legs in front of her, massaging the tops of her thighs with one hand while she waited for his response.
“I told you I can’t disclose any details of our investigation, but I’m warning you away from QBE. Do you understand, Bex? Dresden’s a dangerous woman. She’s not afraid to kill. Listen, I’d be a whole lot happier if you left the city entirely. At least until we’ve contained Dresden. Could you leave New York for the next few days?”
Cole’s voice was rough, hiding emotion, Bex guessed. Concern for her? Probably.
“I’ll take heed of your warning. I promise I won’t get tangled up in your investigation. I won’t go anyw
here near Quest Biorobotics. Good enough?”
She realized she spoke the truth. She didn’t have the urge to lock horns with Dresden again. When she probed her reluctance she discovered it was because she trusted Cole to do the job. When had she started placing so much trust in him?
“Where are you staying in the city? Maybe I can arrange someone to keep an eye —”
“No, Cole, you won’t arrange anything for me. I told you I won’t risk compromising your case when you’re so close to finalizing. I’m convinced you’ll get Dresden this time, so I have nothing to worry about and neither do you. You’ll have to be satisfied with that.”
She heard Cole’s contained sigh and hoped he wasn’t going to give her a tough time about moving out of the city. He needed a distraction.
“Listen, Cole, when I return to London, can we go away for a weekend? I want to see more of England than just the city. There must be a picturesque little inn or a quaint bed and breakfast in some rustic part of the country that we can visit.” Somewhere they wouldn’t be interrupted by a work crisis so she could tell him he had the chance to be a father again if he wanted. “Think about it and let me know.” She disconnected the call before he could argue.
Chapter 21
Crowne Plaza Hotel, Times Square
Thursday, 26 April
“I hope you’re happy. I feel like a dick taking advantage of Tracy to get this information for you.”
Walt added a hefty dollop of cream to his coffee and glared at Bex. They were seated in the downstairs café of the Crowne Plaza. It was beehive busy with the breakfast rush of business guests fueling up before heading into conferences and office meetings.
“Since when have you been concerned with a squeaky clean image? Come on, Walt, just spill. You can make it up to Tracy later.”
Bex toyed with her eggs Benedict, shocked at how tensely she was waiting on Walt’s intel.
“I got to look at the manger’s books for December 18. There’s no record of a temp filling in for anyone that day.”
“What?!” Bex screeched, then lowered her voice as she attracted curious stares from the tables nearby. “Walt, we both know that’s not true.”
“Don’t get your panties in a bunch. I haven’t finished. I managed to find out from Tracy that the manager has a unique way of handling his servers calling in sick. If staff can’t turn up for work, they find a replacement or they never come back. Most of the time the girls call in favors from other servers who pull a double shift or come in on their days off, but sometimes non-employees like their friends fill in instead. These friends never make it onto his books. He pays the original server and they handle making a payout to the replacement. Saves him the headache of putting temporary staff on the books and the other staff are happy they don’t have to cover for absentees.”
“And no complaints from the IRS?”
“I never said it was legit. The point is, the only indication as to what’s going on is a red asterisk beside the absent server’s name. For that December 18 the asterisk sat beside Cabalina Gomez. The problem is, according to Tracy, she hasn’t worked at the restaurant for the past six months.”
Walt dived into his own breakfast, pouring syrup over his stack and piling bacon onto his fork.
“What about security footage? Can we track back to the December date?”
Bex sliced into her egg, forcing in a mouthful.
“There you’re in luck,” Walt spoke around a full mouth. “The manager downloads the security footage every thirty days to a disk. I pulled the disk for 18 December and managed to print out a couple of the better shots of our mystery woman.”
He shoved a couple of 8x10 glossy images across the table showing the woman exiting the café, her face in semi-profile. They were time and date-stamped in the corner.
“Did you check the time on these? It’s 7:48 p.m. which makes it close to the time Zane and I left.”
“So? She was probably due a break.”
Bex let the remark slide. “We still have contacts at NYPD. Maybe we can convince them to run an ID on her photo. Were you able to grab Cabalina Gomez’s address?”
Walt put down his fork and studied her face.
“Shit, Bex, you’re serious about following this further?” He shook his head. “You do realize that we’re not with the NYPD any more? We don’t have the jurisdiction to go cold-calling on innocent-until-proven-otherwise people.”
“Since when did you become such a Boy Scout? There’s no law that says we can’t pay a friendly visit and ask questions. I swear, Walt, if we get any real information we’ll pass it onto Ortiz at the station and they can deal with it. Now, did you get her address or not?”
