“You mean giving up her concert career? After a few placements there was no stopping her. She not only took tutor-in-residence assignments here in Paris, she traveled all over Europe for years, listening and reporting, listening and reporting,” he repeated. “Whether it was pure patriotism or just the thrill of the work, she was one hell of a spy. She told me the sense of mission it gave her fulfilled her like nothing else could. Not even her music.”
After processing that, Nikki said, “She had to be in danger a lot.”
“Sometimes, yes. She thrived on that part, too. Cynthia had courage, but it was more. A focus. A singularity of purpose that saw her through everything. Preparation, contingency, execution. She covered all the bases and left nothing to chance.”
He fumbled for his water cup. Nikki got up and helped him sip from his straw. “Thanks.” He waited for her to sit back down. “Of course, all good things come to an end. She met your dad, got married, and quit to go back to the U.S. and raise you.” His lips, moist from the water, drew into a sly grin.
“What?” asked Nikki.
“Of course, you never do retire from this business. The world was no less volatile in the mid-eighties. Just like Paris, New York City was definitely a fertile ground for intelligence-gathering. I came to Manhattan and re-recruited her in 1985.”
“1985…” Nikki turned her head at an angle and studied him, reaching for the same familiar connection she had tried to make but couldn’t when she first saw his photograph the day before.
Tyler Wynn smiled again, but it wasn’t sly this time. It was purely nostalgic. “I remember you, too, Nikki. You were five when I visited your mother, and you played the allegro from Mozart’s Fifteenth Sonata for me. I even videotaped it.”
“We just watched that video the other night,” said Rook. Heat nodded, her affirmation not so much to agree with Rook as to acknowledge to herself the comfort she felt at being able to draw yet another line to her past.
“I can still see it now,” said the old man.
“So you’re saying you re-upped her mom to infiltrate people’s homes in New York?”
“And thereabouts, yes.”
“But you were CIA,” he said. “Isn’t domestic spying illegal?”
“It is if you do it right.” Tyler Wynn enjoyed his own joke until his laughter made him wince. He reached on the covers beside him for the morphine button that connected to an IV bag, and thumb-pressed it twice. “Don’t know if it even works on me anymore.” He concentrated on deep breathing and, once he settled, finished his thought. “I have to say, your mother was just as effective in her second go-round.”
Heat, at last delivered to the point she had been so eager to reach, asked him, “Tyler, was she spying for you up to the end? I mean, at the time of her murder?”
His face sobered at the memory. “She was.”
“Can you tell me specifics? Anything at all that would help me find out who killed her?”
“Cindy had several projects she had been working on at that time.” He raised an arm, dragging along his drip lines, tapped his temple with a forefinger, and grinned mischievously. “I still have them all right here. I’ve been out of the game a lot of years, but I haven’t forgotten a thing. I shouldn’t tell you what she had going, but I will. First of all, because time is slipping by and I may be one of the few who could help you. Or would. A lot’s changed, and not for the better. The trade’s lost its human factor. Nobody wants the talents of men like me, not when you have drone aircraft.
“But mostly, I’ll tell you because we’re talking about my Cynthia. I don’t know who the son-of-a-bitch is, but I want you to fucking nail him.” The surge of emotion animated him but took its toll. He pressed the oxygen tube closer to his nostrils and sucked it in while Heat and Rook waited, full of anticipation.
“I think what happened is that your mother found something sensitive and someone burned her before she could report it.”
“Something like what?” Nikki asked.
“That, I don’t know. Did you notice if she acted differently? Changed daily routines or patterns, like have meetings at unusual hours?”
“Right before, I can’t say. I had been away at college. But she had meetings at unusual hours a lot. It became kind of a sore subject in our home.”
“Occupational hazard, I’m afraid.” He looked thoughtful and asked, “Did you see her try to hide something, or did you come across a key that didn’t fit anything, did she get a new storage locker, anything like that?”
“No, I’m sorry, I didn’t notice.”
Rook joined in. “When you say someone burned her, do you mean one of her patrons, a family she was spying on, or another spy who wanted what she had?”
“All of the above. When things turn, anyone can come at you from any direction.”
The potential connection Heat had been brooding over could wait no longer. “You mentioned Nicole Bernardin. Is it possible she turned on her and did this?”
He shook his head emphatically. “No. Absolutely out of the question. Nicole loved Cindy. They were like sisters. Nicole Bernardin would die for your mother. Talk to her yourself, you’ll see.” And then he read something on their faces. “What?”
“Tyler, I am sorry to have to tell you this,” said Nikki. “Nicole is dead.”
His eyes flashed wide and his jaw fell. “Nicole…? Dead?”
“She was also murdered.”
“No.”
Heat grew alarmed at his growing distress. “Maybe we should discuss this later.” She started from her chair.
“No, tell me, tell me now.” He struggled to get himself up on an elbow. “Don’t go, tell me. I need to know.”
“All right, but please, settle back.”
He didn’t. Wynn’s shock and disbelief got swept away in rage. “Who killed her? How? When?”
“Tyler, please,” said Nikki. She moved closer to rest a hand on him, and Rook came around the other side of the bed to ease him back onto his pillows. He complied and seemed outwardly more calm, although his breathing remained labored.
“Just tell me. I’m fine. See?” He smiled a disconnected smile and dropped it. “Fair trade. I opened up for you.”
Heat said, “Nicole was stabbed to death last week in New York City. The day after your attack.”
Tyler Wynn squeezed both eyes shut in a full-face wince. “No…” he rasped and wagged his head deliriously on the pillow. Then his eyes shot open and he coughed. Between coughs he said, “No… They’re… still… after it.”
“You have to keep yourself calm now,” said Rook. And then to Nikki, “Which one’s the nurse call button?”
“No, not Nicole, too!” hollered Wynn, bolting up on his elbow again, gasping, the whites of his eyes visible around frantically darting pupils. The cadence of the heart rate monitor began to increase.
“I’m getting the guard,” said Nikki, but when she turned, the drape billowed as the door opened and a nurse entered.
Upon seeing the patient, she hurried to him. Heat and Rook stepped back, letting her go to work, but even as the nurse attended him, Wynn moaned hoarsely and drifted backward, holding his chest. The audio alarm screeched on the monitor and the green electronic display of his heart rate spiked and fell erratically even as it gained tempo. The nurse pushed a call button. “Code bleu, salle deux-zero-trois, rapidement. Code bleu, salle deux-zero-trois.”
Urgent voices and the sound of small rubber wheels skittering on linoleum drew closer. An arm reached out to claw the privacy drape aside. The cardiac team rushed in, a doctor and a nurse pushing the crash cart. The arriving nurse gestured an arm sweep at Heat and Rook indicating they should stay back where they stood against the window. “Reculez vous, s’eloignier.”
The two of them stayed there, hugging the wall as the medical staff responded to the emergency. The doctor checked vitals. “ Vingt cent joules,” he said. The cardiac nurse threw switches and twisted a dial on the cart. They heard an ascending, barely audible tone signaling the charging of the defibrillator paddles. In a measured voice, the doctor said, “ Au loin.” All stood clear of the patient as the jolt was delivered to his chest. Tyler’s entire body bounced on the mattress.