by R. J. Jagger
“Did he actually say that?”
“No,” Taylor said. “It was in his eyes though. It was so real that it filled the room and rolled right up my spine.”
“Did you tell him who the other lawyer was?”
“Unfortunately, yes,” Taylor said.
“You told him my name?”
“That was earlier in the conversation before I realized how he was going to react,” Taylor said. “I was just going with the truth. I’m sorry.”
Jina stood up and looked out the window.
Then she turned and said, “So what do we do?
“We need to get the scroll back. If we don’t, I’m going to end up dead. Maybe you too.”
Jina said nothing.
“He’s going to want to interrogate you,” Taylor added. “I came over here as fast as I could to warn you. We should leave. Right now.”
43
Day Two
July 16
Wednesday Afternoon
Constance Black’s address turned out to be the Overview Apartments on Lincoln Street. Wilde ran an index finger down the buzzers, didn’t see her name and pressed Manager. A middle-aged man came down the hall wiping his hands on dirty corduroy pants.
“You the ones who buzzed me?”
Yes.
They were looking for Constance Black.
“Constance Black,” the man repeated. “Can’t say that rings a bell.”
Wilde pulled a photo out of his pocket, pointed to the woman on the left and said, “That’s her.”
The man studied it for a heartbeat and smiled.
“Right,” he said. “Connie. I haven’t thought about her since she took off. That was—what?—a year or two ago.”
“Where’d she go? Do you have a forwarding address?”
No.
He didn’t.
“It was the strangest thing,” the man said. “One day she came running down the steps. It looked like something was wrong so I said, Are you okay? She said, I’m out of here and I won’t be back. That was the honest to God truth too. That was the last time I saw her. The strange thing is, she left everything in her apartment. I mean everything—dishes, food, furniture, 33s, clothes, everything.”
“That’s weird,” Wilde said.
“She just up and left. I had some other vacancies at the time so I just let everything sit in her apartment for a while in case she showed back up,” he said. “After three months or so she still hadn’t come back so I cleaned everything out. Most of it I gave to charity. She never did come back even to this day.”
Wilde scratched his head.
“Can you give me a better idea when this happened?”
The man retreated in thought.
“Not from memory,” he said. “It was more than a year ago. I’d have to check the paperwork if you need something more accurate than that.”
At Wilde’s request, the man checked it.
Constance Black left fourteen months ago on a Tuesday.
It was the same Tuesday that detective Warner Raven got his death threat, You will die on Friday.
It was the day before Jessica Dent got abducted.
Back at the MG Nicole said, “Constance Black knew what was coming. If we can find her we’ll have the key.”
Wilde frowned.
“She’s dead. She ran but she didn’t make it.”
“How do you know?”
“She never came back for anything.”
“Obviously something scared her out of her wits,” Nicole said. “Maybe it scared her so bad that she just headed to another state.”
“Maybe,” Wilde said, “but if you asked me to bet a dollar on it one way or the other, I’d lay my money down on her being dead.”
“You can’t be sure.”
“Put yourself in her shoes,” he said. “If you made it to another state and were safe and sound, what would you do? You’d call a friend and ask them to slip into your apartment one night and get your stuff—your clothes and records, at a minimum. That didn’t happen. The reason it didn’t happen is because the phone call never happened.” A pause then, “She’s dead. Trust me.”
Nicole exhaled.
“Suppose you’re right, now what?”
Wilde looked into the distance.
Then he cranked over the engine and said, “Now we go to plan B.”
“What’s plan B?”
Wilde shifted into first, waited for a clear spot and pulled out.
“It’s a place I was hoping I wouldn’t have to go.”
44
Day Two
July 16
Wednesday Afternoon
Durivage waited patiently for Emmanuelle to return to the Albany. Half an hour passed, then an hour, and his patience thinned. After two hours he was pacing and pissed, almost at the breaking point. He held out for thirty more minutes and then headed into the hotel and took the stairs to the third floor, on the chance that Emmanuelle had come in the back way.
He knocked.
No one answered.
He bounded down the stairs two at a time and headed straight for the man at the front desk.
“I’m back to see if Monique has returned yet,” he said.
“She hasn’t,” the man said. “But she called to see if anyone had left any messages and I gave her your message.”
Message.
What message?
Durivage hadn’t left a message.
“What message?”
“That you’d stopped by to see her,” the man said.
“What’d she say?”
“She asked me to describe you.”
Damn it!
Durivage’s instinct was to smash his fist on the counter. Instead he took a deep breath, said “Thanks,” and walked away.
Damn it!
Damn it!
Damn it to hell!
She’d never come back.
