just a bit. Taylor didn’t try to escape him.
“Good, now behave, Taylor. I’m going to help this little fellow here get to his feet, and then we’re all going back to your fiancee’s room. Seems to me that’s the safest place for Demos here. You wouldn’t want to disturb her now, would you, Taylor?”
“He deserves to have his belly ripped out.”
“Possibly,” Barry said, eyeing Demos up and down. “Yeah, just possibly. Come along, let’s get back to the lady’s room.” He looked up to see the sea of shocked and scared faces. “Show’s over, folks. Go about your business now. Hey, what’s that smell?”
Taylor walked on one side of Sergeant Kinsley, Demos, still bent over, on the other side.
“I didn’t do anything, Taylor,” Demos said, feeling safer with Kinsley between them.
“Just hold your horses, sir,” Barry said easily. “Just wait until we get in the lady’s room. Then I know Taylor won’t rip your throat out.”
“Oh, God,” Demos said.
“Now, sir, trust me. I’m an officer of the law.”
“Oh, God,” Demos said again.
Once in Lindsay’s room, Taylor immediately went to her bedside. She was deeply asleep. There was only the hissing sound of the lung machine.
He turned back to Barry. “In early November Demos hired me to keep an eye on her—she’s called Eden, and she’s a model—because he was into the New Jersey boys for a big amount of bucks. He hadn’t paid so they threatened to take out some of his players, not just him, more’s the pity. I told him to pay because if anything happened to her he’d be responsible and I’d call the cops. Do you remember that man who was found beaten up in his car trunk near the Lincoln Tunnel? Well, that was the boys’ demonstration. It was the director of the commercial shoot Eden was in. The guy recovered, lucky for birdbrain here. Demos then swore to me he’d paid up and he’d never do it again. Now, you little scum, who’s coming down on you this time? Who has your balls in a vise now? How much are you in for?”
Demos was finally standing straight. He’d regained some sense of himself. He looked Taylor straight in the eye, Lindsay’s hospital bed between them, ignored the sergeant, and said, “I kept my word, Taylor. Do you think I would ever take a chance again on having Eden hurt? My God, she’s so—”
“Trusting?”
“Yeah, that and—”
“Gentle? Vulnerable?”
“Maybe, but I’d say she’s just plain nice and caring. I love her, man. Oh, not like you do, because she’s a woman after all, but I feel spiritual love for her.” That sounded like a crock, and Demos quickly retrenched. “What I mean is that I care about her. So does Glen. Look at her. I wouldn’t be responsible for that. Never, I swear it.”
He started to cry.
“Jesus,” Taylor said. He looked at Barry. He sighed. “He’s telling the truth, damn him.”
“You should be pleased,” Demos said, wiping his eyes and looking embarrassed. “You hurt me, Taylor.” He rubbed his head and his stomach.
“Well, I’m not at all pleased,” Sergeant Kinsley said. “Don’t you two dimwits see what this means? The lady’s got an enemy, lads, a real live one, one who had no qualms about using explosives with lots of folk around who could have been hurt. No one was, which means he was being a bit careful. Now, let’s talk. I need to know who could possibly have it in for her.”
“No one,” Demos said positively. “Not even—ah, no.” He broke off and stared at Taylor.
Taylor was stroking the black stubble on his jaw. He said thoughtfully, “She just inherited a fortune— literally—from her grandmother and her mother. Both were killed in a car accident a week and a half ago. She inherited everything from her mother and most everything from her grandmother. She’s very rich. Her half-sister’s pissed and so is her father. He thinks he should have all the money.”
“You’re saying La Principessa could be involved?” Demos asked, appalled. “But I thought—” He broke off, wise enough now to keep his mouth shut.
“Who’s that?” Barry asked.
Demos said slowly, “That’s her half-sister, Princess Sydney di Contini. She’s also a model. She, ah, well, she and Lindsay/Eden don’t get along. It goes way back, way, way back.”
“Let’s call her Lindsay,” Barry said. “Okay, from all her paperwork here, I see her full name is Lindsay Foxe. Where’s all this family live, Taylor?”
“In San Francisco. They’re evidently old wealth, old power. Lots of both, and all the greedy instincts in the world to go along with it.”
“Is her daddy that federal judge, Royce Foxe?”
“I don’t know,” Taylor said. “Is he, Demos?”
“That’s him. Smart bastard, from what Sydney says. Real smart, and that’s where she got all her brains. She’s a lawyer, you know, Harvard Law School, then she married this Italian prince who raped Lindsay in Paris a real long time ago when she was just a kid.”
“Whoa!” Barry stared from one man to the other. “This is for real? She was raped by her brother-in- law?”
There was a knock on the door, then it was pushed open. Enoch’s head came around. “Oh,” he said. “Hi, Sarge. What are you doing here? Did Taylor call you for some reason?”
“Well, if it ain’t old Enoch Sackett. Still skinny as a post, I see. Doesn’t Sheila ever feed you?”
“All the time. It’s my metabolism. Hey, Taylor—”
Enoch fell silent. He looked toward Lindsay, whose head was swathed in white bandages. He swallowed and looked back toward Taylor.
“She’s going to be okay?”
Taylor nodded. He said to Barry, “Let me speak to Enoch for a minute, okay?”
“Why don’t we just have Enoch spill what he knows right here, right now?”
“It’s not about the case. It’s personal. I’m not lying.”
Sergeant Kinsley looked unconvinced. He looked toward the sleeping woman, wincing unconsciously. He waved Taylor out of the room.
“I heard about the accident on the radio. Why’s Barry Kinsley here?”
“It wasn’t an accident. It was plastic explosives and meant only for Lindsay.”
“Jesus, man—What are you going to do?”
Taylor looked very tired, as tired as he felt. He needed sleep, a shower, and a good-size meal. His head felt heavy. “I don’t know,” he said finally. “Thanks for getting this stuff, Enoch.”
“I downloaded five different French newspapers and tabloids about the rape. Taylor, she was eighteen years old and she was butchered by the press! Another thing—none of them agree. Some come right out and say that she seduced her brother-in-law, others say that her half-sister tried to kill her husband in cold blood and the rape was staged so she could murder him, and one even goes so far as to say that the prince was sleeping with both sisters at the same time and his wife got pissed and shot him. Whatever the explanation, she was an eighteen-year-old Lolita. You go figure.”
Taylor couldn’t figure anything at the moment.
“Oh, yes, they even have an overheard comment supposedly made by the father. He says the daughter is a slut, basically, and that the person who really suffered in the entire matter was Sydney, the wife. This man sounds like a real winner.”
Silence fell between them.
Finally Taylor pulled himself upright. “ Everything okay at the office?”
Enoch nodded. “Not to worry.”
“I’ll call you later, then, Enoch. Thanks for all your help.”
When he entered the room, his eyes immediately went to Lindsay. She was still sleeping.
Barry said, his voice pitched deep and soft, “Demos can’t come up with any suspects for me, Taylor, other than the family. How about you?”
He looked at the woman he loved, the woman who could be dead, killed by an unknown man or woman. He felt so goddamned helpless. It tasted bitter in his mouth, this helplessness.
