Brewed Awakening

by Cleo Coyle

  “I’ll meet you and Dante at the bar, as soon as this call is over. Shouldn’t take more than fifteen minutes.”

  “No problem. Take your time.”

  EIGHTY

  THE large ballroom space was packed with artists and their guests, admiring the display of paintings and sculptures. A circular bar, made from recovered industrial parts, was set up in the center of the room.

  Some kind of synth pop was playing—I didn’t know whether the speakers were hi-fi or wi-fi, but the music was fun and upbeat and the sound quality was impressive.

  Since I was supposed to meet Mr. Dante at the bar, I headed straight there and quickly spied him sitting on a stool, sipping (I assumed) one of those “artisanal cocktails.”

  “Mr. Dante!” I called.

  The tattooed barista froze and scanned the crowd around him. With my blond wig and big glasses, I wasn’t easy to recognize, so I caught his attention with a wave.

  “There you are! We’ve got to move and move now,” Mr. Dante said frantically.

  “Calm down. Let’s sit for a few minutes and you can fill me in on—”

  “No,” he said. “There’s no time. If you want to talk to Tessa Simmons, we’ve got to go now.”

  “But Detective Quinn is busy on an important call. Can’t we wait fifteen minutes?”

  “Tessa could be gone by then. It’s now or never.”

  This isn’t the plan. Not at all!

  I thought I’d have time to check out the art show—and gather my courage to speak with Tessa. I reminded Mr. Dante of the plan he’d texted us during our drive. He was supposed to take me and Detective Quinn behind the scenes, to some back office, where he said Tessa could usually be found all evening long.

  “Not tonight,” Mr. Dante informed me. “Her assistant just told me that she decided to have an early dinner with a business associate, and then she’s going home.”

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know where she lives,” Mr. Dante said.

  “No! Where is she having dinner?”

  “Upstairs, at Nostalgia, the rooftop bar and restaurant.”

  “Let’s go.”

  Mr. Dante took me to a dedicated elevator in the lobby that went straight up to the restaurant. Just as the doors began to close, we spotted a man who looked disturbingly familiar. He wasn’t in his burgundy corduroy suit tonight or his security uniform. But I instantly recognized the grumpy, stout fireplug with the thinning red hair, ruddy skin, and jagged scar on his cheek.

  Mr. Dante scowled. “Isn’t that one of the assholes who roughed me up at the Parkview?”

  I nodded. “That’s Stevens, the security chief—and he’s in the wrong hotel.”

  Not only that. It was the second time this weekend that I’d run into the man. The mathematical odds for chance coincidence were falling fast.

  EIGHTY-ONE

  MIKE

  “WHAT’S going on, Lori?”

  Mike Quinn steeled himself. He was standing in front of the Gypsy hotel, and it was raw out here. Drizzly wind gusts were rattling the awning and whipping his trench coat, but it was the only quiet spot he could find to return the detective’s call.

  “I wanted to give you a heads-up,” Lori said. “Sue Ellen and I won’t be searching for your fiancée anymore.”

  “You’re letting Clare go?”

  “No, the opposite. The chief of detectives doesn’t want us reaching out to other jurisdictions. We’re turning our files over to the FBI tomorrow afternoon.”

  Mike cursed.

  “Sorry, but those are the orders. After all the running around we did, Sue Ellen is fit to be tied about the decision. And I have more bad news.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Over drinks tonight, a friend of yours and mine who’s close to the Major Case Squad confided that your fiancée’s bizarre hospital breakout has made the detectives on the Annette Brewster case consider taking another look at her.”

  “You can’t be serious.” Mike closed his eyes. “They think Clare is involved in Brewster’s abduction? Come on, you know that’s crazy.”

  “Crazy or not, the theory is gaining momentum. Some of them think it’s plausible that she left the hospital because she’s faking her memory loss and knows more than she’s telling.”

  “For what reason?”

