Quinn rolled his eyes. “Enough with the public service announcement. Let’s get this over with.”
I took a deep breath. I guess I should have felt nervous, but what I mainly felt was exhilarated. I couldn’t wait to get in there and nail this jerk.
“We’ll be right outside, and we can hear everything you say,” Quinn told me. “If something happens, we’ll be through that door and into the apartment in seconds, no matter how many locks and dead bolts are on it. If Winslow makes a move, stay out of his reach until we can get to you.”
I nodded.
“Apartment ten-sixteen, through the fire doors and to the left,” Sully said, the headphones squeezed his carrot head. “Nail him, Cosi. You can do it.”
“Thanks, Sully.”
Thirty seconds later I knocked on the door. There was no response after a ten count, so I knocked again. Finally, I spied movement behind the peephole.
“What do you want?” The voice was male.
“Mr. Winslow. My name’s Clare. I’m a friend of Monica’s.
Monica Purcell
.”
I heard a click, then the rattle of a security chain. I recalled the size of the man I’d seen at
Trend
this morning and lifted my chin. But when the door opened, I was in for a surprise. The man who answered was tall, but he wasn’t the big man I was expecting. I’d never seen this guy.
Okay, Clare, don’t panic. You’ll just have to talk faster.
“Mr. Winslow—”
“
Dr.
Winslow. They haven’t taken the Ph.D. away from me. Not yet.”
The man appeared much older than fifty-seven, the age we’d come up with based on the birth date of his old driver’s license. He had a head too large for his scrawny body. His painfully thin frame was clad in gray sweatpants, and his matching sweatshirt was frayed at the neckline. Winslow’s facial features had been hard to make out on the old New York State license, but in person they appeared patrician. A thick head of brown hair crowned his chiseled WASPish features, but it was dirty, tangled, and thoroughly shot with gray. In short, the man was a sight, but his complexion was what truly unnerved me. Pale as a ghost, Winslow’s skin seemed almost powdered with the dust of ages past.
As he regarded me through slightly bulging eyes, I realized something was wrong with his pupils. They were too wide and dark, as if he were intoxicated, but I couldn’t smell alcohol on him, and (given my own difficult years with Matt) I’d bet the farm that he was on drugs right now.
“Well,
Doctor
,” I said, “I’m a friend of Monica’s, and I’m here to inform you that she’s out of the picture.”
The man gave me no reaction to the news. Winslow just stared, expressionless.
“Monica has been hospitalized with an overdose,” I continued. “She can’t help you anymore. But I can.”
“I don’t understand,” he finally said. “What do you mean?”
“I can help you get Breanne Summour’s
wedding rings
. That’s what I mean. The one-of-a-kind Nunzio creations? You want them, don’t you?”
One of the man’s bulging eyes began to twitch, but he said nothing. We just stood there, staring at one another.
“Look,” I finally said. “I don’t want to talk out here where someone can eavesdrop. Can’t I come inside so we can speak in private?”
This was the moment of truth. Stuart Allerton Winslow could close the door in my face right now, and he would probably walk away from this mess clean. The police had no proof that he had anything to do with the home invasion in Queens. And there was nothing to tie him to the attempts on Breanne’s life (if that’s what they were). The only people who could implicate him were the robbers, who were still at large, and Monica, who was dead.
I waited for his decision. Finally, Dr. Winslow opened the door and ushered me in. I stepped across the threshold, and the door closed behind me. I heard the dead bolt click and hoped that if something went terribly wrong, Quinn would be able to keep his promise and break down the heavy-looking door.
I felt Winslow’s touch and winced.
“This way.”
Everything in the bone-spare apartment was coated with the same dust that clung to its occupant. What furniture there was looked like it came from a thrift shop. But there were fleeting signs of former prosperity, too. A marble floor in the foyer gave way to parquet overlaid with plush but dirty Persian rugs. The doorknobs and light fixtures were made of dulled but costly looking brass, and a loudly ticking grandfather clock with an intricately carved relief appeared to be at least a century old.
In the living room, the couch and chairs were shabby, the paint peeling and faded. The windows were closed and the heavy curtains drawn. The only light came from the dull glow of a Tiffany lamp. There was a fireplace, but it was filled with soot, its marble mantel scorched. Worst of all, the dingy, airless room stank of creosote, a smell I’d loathed since I was nine years old, and our neighbors’ house had burned to the ground.
Dr. Winslow gestured me to a chair. I sat down and folded my hands on my lap. He dropped onto the threadbare couch.
“You were saying something about my ex-wife’s wedding rings?”
“Yes, I—”
Wait a minute!
“Did you say your ex-wife? You were
married
to Breanne Summour?”
The man smirked. “Monica didn’t tell you?”
“No, she never mentioned it.”
My God, I hope Quinn and Sully are hearing this . . .
“You said your name was Clare.” Winslow was staring hard at me now. “Monica never mentioned you. How is it you found me?”
“I was in Monica’s office last week, and I saw her prescriptions.” I rattled off the exact names of her little cache so he’d know I really had seen the bottles. “I asked her to help me get some pills, too, and she mentioned you. Of course, Monica never told me how you two hooked up. How did it happen, anyway? I mean, I’d like to know who I’m dealing with.”
Winslow was silent, still staring at me. “Tell me
why
you’re here.”
Focus, man.
“Breanne’s rings,” I told him again. “I know you want them. Are you planning to sell the jewelry prototypes to Nunzio’s rivals? I’m sure they’d pay a pretty penny to—”
“What I do with the rings is not your concern.”
Okay, this is a start. He’s engaging.
