“You want me to set up anything with our support services? Want a shrink?”
Jeff shook his head.
“I don’t need anything like that.”
As they drove across midtown at night, a marked NYPD patrol unit stopped them at an intersection that was being blocked off. Cordelli tapped his horn and a uniform came to their car. Cordelli showed his detective’s badge.
“Sorry, Detective, you gotta wait. Rules are rules.”
Several minutes later the wail of sirens, the growl of police motorcycles, preceded the gleaming escort units of a VIP motorcade streaking by.
“Freakin’ UN meeting,” Cordelli muttered, waving to the cop who let him pass. “Yeah, yeah.” Cordelli maneuvered through the intersection. They went another ten blocks before they stopped in front of the Central Suites Inn on West Twenty-ninth.
Jeff didn’t move.
“You okay to go in?” Cordelli asked.
“No, but I’m going in.”
“Just take it easy. Keep your cell phone charged. You can call me at any hour. Try to get some rest. I’ll see you soon.”
After Jeff got out and Cordelli drove off he stood alone in the street.
He stared at the hotel’s entrance for a long, difficult moment as if watching a part of his life replay itself. It was only hours earlier that he’d walked through that lobby with Cole and Sarah, never dreaming that he would be walking back through it without them.
16
Jeff entered his hotel alone.
He kept telling himself this was not a dream, they were not out sightseeing or shopping and he would not meet up with them later.
Reality stabbed at him with such ferocity he stopped to steady himself against a wingback chair. But the world still turned, evening life in the lobby was normal. With his pulse throbbing Jeff forced himself to stay calm and breathe evenly as he approached the girl at the front desk.
“Yes, sir?”
“Any messages for Griffin in 1212?”
Her name tag said Micki. She typed rapidly on her keyboard.
“Nothing, sir.” She smiled.
Jeff noticed a small spike with paper messages near her keyboard.
“What about those?”
“They’re old ones that have been relayed and entered into our system. Is there anything else I can help you with, sir?”
“No. Thank you.”
Jeff went to the elevator. While waiting he was joined by two women who were well into their sixties; they chatted softly about their day as the elevator ascended.
“Did your group see Central Park, wasn’t it lovely?”
“Oh, it was.”
“This is such an exciting city, full of urban grit, isn’t it?” one of the ladies said to Jeff.
He forced a half smile. “Yes, it is.”
The women stepped off on the third floor and Jeff was grateful to be alone as the car droned to the twelfth. The doors opened to two men, about his height, swarthy, unshaven, late twenties, early thirties. Surprised to see Jeff, they were eager to get on and engaged in some awkward sidestepping, brushing against him as he got off, leaving a hint of mild cologne as he glimpsed their reflections in the large mirror. They seemed to be watching him with unusual intensity.
He shrugged it off.
A couple of weird tourists.
He walked down the hall to his room. The floor was quiet but he hesitated at his door.
His hand shook when he went to insert the plastic key card. He inhaled and got it to work on his second try, stepped in and hit the lights.
Empty.
The room had been made. The beds were turned down crisply. Fresh towels were folded in the polished bathroom. He conjured up memories of Sarah, Cole, himself, preparing to leave earlier that morning.
He stood there, unable to move, unable to think, and stared at nothing, like the sole survivor left behind in the aftermath. He began to inventory the room and noticed something was not right.
Some of Sarah’s clothes were still nicely folded, a ghostly reminder of her, but some of his clothes had spilled from their bags. Jeff allowed that maids repositioned items to clean but that was not how he and Sarah had left things. Was it? Or had someone rummaged through their clothes, looking for something?
Jeff went to the compartment where he’d left extra cash and traveler’s checks, relieved they were still there. But soon unease pinged in the back of his mind.
He detected a smell beyond the carpet freshener and disinfectant tile cleaner, something familiar, a weakening trace of cologne.
Where had he smelled it before?
The men at the elevator.
Was it the same cologne in his room?
Jeff’s heart rate picked up before he recalled that he’d brushed against one of them. Did he smell it on his shirt? Maybe he shouldn’t have refused Cordelli’s offer to have cops stay with him. Maybe he should call him.
Jeff started a shower to clear his mind.
He checked to ensure his cell phone’s volume was up and set it beside the room’s wireless phone, on a shelf near the shower.
And like it was with Lee Ann, he was helpless again.
What should he do? What could he do?
Jeff made the water ice-cold to feel something other than useless and sorry for himself. His skin went numb.
But he endured.
He closed his hands into fists and hammered the walls.
