by Ana Leigh
“Robert Manning’s. That is if your fingerprints haven’t obliterated the evidence.”
“You guys sound more like feds,” the offended officer said. “You figure you’re the only ones who do things right. So which of you is Sean Harvey?” he asked, flipping open one of the wallets.
Disgusted, Dave shook his head. “The suspect.”
“As far as I’m concerned, pal, you’re all suspects until you prove otherwise.”
He proceeded to have them all handcuffed and herded into the patrol wagon that had arrived on the scene.
“This reminds me of the good old days in Hoboken,” Justin said. He was the only one who appeared to be enjoying himself.
“You ride in a paddy wagon before?” Kurt asked.
“Yeah, a couple times,” Justin said, grinning. “Mostly for stealing cars for joyrides.”
“Did you ever do time?” Don asked.
“No. Six months on probation, or public service like helping to clean up the streets. Small-time stuff like that.”
Dave’s mind was on the problem at hand. He’d have to call Bishop to get them out of this latest situation or the police would probably take mug shots and fingerprint them unless they revealed their true identities. This damn case was the biggest foul-up he’d ever experienced.
Physically this Harvey fitted McDermott’s physical description except for red hair, but the terrorist was such a chameleon, who really knew his true color of hair? The guy’s accent sure wasn’t what he’d expected. But he’d probably perfected a dozen accents to go with his many identities. With any luck, the blood on the knife would tie him to Manning’s murder and Trish would no longer be in—
Trish! Good Lord! In all the hustle he’d forgotten about Trish locked in the women’s room. He’d told her not to come out until he said so. How long would it be before some woman would want to use the john? Then Trish would have to unlock the door.
He buried his head in his hands. A damn foul-up from beginning to end! He could only hope that they had McDermott. If they didn’t, Trish could still be in danger.
Chapter 12
Trish glanced at her watch. She’d been in there for twenty minutes. Whatever Dave was up to, he must have settled it by now.
Someone came and tried to get in, then walked away. From the click of heels on the wooden floor, she could tell it had been a woman.
What was keeping Dave? Could he have been hurt? If so, surely one of the other guys would have come to get her.
After ten more minutes, someone came to the door again and tried to get in.
“Anyone in there?” a female voice called out.
“Yes,” Trish replied.
“Are you okay, lady?” the woman asked.
“Yes, I’m fine now.” She couldn’t remain there any longer and opened the door. “I’m sorry. I was feeling nauseated.”
“Anything I can do for you, honey?” the woman said.
“No, I feel much better now. Thank you just the same.”
She was shocked to discover there was no sign of any of the four men in the pool hall. What was going on? She went up to the bar.
“Did you notice what became of the men who were playing pool with me earlier?”
“Yeah, the police hauled them away,” he said.
“What?”
“Guess they were hassling some guy and pulled guns on him. How come the cops didn’t run you in with them?”
“I really didn’t know them that well,” Trish said. She was beginning to become proficient at this cloak-and-dagger stuff. Lying was coming really easy to her.
“You came in with one of them.”
“I met him outside.”
He gave her a leery look. “You sure was cozying up to ’em enough. You ain’t one of the working gals, are you? You look kind of familiar, but I don’t remember seeing you around here before.”
Trish had watched enough television to know he was referring to a prostitute.
In a deep, throaty voice she murmured, “I guess that would depend upon where else you’ve been, handsome.”
Yep, she was really getting into the role. Trish winked and departed.
She hurried over to her car, parked in front of the bar, and rooted through her purse for her keys before she remembered that Dave had them. There would be no sense in trying to track him or his squad down. She was positive he would eventually get around to calling her.
And she sure had a bone to pick with him. Thirty minutes locked in the women’s room of a bar was not her idea of a fun time. The least he could have done was take a minute to tell her to come out.
Seeing a cruising cab, she flagged it down.
As she drove away a man stepped out of the shadows and watched her depart. He went over to her car and peered inside it. The man glanced around the deserted street, found a hunk of rusty metal and broke the car window. Then he opened the car door and climbed in.
Her cell phone lying on the table was blaring Beethoven’s Ninth when Trish entered the apartment. She rushed over to answer it.
“Where have you been?” Dave asked. He sounded rattled, which was entirely out of character for him.
“Where do you think I’ve been?” she said. “Just where you left me. Locked up in the women’s room of that bar.”
“I’ve been calling you for the past forty-five minutes. Why haven’t you answered your cell phone?”
“Because I didn’t have it with me. I’m home now.”
“Dammit it, Trish, if you aren’t going to carry it with you, why have one?”
She was the one who should be upset. Thanks to him, she had spent thirty minutes in that two-by-four, smelly room.
“Is that the question of the day, Agent Cassidy, or did you have a specific reason for calling?”
“I’m sorry. This place has got me frustrated. The cops pulled us in for questioning. How long did you stay in there?”
“A half hour. I finally had to open the door. The bartender told me you guys were hauled away by the police. So what happened with your suspect in the bar?”
“He claims he’s just a migrant and has nothing to do with McDermott. The police are checking out his story.”
