“You came down here without an armed escort? Man, you got nerves of steel.”
“Yeah, and you should’ve seen the autopsy photos I was looking at when the lights went out! Severed limbs and everything!”
She managed a weak laugh. With Dan at her side, the whole experience might have been an amusing caper, or so she tried to tell herself. But when they reached the metal door, her laughter froze on her lips. The door was closed, her black bag missing.
“My bag is gone!”
“Huh. Maybe the guards found it?”
“Wouldn’t they have said something?”
Dan looked up and down the hallway. Ten feet away her bag lay on the floor beside some trash bins.
“There it is!” he said.
She ran over and grabbed it. Turning it upside down, she dumped the entire contents onto the floor, and began rifling through to see what was missing.
“Anything taken?” Dan asked, coming to stand over her as she opened her wallet.
“I had about thirty dollars cash,” she said. “It’s gone, but my credit cards are all here. Oh, look, the compartment with my checkbook is open! I always keep it snapped.”
“Any checks missing?”
“No. But the checks have my home address on them. Do you think that’s why he opened it? To see where I live?”
“It could have just come open when the guy tossed your wallet. With the money missing, this looks like a simple purse snatch to me.”
“Wait a minute!” Melanie exclaimed, suddenly realizing what wasn’t on the floor.
“What?” Dan asked.
She picked up the black bag and looked inside. It appeared completely empty. She stuck her hand in down to the bottom, feeling around to be sure. Nothing. The tape and the animal-torture Polaroids had been in there, and now they weren’t. They weren’t on the floor either. They were plain gone. She looked up at Dan, thunderstruck.
“I found some important evidence tonight in your wiretap boxes. It’s gone. I can’t believe it! Why would a thief care about that?”
“What evidence?”
“A wiretap tape and some photographs. From an apartment belonging to a Jasmine Cruz. Who is she?”
“She was the subscriber on our busiest phone. A stripper at a club in Times Square if I remember right, probably a top guy’s girlfriend. We never intercepted her in a drug call, so we left her out there when we took the case down. Why?”
“I think she was Slice’s girlfriend.”
“What makes you say that?”
She described the pictures in detail, how they showed the black dog being trained to kill and how they led her to the transcript of the call between Slice and Jasmine.
“I remember that call,” he said. “Pretty scary stuff, the way he talked. We were looking to ID that guy when we took the case down. I played that tape for every cooperator in the case, and they all claimed not to recognize the voice. More than once I wondered if they were lying to me.”
“I’m sure they were. They were all scared to death to rat on Slice.”
“Yeah. Huh.” He seemed troubled by something.
“But, Dan, it’s missing! The tape and the transcript and those torture photos. Oh, and something else. Information about a young woman who worked at Jed Benson’s law firm. I think she might know something. Stealing money I can understand, but why would a thief take evidence? Nobody would want that stuff unless they were involved with the case.”
“Jesus, look at this,” Dan said, his attention caught by something over her head. She stood up and twirled around, following his glance. A security camera, mounted to the low ceiling, pointed directly at the entrance to the file room. She hadn’t noticed it before. Standing on tiptoe and stretching out his arm, Dan was tall enough to reach it. He pulled a piece of shiny gray duct tape off the lens and showed it to her.
“This tape looks new. Somebody taped the lens, probably just now while you were in there.”
“Who would do that?” she asked, although she had a pretty good idea.
“Somebody who really didn’t want his picture taken,” Dan said gravely.
“But not a custodian, right?” A chill shot right down her spine.
“I doubt a custodian would think about taping a lens, even if he’s dirty and planned to toss your purse. That’s something a pro does when he’s planning something big. You could have been hurt.”
He looked at her intently, like he was afraid she would disappear before his eyes.
“Do you think it was Slice?” she asked, giving voice to her deepest fear.
“I have no way of knowing that for sure. But maybe.”
“Probably, right? Who else could it be? Jasmine Cruz wanting to hear the sound of her own voice?” She giggled nervously, but her whole body was trembling. “How the hell could Slice have gotten in here? He looks like a total thug. Even if the guy at the front desk is asleep at the switch, he’d’ve noticed someone like Slice. And the rest of the building is sealed up pretty tight. No windows that open, all the external doors alarmed.”
“I agree it’s strange,” Dan said.
“I mean, how would he even know where to look for me? He must’ve had inside help!”
“From who, a guard?” Dan asked skeptically. “That’s a serious charge. A guard probably wouldn’t do something like that. Lazy is one thing, but dirty is something else entirely.”
“Then how, Dan? You explain it to me.”
“I don’t know. If we can grab whoever chased you, we’ll ask him how he got in, okay? Who knows-maybe it was Slice, and maybe he’s still around. I need to do a floor-to-floor search.”
“I’m coming with you. I’m not staying here by myself,” Melanie said.
“Of course not. You shouldn’t have been down here alone in the first place. This is a serious case. We should be taking more precautions. You can wait in my car. I don’t want you in the line of fire if I find this guy.”
Under other circumstances she would have protested, but now she was too shaken up. When she went after the Benson case like a demon, she’d never imagined the killer might train his sights on her.
18
MELANIE RUSHED INTO THE KITCHEN AND THREW her arms around Maya, who sat in her high chair smiling like the Cheshire cat, green muck dripping down her chin.
“You’re still up! Mommy missed you so much!” she cried, hugging her daughter close. Maya surveyed her domain as if not a thing was wrong in the world. But Slice was out there. Dan had done a floor-to-floor search back at the office and come up dead empty.
“Mel, not that that’s much of an outfit, but you’re about to ruin it,” Linda warned. She’d been gingerly administering pureed peas from two feet away in a futile attempt to protect her own clothes. As if on cue, Maya spit a fine green spray.
“Mi’ja, I told you, this is Versace!” Linda’s bracelets jangled as she deflected the neon green spatter away from her midriff-baring blouse, which showed off the ruby in her navel and the large butterfly tattoo spreading its wings across her lower back. She sported a diamond-encrusted choker bearing the legend BORICUA CHICA. Melanie envied her sister’s glam Puerto Rican style. Sometimes she wished she could be more out there herself, but she just wasn’t like that.
“I’m happy to see her, but why is she up? It’s past eleven! And why are you feeding her this late?” Melanie asked.
“Muy buenas tardes, Linda,” Linda said. “Muchas gracias for baby-sitting, Linda.”
Melanie caught a whiff of something and leaned down, sticking her nose under the high-chair tray.
“And she’s poopy!” she exclaimed indignantly, straightening back up.
“Ingrate! Remind me not to do you any more favors. Look what time it is! I’m gonna be late for my date with Alberto, and this is the thanks I get.”
“Wait a minute, Alberto? You mean Chester the Molester?”
“Did I call him that? Oops.”
“He’s almost sixty!”