  “The speculation on Clare’s motives vary. There’s a theory that she took a payoff to set Annette up. And another that she struck a deal with the perpetrators who were holding her, agreeing to stay silent for a bribe—or because they threatened her in some manner, scaring her into silence—which is one answer to why they let her go.”

  “Lori, you know Clare. You don’t believe any of this, do you?”

  “It doesn’t matter what I believe. The plausibility of it alone could make her a person of interest. Even worse, if they do decide to pull the trigger on Clare, the brass will have a horrendous conflict of interest problem on their hands—and it’s you.”

  “They’re trying to make me the problem? Are you kidding? Sounds more like they’ve got no results, so it’s cover-your-ass time.”

  “Look, you know Sue Ellen and I believe Clare is a victim in all this. That’s why I’m warning you. The chief of detectives is sweating bullets. He doesn’t want to catch any political heat. So he’s going to the commissioner tomorrow to discuss whether or not they should turn over the entire Annette Brewster investigation to the Feds.”

  Quinn watched the rain falling and suddenly felt the sky was, too. He was silent for so long, Lori assumed her signal had cut out.

  “Mike? Are you there?”

  “I’m here.”

  “You okay?”

  “Sure. This is nothing I can’t handle.”

  “If you think so,” Lori said, but her tone was full of doubt.

  “Thanks for the heads-up.”

  Mike ended the call staring grimly into the unsettled night. Despite his own calm assurances to Lori, he was filled with dread. He and Clare were already caught up in a bad dream. FBI involvement could plunge them into a genuine nightmare.

  Once that bogus theory—that Clare was “faking” her memory loss—was conveyed to the FBI, ungodly pressure could be put on her for a “confession” of her involvement in Annette Brewster’s abduction, or any “knowledge” of the perpetrators who had engineered her disappearance.

  An ordeal like that would give a stable person a mental breakdown, let alone someone who was struggling with memory loss. And after it was all over—after they got nothing useful from the woman he loved—she would be placed right back in the hands of Dr. Lorca, in an even more distressed state than he’d found her. She’d be drugged and isolated again, taken from everyone who cared about her.

  Even if he were to hire the best attorneys, the FBI could decide to press a circumstantial case against her or make an argument for commitment. She could end up remanded to a mental institution for years.

  Mike could see no clean way out of this, not unless Clare could come up with some useful memories about the details of her abduction.

  Or Annette Brewster was found.

  EIGHTY-TWO

  CLARE

  “DO you think that Stevens jerk is looking for you?” Mr. Dante asked as we rode the elevator north.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “But I don’t want to miss Tessa.”

  When the elevator doors opened on the rooftop level, my breath caught. The wall of windows facing Manhattan’s shimmering skyline made a spectacular sight and so did the restaurant’s floor. The restored factory planks had been painted with intricate stencils, forming colorful patterns, all of it lacquered and laminated to protect the designs from foot traffic.

  “Come on!” Mr. Dante waved me forward and together we bypassed Nostalgia’s seating hostess.

  “We’re going straight to the bar
,” he told her with a charming smile.

  Mr. Dante spotted Tessa far from the windows, in a quiet corner, near the distressed-wood bar that hugged the restaurant’s back wall. Excited, he pointed her out with a sharp nudge to my ribs.

  “That’s Tessa Simmons, and she’s with familiar company.”

  I didn’t recognize Tessa. But I certainly knew her lamé-wrapped companion: the Golden Girl of Fashion, Nora Arany.

  “Should we approach Tessa now?” Mr. Dante whispered.

  “Let’s get a drink and spy a little first.”

  I was relieved to discover the young, bearded bartender was not too cool for school. He had a welcoming smile and took my order right away. The “artisanal cocktails” were posted on a digital chalkboard, and I chose a gin drink, aptly named the Daisy Fay.

  Luckily, Nostalgia’s bar also featured a wall-sized tavern mirror—the kind that allowed old-time Western gunfighters to watch their backs, and modern-day barflies (and barista buttinskies) to people-watch the room behind them.

