Critical Space ak-5 Page 11

  The threat turned Orin pale. Judd had gotten to his feet, looking as shocked as his brother. Digger was snoring.

  "My PA will expect a call from your manager in the morning." Lady Ainsley-Hunter turned on her heel and headed for the door so briskly I had to scurry to catch up.

  Moore followed a second later, mumbling an apology and a thank you. When I caught his expression out of the corner of my eye, I knew that Lady Ainsley-Hunter had humiliated him as much as she had Orin.

  "It's always about the children," he muttered as we made our way back to the dance floor.

  Chapter 10

  Three days later, everything went to hell in a handbasket.

  It actually started the night before, with me getting in late, cranky and hungry and with a headache. I'd made a bowl of oatmeal and finished the orange juice in the pitcher, and that had taken the edge off by the time I fell asleep.

  All the same, when my alarm went off at a quarter of five my head felt thick, my muscles ached, and I knew I was moving slowly. A look at myself in the mirror when I'd finished shaving confirmed the worst. The bags under my eyes looked packed for a long trip, and my tongue was coated. I was coming down with something.

  In the kitchen, I popped a handful of the assorted vitamins that Bridgett kept in the cabinet with the canned goods, made a fresh quart of juice from concentrate, then used most of it to chase the pills down. I dressed in one of my nicer suits, hooked my radio and gun to my belt, and stumbled downstairs. It was still dark outside, and I nearly tripped over Midge, my downstairs neighbor, who was stretching against the doorframe in preparation for her morning run.

  "You should be in bed." Midge said it in the same perky way she said everything, no matter how sad or depressing or tedious the observation might be. Everything about her was perky, from the sweats to her permed blond hair.

  "Gotta work," I told her.

  "You look like you have a fever."

  I nodded and made my way down the block to the corner of Third Avenue. Midge followed me, bouncing on the balls of her feet.

  "Haven't seen much of Bridgett for the last week. You're still friends?"

  "She's been working out of town," I said. When Midge had first moved into the building, Erika had been living with me, and she had assumed Erika was my sister. Erika, in turn, had implied that our relationship was far more intimate than that, and it had taken several months before Midge realized the joke. As a result, Midge was careful in how she referred to Bridgett, always as my "friend," although given the lack of insulation between floors there was not a doubt in my mind that she knew what the relationship was.

  Midge helped me hail a cab on the corner, and as I climbed in she wished me a good day and headed off in the direction of the East River. I told the cabbie that I wanted to go to the Edmonton. The traffic was still light, and the cabbie sped enthusiastically. He had to wake me up when we reached the hotel, and I paid him and headed through the lobby, and maybe it was the extra ten minutes of sleep, but I felt significantly better.

  Moore let me into the suite after making the appropriate checks through the spyhole, and as I passed him, he echoed Midge.

  "Christ, you look like warm shite."

  "Fuck you very much. Is there coffee?"

  "Cart just came up."

  He followed me into the sitting room, where Chester was working at the desk. I could hear a shower running in Lady Ainsley-Hunter's bedroom, and I used my head to indicate the door, which was a mistake, because the headache – that had been just waiting for an excuse – took that as its cue to make a grand entrance.

  "Natalie in there?"

  "Of course." Moore grabbed the cup out of my hand. "Tea for you, mate."

  "Coffee's fine."

  "Tea is better for you." He took a fresh cup and used the second pot on the cart to fill it, then squeezed the juice from a lemon wedge into the tea.

  "You're so British," I grumbled, taking the cup and a seat. " 'Morning, Peter."

  " 'Morning, Tinkerbell," Chester said. "You do look a sight."

  "I look worse than I feel."

  Moore had been having eggs and hash browns and sausage, and a bowl of oatmeal, and the sight of it made my stomach look for a place to hide somewhere behind my liver. I averted my eyes as he wolfed down a couple of forkfuls.

  "We should move me off the perimeter today," I told Moore. "Give it to Natalie."

  "It takes a wise man to admit it when he can go no farther," he said. "Though I'm inclined to tell you to just head the hell home and get some sleep."

