“Coffee.” A beat, then he added, “But not here.”
She wrinkled her forehead.
“Not here?”
“No, not here,” he said. “Down the street.”
“Down the street?”
He nodded.
“At a different restaurant. With you.”
She shifted into a sexier position, edging in ever so slightly.
“With me, huh?”
“Right. With you.”
“You’re hitting on me.”
“I am.”
She studied his eyes and found no lies. A smile worked its way onto her mouth.
“Be careful,” she said. “I might call your bluff.”
“Start calling because I’m dead serious.”
She stood there deciding, then slipped out of her apron, tossed it across the counter next to the donuts and said, “Mary, I got to run a quick errand. Be a peach and take my tables for ten minutes, will you?”
Outside she locked her arm through River’s as they headed down the street.
“I don’t do this with just anybody,” she said.
“Me either.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
She moved her hand up and felt his muscles. “You remind me of Tarzan.”
“You mean I’m someone who belongs in a jungle?”
She punched his arm.
“No, I mean it in a good way. What’s your name?”
He hesitated.
“River,” he said. “Dayton River.”
She shook his hand.
“I’m Alexa Blank.”
“I know.”
She furrowed her eyes.
“You know? How do you know?”
“I know because someone hired me to abduct you,” he said.
46
Day Two
July 22, 1952
Tuesday Morning
Alabama was sitting behind the desk munching on a donut with her feet propped up when Wilde opened the door into the main room. By the look on her face she was getting a kick out of the one on his. “How long have you been here?”
She ignored him, looked at Secret and said, “I hope he’s better than he sounds.”
Secret smiled.
“He was okay.”
Wilde looked at her.
“Okay?”
She nodded.
“Just okay?”
“There’s nothing wrong with okay,” she said, “Especially for your first time. You’ll get better.”
“My first time?”
“Right,” she said. “We all have one. We’re clumsy and awkward then we improve.”
Wilde lit a cigarette and blew smoke at her.
“Not funny.”
Alabama picked a tie off the desk and threw it to Wilde. “You forgot that on the doorknob.” To Secret, “Don’t count on him improving. He’s not all that trainable.”
“I already figured that out.”
Wilde hated libraries.
He hated the musty smells and the squeaky wheels of the shelving carts and most of all he hated the quiet air. He couldn’t think when it was that quiet. Well, that wasn’t completely true, he could think but what he usually thought about was the fact that he needed to keep quiet.
After Secret left, Wilde told Alabama that Secret remembered reading something about a woman falling from a building in New York two or three years ago.
“Go down to the library, dig through the old New York papers and see what you can find out about it.”
“Why?”
“I’m curious if the woman was wearing a red dress.”
“You think there’s a connection to what happened here?”
He shrugged.
“That’s what you’re going to find out.”
She pecked a kiss on his cheek and headed for the door
“Yes, master.”
Then she was gone.
He stood there in silence.
Something was wrong.
His brain was trying to grasp a thought but was having trouble.
Then it came to him.
He leaned out the window and waited for Alabama to appear at street level.
“Hey, ’Bama.”
She looked up.
“What?”
“I really don’t want you to see Robert Mitchum again.”
She blew him a kiss.
“I won’t if you don’t see Secret again.”
“That’s different and you know it.”
“Actually I don’t.”
47
Day Two
July 22, 1952
Tuesday Morning
When Waverly asked Waterfield if he knew where she could get a good recent picture of Kava Every, at first he had no idea. An hour later he led her to a storage room and shut the door. Leaning against a box was an eight-by-ten group photo framed in glass, now broken. “This was taken at the firm’s retreat,” he said. “That’s Kava right there.”
Waverly’s heart raced.
She was 99 percent sure that the woman was one of the same ones from the envelope under Bristol’s dresser.
She looked at Waterfield.
“Can I take this?”
He narrowed his eyes.
“Okay.”
He pulled it out, rolled it up and hid the frame behind a box.
“Are you okay?”
A beat.
Then she nodded.
“Bristol was having sex with her,” she said.
“How do you know?”
“I’ll explain later.”
“When?”
“Tonight.”
When they opened the door and stepped out, something happened they didn’t expect.
Tom Bristol was leaning against the wall.
His arms were folded.
He was waiting for them.
His eyes fellto Waverly’s purse.
She followed them down.
To her horror, the end of the photograph stuck out. Bristol grabbed it, snatched it out and unrolled it. “This is firm property,” he said. “What else do you have in there you’re not supposed to?”
He grabbed her purse.
Then he pulled out the envelope and waved it in front of her face.
“That’s not yours either,” he said. “I called the temp agency. They never heard of you.” To Waterfield, “You knew that, didn’t you? You knew she wasn’t a real temp.”
Waterfield’s eyes flickered.
Then they got hard and he said, “If she’s not a temp, that’s news to me.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yeah, why? What’s going on?”
“Then what’s she doing with the photo?”
“What do you think? I’m sending her out to get it reframed.”
“Bullshit.”
Waterfield softened, as if caught.
“Okay, the truth is that I brought her back here in the hopes of coping a feel,” he said. “Then I got worried about someone seeing us coming out together. I gave her the photo to have an excuse for being in here, that I was giving it to her to get it reframed.”
“Bullshit,” Bristol said. “Get out of my sight, you’re fired.” Then to Waverly, “As for you, you better learn to swim because the next time you’re in the water I’m not going to pull you out.”
Waverly couldn’t breathe.
She couldn’t move.
“Get out of here and don’t come back,” Bristol said.
Her lips quivered.
Leave.
Leave.
Leave.
She couldn’t make her feet move.
“Get out,” Bristol said.
Suddenly something snapped in Waverly’s head. Thunder rolled through her veins at what she was about to do.
Then she snatched the envelope out of Bristol’s hand and ran.
“Get back here you bitch!”
Go!
Go!
Go!
Go!
Go!
48
Day Two
July 22, 1952