Annie Seymour 01-Sacred Cows (25 page)

Hickey was downing a cup of coffee when I emerged from the bathroom, not much neater than I’d been five minutes earlier.

“Hey,” I muttered as Vinny put a cup in front of me. I took a long drink, ignoring how hot it was, craving the caffeine.

“Bagel?” Vinny offered. Poppy seed, with raspberry jam. If it wasn’t for that kiss yesterday, I’d think he was gay. No straight guy was this neat and organized. The few times I’d stayed at Tom’s, the only things in the refrigerator were a six-pack and a stick of butter.

I chewed slowly. Hickey still hadn’t said a word.

“So how are we going to catch the elusive Mr. Torrey?” I asked after practically licking my plate. I nodded when Vinny offered more coffee.

“He doesn’t know.”

“He speaks,” I said, raising my cup to Hickey, then turning to Vinny. “You don’t know, do you? He’s right. You’re making this up as you go along.”

“We’re not going to find him because he doesn’t want to be found,” Hickey said. “We may have the evidence that proves he’s been scamming everyone, but unless we find him, there’s nothing we can do about it.”

It was a fairly pessimistic view, but the truth.

“I’m still curious about Melissa Peabody,” I said. Vinny continued to munch on his bagel, listening to us. “Did he or didn’t he? Maybe it really was David Best. Maybe it was his roommate, the guy with the mole. He’s pretty fucked up. He could probably kill someone.” I drained my cup again. “Oh, Christ, we’re right back where we started.”

Vinny chuckled, and Hickey and I stared at him.

“What’s so funny?” I demanded.

“Both of you. You have no faith, do you?”

“Frankly, no.” I just wanted everything to go back to normal: my job, my apartment, my antisocial life. Maybe even Tom, even though he was being an asshole. Mark Torrey had fucked up my life. I wanted more than anything to get even, but Hickey was right. Torrey was still in Italy, and we were getting nowhere.

“How do you think we can entice Mr. Torrey back to New Haven?” Vinny asked.

I felt like I was back in school, and it wasn’t a good feeling. I didn’t like this game, but if I played along maybe it would be over soon.

I shrugged. “Beats me.”

“Oh, come on, Annie, think. He’s a smart guy, he’s feeling cocky. He has a lot of cash stashed somewhere. I’ve traced some through four banks and three dummy companies, including McGee, and still don’t know where it ended up. Don’t you think he wants to play the cat-and-mouse game? He met with you, didn’t he, before he left, knowing you’d put something in the paper. I still think he wants the notoriety, he wants to know that everyone’s talking about him.” Vinny paused. “There’s been nothing in the paper recently about him. It’s probably pissing him off.”

“Okay, so you took Psych 101 in college. But he wouldn’t risk coming back just to get his name in the paper again.”

“But he might risk it if he thinks we have even more than the tapes.”

He was talking in riddles again, and Hickey frowned. “What more would we have?”

Vinny shrugged. “Maybe I sent him some e-mail. Maybe I told him we’ve got proof that he killed Melissa.”

“Like what kind of proof?”

“Shit, I don’t know. That’s all I said. He’ll contact us, because if he didn’t kill her then he won’t want to go down for murder, and if he did kill her, well . . .” His voice trailed off and we pondered what Mark Torrey might do if truly backed up against a wall. I didn’t want to think about it.

“You’ve got his e-mail address?” I asked.

Vinny laughed. “Annie, you can find out anyone’s e-mail address, phone number, address, just by doing a simple search on the Internet.”

“I know that.” I pushed back my chair and got up to pace. “He’s got his lackeys working here, you know that. He won’t come back. He’ll just get his guys to finish the job they started last night. Maybe we can leave it up to the feds and move on with our lives.”

“You seem to forget that I was hired to find him.”

“But I wasn’t.” I went back into the bedroom and found my clothes folded neatly on a chair, not in the heap I’d left them in the night before.

“You can’t give up now,” Vinny pleaded quietly. He moved in behind me, softly, quietly, and I could hear him breathing.

I took a deep breath. “My job is on the line here, Vinny. Bennett thinks I’ll write something and he’ll get fired for raping our pension. He has to keep me from doing that, but he can’t fire me outright because he knows then I’ll blab to every other news organization in the area and he’ll really get caught. If I quit, he can say it’s just sour grapes.”

“He could say that even if you’re fired.”

“Yeah, well, I guess so. I’m not thinking straight. I just want my life back.” I willed myself to turn around and keep myself in check. He was very close, and I could smell him, it was a faint but musky odor, and it drove me crazy. I glanced at the picture of Rosie to keep me strong.

I pulled back. “Why haven’t you gone to Italy to find him?” It was the first time this dawned on me, that my mother would gladly pay out of her own pocket to get Torrey any way she could.

Vinny sighed. “He’s moving around a lot. Your mother wants me to stay here to try to draw him back. If he’s in Europe, it might be pretty hard to get him extradited quickly.”

“What’s my role in all this?”

“I may have said in the e-mail that you want an interview before going to the feds, but it has to be face-to-face.”

I scowled at him. “Thanks a lot.”

