The thing was, if he could manage to get home in one piece, help was on the way. He had a fresh bottle of Lagavulin waiting for him, and he might or might not slow down to use a glass: As far as the hospital was concerned, he was off until Monday a.m. at six o’clock, and he had plans to get drunk and stay that way.
Taking the leather-wrapped wheel with one hand, he burrowed into his silk shirt to find his Jesus piece. Gripping the gold cross, he sent up a prayer.
God . . . please let her be okay.
He couldn’t stand losing another one of his girls. Not so soon. Jane Whitcomb had died a whole year ago, but that was just what the calendar told him. In grief time, it had been only about a minute and a half since it had happened.
He didn’t want to go through that again.
FOUR
Downtown Caldwell had a lot of tall, windowed buildings, but there were few like the Commodore. At a good thirty floors in height, it was among the taller in the concrete forest, and the sixty or so condos it housed were Trump-tastic, all marble and nickel-plated chrome and designer-everything.
Up on the twenty-seventh floor, Jane walked around Manny’s condo, looking for signs of life and finding . . . nothing. Literally. The guy’s place was about as much of an obstacle course as a damn dance floor, his furniture consisting of three things in the living room and a huge bed in the master suite.
That was it.
Well, and some leather-seated stools at the counter in the kitchen. As for the walls? The only thing he’d hung anywhere was a plasma-screen TV the size of a billboard. And the hardwood floors had no rugs, just gym bags and . . . more gym bags . . . and athletic shoes.
Which was not to say he was a slob. He didn’t own enough to be considered a slob.
With growing panic, she walked into his bedroom and saw half a dozen blue hospital scrubs left in piles on the floor, like puddles after a rainstorm, and . . . nothing else.
But the closet door was open and she looked inside—
“God . . . damn it.”
The set of suitcases lined up on the floor were small, medium, and large—and the middle one was gone. So was a suit, given the bald hanger hanging in between the other jacket-and-slacks pairings.
He was off on a trip. Maybe for the weekend.
Without much hope, she dialed into the hospital’s system and paged him once more—
Her call waiting clicked in, and as she looked at the number, she cursed again.
Taking a deep breath, she answered, “Hey, V.”
“Nothing?”
“Not at the hospital or here at his condo.” The subtle growl coming over the connection amped up her going-nowhere rush. “And I checked the gym on the way up here as well.”
“I hacked into the St. Francis system and got his calendar.”
“Where is he?”
“All it said was that Goldberg is on call, true? Look, the sun’s set. I’ll be out of here in, like, a—”
“No, no . . . you stay with Payne. Ehlena’s great, but I think you should be there.”
There was a big pause, like he knew he was being held off. “Where to next for you?”
&
nbsp; She gripped the phone and wondered who she should pray to. God? His mother? “I’m not sure. But I’ve paged him. Twice.”
“When you find him, call me and I’ll come pick you up.”
“I can get us home—”