by Julie Kenner
“You’ve never actually met Uma in person, have you?” I tossed the question to him over my shoulder as I once again circled the room with my gaze, my fingers crossed tight that I wouldn’t lock eyes with Lynx.
“She came in here once,” he said.
“Did you wait on her?”
“Not exactly.” He jerked his head toward the wall of bottles behind him. “What can I get you?”
“Tequila,” I said. “Straight up.” What the hell? I’d avoided drinking all damn day. Being dead sober wasn’t helping me. Maybe a buzz would.
He poured out a shot and presented me with the check. I signed it to the room, then passed him the slip.
I was still pondering the Uma mystery. “Did you see Kill Bill?”
“Sure thing. Why?”
I just smiled. Maybe I could take a lesson from Uma after all. Ruthless. That’s what I needed to be to survive.
I needed to be ruthless. And I needed to start thinking that way now.
Chapter
37
S tryker rushed down the hall toward the main foyer, icy calm flowing through his veins. This time, he was the stalker. And he was going to end this thing. Right here. Right now.
He kept his right hand under the left side of his jacket, effectively shielding his gun, as he moved around the corner. Nine o’clock, twelve, three. His eyes scanned the area. Nothing.
The bastard was gone.
The foyer opened onto the street. If Lynx had gone out that way, then he could have hopped a taxi and been halfway down Fifth Avenue by now. Damn.
He hurried through the doors and down to the street, scouring the view in all directions, but there was no sign of Lynx. Stryker stood stock-still, assessing the situation, every muscle in his body tensed and ready to pounce. In front of him, well-dressed couples were getting into and out of limos and taxis, some casting him uneasy glances, others not even noticing his presence. None, however, included Lynx.
He took the steps back inside two by two, stopping in front of the doorman as one horrible thought occurred to him. “The bar,” he said. “Is there another way in?”
“Certainly, sir,” the doorman said. He turned, his manner formal and deferential, and pointed toward Central Park. “The entrance on Fifty-ninth,” he said. “It opens right onto the bar.”
Stryker barely caught the last words, though. He was already flinging open the door and racing through the foyer. The hall was crowded, and he elbowed his way past women in sequins and men in tuxedos, a terrible fear rising in his chest as his feet pounded on the floor.
No, God, please, no.
He saw her then, sitting at the bar, just chatting with the bartender, perfectly casual, while a dozen or so people milled around. Safe. Thank God.
He took one step forward, and everything changed.
A telltale red dot on her chest. A laser site. An automatic weapon. And it was aimed right at her heart.
He didn’t think. He just pulled out his gun and fired high, shattering the mirror behind the bar and sending Mel and the bartender sprawling to the ground, along with the other patrons.
Screams filled the air as Stryker raced in, then tugged Mel to her feet by her elbow. “Run,” he hissed as he grabbed the laptop case and her tote bag. She didn’t argue, and together they raced back out the way Stryker had come in, hooking through the foyer and down the front steps.
A woman in black sequins was about to hop into a taxi, but Stryker shoved Mel inside ahead of the woman, then muttered a terse apology as he climbed in after her. “Go!” he shouted.
The driver went, heading out and onto Fifth Avenue with only a questioning glance into the rearview mirror. Stryker ignored him, instead turning to Mel and grabbing her roughly by the shoulders as he looked her up and down.
He’d been sloppy back there, and he’d almost lost her. Goddammit!He’d almost lost her! “From now on,” he said, “we stick together.”
“What the hell happened?” she asked. She was breathing hard, her chest rising and falling.
“He had you. He had a gun aimed right at you.”
Every drop of color drained from her face, and he wanted nothing more than to just pull her close and tell her it would be all right. He couldn’t say that, though. As much as he wanted to believe otherwise, he’d seen how fragile his hold on“all right” was.
“He shot at me? That was him?” Her voice was a mere wisp, and he had to lean in close to hear her.
“That was me,” he said. “I needed you to duck.”
“Oh.” A whisper of a smile touched her face. “It worked.”
The cabbie looked at them over his shoulder. “So where are we going, folks?”
“Grand Central Station,” Mel said. She turned her attention back to Stryker. “I hope I’m right.”
He took her hand, squeezing tight. “We’ll find it.”
“We’d better. He’s close on our heels.”
“I hope you didn’t leave anything important in the room, though,” he said, turning to look back toward the hotel. “We won’t be going back.”
“Persona non grata after your shoot-out?”
“Something like that. Sorry.”
“I guess that makes us even,” she said with a grimace. “I signed the check to the room. If he didn’t know our room number before, he does now.”
Chapter
38
W e were approaching Grand Central when Stryker’s phone rang. He unclipped it from his belt, then answered with a curt hello. I couldn’t tell who was on the line, and Stryker’s side of the conversation gave no clues.
“Girlfriend calling to check up on you?” I asked when he hung up.
He didn’t smile back, and I immediately became concerned. “What?”
“That was Talia, my friend at the DMV.”
I frowned, unsettled by his tone. “And?”
“She ran the plates. The car was registered to Todd.”
