The Perfect Suspect (30 page)

He waved a hand between them. “I don't give a damn what you call yourself. I'll call you anything I please. You're nothing to me, you understand? I don't need your history or your long, sad stories. I heard enough from Kim to last me a lifetime. This is a flat-out business deal, no more, no less. You in or not?”

“Did Kim give you her real name?”

He turned his head and studied her out of the sides of his eyes. “So happened, I liked her real name. Catherine, I have my doubts about. Maybe I'll call you Kit. Or Kitty. Yeah, Kitty works.”

“I'm a journalist with the
Journal
,” Catherine said.

The man looked as if she had struck him. He flinched. Then he stepped backward, looking at her straight on, reappraising her, pink lips and blue eyes bulging from his pale face. He reached around and grabbed hold of the back of the sofa to steady himself, and for an instant she thought he might collapse. “What's this all about?” His voice was shaking, croaking. “Some kind of a sting? My business competitors paid off Kim to bring you here?”

“I'm not here to see you,” Catherine said. “I assure you, I don't care who you are or what you do. You're not the story. I came here to talk to Kim. She's in danger.”

“Danger! Who the hell's she been hanging out with? Drug suppliers? What? She owe them money? She's behind on her payments, so she sold me out to some business rivals? Oh, they'd love to get a story like this in the newspaper. Ruin me in this town. They gave her a wad of cash, she calls you up, and now you're gonna get the Pulitzer bringing down an oil company CEO. How dare that low-class bitch do this to me.”

“You can be the CEO of hell, for all I care. I told you, this has nothing to do with you, but if I don't find Kim, she could end up dead.”

“Get out.” He pushed himself off the sofa and wove toward the door, like a drunk, Catherine thought, or a man with a concussion.

“Where did she go? How can I reach her?”

He opened the door and was nodding her through it. “Get out.” He hissed the words.

“Do you understand what I've told you? She's running for her life. What's the name of the agency she works for?”

“I will grab you by your hair and throw you out.” The color in his face had ripened to bluish red; a pair of veins pumped in his forehead.

Catherine walked past him into the corridor. The door slammed shut behind her.

The doorman was holding the cab door for a tall, wiry man in khakis and navy blue tee shirt intent on a conversation with his cell phone. Gradually he seemed to grasp the opened door and move toward it, nodding at the doorman and slipping him a folded bill, not missing a beat of conversation.

The doorman closed the door, then opened the front passenger door, leaned inside and gave the driver an address. “Afternoon,” he said, turning to Catherine. He had a moonlike face, fleshy and red-hued with jowls that waddled when he spoke, and a thick neck that bulged inside the collar of his white shirt. “May I get you a taxi?”

Catherine shook her head. “I was supposed to meet someone at the hotel a little while ago,” she said. “I'm afraid she's already left.” The doorman observed her out of narrowed, suspicious eyes. “Attractive woman.” The doorman's gaze seemed to soften with a memory, and Catherine hurried on. “Carrying a bag.” She wondered if Kim had taken the time to pack.

“I believe so.” He nodded, smiling. “She took a taxi.”

“Can you tell me where she went?” Catherine saw her mistake by the curtain that dropped over the doorman's narrowed eyes and the offended look he gave her.

“Listen,” she said, digging inside her bag for her wallet. “I know this is unusual, and I wouldn't ask if the girl weren't in serious trouble. It's important that I find her. I'm the only one who can help her.” She managed to extract a bill, fold it twice and hold out her hand. The exchange was like magic, she thought. The bill next to her palm one instant, and next to his the next. He slid it inside his shirt pocket.

“She was going to the Baker neighborhood,” he said, and he gave her an address.

It was good to be driving the BMW, Kim thought, the engine purring around her. Almost comforting, as if she were safe in the leather seats, the cool air blowing over her arms and legs. Those people were safe—she always thought of the drivers of expensive cars as “those people.” Nothing could touch them, rock their world. The fancy cars—black was the richest color; she had always wanted a fancy black car—were only the first layer of safety, and beyond that stretched layers of fine houses, influential friends, exclusive clubs, champagne and caviar and you name it. Oh, she had watched the friends of wealthy men like Arnold Winston slip in behind the wheels of the fancy cars the valets brought around and drive off like princes to their palaces and safe worlds. She had felt like Cinderella at the ball when she was with Arnold, or Harry or Mark or Luke—the names and faces blurred together. David Mathews, oh, yes, for a little while, he had made her feel like Cinderella.

She shook away the train of thought, pulled herself upright and tried to focus on the traffic moving down Speer Boulevard. How had she gotten to Speer? She couldn't remember. She had taken the cab over to Misty's place, picked up the keys, and backed out of the garage—she remembered that. Somehow she must have threaded her way through the side streets and onto Speer.

She struggled to grasp hold of the plan forming like mist in her mind. She had to get out of town. A police detective, a murderer, was looking for her. Detectives had ways of finding people, and sooner or later, Beckman would find her. Beckman had already framed Sydney Mathews. It wouldn't matter what Kim Gregory had to say. Who was she? No one. A high-priced whore with a cocaine habit who probably had delusions. Kim heard the quiet, nervous laughing and realized she was laughing at the idea that whatever she might say could matter.