  "My head's clear and I'm moving fine. We'll just swap me with Natalie today, and I'll back you up on the close support."

  Moore appraised me like I was a recruit on his parade ground. Then he grunted. "We'll run with it. But if you start to head south, you notify, understood?"

  "Yes, Sergeant." I finished the tea and stood to refill the cup. "Shall we get to business?"

  Moore wiped his mouth with the napkin, nodding, then pushed his plate away. "Fiona, you want to come over here?"

  Chester moved from the desk to the couch, bringing one of the typed sheets with her. "Her Ladyship's schedule for the day, gentlemen. She begins with an appearance on Talk New York! at ten, but the show's producer has asked we have her at the studio no later than nine to give him time to go over the questions she'll be asked. She's been invited to stay for the whole hour, after which Her Ladyship is free until one this afternoon, when she will lunch with the lieutenant governor and members of his staff at the Four Seasons. At two-thirty she has promised to attend a benefit auction for the International Red Cross in Scarsdale. The rest of her afternoon is free until six-thirty, when she will speak at NYU on grassroots political action as a means of fighting child exploitation. The lecture is supposed to end at eight, but in all likelihood, Her Ladyship will want to entertain questions as long as she can. When she is finished, however, she has promised to join some of the students for drinks at a local pub – excuse me, local bar."

  While she spoke, Moore and I consulted our notes, checking off each item as it was listed.

  "Scarsdale is new," I said.

  "It was added last night, after dinner," Chester said, nodding. "The invitation was presented to her in person, just before we left."

  "Checked it already," Moore said. "It's up-and-up."

  "Well, it's a problem," I said. "It'll take an hour, probably longer, to get from that lunch midtown to Scarsdale. That's without serious traffic."

  "But it's possible?"

  "She won't have much of a meal," I said. "It'll be a rush."

  "She can be a few minutes late," Chester said.

  "I'll let Dale know. If he can find a route he likes, it'll fly."

  "Agreed," Moore said. "The NYU lecture and drinks to follow, you know the location?"

  "There's a bar in the neighborhood that I like. The Stoned Crow, it's small, entrance is on Fourth Street. Gets a regular crowd most weeknights, but there's a space in the back that's easy enough to secure. There's a pool table back there, some booths, a dart board. It'll be fine. We scouted it week before last."

  "How do you want to handle the guests for that?"

  "Well, we could search them."

  "Her Ladyship would rather if you didn't," Chester said. "These are the people who make Together Now work. She doesn't wish to do anything that might alienate them."

  I looked at Moore, shrugged. "Eyeballing works, too."

  "All right," he agreed. "Anything else?"

  "Not for now."

  Moore checked the Rolex on his wrist. "I've got oh-six-twenty-three."

  I checked my own watch. "I agree."

  "How long is it going to take us to get to the studio?"

  "Maybe thirty minutes. It's pretty much a straight shot over to the West Side."

  "Then we'll egress at oh-eight-thirty."

  We all seemed happy with that, so Chester headed for Lady Ainsley-Hunter's bedroom to inform her of the itinerary and I got up to use the phon
e on the desk, dialing Dale's cellular. He answered immediately, and I told him the news about Scarsdale, and he was surprisingly obliging about the whole thing.

  "I'll pull the maps now," he said. "Anything else?"

  "There'll be a change in the rotation. Natalie's going to take the perimeter today, I'll be backing up Moore with Lady Ainsley-Hunter."

  "I'll pass it along to Corry when I see him. When do you want us there?"

  "Quarter past eight. Radio when you're in position."

  "See ya then."

  I hung up the phone, drained the last of the tea in the cup, and refilled for a third time from the cart. "You were right," I told Moore. "The tea's helping."

  "That's the restorative power of a cuppa." He glanced over at Lady Ainsley-Hunter's door, making certain it was still shut. "Any news on the Keith front?"