“You
do
want Breanne’s rings, then, right? I can still get them. It will be easy.”
Winslow crossed to the heavy curtains and pulled them back to look out the window. “That’s what Monica said. ‘It will be easy.’ She’s the one who proposed the deal in the first place. I only took it because Breanne still owes me for those lost years, my lost life.”
“What do you mean, exactly?”
He didn’t reply. “About the rings—you can get them?”
“Yes,” I said, “but if I get you the rings, what do I get in return?”
“The same deal I offered Monica. Free drugs. Anything you like, for as long as you like, without a prescription. No more doctor shopping. No more risk. How does that sound?”
“I have a bad back. It hurts right now.”
For the first time since I entered, Winslow’s grim mood lightened. With the semblance of a friendly expression, he lowered the curtain and turned to me.
“Come this way,” he said.
TWENTY-THREE
WINSLOW crossed to a dark hallway. I followed warily. Stepping through the shadows, I entered another dimly lit space with peeling paint and a soiled rug. Like the front room, this one was sparsely furnished: one bookshelf, a cracked-leather chair, and a large computer on a desk of scuffed mahogany. The computer was the newest, most expensive item in the large, gray room. Its flat-screen monitor emitted more color than the Land of Oz.
“Is that your Web site’s home page?” I pointed to the screen, where the primary shades of Rxglobal tempted like the storefront of a candy shop. “I think Monica mentioned something about it.”
“It’s my business, yes.”
“I clicked around the site, but I didn’t see anything that could control my pain.”
“That’s because the vitamin and herb supplement pages aren’t where I do my important business. The other pages have a special password.”
“Oh, so that’s why!” I laughed. The joke was on me, right? I wasn’t in the know. “Do you have a local carrier?”
He shook his head. “My server is set up outside the country. That’s where I get the prescription drugs, too.”
Winslow moved a standing dresser aside to reveal a hidden closet. He drew a key from his sweatpants and unlocked the door. There were several boxes sitting on a shelf; all had labels with foreign script. He reached into a carton and pulled out a clear plastic bag of pink pills. G164 was embossed on each one.
“OxyContin is quite effective for the control of back pain. I’ll start you off with a hundred and fifty tabs.”
He sat down at his desk, quickly counted out the tablets, using a plastic pill sorter. Then he poured them into a sepia-colored bottle like the ones I’d seen hidden in Monica’s desk.
“You have a medical degree, too, right?” I said with a shrug, as if it really didn’t matter either way. “I mean, in addition to your doctorate. You seem so knowledgeable about all this.”
“If you could get these from a licensed physician, you wouldn’t be here, would you?”
“So that’s a
no
?” I looked around the room as if searching for his degrees. “You’re just a Ph.D. then, and not an M.D.?”
He capped the bottle. “Does this look like your gynecologist’s office, miss?”
He leered, and I shivered.
God, what a creep.
“This is just a down payment,” he promised, holding the bottle out to me. “You get me the rings, and I’ll get you all the OxyContin you want.”
“Thank you, Dr. Winslow, for giving me the pills,” I said, loud and clear.
Got that, Mike? I hope you heard me!
I took the bottle, and Winslow ushered me back into the living room. As he headed for the front door, I hesitated.
I didn’t have enough on this guy yet. The man had been married to Breanne Summour. I figured there must be a motive for his wanting her dead (other than the woman’s personality, of course). He was in league with Monica Purcell to steal Breanne’s rings. The two were probably working on an elaborate revenge plan, too. I just had to get him to say so.
Think, Clare. Do something!
“Excuse me, Doctor?” I called as he unlocked the heavy door.
He turned. “Yes?”
“May I trouble you for a glass of water? I’d
really
like to take a few of these now . . .” I shook the bottle. “Please? My pain is bad.”
The man paused for a moment then nodded. He left the room. When he came back with a half-empty glass, I was sitting, uninvited, on his shabby sofa.
“Here you are,” he said.
The glass wasn’t the cleanest, but I had to make it look good. I put on a show of shaking a few pills into my hand. I knocked back the imaginary hit and took a drink of the stale water. Then I leaned my head against the couch back and pretended to close my eyes—the junkie getting her fix.
Winslow was still standing over me. His unkempt odor combined with the smell of creosote was making me queasy; the loudly ticking grandfather clock was close to maddening.
Through the bottom of my lashes, I watched the cadaverous drug dealer watching me. Winslow stood motionless, his dilated pupils sweeping my body up and down. For long minutes, my breathing stopped altogether and my heartbeat pulsated like something out of Poe.
Mike’s out there listening,
I reminded myself. The ticklish wire between my breasts was my lifeline, the only rope that could save me if this scarecrow in sweats decided to slip me something other than narcotics.
Winslow’s skinny limbs began to move. Every muscle in my own limbs stiffened, ready to fight him off if I had to.
But I didn’t have to.
The gamble was working. The man moved away. When he finally settled into a nearby chair, I released my held breath. He misunderstood the reason for my sigh.
“Good, isn’t it?” he whispered.
“It always takes a little while to kick in for me.” I opened my eyes. “You don’t mind if I hang until it does, do you? Like I said, my pain is bad.”
Winslow gave me a little smile—one junkie to another. “I understand.”
I scanned the dreary space, deciding the best way to prod more information out of Winslow was to goad him.
“You know, it’s hard for me to believe you and Breanne were a couple. She’s so dynamic. A woman with exquisite taste in fashion, art, wine—”
Winslow laughed. “She didn’t start out that way. When I met Breanne, she was a struggling journalist. She could barely afford the rent on her East Village walk-up.”