Alice rose and heard a gasp behind her. She whirled, bringing the Tanfoglio to bear.
At the end of the hallway, a woman in a hotel uniform stood behind a room service cart, hands clasped to her mouth.
Alice sagged. Regret tinged her as she met the woman’s eyes. “Oh child...”
* * * * *
Alice slipped quietly through the door on the twenty-eighth floor. Mike and Vincenzo waited. As she put the Tanfoglio in her handbag, she looked up at Vincenzo.
He raised a brow at her.
Alice nodded. “Found two of them. The other three are not in their rooms. There are three bodies for the cleaners to deal with.”
Vincenzo nodded and turned away, his hand going to his earpiece.
Mike stepped forward. “If you only found two of them, how come there are three bodies to clean up?”
Alice looked up at him sadly. “A woman from room service entered the hallway just as I dealt with the second man.”
Mike’s jaw dropped. “And you killed her?”
Alice set her jaw. “I could not leave any witnesses, Michael. You knew that.”
Mike looked aghast. “Yeah, I knew that. Sure. But I never expected...” He furrowed his brow. “You killed an innocent woman?”
“It could not be helped,” Alice said. She pushed the button to call the elevator.
Mike stalked back and forth. Tension crept into his arms and he clenched and unclenched his fists.
As it was after midnight, the elevator was quick to arrive. It dinged as it came to a stop and the doors opened.
“We had better get on the elevator. Surveillance will be back online momentarily.” She put her hand on his upper arm, trying to shepherd him into the elevator.
Irritated, he threw her arm off and stalked into the elevator. She stepped in behind him and hit the button for the parkade below the hotel.
No witnesses.
He fumed silently all the way down to the parkade. Alice stood beside him. She could feel the waves of anger coming off him.
When the doors opened in the parkade they stepped off and she said, “Michael...”
He put his hand out to stop her. “Don’t,” he growled. “This is not what I signed up for.”
She pursed her lips. “You did not sign up for anything, Michael. I told you from the start I could do this on my own. That you did not have to accompany me.”
“Well, now I wish I hadn’t, Jacs. This is not a side of you I’d ever hoped to see.”
“And what side is that, precisely?”
“The cold-blooded murderous side. I could arrest you right now, y’know.”
“Michael Fredericks, you know bloody well that arresting me would be a total waste of time.”
“It’s the least I could do for that woman you killed.”
“What in the name of all that is holy did you think I would be doing up there? You know what my role in the church is. Why, when faced with the actuality of it, are you now objecting to what I do?”
“You killed an innocent woman, Jacs!” he roared. “How can you live with that?”
“I have been living with far more than that for over five hundred years!”
“Yeah? Well, you may be able to live with it, but I can’t.”
“I’m afraid that you will have to, Michael. It’s already done.”
“No, it’s not done, Jacs! I’m done.”
He turned and stalked across the parking lot to his car. He did not look back before he got in. He started the car and the tires squealed as the vehicle rocketed out of the parking space.
Alice stared at the empty space. It always went this way whenever she tried to share her life with someone. She hated that it did. She always thought that maybe this time would be different.
It never was.
Michael would join the long line of disapproving former friends and lovers. She had hoped that with him being a policeman, he would be more...tolerant.
She checked her watch. It was almost twelve-thirty. The bar would still be open. She turned away from the now-empty parking stall and pressed the call button for the elevator. The doors opened immediately.
She went up to the lobby and from there into the lounge. She took a stool at the end of the bar and waited for the barman to serve her.
The barman strolled down after a couple of minutes with a scowl on his face. “Sister. What’ll it be?”
“Old Bushmill’s. Neat.”
He was clearly surprised at her order. He poured the drink, his gaze flitting from the glass to her. He smiled as he placed it in front of her. “Wanna run a tab?”
She nodded. “Quite so.” She downed the shot in one gulp. “And a refill, please.”
His eyes bulged. He took the glass and put another shot in it. Then he punched the drink into the computer behind the bar, snatched the tab from the printer and brought both down to her. “Pope’s visit got you down?”
“Something like that, yes.”
“Don’t like the spit and polish routine?”
“I am not in need of conversation at the moment, thank you, barman. I’ll just sit here, if you have no objections.”
He looked deflated and shrugged. “Up to you, Sister. Just trying to be friendly.”
“I have had my fill of friendly for the moment, thank you.”
“You let me know when you want another.” He retreated to the other end of the bar.
Alice looked down at the whiskey in her glass and then up at the sporting event on the large flat screen television above the back bar.
She checked the time on her watch. Twelve-forty. This promised to be a longer evening than she had originally anticipated. Perhaps, with any luck at all, she might spot Buscaglia or his other two henchmen while she sat here. That, at least, would make the time worthwhile.
She wondered briefly where they were and why they were not in their rooms. Surely, this late in the evening, they could not have had more pressing matters than sleep.
Just before one a.m., the bartender wandered down to her end of
