He heard the bathroom door slam shut down the hall, and he knew he didn’t have much time if he was going to do this. He pushed the door open a crack, but then stopped.
Because he realized that if he didn’t kill them now, he could follow them. They would lead him back to wherever Alyssa had gone.
And he wanted to know where Alyssa had gone more than he wanted to feel the spray of blood in his face, more than he wanted to confuse and surprise.
He wanted Alyssa.
Alyssssa …
“Hey, how was the end of the show?” The shorter one came out of the office, carrying the bag they’d brought in, and setting it on the floor. He laughed as he spoke into his cell phone. “Yeah, I wish. I’ve heard the soundtrack and … Ah, I love that song—was it great?” He turned off the office light and shut the door, searching the ring for the right key. “No, baby, I’m glad. I just wish … No, shit’s kinda hit the fan here, so …” He laughed again, as he put the key into the lock and just let it hang there. “Oh, you’re not, are you? Ya think? No, no, it’s better if you don’t. I mean, I’m okay with it, of course I am.” He got quiet. “No,” he said. “No, no, I just don’t want it to be hard for you …” He exhaled. “Yeah, great, dick joke, thanks. I’m being serious here, and you’re …” He drew in his breath. “Yes, that does sound … really nice. All right, all right, look. It’s the Hilton on Fifty-third and Sixth Avenue. Yeah, yeah, West Fifty-third. That one. If you really want to get a room, I should be able to get away for at least an hour, maybe longer. …”
And there it was. He didn’t need to follow them. He could kill this one right now.
He pushed the supply closet door open a little bit more, but the other one, Zanella, was already coming back down the hall, singing. “Every night in my dreams I see you, I feel you … And why can’t I get this song out of my head? Oh, I remember.” He kept singing, putting his own words to the familiar tune to that blockbuster movie, “I was picturing Danny Gillman singing this song, as he shagged Jennilyn LeMay. …”
“I gotta go,” the one named Chick said into his phone as Zanella put the bathroom key back in the office, locking the door behind him, and handing over the key ring. “I’ll see you later.” He smiled, then lowered his voice. “Love you, too.”
“Whoa. That sounds pretty serious, T-Man,” Zanella said, as Chick pocketed his phone and the keys and zipped up his jacket.
“It is,” the shorter man admitted. “It’s, um, been, yeah, pretty serious for… a while now, actually.”
“That’s great,” Zanella said. “I’m … really happy for you, man.”
The SEAL was standing right in front of the storage room door. He was going to turn, and he’d see that the door was open—just a crack, but it was open—when it hadn’t been open before.
Sometimes destiny happened, for reasons that he couldn’t question.
He’d kill them both. He had to, so he would.
If it was meant to be …
He readied his Taser and braced himself, silently shifting his feet, knowing that he couldn’t wait for them to pull their weapons free from their jackets, knowing that he had to move first, to surprise them.
But then Zanella said, “So when are you going to bring him by? Let us meet him. Make sure he’s good enough for our little Tony.”
He?
“I … don’t think I’m ready for that. Not this trip. Maybe back in California. He lives in L.A., so …”
That was definitely a he that they were talking about. The shorter one had said Love you, too to a he.
His surprise and disgust floored him, and he lost his advantage, lost his edge, lost his opportunity to strike first.
But they didn’t notice the door, didn’t find him, didn’t kill him.
They just moved off down the hall, as Zanella hefted the bag, saying, “Maybe we could have a cookout after we get back from this godforsaken land of ice.”
“Yeah,” the homosexual said, “maybe.”
“No pressure. Let’s get to that drugstore—what’s it called, Duane Reade?” Zanella’s voice echoed down the hall as they went to the elevators. “What the fuck kind of a name for a drugstore is Duane Reade, anyway?”
Jenn was exhausted by the time she closed the bedroom door behind her. And yet she knew Maria was infinitely curious, and probably had a million questions for her, starting with Dan Gillman—oh, my God—seriously?!?
They’d both survived their interviews with FBI agent Jules Cassidy, who was adorable and married to movie and TV star Robin Chadwick, which was pretty unreal.
Robin had come from Boston to New York with his husband to babysit for little Ash. Which was also unreal. Jenn wondered who would come in to do Alyssa and Sam’s laundry later in the week—maybe Colin Firth? And perhaps Susan Sarandon would be by in the morning, to serve them all some breakfast.
And okay, Robin had explained that he and Jules had been close friends with the Troubleshooters team leader and her husband for years. They were, in fact, not merely Ash’s godparents, but, should anything happen to Alyssa and Sam, Robin and Jules would be given full legal custody of the child.
Which was a real possibility, considering the line of work Alyssa and Sam were in.
So considering that: yes, that was one very solid, very tight friendship the four of them had going on.
“Are you all right?” Maria asked, as Jenn unzipped her overnight bag and pulled out her pajamas.
Jenn shook her head. “I just… I still can’t believe Maggie’s really dead.” She turned to face Maria. “Everyone’s all solicitous and sorry for your loss, but I didn’t know her very well. I think I had lunch with her three times. Total. And she always brought along someone who ended up donating big money to the campaign, so we never really talked about anything personal. Did you have any idea at all that she was a recovering alcoholic?”
“None,” Maria admitted. “I just remember that her lips kind of scared me, and she always had that little ugly dog with her.”
“Do you really think that homeless guy killed her? You know the one, right? With the wild hair and … He just… He didn’t seem …”
“People are crazy,” Maria said. “And people get crazy from seeing and doing terrible things. God only knows what he lived through in Vietnam.” Alyssa and Sam both had been pretty certain he was a veteran of that war, from Jenn’s description of some of the ribbons and medals he’d kept in his sock. “And the system clearly isn’t set up to provide him with the care he needs, so …”
Jenn knew this was a sore point for Maria, whose younger brother Frank had deployed to Iraq in 2004, and hadn’t been quite right since he’d come home. It had been months since he’d last left his room in their parents’ house in Glen Cove.
And look at Dan—a Navy SEAL—highly trained, highly skilled. A professional warrior. And yet still capable of being badly damaged by the relentless violence of life in a war zone.
One of Maria’s goals—set out early in her campaign—was to help change the system. She wanted to make sure that all servicemen and women, even those whose injuries were not apparent, got the long-term, expert care that they deserved.
“Can I ask you something a little … unusual?” Maria said. She was sitting on her bed the way they used to sit in high school when they had a sleepover. Legs crossed, pillow on her lap.
Despite sitting that way, and even with her hair neatly braided so it wouldn’t tangle in her sleep, Maria looked like the grown-up that she was.
Although, come to think of it, she’d always come across as being mature and full grown. It was Jenn who was still being carded when she was long past twenty-five.
She sat on the other bed and cut to the chase. “Is your question about Dan?”
“What?” Maria said. “Who? Oh. No, but go, Jenn. He’s pretty cute, I mean, as long as you know what you’re doing. …”
“I have no idea what I’m doing,” Jenn admitted, flopping back on the bed. “At all.”
“
You’ll figure it out,” Maria told her. “You always do. I have faith in you.”
“It’s not serious,” Jenn said, saying the words aloud for the first time. Testing them out. “It’s short-term. We’ve already agreed not to try to do the long-distance thing. Which means it’s just going to end in two weeks when he goes back overseas.”
And okay. She hadn’t quite sounded convinced, even to her own ears. And the words definitely triggered a sinking feeling in her stomach, a sense of dread. It came from that last word she’d uttered—overseas. Despite the relationship’s lack of seriousness, she was definitely daunted at the idea of Dan leaving to go back to the war.
And then, of course, there was the possibility that the awful sinking feeling was triggered by the idea of his leaving, period.
Countered by the very non-sinking feeling she’d gotten when Dan had met her eyes from across the room during tonight’s meeting.
They’d all gathered in the living room, where Jules, who was going to continue working closely with Alyssa, had admitted that they were all still pretty deeply in the clueless zone. They didn’t know who had killed Maggie, although they had a list of people they were going to be checking out, including the homeless man who’d had Alyssa’s picture.
They didn’t know why Maggie was killed, either, but they weren’t ruling out that the motive could be political. It was possible that the murderer had taken to heart some lunatic fringer’s diatribes of hate, ignorance, and fear, and had chosen Maria as his target, with Maggie as collateral damage.
Jules and Alyssa expected some further contact from the killer. He’d caught their attention, but he hadn’t yet delivered his real message. That, they both believed, was yet to come.
Tomorrow, their priority was to interview Maria’s interns and volunteers, and to install high-tech security systems in both Maria’s and Jenn’s apartments, and in the office, too. The goal being to get them back to work, and back to living their lives, as quickly as possible. Although neither Jenn nor Maria should plan on going anywhere without a bodyguard any time soon.
Despite that, the consensus was, absolutely, to get them back to sleeping in their own beds by tomorrow night.
And yes, that was when Dan had looked at Jenn.
And the world had tilted, because, God … She didn’t know him all that well, but she knew exactly what he was thinking from that look he’d given her.
I don’t think I can wait until tomorrow night. …
“Not every relationship needs to be serious,” Maria was saying now. “Two weeks could be a perfect length.”
Jenn turned to look at her friend. She was trying to be supportive, but she sounded just as lame as Jenn had.
“It could be just exactly right,” Maria insisted. “As a professional, you don’t want a relationship that’s too short. It’ll raise eyebrows. But two weeks? You can come off of two weeks of great sex with a really hot guy, and look pensive and a little sad, and say, We tried, but it just didn’t work out, and everyone’ll call you brave instead of slut.” She smiled. “Except for me, slut.”
“Shut up.” Jenn threw a pillow at her.
“On a scale from one to ten, with ten being phenomenal,” Maria started.
“Don’t ask me that,” Jenn protested. “I’m not going to answer. It would be crass and undignified.”
“I’ll take that as an eleven,” Maria said.
“No comment.”
“What’s that you’re implying? A never before reported twelve?!”
Jenn laughed. “Stop. I’m not doing this.”
“May I change the subject?”
“Please.”
“Are you sure? It’s to something much less pleasant than fabulous sex with unbelievably hot guys.”
“Please,” Jenn said. “Change the subject, already.”
“Sam Starrett’s broken rib,” Maria stated.
Jenn sat up. “Yeah. I saw that bruise. Did it happen in the tussle with the homeless psycho-killer guy?”
“No, it did not.” Maria had on her super-serious face. “Jenni, Mick Callahan did it.”
“What?”
Maria nodded. “Jenn, I know you like him, but there’s been something … off with him, right from the start. He freaks me out.”
“Because he’s in love with you,” Jenn said.
“This isn’t just socially awkward unrequited love,” her friend told her. “He really clashed with Alyssa in the office today—while you were out showing the SEAL squad my apartment. You were probably getting jiggy with Dan Gillman underneath my bed. Which also freaks me out, but not as much.”
“I was not getting jiggy with anyone,” Jenn said. “It wasn’t until later that… Never mind what happened when. Mick clashed with Alyssa how?”
“To start with, they just both really rubbed each other the wrong way,” Maria said. “Alyssa got kind of icy while Mick went directly to pretty rude. And then, when she came into my office to talk to me, he said some things about her, to Sam, that were shocking.”
“To Sam?” Jenn couldn’t believe it. “What is Mick? An idiot?”
“He claims he didn’t know they were married,” Maria said. “But I don’t know what to believe anymore when he’s around.”
“God,” Jenn said. “And what about Sam? I know he’s a friend of Savannah’s, but why do we just trust what he says over—”
“Jenn, Sam was leaving a voice mail to Jules Cassidy, and everything Mick said to him about Alyssa was recorded.”
