Again: didn’t matter, but what the hell, options were options. He couldn’t turn that part of his mind off, the one always considering tactical possibilities.
Montgomery droned on, fielding the occasional question. Blank smiles affixed to their bland faces, the PR team maintained silent vigil, flanking him, one on each side, like sentries plucked from a fashion-magazine spread. Sebastian checked his watch and scanned the other members of the tour, among them the chancellor of the university, the dean of the medical school, and the chief medical officer. Big shots. The others he didn’t know.
The Wall Street Journal chick—who, like him, hadn’t been on the original guest list—seemed to him one of those eternally pissed-off types, her expression frozen in disdain, one half of her lip elevated in a lazy semisneer. He liked that in a woman: Something about the whole attitude thing appealed to him. Clad in a conservative grey skirt and white blouse, gliding along on fashionable shoes, she projected boredom and disinterest.
Sebastian was good at reading people and wasn’t fooled for a second. The boredom was an act. Each of the questions she lobbed at Montgomery was a feint, designed to draw him out of the shelter of his scripted monologue, a little at a time. Montgomery, no dummy, parried these with a witty remark and the grin of the media-savvy shark, even as her dark eyes, sharp and bright, roamed everywhere, absorbing every detail.
Good-looking, too, he decided (he couldn’t always turn off that part of his brain, either, so why bother?). She was black, with short, stylish hair shorn close to her skull. Well-defined chin. Nice neck without a hint of flab. Svelte, but curvy in the right places. Probably worked out, judging by the well-defined calves. Yeah. She was all right.
The PR man leaned over and whispered in Montgomery’s ear.
“Right!” Montgomery said brightly. He clapped his hands once and rubbed them together. “Right. Well, it’s time to head back. We’re going to have everyone change into scrubs for the operating room, then we have a brief presentation before the actual operation. So let’s go!”
Sebastian and the others followed him back across the bridge.
So far, so good, Sebastian thought, walking behind the Wall Street Journal chick.
Trying, but failing, not to admire her ass.
FINNEY
Dr. Wu had returned to the locker room to clean herself up, and he had let her.
No reason not to. He’d also permitted her to remove her glasses to use the toilet, and to take a shower, in (relative) privacy. Because, why not? He was feeling generous. Overall, everything was proceeding as he’d planned. She wasn’t going anywhere.
Now he was listening to the steady thrum of shower water against her skull, which to him, through his audio feed, sounded like the drone of jet engines in the cabin of a passenger plane.
Finney was sitting in a small, windowless room in an anonymous office building next to Turner—a building that he owned, and which at present was unoccupied. He’d seen to that months ago, quietly clearing out the business tenants through intermediaries and expired leases, so that he’d be far from any prying eyes this morning.
The room was spare but suited his purpose just fine. There was a large desk on which to place the electronic tablet that tethered him to Dr. Wu and a rolling desk chair with padded arms and a high back for reclining.
He pushed himself away from the desk, leaned back in the chair, and stared at the ceiling. The water thrummed in his ear, as if he were standing in the shower with her.
Sebastian.
He assumed the man was climbing the walls right now, wondering what he was doing, suspecting that Finney was holding out on him, perhaps laying plans Sebastian wasn’t privy to. Which, naturally, Finney was.
Plans that involved killing Dr. Wu.
But those would come later. For now, he simply wanted to be alone with her. Because, really, this whole thing was between only the two of them.
Without taking his eyes off the ceiling, he pulled the worn-leather notebook from his front shirt pocket, the same one he’d written in the day of Jenny’s funeral. He held it up to his face. A frayed cloth bookmark, attached to the binding, flagged a page near the back. He opened to that page and studied the name he’d written there in mechanical pencil a year ago.
Dr. Rita Wu.
He replaced the bookmark, closed the book, and hugged it to his chest.
When Jenny had still been alive, people had wondered what she’d seen in him.
Oh, they didn’t come right out and say it to his face. But Finney knew they were thinking it. Talking about him behind his back. He wasn’t stupid.
Most, he knew, thought it was his money. With good reason. He had a lot of it. And he, being careful with his money, had always regarded the women who pursued him with suspicion.