She listened and realized that Blake had continued walking past the trunk. He was somewhere close by, and she heard the jangle of metal, like a chain scraping through the links of a fence.
“Serena!” she heard in her ear.
“I’m here, I’m here,” she whispered.
“Where are you?” he repeated.
Serena knew their emotions were both running wild. She had to stay in control. Report the facts. They wouldn’t have much time before Blake came back.
“I don’t know yet. Claire and I are in the trunk of a white Impala.” She rattled off the license plate. “We drove for twenty minutes or so, and we’re stopped now.”
“Are you hurt?” Stride asked her.
“No. A little bruised, but we’re both okay. He killed Rucci.”
“I know, I found the body. Do you know which direction he went?”
“I think we headed east, but I couldn’t keep track.”
“Do you know what he’s doing?” Stride asked.
“No. This feels like the endgame, though.”
“How do I find you?”
Serena thought about it. “I don’t know.”
“If you keep the cell phone on, I might be able to have the phone company trace the signal,” Stride suggested.
“That’ll take too long, Jonny.”
“I know.”
Serena listened. Blake was doing something outside. She heard a grinding of metal. “It sounds like he’s opening a fence now. I think we’re going to drive inside. Hang on.”
She heard Blake’s footsteps returning. She hesitated again, wondering if he would let them out of the trunk, but he continued back to the driver’s door and got inside.
“He’s back in the car,” Serena whispered. “I don’t think we have much time “
“Can you keep the line open?”
“I’ll try. We’re tied up. I may be able to hold the phone without him seeing it.”
They were driving again. The Impala moved slowly, but the rocky ground caused the car to bump and jolt. Serena felt as if a prizefighter were delivering hammer blows to her kidneys. She heard Claire wince in pain beside her. They drove for less than a minute, and the car stopped.
“I think this is it. I have to go quiet now, Jonny. I don’t know what you’ll be able to hear. If he finds the phone, I’ll try to shout something before he shuts it off.”
“I’ll find you.”
The driver’s door opened, and Blake came around to the trunk. Serena heard a click as the lock unlatched. The trunk opened, and she felt as if she could breathe again. The hot air outside felt cool compared to the stifling interior. Wherever they were, it was barely lit, but Serena still squinted, her eyes adjusting to something other than complete darkness. She saw Blake’s outline above them. Behind him, stars in the night sky.
He reached in and took Claire by the upper body and lifted her out of the trunk. Her legs were rubbery, and she began to fall, so he had to support her. Claire turned and looked up and saw where they were, and she gasped.
Serena laced her fingers together, cupping the cell phone between her hands. She hoped she didn’t accidentally cut the connection. Blake pulled her gun from his belt and pointed it at her. “Please don’t try anything.”
Serena nodded. “It’ll be easier if I roll over.”
“Do it.”
She shoved herself over on her stomach. Her face and breasts were squashed against the floor of the car, and her hands were between her legs, clutching the phone. She felt Blake take hold of her belt and T-shirt and drag her roughly over the edge of the trunk. She dangled there briefly until he took one of her legs and maneuvered it so it was outside the car and almost on the ground. He took her T-shirt and lifted her up again, and Serena was able to stumble out onto the gravel.
She turned around and looked skyward at the dark hotel.
“Welcome to the Sheherezade,” Blake said.
FORTY-SEVEN
It was a looted beauty, stripped bare, ready for the imploders to do their work. Where the grand entrance had been, a jagged hole was punched in the wall of the building, more than two stories tall, as if some comic-book monster had fought its way inside. The windows on the lower floors were broken, leaving empty holes. Serena could see columns inside with their decorations gone, just rough concrete where carefully measured charges of dynamite would be inserted.
Higher up, the hotel looked as it always had. If they turned on the lights, it would be the same place she had driven by hundreds of times in the past two decades. It had been a jewel once, but that was long ago. Other towers dwarfed it now. Even before the wreckers had come, it was showing its age. Twenty stories held up by nostalgia and echoes. Sinatra’s voice. The whine of the roulette wheel. Honeymooners making love. All of it about to become dust.
She had never been inside, never been this close. Until tonight.
“The Sheherezade,” Serena said as loudly as she could. Did you hear that, Jonny? She added, “Why are we here, Blake?”
But she knew. This was Amira’s house, where she danced, where she died. Blake was coming home.
He gestured them inside. Serena and Claire led the way. They had to make their; way past rubble and glass. They walked right through the gaping hole into the lobby, as if they were checking in for the night.
“You can imagine what it was like, can’t you?” Blake asked.
Serena understood. It was easy to float back to the 1960s here. Easier than it would have been a few weeks ago, when the hotel was still open, and all the twenty-first-century guests were coming and going. Now they were alone with the ghosts. The furniture was all gone, the fixtures pulled off and sold at auction, everything taken away: chairs, wastebaskets, ashtrays, slot machines, paintings, craps tables, beer taps. Only the skeleton was left-but even the bones of the building told a story. The geometric Arabian design in the wallpaper. The desert mural stretching across the ceiling. The etchings of Sheherezade herself in gold leaf on the elevator doors.
Blake pushed the button for the elevator.
“Where are we going?” Serena asked. She heard the singsong chime of the elevator as its doors slid open. It seemed odd to her that the elevator still worked in a hotel that was about to be destroyed, but then she realized it would probably work right up until the last day, as explosive experts checked their charges throughout the building.
She was afraid she would lose the signal when the elevator doors closed.
“The roof?” she speculated loudly. “Of course, that’s where Amira was killed. In Walker’s suite. That’s where you’re taking us.”
Jonny? Are you there?
The doors closed. The three of them were alone in the small compartment as it hummed upward. Blake pushed the button for the top floor, heading exactly where Serena had expected-but why?
“I don’t see what you hope to accomplish, Blake. None of this will bring Amira back.”
“I’m here for the truth,” Blake said.
He didn’t say anything else. The elevator was slow, or maybe it was just that her nerves were on a razor’s edge, not knowing Blake’s next move. She watched the numbers for each floor Illuminate one by one. Climbing higher and finally thudding to a halt. With another birdlike song, the doors opened again, and Blake forced them out into the hallway. They were opposite two double doors, painted gold.
There was no suite number on the doors. Maybe they had sold the room numbers at auction. Or maybe, if you were in the high roller’s suite, you simply knew where to go.
Blake twisted the handle. The door was open. He pushed it in and waited as Serena and Claire walked past him into the foyer of the suite. Without furniture, the room was vast, and it kept a lingering elegance, despite its barren appearance. Even the carpet had been rolled up and sold, along with the chandeliers, but stretches of delicate porcelain tile had been left to be crushed in the demolition, presumably because it couldn’t be safely removed for sale.