But it would matter. The truth of it was like a presence in the passenger seat. Beckman wouldn't be after her if it wouldn't matter, and Catherine McLeod wouldn't be at the hotel looking for her now. She had to make a plan. Yes, that was what she had to do. She had to erase her trail and make it harder for Beckman to follow. She had to give herself enough time to get the metal box under the floorboards in her condo. Twelve, thirteen thousand dollars now, and the few pieces of jewelry she had managed to sneak out of hotel rooms in the linings of her bags. Then she would get out of Denver, drive down to Arizona and look for Mama. She was probably around somewhere. She shoved the idea away. Sooner or later Beckman would locate Mama.

Later she would decide where to go.

29

Kim huddled against the painted blue door, thumb tight on the buzzer. The ringing inside sounded like a bell wrapped in cotton. The small, discreet bronze plaque above the buzzer said Morningtide LLC. There was no sound of footsteps, no sign anyone was here. Just a vacant space like the other vacant spaces in the strip mall, with faded signs for Insurance, Nails, Tarot Readings hanging at odd angles in the dusty windows. She held the buzzer down. Now the muffled ringing noise sounded cracked and worn out. Ericka had to be here; she was always here. Unless she'd gone to lunch, dashed off to soothe some dissatisfied client—God, Arnold had called and complained. She could almost hear him shouting over the phone. Bitch walked off on me! What kind of business are you running? I'll ruin you! No reputable businessman's gonna call you again. You're gonna close up shop and disappear, like that bitch.

“Who is it?”

Kim jumped back, as if a fist had reached through the small metal box beside the door and punched her in the stomach. “Kim,” she said. Her voice came back to her, breathless and shaky.

“Wait!” There was a loud clicking noise and the door opened about six inches. Ericka, in her short-cropped blond hair and nose earring and those wide, blue innocent eyes, peered out at her. “What the hell are you doing here? You're supposed to be with Winston. What happened? He turn weird or something?”

“God, Ericka. Let me in!” Kim glanced back at the stretch of vacant asphalt in the parking lot and scattering of cars at the far end where the taco café was still serving lunch. She had wedged the black BMW next to a truck in front of the café. It was almost invisible. Out on the street, traffic streamed past. Beckman could turn into the lot at any moment.

The door started to move, and Kim threw herself past the blond woman into the outer office with the desk no one ever occupied and the two easy chairs no one ever sat in. Ericka ran the business on computers and telephones in the back office. A couple of times when she had gone out of town to settle some dispute with a client, she'd asked Kim to babysit the office, answer the phone, check e-mails. The storefront office and furnishings and girls Ericka occasionally asked to cover for her were nothing but stage props for the landlord or building inspector or nosy cop who happened to drop by. Therapist, was how Ericka billed herself. Trained and experienced in the hard school of the streets. You couldn't put anything over on her, she said. Don't even try. She had seen it all, done it all.

“Start talking.” Ericka slammed the door. She made no movement toward the back office. This was a matter she could dispose of easily. If Kim had offended one of the best clients, Kim would be gone. A line of girls waited to take her place: Russians and Ukrainians and Lithuanians and girls from a lot of places Kim had never heard of.

“I need your help,” Kim said.

“Where's Winston?”

“I don't know. At the hotel or someplace. For godssakes, can we forget him?” Kim clamped the strap of her bag over her shoulder. “You've got to do something for me right away.”

The look on Ericka's face registered somewhere between alarm and concern. “You'd better come into the office,” she said, crossing the small space toward the door in back. She flung it open, walked over and sat down behind the desk. “Start at the beginning.” She motioned Kim onto the chair a few feet away.

“There's no time.” Kim stationed herself in the middle of the office. Behind the desk, a window looked out over an alley littered with debris and, across the alley, the lower floor of a brick building with boards tacked over the windows. A door led to a small bathroom, and inside the bathroom, she knew, a back door opened to the alley. “You have to delete my name from the records,” she said.

“Have you gone mad? What have you done? Killed somebody?” Ericka half rose out of the chair and gripped the edge of the desk. She leaned forward. “My God, you killed Winston? What? He knocked you around so you killed him?”

“No. No.” Kim realized she was shouting. She stopped and struggled to regain control. This wasn't going the way she had hoped. Beckman could burst in while they were having this stupid conversation.

“You can do it. Just tell the computer to delete my name and all my personal information. No one can know my address or cell number. No one can know how to find me. Please, Ericka. You have to do it right away.”

“Let's get something straight. I don't have to do anything,” Ericka said. “Besides, why would anyone want to find you?”

Kim felt like she was choking. Her mouth was dry, her tongue flopping against her teeth. “Someone wants me dead,” she managed.

“What have you done to my business?” Ericka was still half standing, listing sideways, jaw tight with anger.

“Look,” Kim said. “No one can connect me to David Mathews if you delete my name and contacts.” She thrust a fist at the computer screen. “It's all in there. You sent me out with him last year.”

“The guy that was gonna be governor? He was murdered, Kim. What did you have to do with it?”

“Nothing. I swear to God, nothing. Just get my name out of the computer.”