Special Agent Angiuoni started for the door. “Someone will be watching, Mrs. Pierce. If you’re in any danger, just raise your good arm over your head if you need us.”
“My client is trussed up like an S-and-M prop,” Flair countered. “She’s in no danger.”
“Still.”
Flair rolled his eyes. Guy Angiuoni was first to leave, followed by the two guards. Flair was last. The door closed behind him. Megan took the seat across the table from him. Ray’s ankles were shackled to the chair, his arms to the table.
“Are you okay?” Ray asked her.
“I was attacked last night.”
“Who?”
She shook her head. “We’re not here about me.”
“Is that why you weren’t able to show at Lucy last night?”
Megan wasn’t sure how to answer that. “I wouldn’t have shown up anyway.”
He nodded as if he understood.
“Did you kill all those men, Ray?”
“No.”
“Did you kill Stewart Green?”
He didn’t reply.
“You found out he was hurting me, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“You cared about me. You even…” She stopped, started again. “You even loved me.”
“Yes.”
“Ray, I need you to tell me the truth now.”
“I will,” he said. “But you first.”
“What?”
When Ray met her eyes, she felt it everywhere.
“Cassie,” he said. “Did you kill Stewart Green?”
Broome didn ’t bother to ask Rudy follow-up questions.
He tried not to panic, but it wasn’t working. He told Rudy to stay at the club and call if Lorraine arrived. Without another word Broome ran back to his car, grabbed his gun, and hurried toward Lorraine’s house.
Please no, please no, please no…
He called his dispatcher for backup, but there was no way he’d wait. He sprinted all out now. His lungs burned. His breath reverberated in his own ears. His eyes grew wet in the morning air.
None of that mattered. Only one thing mattered.
Lorraine.
If something happened to her, if someone hurt her…
There were people out on the streets, all stumbling in the sun after a night basking in artificial light. Broome didn’t even glance at them.
Not Lorraine. Please, not Lorraine…
Broome veered to the right at the corner. Up ahead, he saw Lorraine’s house. He remembered the other time he’d been there, when he stayed for the night. Funny, how you miss the obvious. It had meant little to him, probably less to her, and now he cursed his stupidity.
With a surge of adrenaline, Broome picked up his pace, hopping the steps on the front stoop two at a time. He almost crashed into her door, ready to take it down with his shoulder, but he pulled up.
You don’t just crash in. He knew better than that. But he wasn’t about to wait either. He calmed himself and tried the front doorknob.
It was unlocked.
His heart skipped a beat. Would Lorraine be stupid enough to leave her front door unlocked in this neighborhood?
He didn’t think so.
He swung open the door slowly, the gun at the ready. The door squeaked in the morning air.
“Police!” he shouted. “Is anyone here?”
No reply.
He took another step into the house. “Lorraine?”
He could hear the fear in his own voice.
Please no, please no, please no…
His eyes took in the front room. It was completely unremarkable. There was a couch with matching love seat, the kind you could find in pretty much any highway furniture store. The TV was modest size by today’s standards. In true Atlantic City style, the clock on the wall had red dice instead of numbers.
There was a coffee table with three ashtrays showing old scenes of the Atlantic City Convention Hall on the Boardwalk. There was a small bar to the right with two barstools. Bottles of Smirnoff Vodka and Gordon’s London Dry Gin stood guard like two soldiers. The coasters were the same disposable ones used at La Creme.
“Anyone here? This is the police. Come out with your hands up.”
Still nothing.
The artwork on the walls featured spectacular reproductions of vintage burlesque posters. There was one from the Roxy in Cleveland, one for the Coney Island Red Hots, and right up front, in bright yellow, one that featured “Miss Spontaneous Combustion,” Blaze Starr appearing at the Globe in Atlantic City.
Lorraine’s place wasn’t very big or fancy, but it was so her. Broome knew that her bedroom was to the left, the bathroom to the right, the kitchen in the back. He hit the bedroom first. It was, he thought, something of a mess, looking more like a dressing room than a place to sleep. Lorraine’s flashy work clothes were mostly on dress dummies rather than hangers, but it almost seemed like a conscious design choice.
The bed, however, was still made.
Broome swallowed and moved back into the main room. There was no more time to waste. He hurried over to the kitchen. From a distance he could see the avocado-green refrigerator loaded with souvenir magnets. When he reached the door, Broome stopped short.
Oh no…
He looked down at the linoleum under the table and started shaking his head. He stared harder, hoping that something would change, but of course it didn’t.
The kitchen floor was drenched in blood.
“Cassie, did you kill Stewart Green?”
Ray looked up, finding Cassie’s gaze and holding it. He wanted to see her reaction to what he was about to say, to see, in the jargon of this damned city, if he could spot a “tell.”
“No, Ray, I didn’t kill him,” she said. “Did you?”
Ray watched her beautiful face, but there was nothing, just surprise at the question. He looked at her hard, and he believed her.
“Ray?”
“No, I didn’t kill him.”
“Then who did?”
Ray had to get to it now. He had to tell her the truth. The trouble was, now that he knew for sure that she hadn’t been the one, how should he word this?
A little late to worry about that.
“That night,” Ray began, “you trekked up to that spot. You saw Stewart Green lying by that big rock, and you thought he was dead.”
“We went over this, Ray.”
“Just bear with me.”
“Yes,” Cassie said. “I saw him and thought he was dead.”
“So you ran, right? You were scared. You thought you’d be blamed.”
