still moving without you and you’ll never be able to get back on. But you’ve got to trust someone else to steer the ride for a few hours.”
She nodded quietly. When she turned on her side to face him, he wrapped his arms around her.
Ellie’s last long-term boyfriend, the banker, always expected her to turn off the job once she took off her uniform, but the fact that Max was asking her to take a breather actually meant something to her. One of the traits that had initially drawn her to him was his shared experience in a job that breaks the heart. They spent their days surrounded by the worst kind of human damage. They couldn’t see the cases they’d seen—the pain, the violence, the wholly avoidable infliction of harm by one person upon another—without allowing that world to become some small part of themselves. Immersion in the lives of people who become a part of the criminal justice system infects the psyche. Max shared the virus with her. But now even he was worried that she wasn’t coping.
She allowed herself to be kissed initially and then felt herself responding to the feel of his tongue against hers, his hand on her hip, the tilt of his pelvis beneath the sheets.
Then just as quickly as her mind registered the warmth building deep in her abdomen, she realized her thoughts about the case had escaped from their cage. This time it was Max who pulled back. He could tell she wasn’t there with him. He reached for her cell on the nightstand.
“You want to call Rogan to be sure?”
She panted like a happy puppy, and flipped the phone open. Rogan picked up after one ring.
“So…damn…bored.”
“Nothing?”
“Sparks was in the office all day except for lunch at Michael’s and a couple walk-throughs on new builds. I’m following his town car now, but I reached out to an investigator I know at the DA’s office. According to him, Bandon’s still on the bench, so who knows where Sparks is taking me.”
“I’ll call you in an hour to figure out where to make the switch?”
“No problem.”
Ellie flipped the phone shut and rolled toward Max. She kissed him, softly at first and then more urgently. And then, before she even realized her mind had been wandering again, she suddenly sat up.
She knew whom she needed to call, and it wasn’t Rogan.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
6:04 P.M.
Stacy had instructed tonight’s client to meet her at the bar at Gotham. The Alfred Portale restaurant was more upscale than the dives she frequented with friends, but for the business at hand, it offered two clear advantages.
The first were its bartenders, Mark and Jill. Some places would balk about the same woman regularly using their establishment for the briefest of drink dates with an array of strange men. But three months ago, Jill had greeted her with a drink and a comment, both served straight up. The drink was Bombay Sapphire. The comment was, “I hope you know what you’re doing, woman. Promise you’ll be careful.” Mark had followed up with a smile and a nod. From that point forward, Stacy had never worried about getting thrown out, not when Mark or Jill was there.
Of course, Stacy could avoid the risks of being eighty-sixed by simply switching up her meeting places, but few bars offered Gotham’s second advantage: the view. Thanks to the bar’s proximity to the front of the restaurant, and the front of the restaurant’s glass exterior, she enjoyed a clear shot of the street from a seat at the bar. Had she arrived early enough, as she usually did, she could monitor the client’s approach to make sure he arrived alone.
But because she had not arrived early, she now stood on the outside of the glass looking in at the crowded bar. Mark was jiggling a martini shaker over his right shoulder, and Jill was uncorking a bottle of wine. She scanned the bar for singles among the couples and foursomes waiting for dinner tables. She spotted two men alone, one at the far end of the bar facing the entrance, another who in profile appeared to be reading a newspaper.
She couldn’t get a good look at the face of the man farthest from her, but she could tell he was large. She hoped he wasn’t the one. Part of the way she had adjusted to sex with strangers was to think of them not as people, but as objects. Mannequins. Human props. That kind of detachment was easiest with generic bodies. Scars, birthmarks, obesity—those imperfections reminded her of the humanity beneath the skin.
She focused her attention instead on the man with the newspaper. Short hair. Middle-aged. Generic. Unremarkable. He’d be the better choice.
As she reached for the door, he turned to look outside. He noticed her. Raised his eyebrows as if he’d been expecting her. He was the guy.
But before she even realized why she was doing it, she dropped her hand from the door’s handle. Something about the man was familiar. She’d seen him before.
He was still looking at her. He knew she was there, but she couldn’t bring herself to enter the restaurant. Where had she seen him?
She focused on his face—too light for the ridiculous head of dark hair that was surely a piece. And then suddenly she saw him again, this time in the two-dimensional image of a photograph.
She turned and retreated on Twelfth Street as quickly as she could in her stupid new shoes. She looked behind her, praying that he hadn’t followed her. She took an immediate right at the corner, heading south on University.
She knew where she’d spotted the man before. He was in one of the photographs the blond detective had brought to her apartment.
She wound her way through the East Village—south on University, east on Eleventh, south on Broadway, east on Ninth—glancing behind her every half block. Still no sign of the man she’d seen at Gotham, the man she’d seen in the picture.
She stepped off the curb to cross Second Avenue, and the left strap on her new pumps slipped, pulling the shoe from her foot and nearly sending her out into the street, belly-first in front of oncoming traffic. She pulled her shoe from her other foot, scooped up both in one hand, and dashed across the street on her bare feet.
From the corner on the other side, she looked behind her again. No sight of the man on Ninth. No sight of him on Third. He’d seen her, she was sure of that. What troubled her most was that he’d seemed to recognize her. How had he recognized her? She was certain she’d never laid eyes on him before, other than in that photograph the detective had shown her.
Even if he’d somehow discovered her real name—if he was the same man who killed Miranda, he could have gotten it out of her—how would he have known what she looked like? Her number was unlisted. So was her address. But her address was on her driver’s license. And so was her photograph. But those records were private. Weren’t they? Or was all of it available on the Internet these days? She didn’t think so, but wasn’t sure.
She tried to convince herself that he hadn’t really recognized her. He had looked at her that way because she was an attractive brunette walking into the restaurant alone, and he was expecting an attractive brunette to walk in on her own. Once she’d turned the other way, he probably assumed she wasn’t the woman he was waiting for—just some passerby who’d mistakenly grabbed the wrong door.
She stole another glance behind her. No sign of him. He hadn’t followed her. He hadn’t recognized her. He didn’t know who she was and therefore could not know where she lived. She’d never see him again. Her lesson had been learned. She’d close her Craig’s List account and live off her savings for a couple of months while she found some other way to pay the rent. If worse came to worst, she’d turn back to her parents.
One more glance to be sure. No sign of the man, but she did spot a yellow cab with its rooftop medallion number lit. She waved her shoes in the air and climbed into the backseat when the driver stopped.
Safe in the backseat, she slipped her pumps back onto her blackened feet. The miniature television installed in the seat back in front of her was muted, but she recognized the duo of anchors from the local ABC affiliate. The