  I tore open a packet of honey with my teeth, then said, "Bridgett and Special Agent Fowler are in New Jersey. Joseph Keith – or someone using his Visa card – bought a suit at a mall off Route Seventeen yesterday morning."

  "A suit?"

  "A three-piece suit, navy blue, and two dress shirts, three ties, a package of cotton handkerchiefs, and a pair of burgundy leather dress shoes. And some cufflinks."

  Moore rolled his eyes. "Well-dressed stalker."

  "Well, you know, they were married," I said.

  "Who was married?" Lady Ainsley-Hunter asked.

  She had just emerged from her bedroom, Natalie and Chester following. She was wearing a white shell with a mock turtleneck collar that left her arms bare, and light silk pants the color of an avocado's flesh. She'd touched her cheeks, lips, and eyes lightly with makeup, and had spent some time on her hair, as well. In each earlobe was a small pearl on a stud, and its companion necklace was visible at her neck. Her feet were bare.

  Lady Ainsley-Hunter looked expectantly from me to Moore, giving each of us time to come up with an answer. When neither of us did, she smiled.

  "Right," she said. "Which of you is going to tell me about my stalker, then?"

  ***

  "I've spent the last twelve years becoming very adept at listening to what people are saying behind my back," Lady Ainsley-Hunter said. "It's the world I was born and bred to. It's a required survival skill in a class-based society."

  She was seated on the edge of her bed, pulling on a pair of white cotton socks that looked stunningly inappropriate. I'd taken the seat by the dressing table, and we were alone for the time being, the others waiting in the sitting room for the second round of breakfast – this for Her Ladyship and Natalie – to arrive.

  "Neither you nor Robert want me to fret over something I cannot control. I suppose I could be offended or outraged or otherwise angry, and I am, a bit."

  "You're concealing it well."

  "Another trait I had to learn early." She finished tugging up her socks, then grabbed a foot in each hand and pulled them in against her thighs, rocking slightly on the mattress. "Is this man dangerous?"

  "Possibly."

  She pursed her lips and blew out a breath. Then she shrugged. "Very well."

  "That's the most understated response I've ever heard from a principal."

  "You don't know very much about the peerage, do you?"

  "Not really."

  "The women I grew up with, went to school with, the ones who are my age, they think I'm pitiful. As in, deserving of their pity."

  The look I gave her made her laugh. It sounded bitter.

  "Ninety percent of those women are anorexic or suffering from some other eating disorder," Lady Ainsley-Hunter said. "Everything is about appearance, about station, about finding a good husband. These are women who spend their whole year preparing for the Season, choosing what they will wear, who they will invite, who they will deign to speak to."

  "It's that shallow?" I asked.

  "It's not shallow at all, if you're a part of it. It's the culture." She let her feet go and reached down for the pair of black boots at the foot of the bed. "When I was nine years old, I went with my father to Thailand. He was with the Foreign Office then, going on a fact-finding tour, and I begged and begged to go with him. On that trip, I met a little Thai girl, my age, perhaps a year or two older. She was quite sweet, quite kind to me. She and I played by the pool at the hotel. She wore a black bathing suit, and I thought it was quite adult, because it didn't have frills or ruffles.

  "One afternoon, while we were playing, two men came over, one of them Thai, the other I'm not certain about, but he was Caucasian. I thought the Thai man was my friend's father. And my friend left with them, and I stayed in the pool."

  She paused, yanking the right boot on and then smoothing her pants leg down over it. "You know how when you're little you can occupy yourself with a pleasure for hours and hours? You can play with the same toy, you can read the same book again and again?"

  I nodded.

  "Growing up in the north of England, not really weather for taking a dip," she reached for her other boot, "one does not swim for fun. Only if one has fallen into the lake. I was in and out of that pool for hours. So I was there when she returned. She was happy to see me, she jumped into the water, wanting to play.

  "As soon as she was in the water, though, blood began clouding around her middle. She'd been bleeding between her legs, you see, and the bathing suit, being black, had hidden it. But in the water, it sort of… billowed out. As soon as she saw it, she started to cry."

  She looked at the remaining boot, still in her hand.