He was looking at me as if he expected some sort of reaction. But I couldn’t react. For that matter, I couldn’t even get my head around his words.
“Todd,” I finally repeated. “My Todd?”
“That’s right.”
“But…”
“I don’t like this,” he said.
I didn’t either. I wasn’t entirely sure what“this” was, but I didn’t like it one bit.
I didn’t have time to ask about it, though, because Stryker was passing the cabbie his money and climbing out of the taxi.
The cab had dropped us at the entrance on 42nd Street, near the clock surrounded by statues of Hercules, Minerva and Mercury. I made a silent entreaty, begging help from the gods as Stryker pulled me inside, out of the warm wash of the golden flood lights bathing the façade.
We passed under the celestial map and clambered down the stairs. The station’s been in a lot of movies, but nothing really does it justice. Considering it’s just a train station, it really shouldn’t be such an awe-inspiring building. But it is.
Not only is it beautiful, but it’s also all-inclusive. I swear you could live there if you really wanted to make the effort. There are shops around every corner, along with an endless variety of food kiosks on the lower level for when you just want to have a relaxing quick meal.
For fancier cuisine, you need to visit the area above the concourse. On the east end, you can reach the mezzanine from a fabulous staircase that was modeled after one at the Paris Opera House. Once up there, the opulence—not to mention the price—ratchets up even more. Todd took me to dinner once at Michael Jordan’s The Steak House N.Y.C. (fabulous), and during my freshman year, I worked as a waitress for a private party in The Campbell Apartment, a fabulous bar fashioned from the former stationmaster’s old office. The bar had been closed then, and my view of the place had been from the serving side of a silver appetizer tray, but the space had been one of the most spectacular I’d ever seen. I’d wanted to go back for years but had somehow never gotten around to it. Maybe when all this was o
ver, Stryker could take me and we could toast our success.
It was late, already past one, and the station was beginning to empty out, but the last trains had yet to run, and the late-night crowd stumbled around us—teenagers, drunks, and more than a few people who really needed to discover the joys of bathing.
We’d been moving so fast that I hadn’t had time to think, but now my mind latched onto Stryker’s news. Todd? What would my clue be doing in his CD player? For that matter, what was he doing with a Jag? I had a bad feeling but no time to think about it.
“Where are they?” Stryker asked.
“What?”
“The lockers you remember seeing here,” Stryker said.
“Right.” I shoved thoughts of Todd out of my head; I could deal with that later. I made a circle, examining my surroundings. “Um…” I trailed off with a shrug. I’d never used the lockers here, and I couldn’t remember where (or when) I’d last seen them.
“No problem,” Stryker said. “We’ll ask.”
I followed him to the Information desk, then waited as the attendant finished with an elderly tourist who’d apparently never read a train schedule. Finally, it was our turn.
“Lockers?” the attendant repeated. “I’m afraid we don’t have any.”
I leaned forward, elbowing in closer to Stryker. “I’ve seen them here. I know I have.”
“Recently?” The clerk looked genuinely baffled.
“Well, I don’t actually remember that part.”
“We took them out after nine-eleven,” the clerk explained.
I glanced at Stryker, feeling stupid. The man had tried to warn me.
“What about some sort of package-checking service?” Stryker asked.
“Sorry. No. Security concerns, you know.”
“Of course. Thanks anyway.”
Stryker moved away, his hand loose on my elbow. I followed, my legs feeling numb. No lockers. No clue.
No chance.
What the hell was I going to do now?
Chapter
39
S ince we didn’t have a better plan, we followed the signs to track 15, which had one more departure before shutting down for the evening. The train was already there, and a few people milled about. The platform was totally nondescript. A big empty area. Nothing that looked like a clue. No graffiti that was meant only for my eyes. No geometric patterns laid into the tile floor we walked on, cleverly planted by the assassin. Nothing. Not one thing.
“Any other ideas?”
I tried to think. There were subway stations all over the island, but the only actual railway stations I was aware of were Penn and Grand Central. “We’re fucked,” I said. “We interpreted the clue wrong, we’ve been following a wild-goose chase. And to make it worse, we’re the ones who made the whole chase up.”
“No.” He shook his head. “We’re right. This feels right.”
I turned in a circle, my arm outswept to encompass the entire platform, the entire station. “Feels right?” I repeated, incredulous. “Stryker, nothing about this feels right.”
He frowned, but he didn’t contradict me. Which was too bad. I was hoping he’d had something brilliant tucked up his sleeve. We could use a dose of brilliance right then. MENSA membership notwithstanding, at the moment, I was fresh out.
“I’m not giving up,” he said, taking my elbow. “And neither are you. Come on.”
I let him lead me back into the station. We followed the long hallway past the various stores that catered mostly to tourists and harried commuters. They were closed now, and I looked longingly at the drugstore, wishing for a soda.
“C.P.R.R.,” Stryker said as we paused in the walkway. “Central Pacific Rail Road. We’ve got ‘Central’ and ‘Rail Road,’ but no ‘Pacific.’ Any ideas?”
“None,” I admitted. “How about JWC? Mean anything to you?”
