Alex Kava Bundle - Alex Kava [520]
He tried to remember what kind of music he liked and drew a blank. Surely he could remember a particular song or maybe a singer. How could he not remember music?
Just then he noticed the two women whispering again, only this time the older woman was looking back over her shoulder at him as the young woman said something to Marley. There were talking about him. Wondering who he was. Why they didn’t recognize him.
Time to leave.
He got up and took his time shuffling through the long second row of chairs. By the time he got to the door he heard one of them say something about bedroom slippers and realized that yes, they were talking about him.
Luc made it to the end of the hallway, out the door and down the street. Still no Marley. Of course, he wouldn’t leave that beautiful brunette. So Luc took a moment to catch his breath and scratch in his notebook, “Bedroom slippers. Bury me in my bedroom slippers. The blue ones, not the brown ones.”
He flipped the notebook closed and put it and the pen in his pocket. In the reflection of the store window he saw a man watching him from behind, from across the street. Was it Marley? He didn’t want to turn around to look. Didn’t want the man to know. He stood still, pretending to look at the knickknacks in the store that used to be Ralph’s Butcher Shop. He looked between the hanging wind chimes and colorful wind socks, the same area where the rows of salami used to hang. He looked for the man’s reflection and couldn’t see it. Luc stole a quick glance over his shoulder. The man was gone.
Luc stared at his feet, at the slippers that he couldn’t remember putting on that morning. Had there even been a man following him? Or was he really just imagining things?
CHAPTER 33
Maggie moved her room service tray aside, snatching one last piece of toast. She glanced at her watch. She had plenty she needed to do today, places to go, people to talk to. Adam Bonzado had tracked her down first thing this morning, inviting her to his lab at the university to take a look at one of the victims. He seemed under the impression that she was officially on this case. Maybe Sheriff Watermeier had even told him so. She wasn’t sure why she was considering it. Most likely it wouldn’t help her find Joan Begley. Except that his lab was at the University of New Haven, the same university where Patrick was.
She glanced at her watch again and dug out her cell phone. She had been putting this off long enough. She punched in the number from memory.
Gwen answered on the second ring as if she was expecting the call.
“It’s not her,” Maggie said without stalling, then waited out her friend’s silence, letting it sink in.
“Thank God!”
“But she is missing,” Maggie said, not wanting Gwen to misunderstand. She shoved aside a file she had thrown on the hotel desk. She opened it, but only to retrieve a photo. A photo of Joan Begley that Gwen had given her last week.
“Tell me,” Gwen said. “Tell me whatever you’ve found out.”
“I was in her hotel room last night.”
“They let you in?”
“Let’s just say I was in her hotel room last night, okay?” She didn’t have the patience this morning for a lecture from her friend, the same friend who had managed to finagle someone into telling her Joan Begley had missed her flight. “It looks like she’s been gone since Saturday. But I don’t think she just left. Her things are scattered around the room like she intended to come back.”
“Is it possible he may have talked her into running off without her things?”
“I don’t know. All her cosmetics? And her checkbook? You tell me, Gwen. Is she the type who would do that?”
There was silence again and Maggie used it to examine the photo. The photographer had interrupted Joan Begley, making her look up from a metal sculpture, her welding hood’s protective glass mask pushed up, revealing serious brown eyes and porcelain-white skin. In the background were framed prints, bright splashes of red and orange and royal blue, beautiful explosions