Gideon (20 page)

“Metro,” she broke in, ever the editor.

“Huh?”

“They call it the Metro here. Not the subway.”

“Yeah, right. Whatever. I didn’t want to risk taking a cab. I didn’t want anyone to remember bringing me here.”

The coffee was ready. She poured them both some. He sipped his, gripping the mug tightly with both hands. He seemed a bit steadier now. His color was returning. The food seemed to have helped. And the talking.

“The weirdest thing,” he said, shaking his head slowly, “is how they’ve concocted this serial killer, turned me into some evil psycho version of myself. My shitty relationship with my father. An obsessive desire to become a novelist. It’s crazy, it’s all skewed and wrong, it’s all a lie, but it’s in the papers, it’s on TV, it’s all over the Net …”

“And so it’s true.”

He nodded miserably. “When I read it, when I hear it, sometimes even
I
feel like I don’t know what the truth is. So how could anyone else?” He peered at her suddenly, jerking his head up. His whole body tensed. “Have they contacted you yet?”

“Has who contacted me yet?”

“The police. The FBI.”

Dread immediately began to gnaw at her. “No. No, they haven’t.”

“They will. And soon. Lots of people know about you and me. I won’t be able to hide here for long. I’ll have to keep moving.” He looked at her and shook his head as if he was angry about something. “I shouldn’t have come here,” he said. And then he slumped back down into a dining chair. “I just needed to …” He trailed off and ran a hand over his stubbly face, knuckling his puffy eyes. “I was just so
tired
.”

“You’re safe here for now,” she assured him. “You’re safe with me.”

There was so much more she needed to know. But now wasn’t the time. He needed sleep. “Why don’t you take a shower and get some rest? I’ll make up the bed in the spare room, okay? There are fresh towels in the linen cupboard. And I
think
I can even find something clean for you to wear.” Again she started bustling around. A frayed old pair of his athletic sweatpants had found their way into her rag drawer in the kitchen, buried deep. And one of his soft, comforting shirts, a blue and white cotton New York Giants practice jersey, was hanging in the bedroom closet.

He peered at the shirt suspiciously when she brought it to him. “I thought they lost that at the laundry. How’d
you
end up with it?”

“I stole it,” she confessed. “It always looked better on me than it did on you.” She did not, however confess that she had worn it to bed every night for three weeks after they broke up.

They stared at each other for a moment. And
wham
—suddenly it was there. The uneasiness. The tension. The silence. The past.

He looked away, swallowing, “Look, about Toni …”

“I didn’t ask about her,” Amanda pointed out frostily.

“I know you didn’t,” he acknowledged. “You never would. You’re was too classy. But I’m going to tell you anyway.”

She was, she realized, not breathing. She forced air into her lungs, then exhaled slowly. “Okay.”

“I was lonely. She was there. I barely knew her. No, that’s not true. I did know here. Not well enough to be in love with her. But she made me laugh, she made me feel good, and I cared about her. And … and when I found her body, it was the worst thing I’ve ever seen in my life. I never want to see anything like that again. Not ever.” He broke off with a shudder. He glanced around at her snug living room. The fireplace and bookcases and good, worn leather chairs. The butler’s tray with the cut-glass decanters of singe-malt scotch and Calvados. The walls that were lined with the framed originals of vintage political cartoons and caricatures that she collected. The massive walnut desk that had belonged to her father, who had been a small-town bank president in Port Chester, New York, until he was struck down by congestive heart failure at the age of fifty-six. “I like your place. It’s very …”

“It’s very what?”

“Grown-up.”

“Well, guess what, Carl. I’m a grown-up.” Or at least she had been until an hour ago. “Now please go take your shower.” She gently shoved the clothes and the things she’d bought for him into his arms.

Meekly he stumbled into the bathroom, closing the door behind him. She immediately grabbed her cell phone, stepped out onto the patio, and called the paper. “Talk to me,” she commanded her secretary when she got through.

“Cindy phoned in. They started dredging the Potomac for the missing priest. Somebody thinks they saw him walking along there, not far from the basin, a couple of nights ago. She said they’re not ruling out suicide at this point.”

“Anything else?”

“Yeah, some guy from the FBI called, said it was important. I told him you were home sick. I hope that’s okay.”

“Not a problem.” She thanked her. She rang off and then jumped two feet in the air.

