To Wilde, “Next time I tell you I know something because of my intuition, I want to see a little respect from your end.”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“That’s better.”
“I’ll give you even more respect if you can reach into your bag of intuition and pull the guy’s name out.”
She ran a finger down his chest.
“For that I’d need my crystal ball. Unfortunately, it’s in the shop right now.”
“In that case why don’t you do this? Find out if your little lover-boy friend Robert Mitchum was in New York when the woman got dropped.”
She frowned.
“He’s not the one.”
“In that case, indulge me.”
53
Waverly had never seen murder in someone’s eyes but recognized it as crystal as crystal can be in that last, long, hateful look from Bristol. He would kill her. Nothing else mattered other than killing her and feeding the rage in his brain.
He was a snake.
She was a mouse.
The sun was bright but the railing on the back of the trolley was cold.
The wind blew straight into her bones.
The city looked the same as always but was different.
It was cold.
It was foreign.
It was as if it could care less if she was alive or dead.
Suddenly a hand grabbed her arm.
“Lady, you’re too close to the edge.”
She looked over.
It was a young Asian kid in a baseball cap, about ten or eleven.
“You’re going to fall off.”
He directed her into the guts of the trolley. The wind disappeared except for what came through the windows-just enough to sweep her hair.
She looked at him.
His eyes were kind.
They were the opposite of Bristol’s.
The city softened.
Her bones warmed.
“Thanks,” she said.
She made her way to the Green Dragon Oriental Massage to find that Su-Moon hadn’t returned yet, so she waited in the woman’s apartment and kept one eye on the street from behind closed blinds. Something happened she didn’t expect, namely Sean Waterfield came into sight.
He disappeared into the massage parlor for a time, then reemerged and leaned against a building on the sunny side of the street.
Waverly paced for a few minutes then headed down.
The man’s face was serious.
“Bristol calmed down. I’m not fired but we need to get those photos back to him,” he said.
“Why?”
“Because they’re his,” Waterfield said.
“They prove he knew Kava. Not just knew her, but knew her intimately.”
Waterfield hardened his face.
“I’m going to be honest with you,” he said. “I have my job back but only if I return with that envelope.”
He let the words hang.
Waverly retreated in thought, deciding.
“Let me ask you something,” she said. “Was Bristol in Denver last weekend?”
He scratched his head.
“Not that I know of. He never mentioned anything. We don’t have any clients there-”
“Did you see him in town, last weekend I mean?”
Waterfield shrugged.
“He was out of the office Friday. As for Saturday and Sunday, I didn’t go in, so I don’t know. He might have been there, he might not have.”
Waverly focused.
“He was in Denver,” she said. “I’ll bet anything. He flew in Friday and killed a woman there Friday night. Then he flew back Saturday or Sunday.”
“A woman was killed there?”
She nodded.
“The same way as Kava,” she said. “She was dropped from a roof. She was wearing a red dress, the same as Kava. A lot of his pictures had women in dresses blowing up. That’s how they’d look if they were falling.”
She waited.
Waterfield retreated in thought.
“This is a serious game you’re playing,” he said. “Give me the photos, I’ll return them to Bristol and you two can go your separate ways.” He held her hand. “I’m not doing this so much to keep my job but more to prevent anything from happening to you.”
“What does that mean?”
“What do you think it means?” A beat then, “Don’t back him into a corner.”
“He killed Kava.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes I do.”
“All you know is that they had a relationship,” Waterfield said. “In hindsight, he had the exact same relationship with lots of women.”
Right.
True.
“Here’s what I’m going to do,” she said. “I’m going to keep the photos. I’m going to find out who the other women are besides Kava. I’m going to find out if they’re alive or whether they met some strange demise.”
Waterfield shook his head.
“Go tell him,” Waverly added. “Tell him exactly what I’m going to do. Tell him one more thing, too. Tell him to get that look out of his eyes.”
“What look?”
“Just tell him, he’ll know what I’m talking about.”
Waterfield shifted his feet, looked down at them and then back up.
“I guess this is it between us.”