“Do you think he’s McDermott?”
“It’s kind of a stretch. But he acted suspicious. Had a knife with dried blood on it. So it’s hard to say. Could be a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“See, you should have kept me with you. I saw McDermott in Morocco. Who could forget that red hair.”
“This guy has dark hair and a thick coating of whiskers. Of course McDermott’s a master of disguise, so we can’t rule anyone out. Anyway, we should be out of here shortly. We’re waiting for Mike Bishop to get us released.”
“Dave, I’ve been thinking about those missing diamonds. What if Robert put them in our storage locker downstairs? Who would even think of looking there?”
“Could be worth checking out, I suppose.”
“I think I’ll go down and look.”
“Stay where you are. Gotta go now. Bishop just got our release. I’ll be home soon.”
“On your way here, stop and pick up my car where you left it. You have the keys. I had to take a cab home.”
“Sorry about that. In the meantime, forget the locker. We’ll check it out tomorrow morning.”
“Okay,” she said. “Bye.”
Trish hung up the phone and headed for the bedroom. Doggone it! She’d forgotten about the locker when she packed up Robert’s things. There were probably a lot more of his personal belongings down there.
But Dave was right. It would be better to wait until morning when she could pack them up.
But her curiosity was too piqued to put the thought out of her mind. Besides, the man the police had in custody undoubtedly was McDermott, so that danger was behind her.
And even if he wasn’t, as long as she remained inside the building there was no danger. Dave was too paranoid. No one could get in without a key. There w
as a security guard in the lobby, and there were cameras on every floor.
Trish pivoted and went into the kitchen and dug the locker key out of a drawer.
The locker room was located on the parking level of the building. Each door of the lockers was as firmly secure as the apartment doors of the sixty apartments in the structure. Therefore, it was logical to Trish that Robert might have stashed the pouch of diamonds in the locker.
A couple from the third floor whom she had often met on the elevator or in the weight room when she and Dave were together, were just leaving the locker room when she arrived. They chatted for a few minutes while the two people expressed their pleasure to see she’d moved back in. To her relief, neither one made a reference to Robert’s death.
When they’d departed, Trish entered the room and turned on the lights. The large, cavernous room was instantly flooded with bright light to reveal six aisles of ten lockers to a row. Signs hung from the ceiling above the aisles designating the floor number. Her locker was the last one at the far end of Aisle 5.
Trish had not been in the locker since she removed all her belongings a year and a half ago. To her delight the locker was practically empty except for a few scattered unsealed cartons that Robert had hastily dumped there.
She sat down and began to sort through them. One was a full carton of porno magazines. Those could go straight to the incinerator.
Disgusted, she moved on to the next box. It was full of clothes hangers and a discarded Walkman and tape. She switched it on and the cassette was an exercise tape. What he used that for, she hated to imagine. He’d always prided himself on getting his exercise in bed. Trish couldn’t help recalling how amusing she’d thought the remark had been when she first met him—until she’d discovered what he really meant by it.
From what she could see the remaining cartons were clothes. Robert had always considered himself the Beau Brummell of the twenty-first century and had kept abreast of the slightest changes in men’s fashions, however short-lived they might have been. Maybe she could donate them to a theatrical company—or a circus clown.
She had just closed up the last carton when suddenly the lights went out.
“Hey, the room’s in use,” she shouted. “Turn the lights back on.” There was no response to her shout. Whoever had turned them off had moved on. Or had they?
Trish felt the rise of goose flesh when she heard a faint shuffle and knew she was no longer alone in the darkened room.
Kurt drove the rest of the squad home and Mike Bishop drove Dave back to the bar to pick up Trish’s car.
“What the hell?” Dave said. “I know I parked it right in front of the joint.” He got out of Mike’s car and noticed shards of broken glass lying in the road where the car had been parked.
“That wasn’t there earlier,” he said to Mike. “Looks like someone might have broken a window and taken off with the car. I’m in enough hot water now with Trish. Wait until she hears this.”
“Maybe she came back and got the car,” Mike said.
“Could be, but it wouldn’t explain the broken glass. Besides, I just talked to her about ten minutes ago. She made a point of telling me to pick up the car.”
“Climb in, and I’ll drive you home.”
“I’m still staying at her apartment,” Dave said. “Until we get a definite ID on McDermott, I’m not leaving her alone.”
“Right,” Mike said.
On the way there, Dave tried to reach her on the telephone. When there was no answer, he tried her cell phone.
He snapped the phone off. “She must be taking a shower.”
“Or hasn’t gotten back yet from picking up her car,” Mike said, tongue-in-cheek. “She was probably pulling your leg the whole time. Most likely getting even with you for letting her sit for a half hour locked in the john.”
“That wouldn’t explain the broken glass,” Dave said. “And, besides, I’ve got her car keys.”
“Like she doesn’t have a spare. Probably keeps it tucked in the same spot as her mad money. You’ve got a lot to learn about women, pal,” Mike said, pulling up in front of Trish’s apartment. “Anyway, I’ll see you tomorrow at Sardino’s unless Ann pops before that. She claims she won’t. She doesn’t want to miss the party.”
