“It’s not me,” I assured her.
She was hardly assured. “It could be you,” she said. “At least admit that.”
“Fine. It could be me,” I said. “But it’s not.”
She sighed, exasperated. “You are so stubborn, Reinhart.”
“No, what I am is right,” I said.
“Stubborn and arrogant.”
I smiled. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“I’m glad you’re amused,” she scoffed. “The supposed psychology genius who doesn’t even know he’s in denial.”
“Supposed?” I asked.
“Christ,” muttered Tracy.
Elizabeth and I both turned to him. “What?” we asked in unison.
Tracy put down his mug. Other diners had food that was just as good, but the Rooster & Rabbit, two blocks from our apartment, poured the best coffee by far. “You two are like an old married couple,” he said.
“Only we’re not,” Elizabeth shot back. “Do you know why? Because one of us happens to be—”
“I haven’t told him yet,” I said, cutting her off.
“Told me what?” asked Tracy.
It was the one detail I left out in telling him about the Dealer’s phone call—on Tracy’s phone, no less—outside Jackie Palmer’s apartment before the explosion. A sin of omission, but for good reason. Simply put, it was bad enough that I was going to hear it from Elizabeth.
“The queen of hearts,” I said.
“That was the card?” asked Tracy. “The next victim?”
“It wasn’t actually a card,” I said. “But yes.”
I explained about the song as Elizabeth resumed eating the egg-white frittata the waiter had highly recommended. He’d also suggested the huevos rancheros, although I was fairly certain it was only because he liked the sound of his own voice saying “huevos rancheros.”
“I think I auditioned with him once,” Tracy whispered after the guy had taken our order and walked away.
“So there you have it,” I said. “The Dealer is a Juice Newton fan, apparently.”
“You’re hardly a queen, at least as far as gay slang goes,” said Tracy. “But taken with your last name…yeah, Dylan Reinhart could definitely be the queen of hearts.”
“Only I’m not,” I repeated.
“Why am I even debating this with you?” said Elizabeth. “I already arranged protection for you starting this afternoon. It’s done.”
There was no point in arguing with her. I may have lapped Elizabeth when it came to arrogance, but we were neck and neck in terms of stubbornness. Sometimes you fight. Sometimes you retreat.
Sometimes you strike a deal.
“Tell you what,” I said. “Postpone the start of that protection until tomorrow, and I won’t say another word about it.”
“Why tomorrow?” she asked.
“Because there’s something you and I need to do today,” I said. “Just the two of us.”
“Gee, thanks,” said Tracy.
“I didn’t mean it like—”
“I’m kidding,” he said. “Besides, I’ve got my own plans, beginning with buying a new phone. That’s still freaking me out, by the way—the fact that this psychopath was in the Starbucks with me.”
“Yeah, but that was the break we were waiting for,” I was about to say.
I didn’t, though. Truth was, as much as I thought the Dealer had finally made a mistake, I couldn’t know for certain yet. He still could’ve been playing me. Or at least trying to.
One way or the other, I was going to find out for sure. It’s true what they say.
A man can never fully leave his past behind…
Chapter 70
IT WASN’T so much a blind spot as it was our laying down the shovel too early. In other words, we didn’t dig deep enough.
Now we needed a little more than a shovel. More like a backhoe, really.
I knew just the guy.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” said Elizabeth. We had walked from the diner to the parking garage near my and Tracy’s apartment.
“I’m hardly kidding,” I answered, handing her a blindfold, which was really just the sleep mask I wear when flying. “In fact, what I am is absolutely crazy to think I can bring you along.”
That softened her stance a bit, the mere possibility that I could change my mind. “I’ll look ridiculous,” she said.
I pointed at the spare helmet under my arm with the heavily tinted visor. “No one will even know.”
She was out of arguments, so on went the blindfold, on went the helmet, and on jumped Elizabeth to the back of my motorcycle. It didn’t get any more Bruce Wayne than this.
Twelve miles and twenty minutes longer than it should’ve taken, courtesy of a closed lane on the George Washington Bridge—which Chris Christie, I hoped, had nothing to do with—the two of us were standing inside a steel door that was ten feet behind another steel door that was past the security gate to a warehouse for a medical supply company in Fort Lee, New Jersey, that nobody had ever heard of, primarily because it didn’t actually exist.
“Who the bloody hell is that?” asked Julian with his British accent, pointing at Elizabeth with a finger on the hand that wasn’t gripping his customary highball of whiskey. Back in the day, he was always a no-brainer for a birthday gift—just as long as it was single malt.
Elizabeth extended her hand. “I’m Detective Elizabeth Need—”
“Christ, darling, don’t tell me your name!” said Julian. “I don’t want to know who you are, and you definitely shouldn’t know who I am.”
“It’s okay,” I assured Julian. “She doesn’t even know your zip code.”
Julian Byrd, who single-handedly was keeping the word curmudgeon alive and well in the English language, managed a shrug. He wasn’t actually mad that I had a plus one. If he had been, we never would’ve made it past the security gate.
“What is it with you and protocol, Reinhart?” asked Julian as he turned and led us back to his office.
“Yeah, I know,” I said. “The thing is—”
“Yeah, I get it. This Dealer guy could stand trial, and your detective friend needs to cover her tracks and have her own version of events for when she testifies,” said Julian, always seeing a few moves ahead. The world was Boris Spassky, and he would forever be Bobby Fischer. He glanced back over his shoulder at Elizabeth. “She’s rather good-looking, isn’t she?”
“You know that I’m actually here, right?” asked Elizabeth.
“Yeah, he knows,” I said.
That was Julian, thoroughly British but still like the original Marlboro cigarette. No filter.
Throw in his crazy hair and even crazier beard, and he was either one of two things: Charles Manson’s doppelg?nger or what he actually was, the greatest hacker ever to work for MI6.
As well as for the CIA.
Chapter 71
“WHOA,” SAID Elizabeth.