There was a man in a crisp tan suit standing right there before her on the patio. He was tall and sunburned, with a blond crew cut and white-blond eyebrows. No more than thirty. And clean enough to eat off.

“Miss Mays? I’m sorry if I startled you. They told me at your office that I’d find you here. I’m Special Agent Shanahoff, FBI.” He showed her his badge. His manner was very calm, impassive. If his resting pulse rate was more than forty-seven, she would have been shocked. “I wonder if I could talk to you about Carl Granville.”

She gulped, collecting herself. Her heart was pounding. “Yes,” she said quietly. “I had a feeling I’d be hearing from someone.”

He had very blank eyes. Humorless and cold. She did not like his eyes. They made her very afraid for Carl. “May I come in?” he asked.

His question froze her momentarily. She
had
to let him in. If she didn’t, he’d know she was hiding something. Or, more precisely, someone. And if she did, well, Carl was in there taking a shower. She had never totally understood the expression “between a rock and a hard place” before. Well, she certainly did now. Because that was exactly where she was caught.

“Miss Mays,” he persisted, a slight edge to his voice now.

“Yes. Yes, of course. I—I’m sorry … Agent Shanahoff? I’m not feeling very well. When I saw the news this morning, I just …”

“I gather that the two of you were close,” he said, not unkindly.

“We
were
very close.”

“Until?”

“Until, well … until we weren’t anymore. That’s when I moved to Washington.”

“This was last year?”

“Last summer.”

“August twenty-fourth.”

She nodded.
Okay
, she thought.
Chalk one up for him. The FBI can be thorough when they need to be
. She exhaled slowly. “Please, come inside.”

They stepped into the living room. She did her best to smile graciously. But all she was thinking was:
Please, Carl. Don’t make a goddamn sound
.

“Whew, much cooler in here,” he said gratefully, pausing in the doorway to take in as much of the apartment as he could. “I want the name of your realtor. These old places have so much character. You should see my place. It looks like the inside of a shoebox.”

“Have a seat,” she told him.

He stayed where he was, his eyes narrowed slightly. “Do I hear water running?”

She jumped up and rolled her eyes at her own foolishness. “Thanks for reminding me. I was just running a bath. I thought it would cheer me up.” She crossed the living room and started down the narrow hallway to the bathroom. She stopped at the bathroom door to glance over her shoulder. The agent had not followed her. She reached for the doorknob.
Please, please don’t make any noise. Don’t splash, don’t ask a question or say a word
. She turned the knob and ducked inside.

It was thoroughly steamed up in there. Carl’s clothes and things were heaped all over the counter next to the sink, and towels were strewn everywhere. Nobody, in Amanda’s experience, could mess up a bathroom like Carl Granville. She yanked open the clear vinyls shower curtains and reached around Carl’s slippery, soapy body. She saw the surprise on his face, before he could so much as breathe, she turned off the water and clamped a hand tightly over Carl’s mouth.

“There is an FBI agent out there,” she whispered urgently in his ear. He froze immediately. “Do not move. Do not make a sound. Understand?”

He nodded obediently, his eyes wide with fear.

She released him. They stared into each other’s eyes a moment. An unspoken closeness passed between them, a bond. Something that had always been there—and was still there, whether she wanted to admit it to herself or not. She eased the bathroom door shut behind her and took a deep breath, trying to calm herself but failing. She returned to the living room.

Agent Shanahoff had not sat. Far from it. Rather, he had moseyed casually over toward the kitchen, the better to take stock of things. Such as the two coffee cups on the kitchen counter. Such as the remains of Carl’s peanut butter and jelly feast.

Such as his cap and sunglasses on the dining table.

“I always eat peanut butter when I’m upset,” she blurted out from the doorway. “Comfort food.”

“Yeah, I know exactly what you mean.” He smiled at her. Or at least his mouth did. It never caught up to his eyes. “I’m a meat-loaf-and-mashed-potatoes man myself.”

“Can I get you some coffee, Agent Shanahoff? Or something cold?”

“Please, call me Bruce. And no, thank you,” he replied politely. “I won’t stay long.” His eyes flicked back to the cap on the table. “I see you’re a big New Jersey Nets fan.”