“Okay, tomorrow night.”
He waved as Mike drove away.
Dave stopped at the security desk to say hello to Ben Rose, the security guard who had just come on duty. The old timer had been the guard there even before Trish and he had lived there.
“Ben, did Mrs. Manning go out a short time ago? She’s not answering the phone.”
“Saw her drive in about five minutes ago.”
“Oh, thanks.”
Mike was right, Dave thought as he rode up in the elevator. Trish was having a good laugh at his expense.
The lights were on in the apartment, and her purse and cell phone were on the kitchen table, but there was no sign of Trish. He even checked her bathroom. He called the security desk.
“Ben, did you say you saw Mrs. Manning driving in or out?”
“Driving in,” he said.
“Did you follow her on the camera?”
“Not really. There was some action going on in the lobby that distracted me.”
“Well, did you at least see her get out of the car?”
“Can’t say that I did. Just saw her car pull in.”
Dave’s intuition had begun to buzz and his nerve endings began to tingle. “Okay, thanks a lot.”
The whole thing with the car kept nagging at him. Something about it just wasn’t right. He decided to go downstairs and check out the car.
Just as he suspected, the front window of the car had been broken, and a glance at the dash showed it had been hot-wired.
Trish hadn’t driven the car back. But the person who did had used it as a ploy to get into the building. He probably intended to get out the same way, which meant he was still in the building looking for Trish.
But where in hell was she? She was either hiding from the guy or—
Recalling their last conversation it hit him where he’d find her. He could only hope he’d get to her before this intruder did.
Why hadn’t she listened to Dave and stayed put in the apartment? Well she wasn’t going to just sit there and wait for whoever was stalking her. Think, Trish, think. What can you use for a weapon? She could hardly strangle the intruder with one of Robert’s dandy silk scarves. She had seen nothing that could be used to hit him with. She could try to poke him with a clothes hanger, but doubted it would be of much value in the dark.
Then she thought of the exercise tape. If she could create a diversion, she might be able to get to the door. Trish groped in the dark and found it. She’d given him a pretty good idea of her location when she had called out. Placing the Walkman at the door of the locker, she turned it on just loud enough to distinguish the low murmur of a voice, hoping that the intruder would think she was talking to someone.
Then she crouched low and cautiously sneaked over several aisles. Whoever was stalking her no longer attempted to be stealthy; she could hear him hurriedly approach the sound she made.
When she felt it was time to make her move, Trish stood up to make a dash for the door.
Suddenly she was grabbed from behind, and a hand clamped over her mouth. She had never figured there’d be two of them.
“Quiet,” a voice warned in a whisper.
Trish ceased her struggle and looked up at Dave. She wanted to cry for joy, but his warning hand motioned her to silence. He indicated she remain crouched down, then slipped away.
Trish was petrified and didn’t know what to do. She now was in Aisle 3, and if she ran straight up the aisle, she could reach the light switch and the door.
An eternity of heartbeats passed, then she heard a grunt, and then a thud. The sound galvanized her to action. She raced up the aisle and tripped the switch. The light flooding the room revealed Dave standing over the body of a man.
He was already on his cell phone.
Mike Bishop and the rest of the Dwarf Squad arrived at about the same time as the police squad. Dave had tied the man’s hands behind his back with the cord from the Walkman. Trish walked over to them and stared at the bound man who had gained consciousness.
“That’s him, Dave. That’s the man I met at the home of Ali bin Muzzar.”
Since McDermott had been apprehended by one of their agents, Bishop insisted McDermott was a prisoner of the CIA; since McDermott was a suspect in a local murder, the police claimed him. The feds eventually won the tug-of-war over the prisoner.
By that point, Trish didn’t care who got McDermott, she just wanted them all to disappear.
Bishop came over and slapped Dave on the shoulder as they prepared to leave with the Irishman in tow.
“Great job, pal. We can handle the paperwork. You better stay with Mrs. Manning. She looks a little shaky.”
“Really, Mr. Bishop?” Trish managed to tease. “I can’t imagine why that would be.”
“I think she’s doing great,” Dave declared in her defense. “I’m proud of the way she’s stood up under it all.”
“She did, indeed,” Mike agreed. “And just to show you my heart’s in the right place, you and the squad can take the rest of the week off.”
“You are so good to us, boss.”
“That is unless some diplomat gets snatched,” Mike added.
“Nothing personal, Mr. Bishop,” Trish said, “but will you, your agents and your prisoner kindly get out of here. I hope I never have to hear the word terrorist again.”
“We all do, Trish,” Bishop said solemnly. “Sorry we had to make you a decoy.”
“I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. I really love you guys. It’s just that there’s so many of you, and you’re all so big. I need some space.”
She kissed Bishop on the cheek, and did the same to the rest of the team. “Good night, fellas.”
“Dave, we owe this gal a big debt. Be sure and bring her to Jeff’s birthday party tomorrow night so we can thank her properly.”
“Good night, Mike,” Dave said pointedly. He took Trish by the arm. “Let’s get you upstairs.”