* * *
Cabalina Gomez lived on the fourth floor of a pre-war Art Deco co-op in Pelham Parkway, surrounded by a circle of leafy green trees. Walt found a park close by. The building sported an impressive geometric pattern of chevrons connecting over the doorway and flooding the less salubrious lobby. They rode upstairs in an elevator that smelt of stale sweat and fresh cigarette smoke.
Walt knocked loudly on 4E. Behind the door a child’s cry was hushed.
Bex exchanged a look with Walt. She thought it was possible Gomez was an illegal worker, afraid of being caught and shipped out of the country. New York was notorious for housing illegal immigrants. Drawn by the Statue of Liberty, they believed their dreams would come true in the Big Apple.
Claiming they were police or from social services would likely have the opposite effect of persuading Cabalina to open the door. Bex elbowed Walt out of the way.
Injecting a frantic note in her voice, she called, “Excuse me, I live on the floor below, and I’ve lost my daughter. I had to go to work and leave her on her own because she was sick. Now I’m home and she’s not there. Have you seen her around? Please, have you seen my little girl? Please!”
She hoped her words would appeal to a mother. Sure enough, the door cracked open, the chain still in place.
“Please, please, I have a picture. Can you open the door so I can show you?”
Bex scrabbled in her purse as though looking for her phone, while the woman on the other side dropped the chain. Walt edged forward, wedging his loafer against the doorframe. The woman’s eyes widened to saucers as she backed behind the door.
Bex held out a placating hand. “Are you Cabalina Gomez? I’m sorry to fool you, Cabalina. I haven’t really lost my daughter, but I did lose my husband. I think you have information that might help me.”
Gomez pushed against the door, Walt’s shoe squishing. He grunted.
“Listen, Cabalina,” Bex repeated the woman’s name, hoping to gain a rapport. “We’re not from the police, we’re not with a government agency. I’m simply a woman looking to find out what happened to my husband.”
“I don’t want any trouble.”
Bex placed her at early thirties. Her olive complexion was sallow and her dark eyes were distrustful under strong eyebrows. She wore a drab housecoat and a bucket load of smeared makeup.
“Please,” Bex implored. “No one need ever know we’ve been here or that you’ve spoken to us.” She found tears pricking her eyes. This woman could hold the key to what happened to Zane and she wasn’t prepared to let anything or anyone stop her from getting to the truth. Her tone hardened. “Please let us in or I’ll have to tell the authorities where you’re living.”
“I’m not illegal!” Gomez protested.
“In that case, you have nothing to fear from a short conversation,” Walt said. “It’s better than leaving us out here in the corridor pounding on your door and disturbing your neighbors, isn’t it? Because they just might call the police.”
Gomez’s resigned sigh showed she was convinced they weren’t going to let the matter drop. She opened the door and they moved into a tiny living space. In an upmarket loft this lack of furniture would be termed minimalist décor, but in here Bex guessed it was from a lack of funds. She spied a black garter belt amongst the cushions
on a faded sofa.
“Why did you leave the Manhattan Club?” Bex asked.
The woman crossed her arms. A wail came from the doorway that led to what Bex presumed was the single bedroom in the apartment.
“My friend found me a better paying job, better hours so it’s easier to look after my daughter.”
From the look of the sexy lingerie tucked behind the cushions, Bex had a good idea of the turn Gomez’s work had taken. Gomez didn’t invite them to sit or offer them coffee. They were there on sufferance, so Bex dove straight into her questions.
“How long did you work at the Manhattan Club?”
“I worked there for nearly three years. I left six months ago when my husband left us. I couldn’t get a reliable sitter for Paquita.”
“So you were working shifts there around Christmas time year before last?”
The wails broke through their conversation more strongly.
Biting her lips, Gomez pushed a stray hair out of the way, scraping her fingers through the curly mane and tugging it into a hair band. “My daughter’s not well today. I’ve had to keep her home from school. She needs her medicine.”
“Of course,” Bex said. “We can wait.”
Looking disgruntled that they didn’t take the hint to leave, Gomez moved swiftly to the only other door off the living area, which Bex presumed was a bathroom. She emerged with a medicine bottle and a measuring cup and went into the bedroom.
“This is a damn wild goose chase if you ask me,” Walt murmured. “I don’t feel good about hounding a mother with a sick kid.”
Bex looked away from Walt’s accusatory eyes. When Gomez returned, she still clutched the medicine bottle in her hand.
“The week before Christmas two years ago, you didn’t turn up for your shift at the restaurant. Instead you found someone else to take your place. Who was that?” Bex asked.
Bex Wynter Box Set 2 Page 52