“Not a thing. Let’s go back to the Information desk. Maybe if we flip through the brochures, we’ll have a spark of inspiration.”
I nodded agreement, and we headed that way. A man passed by, a woman glued to his arm. They’d been drinking, if their wavering walk and overloud voices were any indication, and I slowed, something about the woman’s stumbling gait catching my attention.
“Mel?”
“Sorry,” I said, letting Stryker lead me. But I was walking slower now, trying to force free a thought that was rolling around in the back of my mind. Something familiar. Something important that I just needed to remember….
We’d reached the Information desk, and Stryker grabbed a tourist brochure and started tossing out random facts about the station. But suddenly I wasn’t hearing him anymore. Because my synapses had finally clicked. And if I was right, this wasn’t about Grand Central Station. Not exactly, anyway.
“What does it say about The Campbell Apartment?” I asked, interrupting Stryker’s review.
He scanned the brochure, finally finding the entry on an interior page. “Here we go. One-of-a-kind space, old-world elegance, used to be the stationmaster’s office and salon and—”
He looked up sharply. “The stationmaster’s name was John W. Campbell.”
“That’s it,” I said.
“I’d think so. And listen to this,” he added. “In case we have any doubt, the address for The Campbell Apartment is 15 Vanderbilt Avenue.”
“Well, hallelujah,” I said, holding out my arm for him to take. “Let’s go have a cocktail.”
Chapter
40
“T he bar closes at one,” Stryker said as our footsteps echoed on the ornate staircase.
“Maybe we’ll get lucky and someone will still be inside closing up.”
“Let’s hope.”
We reached the landing, then found the understated entrance to the bar hidden in one of the station’s many nooks and crannies. A simple black banner with The Campbell Apartment printed in white marked the stairs leading up to the entrance. The walls were stone, the stairs decked out in red carpeting. I took them two at a time and tugged on the brass handle.
Nothing.
“Too late,” I said. I pounded on the door, then pressed my face to the glass and tried to see through the etched panes. I could make out light, but no movement. I pounded again, hoping someone would come to investigate. Again, nothing. “What time does it open in the morning?” I asked.
“Not until three.”
I met Stryker’s eyes. We both knew that three was too late for me.
“I think I can break in,” he said, not missing a beat.
“What?”
“The restaurant,” he said. “I think I can break in.”
For half a second, the word felony flashed in my head, but I snuffed that little thought right out. Instead of making a protest, I said, “Good. Because I sure can’t, and we need to get inside. If you can get us in there, then go for it.”
Less than three minutes later, I was feeling pretty foolish in my choice of words. If he could get us in? There was no if. There was simply Stryker and some thin metal tools and a faster-than-you-can-say-felony moment.
Stryker opened the door, the movement of his arm hustling me inside. He closed it silently behind us.
“What about alarms?” I asked.
“Didn’t see any wiring, didn’t see a control panel.”
“So does that mean there is no alarm system? Or you just couldn’t find it?”
He stopped and turned, and I could see his face in the slight illumination of the emergency exit light over the door through which we’d just entered.
“If there’s an alarm,” he said, “we’ll know soon enough.” And then he eased forward into the room. I followed. What else could I do?
The place was just as glamorous as I’d remembered. The entrance opened onto the main room, which was worthy of royalty. The dim lighting from fringed wall sconces wasn’t enough to guide our way, but coupled with the light from the city filtering through the windows of leaded glass, we could see just enough to maneuv
er by.
“I was thinking earlier that I wanted to come here again,” I admitted. “This wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.”
“Again?”
“I worked here once. A waitress at a catered reception.”
He paused, his attention on me fully. “Another clue that has a personal connection to you.”
“Just a small one,” I said, but he was right. “It has to be a coincidence, though. I can’t imagine I put that in my profile. It was just a one-shot deal.”
“Maybe,” he said, but I could tell he didn’t fully believe it. “Doesn’t matter right now. We need to get in and get out.”
“Right. Where do you think we should look first?”
“Same place we were going to look in the station,” he said. “Storage.”
“Employee lockers, coat checks, anything else?”
“Let’s start with the coat check. If that comes up empty, we can look for the lockers.”
“We can split up,” I said. “It’ll go faster.”
“Not a chance in hell,” he said. And from the tone in his voice, I wasn’t inclined to argue. “Where’s the coat check?”
I was about to say that I didn’t know when I saw it. “There,” I said, pointing to a far corner. We headed in that direction and found a typical coat check booth, with a counter facing us and an oversized armoire behind.
While I looked for some sort of hinged gate to get me back behind the counter, Stryker simply hopped the thing, bouncing up, then over, like he was some Olympic gymnast.
“Nice,” I said, impressed with both the vault and his ass.
In front of me, Stryker turned immediately to the armoire, leaving me to tackle the problem of how to get back there with him. Not being as agile, it took me longer to hop over, and as soon as I did, I noticed the cleverly concealed gate that opened into the back area. Figures.
“Find anything?” I whispered.
He shook his head. “There’s not much in here, which makes sense considering it’s July. A few raincoats, an umbrella tucked into a corner.”
“Anything odd about anything?”