“Just a long, shitty day, no other reason.”
“Yeah, I had one of those, too.”
“Then you could use this.” He held up the beer.
Speers took two swigs and let them go down slow. She handed the bottle back. “Need that lawyer yet?”
“Getting really close, I think.”
“NYPD any closer to nailing whoever killed that woman?”
He took another drink and passed the bottle back and told Speers to finish it. “I don’t know about that. I do know that the guy here asking me questions lied about being with NYPD. There apparently is no Detective Karl Hancock, or at least that’s my take from the reactions of the real detectives who questioned me.”
“A fake detective? What the hell is that about?”
“I wish I knew. I seem to be right in the middle of a little conspiracy.”
She shot him a look. “Are any conspiracies actually little?”
He eyed her. “Not when you’re in the middle of one, actually. You gonna do your yoga?”
“Thinking of bagging it, actually. Why?”
He gave her a look up and down, taking the woman all in; she was just mesmerizing to him right now. “I don’t know,” he lied as he looked away.
“Don’t you, Travis?”
He shot her a glance. “What?”
“You ever see me reading Braille? No. Because I’m not blind.”
She stood, put on her heels, and said, “Give me a few minutes to freshen up.”
He glanced up at her, thoroughly taken aback by this abrupt development. “You sure about this, Helen? I mean...” To Devine it all seemed sudden, but also a long time in coming, with lots of glances and sneaked looks and innuendos that danced around probably the most natural, and difficult, phenomena between two people.
“I’m attracted to you, and you to me. We’re consenting adults, are we not?”
Devine didn’t answer; he didn’t think he had to.
He gave her ten minutes and then headed up.
She was lying on the bed when he walked into her room. She had on a loose-fitting top and a pair of pajama shorts. As he slipped next to her, Speers met him with her mouth. After five minutes of feeling each other out in both familiar and unfamiliar ways, they slowly undressed one another. She pushed him flat on his back and climbed on top.
She looked at his shoulder where the shrapnel had torn through, with some of the metal still in there. She next glanced down at his damaged calf.
“Still hurt?”
“Not right now, no.”
Her lips curled into a smile. “Thank you for your service, soldier.”
He grinned back. “Fuck me, legal eagle.”
“Your wish is my command.”
Twenty breathless minutes later, she toppled off her perch and nestled beside him.
“Been a while,” she said, nicking his chest with her nails.
“For you or me?”
“Both, I think.”
“Yeah.”
Speers closed her eyes, her hand gripping his, and fell asleep.
He lay there with her for about an hour before quietly disengaging and heading to his room.
Later, when four o’clock came and his phone alarm went off, Devine didn’t budge.
The rain was pouring outside and he heard a crack of thunder. A moment later the accompanying lightning brightened his room briefly.
No workout this morning. He needed to sleep anyway. But he stared at the ceiling.
And on its surface Devine saw the image of a dead Sara Ewes. And his heart felt like it was about to break.
Chapter 37
Devine had arrived at the train station a little early and had a chat with a man who worked there. The security cameras were often not working, he was told. And the police had not been by to check them. That information had cost Devine ten bucks.
He had a mobile ticketing app on his iPhone and paid for his train passage that way. The conductor would simply zap the screen with his reader. So there would be a record for when he had used it. The only problem was you could still buy single tickets at the machine using cash. There would be no record attached to that, or so the police would argue. And he could have driven his motorcycle into the city. If he took the Henry Hudson Bridge on the way in there would be a toll and record thereof. But there were alternate routes he could take that did not include toll roads. So that would not be conclusive, again, as far as the cops were concerned.
But you didn’t use your card to get into the building that night, and your name still showed up on the entry and exit log. Someone cloned your card — the only question is who.
As he waited for the train, he thought about Cowl. The man must have somehow delayed giving the electronic log to the cops. How he had managed to do that in a murder investigation, Devine didn’t know. The guy was rich and influential and probably had a direct line to the mayor’s office. But at some point he would have to turn it over.
And Cowl intimated my picture was on the security video. Will the police think I’m stupid enough to have left that kind of trail?
But criminals were stupid. You heard such stories all the time. But what would his motive be? Not the pregnancy. Ewes had already terminated it. Then something occurred to him.
If I knew she was pregnant with my child, and I wanted the kid and found out she had terminated it?
That was a clear motive.
The train opened its door and he climbed on board. With these perilous thoughts running through his head, he was mentally exhausted before he’d even gotten to work.
The storm had spent its fury, and the 6:20 ran dry all the way to the palace pool.
And there she was. Now he knew her name at least.
Michelle Montgomery was staring into the pool water. This time her bathing suit was — shocker — not a bikini. It was a one-piece the color of the sky. After Devine had met the woman and intimated that there were lots of guys watching her, maybe Montgomery had decided to show some modesty.
Devine thought that right up until the moment she turned, revealing that the one-piece had a thong backside showing off her tanned buttocks. Montgomery catwalk-stepped away and then raised both her hands overhead and flipped off the morning Harlem Line riders with both barrels.
He had to smile. The lady had a certain style, he had to admit. Along with a pair of brass balls.
The train rode on while Devine thought about the previous night, with Helen Speers. It had been a while since he had been with a woman. He knew the exact date, in fact. And that might cause him problems down the road, because that woman had been Sara Ewes. They had had sex at her place in Brooklyn. It had been a wonderful experience and Devine had thought there would be many more. But it was not to be. And it had not been his decision. It had been hers.
His phone buzzed. By the string of weird digits, he could tell it was an international number.
“Hello?”
“Mr. Devine?”
“Yes?”
“This is Ellen Ewes. I apologize for the early call.”
That explained it. The phone number was from New Zealand.
The mother sounded eerily like Sara on the phone. And he felt immensely uncomfortable hearing her voice when he had just been thinking about having had sex with her deceased daughter.
“No problem, Mrs. Ewes.”
“Please make it Ellen. I understand the police have been by to see you.”
“They have been. I told them what I knew and it was left at that.”
“Did they tell you why they came by?”
“Yes, that you had contacted them.”
“Can you come by the house later? We’d like to talk to you.”