She’d abandon everything in place.
She’d change her name and go even deeper.
He’d lost her.
45
Day Two
July 16
Wednesday Afternoon
The scroll had a hold on Jina. She knew that before on an unconscious level but now it smacked her in the face with the force of a two-by-four. She didn’t tell Taylor that it was actually in her possession, safe and sound, available to be dug up and handed over to the client.
Taylor was in danger.
Jina could bring that danger to a screeching halt.
Still, she hesitated.
The client would need to prove the scroll was his and that he got it through legitimate means. If and when that happened, Jina would decide whether to turn it over. It was the most important thing to ever come into her life.
It made her someone.
It elevated her mundane life to a new level.
She didn’t want that to end.
It was wrong but that’s the way it was.
She needed to do two things short-term. First, watch Taylor’s back so nothing happened to her. Second, get interrogated by the client to find out if he was dangerous and where his alleged ownership rights came from.
“I have to get back to work,” Taylor said. “Stop by at the end of the day and we’ll figure out how to handle tonight.”
“Will do.”
“In the meantime stay away from your apartment and your office,” Taylor added.
“Will do.”
“I’m serious.”
“I understand.”
When Taylor left, Jina headed back to the office. If she was going to be interrogated, it might as well be sooner than later.
She locked the door and paced.
Thirty minutes passed.
Nothing happened.
Her thoughts turned to the dead man by the railroad tracks, Michael Spencer. She looked him up in the phone book and found he lived on Clarkson east of Colfax. She had the rental car until tomorrow morning. It would be easy to head over there. One of the keys on
the chain probably fit his door.
Should she go over and take a peek around?
The piece of paper from Spencer’s wallet, the one with a list of names and phone numbers, was a mystery. Maybe one of those names belonged to Spencer’s killer. But if it did, why would he leave it there?
Maybe it was a fake.
Maybe he put it there to misdirect the police.
Interesting.
Maybe she should at least drive down the street and see what the man’s house looked like.
That would be better than sitting in a hot office.
She threw Spencer’s wallet and keys in her purse, locked the office and headed down the stairs.
46
Day Two
July 16
Wednesday Afternoon
Wilde knew he was stretching the bounds of professionalism by letting Nicole tag along on the investigation of another client’s case, but he wouldn’t be able to think if she wasn’t around. He wanted her by his side, every minute, every step. He needed to figure out if it was true that they might actually end up together, in New York or Paris or wherever.
They didn’t talk much on the drive back to the office, thanks to the noise of the wind and the engine.
Inside, he tossed his hat at the rack.
It hit the edge, almost snagged but then dropped to the floor.
“You’re getting closer,” Nicole said.
She picked it, went back to where Wilde was and said, “It’s all in the wrist. Watch carefully.”
She flung the hat.
It hit and stuck.
“See?”
Wilde shook his head and lit a cigarette.
“Jessica Dent wasn’t a random pick,” he said. “I’m more convinced of that than even before, now that we know she was friends with Constance Black who got killed—or at a minimum got scared to death and left town—almost on the same day. Something was going on, something more complicated than Raven knew about, assuming he’s innocent.”
Nicole raised an eyebrow.
“Assuming he’s innocent?”
Wilde nodded.
“What’s that supposed to mean, exactly?”
Wilde blew smoke.
“I’m starting to think that he might be the one who killed Jessica Dent.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
Wilde lit a book of matches on fire and let the flames burn down to his fingertips. Then he looked out the window, saw no one below and tossed it down to the sidewalk.
“What I’m thinking,” he said, “is that the whole phone call he allegedly got—You will die on Friday—was a charade. It was a misdirect, something like a magician would do.”
“I’m not following.”
“Okay, put yourself in his shoes for a moment and assume, just for the sake of argument, that he wants to kill Jessica Dent for some reason,” Wilde said. “What he does is tell everyone he got this weird phone call about getting killed on Friday. That makes it seem like there’s some maniac out there. Low and behold, a body shows up on Friday. All the evidence points directly at the maniac as the killer. At the same time it points directly away from Raven. He’s created his own alibi.”
Nicole chewed on it.
“That’s quite a theory,” she said, “but that’s all it is. It’s speculation piled on speculation piled on speculation. It’s a mountain of speculation.”
Wilde nodded.
“True,” he said, “but that’s what my gut’s telling me.”
“Your gut’s not a brain though, is it?”
Wilde laughed.
“I don’t think so.”
“Well, keep that in mind.”
“My gut is a gut though,” he said. “It’s got those gut feelings that my brain doesn’t.”
“So what are you going to do? Investigate Raven as if he was the murderer?”