  Our seats were very close to Tessa’s table, and the mirror offered a good view of the young CEO. While I waited for my drink, I studied her reflection. Tessa appeared to be in full bohemian mode tonight, wearing a mishmash of clashing colors, accessorized with scarfs, dangling feathered earrings, and an entire Slinky’s worth of bracelets. Her yellow hair hung in two long Alpine braids bound by ribbons knotted tighter than bondage straps. Her face seemed tight, too, with large blue eyes circled by dark makeup.

  Sadly, I found nothing familiar about Tessa Simmons. I felt no tingle of recognition, no wooziness signaling an oncoming flashback, nothing. Hearing her voice, I was sure I’d never met the young woman.

  Tessa had been doing most of the talking since I arrived, and her soft voice was a strain to hear over the room’s background noise. From what I could decipher, she was forming a limited partnership with Nora.

  When Nora finally spoke, it was a huge relief. The first time I’d encountered the Golden Gotham Girl, her voice was so loud, it carried over the traffic sounds on Fifth Avenue. Compared to that, penetrating the noise level in this bar was a cinch.

  “Tessa, honey,” Nora said, after downing an entire martini in two thirsty gulps. “Whatever you wrote into that little contract is fine with me, as long as I get a Fifth Avenue store on the ground floor of the Parkview Palace.”

  “You’ll get that and more, Nora. Within eighteen months, the hotel will be fifty percent co-op, with apartments selling in the millions per. On top of that immediate windfall, you’ll get a percentage of the Parkview’s future revenue for your investment. And there will be revenue. The old style of hotel keeping espoused by Aunt Annette and Aunt Victoria is over. My way is the future. That’s why I bought the Parkview Palace.”

  Tessa bought the Parkview? I thought in surprise. But why buy something when you’re about to inherit it?

  The simple answer was that you wouldn’t—certainly not if you were planning to abduct and/or murder the person who was willing the hotel to you.

  “I’ve got big bucks invested in the Parkview,” Nora said. “I hope you’re right about the money.”

  “I’m never wrong,” Tessa said boldly. “According to projections, you’ll double your investment within three years.”

  “Well, that’s something to celebrate!” Nora cried, demanding another martini.

  But when the waitress returned with her cocktail, it took only one sip to stoke Nora’s anger. “Can you imagine how much revenue I lost because of the years Annette kept me out of her hotel? She always had a reason, too. My fashions weren’t the right fit for the Parkview’s clientele. My designs were too urban, too young, too trendy—like there’s something wrong with that!”

  During her rant, Nora knocked a water glass off the table. It broke with a tinkling sound.

  “Relax, Nora,” Tessa soothed as she signaled for a busboy to clean up the glass. “Give the past the slip. Try hot yoga. It worked for me. That and deep meditation got me through my divorce.”

  Nora waved her off. “You want to know the real reason Annette kept me out? It was because I slept with her damned husband.”

  EIGHTY-THREE

  “YOU did what?!” Tessa seemed as shocked as I was.

  “Take it easy,” Nora quickly replied. “She and Harlan were estranged at the time, living completely separate lives. He and I were seated next to each other at some charity dinner. We were laughing it up over something or other, and I said to myself, ‘What the heck? I’ve never slept with a randy munchkin before!’”

  Nora’s laugh shook half the room. She paused long enough to take a second swig of her cocktail, and Tessa shook her head.

  “No wonder Aunt Annette was annoyed with me when I told her about taking you on as a partner. She refused to say why, but she was livid.”

  “Hey, it’s not like I was the only one of Annette’s friends Harlan screwed. Instead of holding a grudge against me, Annette should have looked closer to home—and family.”

  Now even Mr. Dante was shocked. He and I exchanged a silent glance. Holy cow, I thought, in martini veritas!

  This time, Tessa didn’t appear shocked by Nora’s words, as much as curious. “What exactly are you referring to? Who in my family slept with Harlan?”

