Susan felt her eyes fill with tears. “I don’t know.” She lit her cigarette. Behind Henry, across the alley, Susan could see Debbie standing at the door to the kitchen. The two cops who had been on rotation upstairs stood with her. Three patrol cars had already arrived, filling the darkening alley with flashing lights.
“You’re a reporter, for Christ’s sake,” Henry said.
“I don’t know about cars,” Susan said. She took a strangled breath, followed by a drag on her burning cigarette. “I know about clothes and music and agritainment.”
“Agritainment?” Henry said.
“I did a story on it,” Susan explained.
Henry closed his eyes. “What did he say?”
They’d been over this. “I told you, he said, ‘They’ll be fine,’ that’s it,” Susan said.
“Fuck,” Henry said loudly.
Susan watched as Debbie broke away from the other cops and ran toward them. Debbie kept her hand over her mouth, like she was trying to keep a sob from escaping. “What’s going on, Henry?” Debbie said through the hand. “Is it her?”
Susan automatically lifted her cigarette out of Debbie’s proximity. Then glanced at it. “The cigarette,” Susan said. “He tossed his cigarette there.” She pointed to a spot ten feet down the alley.
Debbie shook her head. “Archie doesn’t smoke.”
Susan walked over to the spot where Archie had dropped the cigarette, followed by Henry and Debbie. Scanning the ground, Susan found it quickly, burned to the filter. She could still smell it.
Henry squatted, took a Ziploc bag out of his pocket, turned it inside out, and picked up the cigarette, turning the bag back so the cigarette was inside it.
“What’s happening?” Debbie asked.
Henry looked at the cigarette and rubbed his forehead with a big hand. “You moron,” he muttered. He looked up at Debbie. “Not you.” He rubbed at his face again. “Archie wanted us to have a DNA sample. But we don’t need one.” He sighed. “Because we have his spleen in a bottle of formaldehyde in an evidence room downtown.”
Debbie started to shake. “We were happy,” she said to no one in particular. “We loved each other.” She gasped and her shoulders jutted forward, and she lowered her hand from her mouth to Henry’s shoulder to steady herself.
“Oh, God,” she said to him. “What do I tell Ben and Sara?”
Henry didn’t answer.
“So what happens now?” asked Susan.
“We find them,” Henry said simply.
A patrol cop walked up, leading a young man in a white bus-boy’s jacket. “This kid says a blond woman told him to tell Sheridan to meet her here,” the cop said.
The busboy reached up and touched his left ear. “What’s up, dudes?”
Henry, who was still in a squatting position, looked up wearily. “What kind of car was she in?” he asked the busboy.
“A silver 2007 Jaguar XK coupe with chromed Sabre wheels,” the busboy said.
Henry turned to Susan. “See how easy that was?” he said.
CHAPTER
44
Susan took a swig of cold coffee out of the mug on her desk. It was six hours old and tasted like bark, but she didn’t care. She leaned back in her task chair. It was four A.M. and the fifth floor of the Herald was bustling. Rumor was that Howard Jenkins himself was in his office downstairs. Even the interns had come in. Gretchen Lowell taking off with Archie Sheridan? That was big news, and all the usual suspects wanted in on it. Never mind that there was a fire raging in Central Oregon, a small plane missing off the coast, and the usual collection of bad news. Gretchen sold papers so fast even Hearst himself would blush. The Herald hadn’t seen this much action since Archie Sheridan had been kidnapped. The first time. “Someone put more coffee on,” Susan said.
No one in the newspaper offices moved.
Susan wadded up a piece of paper and threw it at Derek, who sat surfing the Internet three desks over.
“Hey!” Derek said, rubbing his ear where she’d hit him.
“Put some more coffee on,” Susan said.
Derek got up and slumped off toward the break room.
Susan had been at the Herald all night. She had insisted that she be allowed to work, with the agreement that she’d return to lockdown to sleep. Gretchen Lowell was on the run. Susan was convinced that she was the last thing on the Beauty Killer’s mind. Bliss remained at the Arlington. She still felt endangered, she said. Susan was pretty sure she just liked the room service.