“Could be.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know, but think about it. After seventeen years, you show up in town. On that same day, Harry gets tortured, and then this woman who stole his phone tries to get you to give her your name.” Broome shrugged. “I think it’s worth considering.”
“And if these torturers have his phone, they have my number in the call log.”
“Yes.”
“How hard will it be for them to track me down?”
“You know the answer to that.”
She did. Everyone did. It would be ridiculously easy. Megan shook her head. She had thought that she could simply pop down to Atlantic City and escape it again.
“My God,” she said. “What have I done?”
“I need you to focus with me for a few more minutes, okay?”
She nodded numbly.
“After the phone call, you went to Harry’s office, right? Before you came to see me.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t want to creep you out any more than I already have, but think about the timeline for a second.”
“Are you saying they could have been torturing Harry while I knocked on the door?”
“It’s possible.”
She shivered anew.
“But what I need you to do right now is tell me everything about the visit to Harry’s office. Leave nothing out. It was late by then. Most of the offices were closed down for the night. So the most important question is who did you see?”
She closed her eyes and tried to think. “There was a janitor by the stairwell.”
“What did he look like?”
“Tall, skinny, long hair.”
Broome nodded. “Okay, that’s the regular janitor. Anyone else?”
Megan thought about it. “There was a young couple.”
“In the corridor? Near Harry’s door? Where?”
“No, they were coming out as I was coming in. The man held the door for me.”
“What did they look like?”
“Young, good-looking, preppy. She had blond hair. He looked like he just stepped off a squash court.”
“For real?”
“Yes,” she said. “They didn’t look like torturers.”
“What do torturers look like?”
“Good point.”
Broome mulled it over for a few moments. “You said a young woman answered his phone.”
“Right.”
“Could she be the same age as this blonde?”
“I guess.” Something crossed Megan’s face.
“What?” Broome asked.
“Well, now that you mention it, they didn’t fit. You know? I mean, you know Harry’s office.”
“A dump.”
“Right,” she said.
“So what was a good-looking, preppy couple doing there?” Broome asked.
“You could ask the same about me.”
“You’re not what you appear to be either,” he said.
“No. So maybe they have secrets too.”
“Maybe.” Broome looked down at his feet. He took a few deep breaths.
“Detective?”
Broome looked up again. “We already questioned everyone in Harry’s building.”
He stopped.
“So?”
“So the only offices that were still open at that time of night were the bail bondsmen on the third floor and the CPA on the second.” Broome met her eye. “Neither one of them had clients like you just described.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes. Which begs the obvious question: What was that couple doing in that building at that time of night?”
They both fell silent. Broome glanced around now, taking in the vaulted ceilings, the Oriental carpets, the oil paintings.
“Nice house,” he said.
She didn’t reply.
“How did you do it, Megan?”
She knew what he really meant—how did she escape? “You think these worlds are really that far apart?”
“I do, yes.”
They weren’t, but she didn’t feel like explaining. She had learned the biggest difference between the haves and the have-nots. Luck and birthright. And the luckier you are and the more doors open to you because of your birthright, the more you need to convince others that you made it because of intelligence or hard work. The world is, in the end, all about bad self-esteem issues.
“So what now?” she asked.
“For one, I need to take you back with me so you can talk to a sketch artist. We need to make an ID on that young couple you saw. You also have to be honest with me.”
“I am being honest with you.”
“No, you’re not. This all comes back to the same person. We both know that.”
She said nothing.
“Everything circles back to Stewart Green. You said someone saw him recently.”
“I said, someone
maybe
saw him.”
“Whatever. I need to know who.”
“I promised I wouldn’t say.”
“And I promised I wouldn’t bug you. But Harry is dead. And Carlton Flynn is missing. You come back to town. Someone spots Stewart Green. Whatever it is, whatever is happening to these men, it is all coming to a head now. You can’t run away anymore. You can’t hide in this big fancy house. Like you just said, Megan, the worlds aren’t that far apart.”
Megan tried to slow it down, tried to think it through. She didn’t want to make a mistake here, but she got it. Stewart Green was a suspect here. Broome had to do all he could to find him.
“Megan?”
She looked at him.
“There are others.”
A fresh cold shiver crossed her heart. “What do you mean?”
“Every year on Mardi Gras someone vanishes. Or dies.”
“I don’t understand.”
“We can talk about it in the car. And you can tell me who saw Stewart Green.”
S
ITTING IN THE
W
EAK
S
IGNAL
, Ray Levine went over and over the last few hours in his head. Under the dark skies over Lucy, Ray had watched the only woman he ever loved get into her car and drive away. He didn’t move. He didn’t call after her. He just let her leave his life without a word or a whimper. Again.
When her car was out of sight, he stared down that same street for another full minute. Part of him thought that Cassie would come to her senses, turn around, drive back, throw the car door open, run toward him. There, under the watchful eye of Lucy the Elephant, Ray would sweep her in his arms and hold her tight and start to cry and never let her go.
Cue the rain machine and love ballad, right?