  Like the amps in This Is Spinal Tap, Nora’s volume was permanently set on eleven. So when she spoke “quietly” to Tessa, I could still hear her.

  “When your aunt Victoria fled to Vienna, she claimed she was pursuing a career in classical music. But the real reason she left was because she wasn’t so thin, if you know what I mean.”

  Tessa grimaced. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying? That I’ve got some long-lost cousin, adopted by some unknown Viennese couple?”

  “You probably do. I mean, if Victoria wanted to get rid of the baby bump, she didn’t have to go all the way to Vienna to do it. My money is on the adoption. Anyway, I heard that after she moved back to the States, Victoria took up with Harlan again. And this wasn’t some fling, either, like it was years ago—before he went after Annette. He and Vickie supposedly had some love nest, right here in the city, for her secret visits.”

  The waitress delivered yet another martini and Nora went back to downing it in two gulps.

  As a busy busboy cleaned up the broken glass, Nora moved on to rather mean-spirited gossip about other members of the Gotham Ladies. Before long, she went from inebriated to incoherent. The Golden Girl was as drunk as a skunk!

  The waitress noticed and approached Tessa. “Should I call a car?”

  The CEO shook her head. “Let’s get Ms. Arany a room.”

  The waitress returned with confirmation, and with help from the bearded bartender, Nora was soon on her feet and moving again.

  “I need to lie down!” she announced to the restaurant.

  “We’ve got a bed for you, Nora,” Tessa said. “You can rest as long as you like.”

  After the fashion designer was escorted out, making an unsubtle pass at the “handsome boy” bartender as she went, I expected Tessa to leave, too. Instead, she sat down and pulled a phone from her bag.

  “Do you want me to introduce you to Tessa now?” Mr. Dante whispered.

  Before I could answer, the restaurant’s hostess approached Tessa’s table.

  “Toby Mullins is here,” she said. “He says he has an appointment to see you.”

  Tessa nodded. “Bring him over.”

  A minute later, a familiar tweedy brown sport coat appeared in the mirror above the bar, and I nearly choked on my Daisy Fay. At last, I knew the identity of that mystery man at the hospital, the bald guy with the mustache who tried to follow me when I bolted for the elevator.

  His name was Toby Mullins.

  And it appeared Tessa Simmons knew him, too.

  EIGHTY-FOUR

  THE situation was infuri
ating but there was nothing to be done.

  Toby Mullins and Tessa Simmons were the quietest couple in the bar. From the moment he sat down, their heads were together, their faces somber as they chatted in whispers. It was obviously a serious and sometimes emotional conversation.

  And I couldn’t hear a word of it.

  There was a long moment when Tessa and Toby were both huddled over his mobile phone. What they were looking at and what they were whispering about remained a mystery to me.

  “Do you recognize that man?” I quietly asked Mr. Dante.

  “No,” he said. “Should I?”

  “When I was in the hospital, I saw the guy outside my room several times. And when he noticed me leaving with you and Madame, he tried to follow us.”

  “Why?”

  “That’s what I’d like to know, along with why Tessa Simmons is so interested in what he has to say.”

  Finally, Mullins rose, and so did his voice.

  “I’ll keep you informed,” he said with confidence. As he tucked his phone away, she said something quietly to him.

  “I will,” he replied. “Now I’d better get started. It’s a long drive and the roads can be treacherous.”

  I elbowed Mr. Dante. “He’s driving somewhere. That means he’s heading to the parking lot.”

  “Do you want me to follow him?”

  We both acted nonchalant until Mullins passed us.

  “I’m going to follow him,” I said, scooping up my rain poncho.

  Tessa was someone I could catch up with again. My questions for her could wait. But Mullins was someone I knew little about. And since the man had been spying on me at the hospital, it made me much more interested in getting answers from him tonight.

  I whispered to Dante, “You know where to find Detective Quinn. Tell him I’m following a bald man with a mustache named Toby Mullins, and that he should meet me in the parking lot, pronto!”