greet Sparks. “I can’t take much more of this.”
“There’s your girl Kristen.” Rogan nodded toward a spot not far from the jazz quartet in the corner of the room. They worked their way through the crowd toward her.
“Detectives, my boss will not be happy to see you here.”
“I’m sure he won’t. If you could find a way to pull him aside, we can be discreet in the hallway. There’s no need for this to be uncomfortable.” Ellie said it as if she had any authority to force a confrontation.
“Fine. I’ll do my best.”
Kristen interrupted Sparks’s conversation with an older, well-dressed couple. His eyes flashed toward them as he headed for the exit. They took their cue to follow.
Sparks did not waste any time once they were on the opposite side of the lobby outside the ballroom.
“Give me one reason why I shouldn’t call my lawyer right now and enjoin you from having any further contact with me.”
“Because we would move to have your favorite judge, Paul Bandon, disqualified from hearing any issues involving you or this case.”
“Now what kind of paranoid theory have you come up with?”
“You had to know we’d eventually ask ourselves why Bandon took such a special interest in your case,” Ellie said.
“I don’t think he had a particularly strong interest until you essentially perjured yourself in his courtroom, Detective.”
Ellie steeled herself to accomplish what they had come here to do. For months, Sam Sparks had been under her skin. Now it was their turn to slide beneath his. “We know why you wanted access to the evidence involving Mancini’s date the night he was murdered.”
“As I believe my attorney explained, I wanted my team to follow through on any steps you might have missed in your zealousness to focus attention on me.”
“It’s all about the photographs we used during the court hearing. You saw the open cabinet in the photograph of the bathroom and realized there was a witness. Someone knows what happened in your apartment that night, and you don’t want us to find her. We know why Bandon was willing to bend over backward for you. We know about Prestige Parties.”
Sparks had retained his usual self-possessed demeanor, but at her mention of the escort service, his eyes darted toward the alumni event as if someone there might save him from this conversation. She had been right. Something about Prestige Parties linked him to Mancini’s murder and to Paul Bandon.
“You may think you know something, Detective, but until you’re ready to put your money where your mouth is and file charges against me, you should keep your theories to yourself. My lawyer could have a field day with you in a slander suit.”
“We’ll be quiet, Sparks, but that won’t mean we’re not working. And listening to people who aren’t so silent.”
“And what exactly is that supposed to mean?”
“You should ask yourself how much you trust the people who’ve been so eager to help you.” She needed to plant doubts. She needed Sparks to wonder how much pressure a man like Paul Bandon could resist. She needed him to think that Bandon might admit he’d been pressured to show preferential treatment. “You should ask yourself if your secrets are safe.”
She saw it then. A crack in the effortless facade. A hint of apprehension in that otherwise omnipresent stare of resolved confidence. He was no longer certain he was in control.
“Enjoy the rest of your night, Mr. Sparks. We’ll be in touch.”
As they took the stairs to the main lobby, she said to Rogan, “You were awfully quiet back there.”
“I thought you needed to do that on your own.”
He was right. She had. The tables were turned. She had gone toe to toe with Sparks and hadn’t broken. Now he was the one with something to worry about.
Outside the hotel on Fifty-seventh Street, Rogan threw her the keys to the Crown Vic. “You sure you want the night shift?”
“Absolutely.” She was ready to see where Sam Sparks was heading next.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
10:43 P.M.
Twenty-two minutes. It had been exactly twenty-two minutes since she took the keys from Rogan.
In what was probably the fourth of the twenty-two minutes, Ellie had ducked into the Borders on the corner. A guard was about to lock the door but made an exception when she’d flashed her badge and pleaded for caffeine. She left one minute later, a large black coffee in hand. Once she was in the car, she took a U-turn and parked on the north, hotel side of Fifty-seventh Street, just west of Park Avenue. Sparks would likely have a driver, and the driver would pull up to the front of the hotel. She was poised to follow.
For the remainder of the twenty-two minutes, her gaze floated between the hotel entrance, her watch, the six awaiting black limos she’d counted between Park and Madison, and—just to help the time pass—the ascending floors of the Four Seasons’ limestone exterior. Ellie had counted fifty-two on the way up, and was on thirty-one on the way down when she spotted Sam Sparks leaving the hotel, Kristen Woods at his side.
She looked at her watch. Twenty-two minutes. Not so fast to be proof of a panic. Not so slow that she should write off the possibility.
One of the six limo drivers—this one double-parked not a hundred feet from the hotel—hopped into his car, pulled forward to the curb, hopped out again, and dashed to the opposite side of the car to open the back door for Sparks.
Ellie started the engine and pulled into traffic four cars behind the limo on Fifty-seventh Street. Without signaling, the limo took a right at the light to head north on Madison Avenue. She followed. Traffic was moving smoothly, and the limo made good time in sync with the lights. She maneuvered into a different lane to get a closer position.
They’d hoped that the confrontation in the hotel might trigger a meeting between Sparks and Bandon. As they continued north on Madison, Ellie worried that the only act in which she’d be catching Sparks red-handed tonight was a return to his town house on Seventy-seventh, but she reminded herself that Bandon also lived on the Upper East Side.
At Seventy-third Street, the driver shifted into the left lane. Sparks’s place was between Madison and Fifth Avenue. Bandon was farther east on Park. He was definitely going home.
When the limo lurched through a yellow light at Seventy-sixth, she chose to stop at the red rather than risk flagging her tail. She watched as the light at Seventy-seventh turned red. The limo stopped. Still no left-turn signal, but the driver hadn’t used his blinker back at the hotel either.
Her light changed to green and she hit her blinker to hang a right to take Park Avenue back to the precinct. But something kept her from tapping the gas. She’d waited twenty-two minutes and driven twenty blocks. She’d stick it out until the limo turned onto Sparks’s block.
The light at Seventy-seventh turned green. But the limo didn’t turn. It went straight. So did she, maneuvering into the left lane to follow.
She trailed behind the limo as it turned left on Eighty-first, then another quick left, south on Fifth Avenue. Had the driver spotted her? She hung back, pulling into the loading zone of an apartment complex on Eighty-first, just in case. She could pause here and catch up after the turn.
She forced herself to count eight full beats and then made a left on Fifth Avenue, holding her breath until she spotted her target. The limo was turning right into the parking entrance for the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The museum was dead. Maybe Sparks was turning around in the hope of losing her tail. Or maybe he was meeting someone in the garage. It was open to nonmuseum parking after hours, and if darkened garages worked
