I was furious. And I couldn’t let Joe open me up only to let me down again. I looked at his face for the last time, and I pushed away from him.
“I’m sorry. Really. For a moment I thought you were someone else. You’d better go now,” I sputtered. “Have a safe flight.”
He was calling my name as I ran as fast as I could up the front steps of my building. I put my key in the lock and turned the knob in one movement. Then I slammed the door behind me and continued to run up the stairs. When I walked into my apartment, I had to go to the window, though.
I parted the curtain — just in time to see Joe’s car drive away.
Chapter 99
MY PHONE STA
RTED RINGING before I dropped the curtain back across the glass. I knew Joe was calling from the car, and I had nothing to say to him.
I showered for a good long time, fifteen or twenty minutes under the spray. When I got out of the shower, the phone was still ringing. I ignored this call, too. Ditto the furiously blinking light on my answering machine and the tinny chime of my cell phone paging me from my jacket pocket.
I tossed my dinner in the microwave. I opened the Courvoisier and had poured out a tumblerful when my cell phone started up its damned ringing again.
I grabbed it out of my jacket pocket, growled, “Boxer,” fully prepared to say, “Joe, leave me alone, okay?” I felt an inexplicable letdown when the voice in my ear was my partner’s.
Rich said, “What’s it take to get you to answer the phone, Lindsay?” He was annoyed with me and I didn’t care.
“I was in the shower,” I said. “As far as I know, that’s still allowed. What’s up?”
“There was another attack at the Blakely Arms.”
The air went out of me.
“A homicide?”
“I’ll let you know when I get there. I’m a couple of blocks away.”
“Lock down the building. Every exit,” I said. “No one leaves.”
“I’m on it, Sergeant.”
That’s when I remembered the treadmill victim. How could I have forgotten about him?
“Rich, we forgot to check on Ben Wyatt.”
“No, we didn’t.”
“You called the hospital?”
“Yeah.”
“Is Wyatt awake?”
“He died two hours ago.”
I told Rich I’d see him shortly and called Cindy — no answer. I snapped my phone closed, slapped it down on the kitchen counter so that I wouldn’t throw it through a window. The microwave binged five times, telling me that dinner was ready.
“I’m going to lose my mind!” I shouted at the timer. “Going to fricking lose it.”
Screw everything! I left the brandy untouched on the counter and my dinner in the microwave. I dressed quickly, buckled my shoulder holster, and threw on my blazer. I called Cindy and got her, told her what was happening.
Then I headed out to Townsend and Third.
By the time I strode into the lobby of the Blakely Arms, I was imagining my next conversation with Cindy. I wasn’t going to take any guff from her, either.