And that would be a good reason why they believed Sam over Mick.
“It was ugly and misogynistic and violent,” Maria continued. “Sam lost his temper and pinned Mick to the wall, which got kind of noisy, so we came out, and there they were, and then Alyssa said stop, so Sam let him go, at which point Mick actually drew his gun—”
“Seriously?” Jenn said. She closed her mouth. She’d been sitting there with it open.
“I was there,” Maria told her. “He made Sam get on the floor, hands on his head, the whole perp position, you know? And when he was down there? That’s when Mick kicked him and broke his rib.”
Oh, God, no …
“I saw him do it, Jenni,” Maria continued. “It was vicious. I know you like him, but we need to put some distance between him and us. I don’t want him coming into the office anymore. He makes me uncomfortable.”
“Mick’s a constituent,” Jenn pointed out. “I don’t think we can—”
“I don’t want him coming in to see you,” Maria rephrased her request. “He’s just pretending to be friends with you—”
“He is not.”
True, Jenn hadn’t known Mick for all that long, but their friendship was the instant kind. Mere days after they’d first laid eyes on one another, she’d bumped into him in the bookstore. They’d ended up at O’Brien’s, a local bar, where he’d told her all kinds of tales, both harrowing and funny, of life as a New York City cop.
“Okay, fine,” Maria said, although she clearly didn’t believe it. “He’s not pretending. But this latest incident was too much. Don’t encourage him.”
“Are you telling me that, as my boss—”
“No,” Maria said. “As your friend. And I will kick your butt if you go out with him again to that bar where he drinks, which I know that he does too much and too often, and you, of all people, should know better than to go there with him.”
“I just… I like him,” Jenn defended herself. “He’s a good person—”
“Jenni, you didn’t see him—”
“Who isn’t perfect,” Jenn continued, “and doesn’t always make the right choices. His job is impossible—”
“He told Sam that what Alyssa needed was a good gang bang.”
Oh, Mick. Jenn sighed. “He can be a real jerk, but I’m sure he didn’t mean it.”
“Then he shouldn’t’ve said it,” Maria countered. “Will you please do me a favor and not call him anymore? At least not until the FBI catches Maggie’s killer.”
Jenn looked at her. “You don’t actually think that Mick … ?”
“You should’ve seen him,” Maria said again. “Frankly, I don’t know what to think. He’s on my list of suspects.”
“Maria, come on, he’s a cop!”
“Well, Jules and Alyssa asked me about relationships, and Mick’s asked me out about four million times in a very short amount of time. He actually cornered me—on Thursday—in my office. You weren’t there and … I honestly didn’t know what he was going to do. Thank God Douglas came in. Which was awkward, because I’m not sure he didn’t think he was interrupting something mutual but inappropriate. But my point here is that Mick makes me uncomfortable. Plus he’s got a better motive than some crazy homeless man.”
“Crazy is motive enough,” Jenn said.
“But crazy plus motive needs to be investigated.”
“What’s Mick’s motive?” Jenn asked. “Spurned suitor?”
“It’s a classic,” Maria pointed out, “on the motive’s list of greatest hits.”
“He’s going to love being investigated,” Jenn told her.
“It’s his fault,” Maria said, “for being mean and vicious. Just promise me that you’ll—”
“I promise,” Jenn said, lying back on the bed again. “I’ll keep my distance. God.”
They sat—and lay—in silence for several long moments, then Maria said, “Assuming I don’t end up with my heart in, like, the mayor’s assistant’s desk drawer—”
“Don’t say that!” Horrified, Jenn turned her head to look at her friend. “You’re safe, and we’re going to make sure that you stay safe.”
“Assuming that we do,” Maria said, “do you honestly think that an unmarried woman, or even a married woman without children, could ever get elected President?”
Jenn sat up again. Where had that come from? “I’m not sure of anything,” she answered, “since we haven’t gotten as far as woman yet. Although I’d bet the big bucks that having a family could be extremely important to some of the more conservative voters.”
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