Gigi couldn’t help but laugh. “You really are a total dickwad, Jake. But hey, never say never, right?”
Daland’s face reconfigured into a hopeful, curious leer.
I stood, walked over to the door and knocked.
No reply.
Knocked again.
Nothing.
I could feel the panic rising.
They know who I am. They’ve been listening to everything. The only place I’m going from here is Florence supermax.
“Guard? We’re done now.”
I looked at Gigi. She had her mouth right up against the door, but her poise was ice-cold. Like she was expecting a waitress to bring her a flute of champagne.
The door finally opened and the guard appeared. “Sorry about that, folks. Just stepped away for a few seconds.”
I forced the relief off my face and turned back to Daland and shook his hand. “Hang tight, Jake. We’ll let you know about the plea bargain very shortly.”
He held my hand firmly. “You do that.” He turned to Gigi and smiled. “Drop by any time.”
She smiled back and followed me out of the interview room.
As we made our way down the hall, she leaned in close and whispered in my ear, “Jesus, I need to get back to Kurt pronto. Role playing like that, plus all the adrenaline-I’m like unbelievably horny.”
I didn’t reply as we continued along the corridor, starting to feel the relief that I wouldn’t allow free reign till we were both back in her Beemer and had checked in with Kurt.
“I don’t think Mrs. Burnham would appreciate you talking to her husband like that, Miss Harris. Pull your mind back to the case. You have a lot to do.” She grinned over her shoulder. “Don’t worry, boss. I’ll just multitask.”
50
Chelsea, New York
I sat in the restaurant opposite Gigi’s building, letting the time drift by without scrutiny, eyes unfocussed, the steady snowfall outside creating a blur of white against the night’s dark backdrop. I figured I’d hang out here at least another hour before I went back upstairs. There wasn’t much for me to do there anyway. Corrigan and Fullerton’s portraits were roaming the darkest corners of the Internet and until someone decided to let us in on who they were, all we could do was wait. And hope.
I didn’t want to intrude on Gigi and Kurt’s downtime either-not that I’d cramped their style in any way so far. After she’d finished uploading the sketches to Daland’s online catacombs, Gigi had left me and Kurt in the large open plan area before returning not long after, fully decked out in a Wonder Woman costume-the classic outfit, she explained, not the new, post-modern black outfit she and the rest of fandom apparently hated. She’d been pretty vocal about how pumped up she’d felt after our incursion into the MCC and her digital stroll through Daland’s blackest creation, which was why I thought her costume change probably had something to do with her wanting to show Kurt he had nothing to worry about when it came to Jake Daland. The lovable bear seemed seriously rattled that his girlfriend was so in awe of Daland’s programming prowess and, even worse, that Daland had propositioned her-even if nothing had come of it-that he’d shrugged off at least two blatant attempts by Gigi at intimacy since our return from the MCC. The Wonder Woman outfit did the trick.
Kurt was also pissed off at me too, but once he’d seen Gigi in the outfit, any lingering resentment evaporated. With a huge grin on his face, he went looking for his Green Arrow costume, which was my cue to leave the apartment.
I was actually glad to have an excuse for a change of scene. I took a long walk, drifting aimlessly through the streets of Lower Manhattan as darkness swooped in overhead, gentle fluffy snowflakes peppering my face and my clothes, my mind still besieged by the idea that my dad could have been part of it all. I felt a cold hollowness inside me and I wondered if maybe I’d been wrong to pursue this so doggedly, maybe I should have left it alone and let sleeping dogs-especially rabid feral ones that sink their teeth into you and never let go, in this case-lie.
I ended up back at the trendy eatery across the street from their apartment, with more time to think, mull, grind, process-though all it did was put me in an even worse mood than when I first sat down an hour earlier.
Kurt had managed to hack into Rossetti’s home broadband connection and pull up his online search history. He’d put both documents on a small Vaio laptop that now sat on the table in front of me, goading me. I hadn’t yet taken a look. The coffee next to it-my third-was already stone cold, the life-altering cheesecake barely defaced. I’d been through everything in my mind, turning over each piece of information like it was part of some demonically unsolvable Rubik’s Cube, hoping that with each turn, something new would reveal itself.
Nothing came. I had reached a dead end.
Every stream of information had turned to ice. We had three guys who all seemed to be part of some CIA covert assassination unit, but they were now all dead. We had the deeply unsettling notion that my dad was part of that noble group. And we had Corrigan and Fullerton’s faces from thirty years ago, but no one who could ID them.
All I could do was wait and see if someone in Daland’s underworld recognized either of them and stepped forward. Obviously, there was a strong chance that wouldn’t happen at all. Then what?
Deflated, weary, and missing being home with my family-a lot-I powered up the laptop, clicked the browser open and pulled up Rossetti and his editor’s web histories that Kurt had put on it.
They were long, running to several pages each. I suppose their careers made them use Google far more than your average Internet surfer.
I was trawling through it when Theo, Gigi’s comedian-waiter friend, passed near me and noticed the untouched coffee. He pointed at it and said, “Call me psychic, but it seems to me like you’re ready for something with a bit more of a kick, right?”
“What do you recommend?” I asked.
He picked my cup up off the table. “My barman has this amazing Reposada tequila he brings in from Mexico. Guaranteed to push those demons away.”
I wasn’t sure I was keen on the idea of a Mexican potion messing with my mind, not after my recent experiences down there, but I still said, “OK.” Then I asked him, “Any news on that audition?”
His face beamed with pride, his crazy eyes taking on an even more manic look. “I got it. A bit part on Louie, can you believe it? I’ve got two small scenes with the man himself.”
I nodded, bittersweet. “That’s terrific news, man. Terrific.”
Things were clearly working out for Theo. Maybe I’d catch a break too.
I halfheartedly dragged my eyes back at the screen to scan a second page of Rossetti’s web search history when three words skewered my attention:
THE OCTOBER SURPRISE
My spine went ramrod straight as I clicked on the link and started reading.
Sandman eased himself soundlessly down the rope onto the small terrace at the back of the loft and quickly dropped to a crouch.
It was cold enough for the insubstantial but steady fall of snow to accumulate where it landed. Already there was at least an inch covering everything that didn’t have traffic moving across it.
He took a moment to let his eyes adjust to the low light emanating from inside the loft, scanning the interior for any signs of activity. He saw none. He crept up to the French doors and, with gloved hands, pulled against the handle gently. They weren’t locked, it being fair to assume that this high up there was little risk of any burglars gaining access that way. A stream of warm air hit him from inside the loft. Clearly, Miss Decker had no problem heating the huge space, given that both her checking and savings accounts had very healthy balances, and those were just the accounts in her name. Her sloth of a boyfriend seemed to have nabbed himself a pretty sweet catch.