She forced out a laugh. Not a very good idea. She wondered if he could hear the brittle edge of hysteria to it. “No, my nephew is. He sent it to me. Actually, I couldn’t name a single member of the team if my whole life depended on it.”

“I doubt anyone else in the New York area could, either,” he said pleasantly. “I used to be assigned there. Just been in D.C. a few months myself. Hardly know a soul yet.” He paused thought fully scratching his solid, square chin with his thumb. “Maybe we’re kind of in the same boat that way.”

“Maybe we are,” Unbelievable. He was hitting on her. Well, maybe this wasn’t so bad. In fact, this was all right. She could deal with this. She sashayed by him into the kitchen, working her hips. She got started on the dirty dishes, the better to give him a nice view of her tush. “What would you like to know about Carl?” she asked him over her shoulder.

“Anything you can tell me, Ms. Mays.”

“He was the boyfriend from hell,” she said, and was surprised at the bitterness that crept into her voice.

“Abusive?”

“Oh, God, no.”

“Did he cheat?”

She shook her head. “Never.”

“Did he steal from you?”

“Carl Granville is probably the most honest person I know.”

“That right?”

“He once found twenty-five hundred dollars in an envelope in a taxicab—somebody’d left it there. He was broke and he really needed the money, but you know what he did?”

“Used it to feed needy orphans?”

“He turned it in to the police. And there’s no need to be snide.”

“Sorry. But I’m a little confused. I was under the impression that Granny was someone you’re not very fond of. But it doesn’t sound that way.”

For some reason it bothered that he had referred to Carl by his nickname. Like it was some kind of psychological test.

“Look, Agent Shanahoff—”

“Bruce.”

“I was in love with Carl. But he’s not a man who is emotionally capable of maintaining an adult relationship. I had to get away from him, so I did. Consider it an act of self-preservation. Or personal survival. It wasn’t easy, and I can’t pretend I don’t have feelings for him, but I did it. And now I’m getting on with the rest of my life.”

“And when was the last time you saw him?”

“At Betty Slater’s funeral in New York a few weeks ago. She was someone we were both close to. I hadn’t seen him for several months prior to that. I gave him a lift home.” Her mind leaped to him standing in her shower right that very second, covered in lather. She forced the image out of her thoughts. She didn’t believe in ESP, but there was no sense in even tempting fate with this federal agent standing in her kitchen.”

“Was it friendly?”

“As a matter of fact, we had a rather heated quarrel in the car.”

“May I ask about what?”

“About nothin. About everything. I’m sure you know how it is, Bruce.”

“Did he strike you? Threaten you with physical violence? Anything like that?”

Amanda turned to face him, tossed her mass of red hair. “It’s inconceivable to me that Carl would be capable of violence.”

“Maybe to you. But not to the people he’s killed.”

Amanda stood there, motionless. The words hit her hard. But they weren’t true. They couldn’t be true.

“Miss Mays—”

“I wish you’d call me Amanda … Bruce,” she said huskily. She ran her fingers along the bare, creamy white skin of her throat and could feel herself perspiring. Playing a femme fatale was not her favorite role.

“All right.” He flashed another smile at her. This one almost made it up to his eyes, but still not quite. She really did not like those eyes. “I’m going to ask you this straight up, Amanda—have you heard from Carl Granville since he took flight?”

“No, I haven’t.”
Dear Diary, today I lied straight up to a federal agent
.

“No phone call, no note?” he said, a bit doubtfully. “He hasn’t tried to contact you in any way?”

“No, he hasn’t.”

He moved in closer, towering over her. On the surface his manner didn’t change, yet somehow she could feel him turn stern and steely. Suddenly there was an air of quiet menace about him. “I hope you’re not lying to me,” he said. His voice was even but remarkably hard and unbending.

She tensed.
Steady, girl
. “You’re not listening to me, Agent Shanahoff,” she said in what she hoped was an equally even tone. “I just told you I haven’t heard from him, and I don’t expect to.”

He backed off, satisfied. For now, anyway. The hard-to-read smile was back on his lips. “Well, I’m sorry to say that you
may
hear from him. An Amtrak conductor identified his photos this morning. We believe he’s in D.C. I probably don’t need to say this, but if he does contact you, be aware that he’s no one to mess with. Despite what you think, we’ve got a lot of evidence that indicates he’d murdered two people. We’re talking about one dangerous puppy. Understand?”