Wilde nodded.
“I don’t have a choice.”
“That’s dangerous.”
“I understand.”
“If he is the murderer and finds out you’re sneaking around in his shadows … well … you know.”
Right.
He knew.
He knew all too well.
“You also need to consider something else,” Nicole said. “You could be totally wrong about him. Jessica Dent might have gone down exactly the way he said. If that’s the case, you’ll be wasting what little time you have.”
“It’s a risk I’m going to have to take,” he said. “I’m going to stake him out tonight.”
“Why?”
“To see if he abducts a woman.”
“Can I come along?”
Wilde shook his head.
“Negative. It’s too dangerous.”
She walked over, put her arms around his neck and whispered in his ear, “Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
She brought her lips dangerously close to his.
“How about now? Are you still sure?”
“Yes.”
She kissed him.
“How about now?”
“Yes.”
She kissed him again.
“Earlier you said I owned you tonight,” she said. “Were you telling the truth?”
Damn it.
He was trapped.
“Yes,” he said.
“Then I guess it looks like I’m going with you.”
“I guess you are.”
She kissed him one more time and then pulled back. “If you’re right about Raven, why would he hire you?”
“To further perpetuate the illusion,” Wilde said. “Before it’s all over, he’ll leak it to the people in the department that he hired me. He’s a clever guy.”
“That’s more speculation,” Nicole said. “I’d think just the opposite, namely that if he killed Jessica, the last thing he’d do is get a PI involved.”
“That’s true if he thought the PI would succeed,” Wilde said.
“What are you saying, that he hired you because he didn’t think you were smart enough to figure it out?”
Wilde nodded.
“He hired me to fail.”
Nicole wasn’t impressed.
“We’ll see if anything materializes tonight,” she said. “If it doesn’t, I think you should get back on track.”
47
Day Two
July 16
Wednesday Afternoon
Durivage wandered the streets of Denver, ready to snap for having gotten so close to finding Emmanuelle and then losing her.
Stupid.
That’s what he was.
Beyond stupid.
He should never have talked to the registration desk. He should have just waited outside until Emmanuelle showed up. That’s all he had to do.
Why didn’t he do that?
Why didn’t he just be patient?
Suddenly a thought came to him, a thought that made him head back to the hotel as fast as his feet would go. The man behind the desk was still there.
Durivage said, “I’d like to leave a message for Monique Sanbeau.”
The man nodded.
Sure.
No problem.
Durivage spotted a piece of paper and scribbled on it—DD, followed by Zongying’s phone number. Emmanuelle would recognize DD as Davit Durivage. Even though she believed he was in town to kill her, she’d probably feel safe enough to call, if for no other reason than to feel him out.
“Tell her to call DD at this number,” he said.
The man put the paper in the wall slot marked 301.
“Done,” he said. “Anything else.”
“Just tell her it’s important.”
“I will.”
Durivage took a cab back to Zongying’s. She wasn’t home but had left the key under the mat. He stayed in the living room, pacing next to the phone and willing it to ring.
Ten minutes later it did.
He took a deep breath and answered.
It wasn’t Emmanuelle.
&nbs
p; It was Kent Dawson. “I don’t see you leaving town. Do you think I was joking with you?”
Durivage smashed his fist into the wall.
It bounced off a stud without breaking the plaster.
“Come on over right now,” he said. “I’m waiting for you. Let’s do it.”
Silence.
Then the line went dead.
48
Day Two
July 16
Wednesday Afternoon
Michael Spencer’s house was a large stone standalone of prominence and architectural interest on the east edge of Capitol Hill. Jina walked past it once on the opposite side of the street, to all intents and purposes paying no attention. Fifteen minutes later she doubled back, walked up to the front door and tried the keys from Spencer’s pocket.
The third one worked.
She pushed the door open halfway and stuck her head through.
“Anyone home?”
No answer.
“Hello?”
Silence.
She stepped inside, shut the door and listened for sounds or vibrations. The air was coffin-quiet. She almost turned around and left but instead took one step at a time deeper into the guts of the structure.
“Okay, Michael Spencer. Tell me why you’re dead.”
There were no signs of a struggle or violence or blood.
He hadn’t been killed here.
The house hadn’t been ransacked.
She found nothing of interest on the first floor and headed up a winding staircase. Suddenly a door slammed down below. Someone was in the house.
Hide.
Hide.
Hide.
She tiptoed into the bathroom, stepped into the tub and closed the shower curtain. A squeak came from the rod, barely perceptible but perceptible nonetheless.
She held her breath.
A cough sounded.
It was deep.
Throaty.
It belonged to a man.
