Covet

Christ, if only his security system at home had the same kind of monitoring shit his office did. Then he'd have a video of every room, twenty-four/seven.

The chiming of keys announced the arrival of a guard. “DiPietro, your lawyer is here.”

Vin got up off the bench, and as the door slid open with a clang, he stepped out and put his hands behind his back, presenting himself to the guard for cuffing.

Which seemed to surprise the guy with the keys, but not the ones who'd just witnessed Vin be all ready to Rocky it with the motherfucker.

There was a click, click and then he and the badge walked down a hall to another bank of iron bars that had to be released by someone on the far side. After that they hung another right and a left and stopped in front of a door that was something out of a high school, the thing painted blech beige, its window marked with chicken wire embedded in the glass.

Inside the interrogation room, Mick Rhodes was leaning back against the far wall, his wingtips crossed, his double-breasted suit the kind that Mr. Personality would also have approved of.

Mick stayed quiet as the guard released the cuffs and ducked out of the room. After the door shut, the lawyer shook his head. “Never expected this one.”

“That makes two of us.”

“What the hell happened, Vin?” Mick then nodded up at a security camera, indicating that attorney-client privilege was probably more of a theory than an actuality here in the station house.

Vin sat down at the little table, taking one of the two chairs. “No fucking clue. I came home around midnight and the cops were in my place—which had been trashed. They told me Devina was in the hospital and she said I was the one who'd put her there. My alibi is airtight, though. I was at my office for the whole afternoon and into the evening. I can get them videos of me sitting at my desk for hours.”

“I've seen the police report. She said she was attacked at ten o'clock.” Shit. He'd assumed it had happened earlier.

“Right, we're going to talk about all that where-were-you stuff a little later,” Mick murmured, as if he knew the answer to that one was complicated. “I've pulled some strings. Your bail's going to be set within the hour. It'll be a hundred thousand or so.”

“If they give me my wallet, I can do that right now.”

“Good. I'll take you home—”

“Only to get clothes.” He never wanted to see the duplex again, much less stay there. “I'm going to a hotel.”

“Don't blame you. And if you find you need some privacy from the media, you can stay with me in Greenwich.”

“I just need to talk to Devina.” He needed to find out not only who had busted her up, but who the hell she'd been sleeping with. He had a lot of friends…a man like him with money like his? He had friends all over the fucking place.

“Let's get you out of here first, okay? And then we'll talk about next steps.”

“I didn't do it, Mick.”

“Do you think I would be dressed up like this on Sunday morning if I thought otherwise? For God's sake, man, I could be cozied up with the Times right now.”

“At least that's a priority I can respect.”

And Mick was true to his word: Thanks to a quick hundred grand taken off his debit card, Vin was out of the police station and getting into his buddy's Mercedes by ten thirty a.m.

Getting released was hardly cause for celebration, though. As they went over to the Commodore, Vin's head was an utter mess, spinning out of control as he tried to find some kind of inner logic to the whole thing.

“Vin, buddy, you're going to listen to me because I'm not only your frat brother, so you can trust me, but I'm also your lawyer. Do not go to the hospital. Do not talk to Devina. If she calls or reaches out to you, do not interact with her.” The Mercedes eased to a halt in front of the Commodore. “Do you have an alibi for where you were between ten and twelve last night?”

Staring out the windshield, Vin remembered exactly where he had been…and what he'd been doing. The decision was clear. “Not that I can give the police. No.”

“But you were with someone?”

“Yes.” Vin opened the door. “I won't be involving her—”

“Her?”

“You can reach me on my cell phone.”

“Wait, who is this 'her'?”

“None of your business.”

Mick braced his forearm on the steering wheel and leaned across the seat. “If you want to save your ass, you may have to reconsider that.”

“I didn't hurt Devina. And I have no idea why she would want to frame me for this shit.”

“You don't? She know about this 'her' of yours?”

Vin shook his head. “No, she doesn't. Call me.”

“Don't go to that hospital, Vin. Promise me.”

“Not where I'm headed next.” He shut the door and strode over to the Commodore's entrance. “Trust me.”

Chapter 26

The St. Francis Hospital complex was laid out with all the logic of an ant farm. Reflecting an iterative architectural philosophy, like so many medical centers of its kind, the buildings that covered its acreage were a hodgepodge of styles, and they were positioned where they could be squeezed in, like round pegs shoved into square holes. On the campus, you had a little bit of everything from Gothic brick, to institutional steel and glass, to sprawling be-columned stone, with the only commonality being that everything was cramped.

Jim parked his truck in a lot next to a fifteen-floor high-rise, and figured this big daddy was a good bet to start with, as it was where he'd been admitted as an inpatient from the emergency room. Cutting through the rows of cars, he crossed the lane and went under the porte cochere, entering the building through a set of retracting glass doors.

At the information desk, he said, “I'm looking for Devina Avale.”

The hundred-and-twelve-year-old blue-hair manning the station smiled up at him so warmly, he felt like an asshole for reducing her to nothing but her age. “Let me find her room for you.”

As her twiglike fingers did a hunt and a peck over the keyboard, he thought of how much faster his own had been back at his apartment. He'd figured the name Devina was unusual enough in the modeling trade that if he Googled it on his laptop, he'd find Vin's girlfriend—and what do you know, it wasn't tough. Although she went by her first name in her professional trade, she and Vin had been photographed together at a fund-raiser for the Caldwell Courier Journal about six months ago, and there it was, Avale.

“She's in twelve fifty-three.”

“Thank you, ma'am,” he said with a little bow.

“You are so welcome. Just go up on those elevators by the gift shop.”

He nodded and strode over to the lifts. There were a bunch of people waiting in a group, all of whom were tracking the little number displays over the three doors, and he joined the fray.

Seemed to be a race between the one all the way on the right and the one in the middle.

The center elevator won, and he piled in with the rest of the people, joining the scramble of reach arounds as he punched in his floor and then oriented himself facing the digital number readout above. Bing. Bing. Bing. Doors opened. People shuffled. Bing. Doors opened. More shuffling.

He got out on twelve and did not say anything to anyone at the nurses' station. It had been easy to get this far, maybe too easy, and he wasn't volunteering for any bottlenecks. Hell, it wouldn't surprise him to find a CPD uni