  "The pool attendant came and pulled her from the water. I thought that he would call for a doctor, but he didn't, he began shouting at her. And the man that I thought was her father, he came running back, too. The two men started shouting at one another, my friend between them. The attendant was shaking her, and the water from her suit made the blood run down her legs. She kept crying the whole time.

  "Then they left, or, more precisely, they were forced to leave. The man who I believed was her father – he was dragging her after him. He didn't seem like a very kind parent, I remember thinking.

  "My own father arrived, and I told him what I'd seen. I wanted to know where my friend had gone, you see. I was going to be at the hotel, at the pool, for another three or four days, and I wanted to have someone to play with. My father went to talk to the pool attendant, and when he came back he looked as if he'd swallowed something both sour and sharp at once, as if it was in his stomach, making him ill."

  Lady Ainsley-Hunter finished pulling on the remaining boot, then stood, stamping each foot to make sure she was set on her heels. With the back of her hand, she smoothed her hair.

  "I badgered him, asking over and over what had happened, where she had gone. Asking if I could play with her again. I'm old enough now that I understand how hard it was for him, but then, I thought he was just being cruel, and I wouldn't relent. In the end, he sat me down and he said that I wasn't going to see her again. And I asked why, I asked if that meant she was sick, if she had died. After all, I'd seen her bleeding.

  "My father was a reserved man, you understand. He could be quite passionate when it suited him, but he rarely revealed his emotions. But I saw tears in his eyes, and he held me close, and he told me that there were evil things, and that the worst evils were the evils done to children.

  "And then he explained what evil I had just seen."

  Outside, I heard the doorbell ring. Lady Ainsley-Hunter canted her head in the direction of the sound, listening. There was the rattle of a new cart being wheeled in, the old one being wheeled away. She sighed, checking herself in the mirror, finding me in the reflection. There was the hint of a self-mocking smile.

  "I can't think of any work more important than what I do," she told my reflection. "I suppose some might think that arrogant, but I genuinely believe that there is nothing more important in the world than rescuing children. I have dedicated my life to a cause. I will never abandon it."

  She finished checking herself in the mirror, then turn
ed to face me.

  "This man Keith, he worries you and he worries Robert. As far as I'm concerned, all that it means is that the money I'm spending on security is worth every pence. But Keith doesn't matter to me. He is, in all honesty, irrelevant. I have more important things to deal with…" She trailed off, searching my face for some sign that I understood what she was saying and why she was saying it.

  "All right," I said.

  She nodded, taking her suit jacket from where it hung at the back of a chair. It was made from the same light silk as her trousers, the same green.

  "And now I want my breakfast," she said.

  ***

  The producer of Talk New York! was a man named Jordan Palmetto, and he met us in the dressing room when we arrived at the studio. He waited, patient and visibly amused, until Moore and I had finished our checks, then greeted Lady Ainsley-Hunter and tried to present her with a basket of fruit and cheese. Moore took it from him before Lady Ainsley-Hunter could, grinning and saying that he was starved. It was a more discreet – though ruder – way of indicating that he wanted to check the contents before handing it over.

  Once she was seated at the makeup table, Palmetto began running through questions with Her Ladyship, Chester sitting with them. Her Ladyship was going to be the first guest. The other guests today were a stand-up comedian who had a new sitcom that had debuted this fall, and an author.

  "But nobody's ever heard of him," Palmetto confided. "If it looks like we're going long, we'll bump him."

  "What does he write?" Lady Ainsley-Hunter asked.

  "Books," Palmetto said.

  I took a post near the door to the dressing room while Moore headed back out to make a circuit of the stage area. Over my radio I listened as Natalie and he exchanged transmissions about the layout and the look of the audience. Dale was out back, keeping an eye on the two cars and the exit, and Corry was waiting in the lobby, in position to watch as people began filing inside. The studio had two hundred and twenty-eight seats, and all of them would be filled, though whether the seats were occupied by people who actually wanted to see the show or by people who were pulled in off the street was hard to tell.