Mid-morning, River noticed something in his peripheral vision, way off in the distance, on top of one of those abandoned buildings over in the old warehouse district. It was a motion up on the roof.
He didn’t stare at it.
Instead he headed inside, got behind the window covering and pulled the area in with a pair of binoculars. The parapet came into view, distinguishable from the side of the building, but nothing moved. It hadn’t been his imagination. He stayed with the scene, expecting Vaughn Spencer’s face to pop up.
A minute passed.
Then a head appeared.
The face belonged to a woman.
She looked familiar.
Where had he seen her before?
Was she working with Spencer?
She brought binoculars up to her eyes and shifted them around until she got her bearings on the boxcar. River dropped back, stepped outside and stretched. Then he picked up a rock and threw it at a pigeon. January came out of the adjacent boxcar zipping her pants.
“I need that asshole to come for us,” she said. “Sitting around and waiting for him is driving me nuts.”
“Don’t turn your head,” River said. “To the north there’s an old industrial area. A woman’s up there on one of the roofs watching us with binoculars.”
January started to turn.
“Don’t look,” River said.
She obeyed.
“Who is it?”
“I don’t know but I’m going to find out.”
“How?”
“Sneak up from behind.”
“I’m coming with you.”
River considered it.
“One of us needs to stay here,” he said. “If we both leave she might too.”
“You stay here,” she said. “You’re the target. Let me go get her.”
River studied her.
“Are you up for it, after last night?”
She nodded.
“I’m fine.”
River frowned.
“It’s too risky,” he said. “Spencer might be there.”
“Did you see him?”
“No.”
January put her arms around River’s neck, brought her mouth up to his ear and nibbled on it. “I’ll take the car and head the opposite way,” she said. “After I’m good and gone and out of sight, I’ll swing around to the back and park way off where she won’t see or hear anything. Then I’ll close in by foot. You stay here and keep her focused on the prize.”
River ran his fingers down her back.
It was risky.
Still, there was no way everything was going to come to a resolution without risk.
“Okay but be careful,” he said.
They stepped back inside.
January slipped River’s gun into her jeans and draped the T-shirt over it.
“When you get her, signal me from the roof,” River said. “I’ll head over on foot. Bring her down to the ground level but stay in the building. Once I get there, you can tell me where the car is. I’ll go get it and bring it over. Then we’ll get her in the trunk.”
January kissed him.
“Deal,” she said.
118
Wilde’s office was dark and undisturbed when he got there. No one had broken in. He kick-started the coffee machine, dangled a cigarette in his lips and called Secret St. Rain at her hotel.
She actually answered.
“You dropped off the face of the earth,” he said.
“Sorry.”
“Where have you been?”
“It’s complicated.”
“We need to talk.”
A tone must have been in his voice because she said, “About what?”
“About you not really being Secret St. Rain,” he said. “About you being Emmanuelle LeFavre.”
A pause.
“How’d you find out?”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “What matters is that you lied to me. What I want to know now is how many more lies were piled on top of that one.”
Silence.
“Tell me none,” he said.
“I can’t do that. I’m sorry Bryson, I really am. I didn’t mean for things to get like this.”
The line went dead.
Two minutes later the door opened.
London stuck her head in, saw Wilde was alone and ran to him. She wrapped her arms around his body and laid her head on his chest. Her blood trembled. Her breath was quick. She wore the same clothes as last night.
“I thought you were dead,” she said.
“What happened?”
“Nothing, that’s the problem. The taxi guy dropped me off at the phone booth but the call never came,” she said. “I waited an hour. Then a car stopped on the opposite side of the street. I ran. I didn’t wait to find out what was about to happen.”
Wilde rubbed her back.
“It’s okay.”
“I was too scared to go home,” she said. “I went to your house. You never showed up. I figured you were dead.”
Wilde shook his head.
“I almost was. He took a shot but not a good one. I drove all over the damn city looking for you,” he said. “Then I waited outside your house.”
She exhaled.
“Do you think he killed Alexa?”
