Julianne straightened up and looked me straight in the face.
“You know what I’m going to ask you,” I said.
She didn’t answer.
“Where is she?” I said. “Lesley.”
“How would I know?” she said.
“Because you work for her.”
“I don’t. I’m a journalist.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. But either way, you do work for Lesley.”
“Who told you? They’re lying.”
“I don’t think so. It’s a good source. Your hair.”
“What the hell has my hair got to do with it?”
“It smells of coconut. You just washed it.”
“So?”
“It smelled the same in Lesley’s cage. When we first met. You told me you’d been in there for three days. No hair smells that fresh after three days. You were a plant. I should have realized at the time.”
“That’s ridiculous. I got too close. I was kidnapped.”
“It’s all right. I know what you were doing. It all makes sense, now. Gently pumping me for information, when we talked. Getting us caught, when we escaped. Testing my nerve, at the hotel. What were you planning for tonight? To serve me up as dessert?”
She didn’t react.
“Drop the pretense, Julianne. Drop it now. And tell me where she is.”
She didn’t answer.
“OK,” I said. “Take a minute. Think carefully. There’s something you have to understand. Lesley killed my friend. For no good reason. She did it just to get back at me. That means there is nothing—nothing—I will not do to find her.”
“I can’t tell you,” she said. “You know what she’ll do to me.”
I thought of Tanya’s face, the last time I’d seen her. Her hair, loose, fanned out against the stainless steel. The porcelain wedge under her neck, like a pillow. And the lines of crude blue stitches the pathologist had left when he’d roughly sewn her back together.
“Is she in the city?” I said. “Tell me that much.”
“Yes,” she said.
“Tell me where, and she’ll be dead by midnight. I guarantee.”
She didn’t reply.
“Otherwise I might start thinking, who could have told Lesley about Tanya and me?” I said. “Who knew I was meeting someone from the consulate for dinner that night?”
She didn’t reply.
“I might start thinking, do I really need you?” I said. “You just texted someone. I could wait for them. Let them take me to her.”
Still she kept silent.
“So let me make this as simple as possible,” I said, raising the gun. “Tell me where Lesley is. Or I’ll shoot you in the head.”
She gave me an address in the Bronx.
“Thank you,” I said. “Now, let me check one last thing. Just then, did I say, ‘Or I’ll shoot you?’ ”
“Yes, you did,” she said. “Why?”
“I’m sorry about that. I should have said, ‘And . . . ’”
I pulled the trigger, twice, then checked my watch. It was eleven minutes before 9:00 P.M. Over three hours to midnight. It wasn’t far to the Bronx. Plenty of time to keep the other promise I’d made.
Table of Contents
COVER
TITLE
COPYRIGHT
DEDICATION
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE