THE FIRST thing I did was freeze. There was no second thing. At least, not right away. I had no idea what to do.
Instead, it was all about what not to do. There was no way I was opening that door. No way I was asking, "Who"s there?"
But I did need to know. If it was anyone from the hotel, they weren"t necessarily going away if no one answered.
About twenty feet of that beige carpet separated me from the door, the final few feet drenched with water. I had to time it just right.
Quickly, I tiptoed right up to the door of the bathroom. Then I waited. I couldn"t cover up the squishing sound of my last footsteps on my own. It would take some help, and I knew it was coming.
The second knock on the door-even louder than the first-was all I needed to get right up next to the peephole. I held my breath and took a fast look before peeling off to the side.
d.a.m.n. There were two possibilities. One, the peephole was somehow broken. Two, it was working just fine.
Either way, all I could see was black. As I reached over and oh-so-silently swung the door guard closed, I was betting my entire stack on the perfectly working peephole ... and a hand in the hallway placed over it.
Ten seconds pa.s.sed. Twenty. Half a minute. I remained with my back plastered against the wall, inches away from the hinges, hoping the next thing I"d hear would be footsteps fading away toward the elevator.
If only.
It was more like the exact opposite as the sound of the key card sliding into the lock was followed by a click and a beep. The door opened, only to be stopped short by the door guard. Little hard to pretend no one was in the room now.
I waited for the voice of hotel security, or at least someone who worked at the hotel. Anyone. I didn"t care. Let it be room service or housekeeping. My mouth was half open, ready to respond to whatever was said. But nothing was. What"s taking so long?
No, wait ... a far more pressing question.
What"s that smell?
CHAPTER 15.
IT WAS straight out of an Ian Fleming novel, something Q would"ve given 007. Jutting through the two-inch opening in the door was what looked at first glance like a common pair of pliers. The only difference being what they were doing, literally melting the metal loop of the door guard. Silently, no less.
This wasn"t someone from the hotel.
A starter"s pistol went off in my head, but I had nowhere to run. I looked over at the windows, which didn"t open, and the bed I"d be a fool to hide under. Ditto for the one and only closet as I pictured myself trying to duck behind a hotel robe. The ultimate indignity. Dying while stupid.
The only real shot I had was erecting the world"s quickest wall of furniture. Basically, I"d lodge everything in the room that wasn"t bolted down against the door. It could work. It had to work. Question was, how much time did I have left?
I stared back at the door, those pliers cutting through the metal as the smell of sulfur continued to overwhelm the air. I had to step back just so I wouldn"t cough.
As I slid along the wall, it was my hand that felt it first-the connecting door to the next room. My eyes had pa.s.sed right by it, and I couldn"t blame them. Countless times, if only for s.h.i.ts and giggles, I"d been in a hotel room and opened the first door, only to see the door behind it, leading to the adjoining room, staring back at me, shut tight as a drum and locked. Here goes nothing ...
I opened the door on my side, peeking around the edge, and in one, beautiful skip of a heartbeat, it was as if Al Michaels were broadcasting my life instead of the US men"s Olympic hockey team. "Do you believe in miracles? Yes!"
The second door-the door that was never open, not ever-showed a sliver of daylight, or whatever kind of light was coming through from the other side. Given the odds I was beating, it might as well have been the burning bush.
As silently as I could, I slipped into the adjoining room, closing both doors behind me and locking the one now facing me. I knew immediately I wasn"t barging in on anyone. The room was empty, with a neatly made king bed and no luggage lying around. I peeked into the bathroom. No dead body, either.
Let"s keep it that way, I thought.
My first instinct was to strip down to my boxers, crawl beneath the sheets, and simply play dumb should there be a knock on the door. I"d answer it while rubbing the sleep from my eyes and convince whoever owned those magic pliers that I was nothing more than an innocent bystander. A p.i.s.sed-off one at that, for having been woken up.
There was just one problem. Who the h.e.l.l flipped the door guard shut in the other room? The guy in the bathtub?
No, I had to get out of this room, too. Too risky, otherwise. And again, I had to time it just right.
Listening through the walls, I paced and waited. It was like a surreal game of musical doors instead of chairs, and it would"ve been funny if I hadn"t been so pessimistic about the penalty for losing.
Finally, the sound came. The door opening in the next room, and more importantly, the same door closing. That was my cue. As quietly as I could, I slipped back into the hallway. To h.e.l.l with the elevator. The stairs were right there, and I didn"t have to wait for them. I was out of there, lickety-split. At least, I should"ve been.
I couldn"t help myself, though. As I pa.s.sed the door to room 1701, I stopped and listened. I could hear a guy"s voice. At first, I thought he was talking to someone else in the room, that he hadn"t come alone. Then he made it clear he had. He was talking on a phone or some kind of radio.
"The kid"s still alive," he said. "I repeat, the kid is still alive."
CHAPTER 16.
I DIDN"T need any added incentive for what I planned to do next, but there she was anyway as I walked as casually as possible through the lobby of the Lucinda and out to the street.