That didn’t happen, of course. The love of his life was gone—again—and when that happens, when a man who is at the bottom manages to drop down even further, there is only one thing that a man can do.
Drink heavily.
Fester eyed Ray warily when he first stepped into the Weak Signal. The big man who feared nothing approached Ray tentatively.
“Hey, you okay?” Fester asked him.
“Do I have a drink in my hand?”
“No.”
“Then that’s the answer until I do.”
Fester looked confused. “Huh?”
“No, I’m not okay. But I will be once you get your fat ass out of my way so I can get a drink.”
“Oh,” Fester said, sliding to the right, “got it.”
Ray grabbed a stool, his body language telling the bartender to make it quick. Fester took the stool next to him. For several minutes, Fester said nothing, giving Ray his space. Odd, but somewhere along the way, Fester had become his best friend—maybe his only friend—but that was more or less irrelevant right now. Right now there was an image of a beautiful woman in his head, the contours of her face, the way she felt when he held her, the smell of lilacs and love, that pow-pow-pow in his belly when her eyes met his—and the only way to get rid of that image was to drown it in booze.
Ray longed for one of his blackouts.
The bartender poured once, then twice, then with a shrug, he just left the bottle. Ray gulped it, feeling it burn his throat. Fester joined him. It took some time, but Ray started feeling the numbness. He welcomed it, encouraged it, tried to ease his path toward oblivion.
“I remember her,” Fester said.
Ray turned a lazy eye toward his friend.
“I mean, when she came in here, she looked familiar. She danced at La Crème, right?”
Ray didn’t reply. Back in those days, Fester had bounced at a few clubs. He and Ray had been acquaintances, if not friends, but Fester had a reputation as one of the best. He knew when to strike and
more important, he knew how to show restraint. The girls felt safe around him. Hell, Ray felt safe.
“Sucks, I know,” Fester said.
Ray took another deep sip. “Yep.”
“So what did she want?”
“We aren’t going to talk about this, are we, Fester?”
“It will help.”
Everyone thinks they’re Dr. Phil nowadays. “The hell it will. Just shut up and drink.”
Ray poured himself another. Fester said nothing. Or if he did, Ray didn’t hear it. The rest of the night passed in an eerie, pathetic haze. He thought about her face. He thought about her body. He thought about the way she looked at him with those eyes. He thought about all he had lost and more painfully, he thought about all that could have been. And of course, he thought about the blood. It always came back to that—all that damn blood.
Then he mercifully blacked out.
At some point, Ray opened his eyes and right away knew that he was home in bed, that it was morning. He felt like something twirled in a cement truck. It all felt so familiar. He wondered whether he had gotten sick last night, whether he had prayed to the porcelain god at some point during the blackout. The growl in his stomach was craving food, so he thought, probably.
Fester was asleep—more likely passed out—on the couch. Ray got up and shook him hard. Fester woke with a start, then groaned and put his hands on either side of his enormous skull as though trying to keep it from cracking open. Both men were still in their clothes from last night. Both smelled like a Dumpster, but neither cared.
They stumbled out the door and to the diner down the street. Most of the patrons looked even more hungover than they did. The waitress, a seen-too-much big-hair, brought them an urn of coffee before they even asked. She was on the plump side, just the way Fester liked them. He gave her a smile and said, “Hi, sugar.”
She put down the urn, rolled her eyes, walked away.
“Rough night,” Fester said to Ray.
“We’ve had rougher.”
“Nah, not really. You remember much of it?”
Ray said nothing.
“Another blackout?” Fester asked.
Again Ray didn’t reply, pouring the coffee instead. They both took it black—at least, they did right now.
“I know what you’re going through,” Fester said.
Fester didn’t have a clue, not really, but Ray said nothing.
“What, you think you’re the only guy who’s had his heart crushed?”
“Fester?”
“Yeah?”
Ray put his index finger to his lips. “Shh.”
Fester smiled. “You don’t need to talk it out?”
“I don’t need to talk it out.”
“Maybe I do. I mean, what happened last night. It brought it back for me too.”
“Your heartbreak?”
“Yep. Do you remember Jennifer?”
“No.”
“Jennifer Goodman Linn. That’s her name now. She was the one. You know what I mean?”
“I do.”
“Some girls, you just lust after. Some girls, you just really want or you like or you figure will be fun. And then some girls—well, maybe only one girl—she makes you think about forever.” Fester leaned forward. “Was Cassie that for you?”
“If I say yes, will you leave me alone?”
“So you get what I mean then.”
“Sure,” Ray said. Fester was a huge man, but like all men, when you talk about heartache, they get smaller and more pathetic. Ray took a breath and said, “So what happened to you and Jennifer?”
The big-haired waitress returned. She asked what they were having. Ray ordered pancakes, nothing else. Fester ordered a breakfast that included every food group on every chart ever made. It took nearly two full minutes to say it all. Ray wondered if the order came with a side of Lipitor.
When the waitress left, Ray went back to his coffee. So did Fester. Ray thought that maybe the moment had passed, that he would now be able to sit and sulk in peace, but it was not to be.