The same wary-eyed woman behind the front desk wearing a turquoise blazer watched me step by step. Still, she didn"t say a word. That would change, of course, once she learned of the dead body in the bathtub seventeen floors up. She"d have plenty to say then, a description of me sure to be included.
"Did you notice anything or anyone out of the ordinary?" the crime scene detectives would ask her. With the help of Forensics, they would"ve already determined the time of death as during her shift, and quite possibly between the times I came and left.
Safely down the block, I dialed my own crime scene detective. As they say in both PR and politics, always get ahead of the story.
"Wait, slow down," said Detective Lamont from behind his desk. I could hear him through the phone shuffling papers, probably moving Claire"s file back in front of him.
I apologized. I was getting too far ahead of the story, talking a million words a minute. My heartbeat, still racing, was acting like a metronome for my mouth.
I stopped, took a deep breath, and began again to detail what had happened since I shook his hand on my way out of the Midtown North precinct house. "Talk to you soon," Lamont had told me. He"d had no idea just how soon.
I could tell now that I was trying his patience. The fact that Claire had left my apartment to go see a source did nothing to challenge what he knew-or, at least, thought he knew-to be true: that she was in the wrong place at the wrong time in the back of that taxi.
And why wouldn"t he believe that? I certainly had. The incident was designed that way, caught on video for all to see.
I told him about the phone call Claire had received, and how I"d figured out the address.
Lamont interrupted me. "Where are you going with all this?" he asked, wanting me to move the story along.
"To the Lucinda Hotel," I answered.
"Hurry up and get there."
I couldn"t blame the guy. It was late and he was tired. But I knew all would be forgiven with one sentence about room 1701.
"The guy in the bathtub is the guy who killed Claire," I said.
I could literally hear him sit bolt upright in his chair.
"Where are you right now?" he asked. No, demanded.
"Eighth Avenue and Thirty-Fourth."
"Don"t move, I"ll have it radioed right now. A cruiser will be there shortly," he said. "I"ll meet you at the hotel."
"Hold on, there"s one more thing," I said.
I was back to talking a million words a minute as I tried to explain the guy with the magic pliers. The more I listened to myself, the more I realized how crazy it must sound to Lamont. If it did, though, he didn"t let on. Instead, he cut to the chase, the only thing that mattered at the moment.
"Good guy or bad guy?" he asked.
"Bad guy," I said.
He paused for a moment. "Aren"t they all?"
Click.
CHAPTER 17.
FROM THE moment I first got the call from Claire"s sister, Ellen, so much had changed, and then changed again. Still, in some ways, I couldn"t help thinking I was right back where I"d started. With more questions than answers.
The kid is still alive.
As I waited for the cruiser courtesy of Lamont, I kept repeating the line in my head. It couldn"t literally be a kid, could it? I didn"t think so, but anything was possible. The night so far was a testament to that, and here we were rolling into the next day.
A few minutes later, I caught a flash of red and blue lights out of the corner of my eye. I turned to see my escorts pulling up along the curb on Eighth Avenue. The officer riding shotgun stepped out. He looked like a very young version of Kiefer Sutherland, albeit on some serious steroids. The guy was ripped and he knew it. Had the sleeves on his uniform been rolled up any higher, he would"ve officially been wearing a tank top.
"Trevor Mann?" he asked.
"Yeah."
He nodded at the door to the backseat. "Let"s go."
I climbed in and answered a rapid-fire succession of questions from him while his partner, a guy who didn"t resemble any actor I knew, took the turn onto Thirty-Fourth Street, driving slowly toward the front of the Lucinda.
Basically, I was confirming everything I"d told Lamont. The room number. The guy in the bathtub. The other guy who still might be in the room.
"And this other guy, you never actually saw him?" asked the officer.
"No, I just heard him through the door."
"What did he sound like? Black? White? Hispanic?"
"White," I said.
He turned to his partner behind the wheel and smirked. "Shoot the white guy."
They both chuckled as we pulled up in front of the hotel. Engine off, battery on. I reached for the door handle, thinking I was going inside with them. Silly me.
"Stay here," I was told.
It made sense. Of the three of us, I was the only one who didn"t have a 9mm pistol strapped to my belt. Besides, I was happy never to set foot inside the Lucinda again.
"Do me a favor, though," I said. "Could you turn off the flashers?"
The cop behind the wheel smiled and nodded. He understood. There might not have been a lot of foot traffic on the cusp of dawn, but there was still no need for me to look like a perp sitting in the backseat. Off went the flashers.
The two disappeared into the hotel as I did my best to keep my eyes open. I was exhausted, my lack of sleep suddenly crashing down on me. Point being, I had no idea how much time had pa.s.sed when I was jolted awake by the sound of knuckles rapping on the window. Kiefer"s doppelganger was waving for me to join him on the curb.
I stepped out, glancing quickly at his name plate. OFFICER BOWMAN, it read. The moment seemed to suggest that it was time I knew that.
"Was the other guy in the room gone?" I asked.
He nodded. It was the way he nodded, though. There was something else, more to it.
"How long did you wait before you called this in?" he asked.
"I didn"t wait," I said. "It was right away."
He nodded again. The same kind of nod.
"Follow me," he said.