Vinny’s face changed, becoming softer. “I’m sorry about what happened.”

“The shooting or the break-in?”

“All of it. Tom, too.” His hand touched my cheek, and he moved closer. I didn’t stop him.

We didn’t even come up for air when we heard the doorbell, but Hickey’s voice in the doorway was urgent.

“She says she’s your fiancée.”

Vinny pulled back with a deer-in-the-headlights look about him. His mouth was bruised, and mine felt like sandpaper. It was not unpleasant. “Oh, shit,” he said quietly.

I let him walk out into the living room alone. I held back for a couple of minutes before venturing out. She was drop-dead gorgeous. She’d lost weight since the photograph was taken, had long strands of dark hair, and legs going on and on. Oh, Christ, something else to obsess about. I hoped my nipples had calmed down so she wouldn’t suspect anything, but then again, why would I threaten her?

She held her hand out, the manicured French tips dainty against my chewed ones. “Vinny says you’re working on this latest case with him. I don’t know why he continues in this silly business. He could do a lot better.”

I wanted to say, he’s right here, in this room, and he likes his job. So she was a bitch. In a different way than me, in a possibly worse way than me. It made me smile.

“So lovely to meet you.” I picked up my jacket and bag and turned to Vinny. Hickey was still hovering, but he didn’t need any explanations. “I’ll be seeing you.”

Vinny walked me to the door and out into the hallway, where she couldn’t see us. I felt him press something into my hand and I looked down to see a small gun, a .22, like the one that was stolen from my apartment.

I frowned. “What’s this?” I asked, trying to give it back.

“You’ve got to take it,” Vinny said firmly. “You need some sort of protection.”

“I’ve got my pepper spray.”

“Not enough.” I could see how concerned he was about me, and I nodded, slipping the gun into my bag.

“Okay,” I said softly.

“Noon, okay? At your apartment?”

I certainly didn’t have any plans for the day. “She won’t mind?” I jerked my head in the direction of his apartment.

I could see genuine angst cross Vinny’s face. He lowered his voice. “I’ve got some stuff I need to work out, but it doesn’t mean I’m not thinking about you.” His lips brushed mine, and an electric current ran through my body. Okay, so maybe I wasn’t as torn up over my breakup with Tom as I thought.

“I’ll see you at noon,” I said. As I went down the steps, I realized he hadn’t asked where I was going, and I wasn’t sure myself.

I
LET MYSELF
into my apartment, bracing myself for the mess. Yup, it was still there. Time for some down-and-dirty cleaning up. I went into the bedroom and found a pair of gym shorts and a T-shirt, put them on and pulled out the vacuum.

It had been a long time since I’d cleaned, an embarrassingly long time. Which reminded me again of my laundry and lack of clean clothes. I dropped what I was doing and put the dirty clothes in my laundry bag and hauled it down the stairs and threw it in my car. I had no excuse now.

The phone was ringing when I let myself back in.

“Hello?” My eyes were scanning the room, figuring out what to tackle next.

“I understand you have some things I want.”

I flopped down on my rocking chair, wondering again how Mark Torrey had gotten my phone number. “There are a lot of people looking for you.”

“I know. I’d like to meet with you again and get this whole mess straightened out. I want to clear my name, because I did not kill Melissa. But perhaps after you get your apartment cleaned up. And maybe after you get that laundry to the Laundromat. I hope you won’t leave it in the car too long.”

I sat up straight, the hairs on my neck standing at attention. “Where are you?” I finally sputtered.

He chuckled. “Don’t worry about that, Miss Seymour. How about tonight?”

“What about tonight?”

“A meeting, Miss Seymour.”

“I thought you were in Italy.”

“Edgerton Park. The Whitney entrance. Nine o’clock. And don’t bring any company. I’d like to see just you. And, of course, the tapes.”

“Why would I do that? Do you think I’m stupid?” My bravado surprised me, but it’s easy to be brave on the phone.

“We’ve got your friend, the private dick. If you want to see him again, you should do what I ask.”

He hung up. I held the phone for a few minutes, his words sinking in, and then a panic swelled in my chest. Edgerton Park. That was where Vinny’s meeting was supposed to be the other day. I ignored my shaking hand as I fumbled in my bag for the card with Vinny’s phone numbers on it.

I left messages at both his apartment and his office. I wanted to call his parents’ place again, to see if he was there, but didn’t want to scare his mother again. She didn’t think too much of me anyway.

I dialed another number, though, and when Paula answered, I sighed with relief. “Paula, Torrey contacted me. He says he’s got Vinny. He wants to meet tonight.” I told her every word. I’d committed it to memory without even realizing it.

“You can’t go,” she said when I finished.

“I have to go.”

“We’ll go.”

“He said me. Only me.” I did want company, but they could just stay hidden until Torrey showed up, then they could take him away and lock him up. I didn’t want this screwed up, I wanted to get this guy. I wanted to see Vinny. Make sure he was okay.

“You are not to go. Do you hear me? Leave it up to us. Jesus, don’t fuck this up.” I’d never heard Paula this angry.

“Okay. Okay, but won’t he get suspicious if I’m not there?”

I heard her sigh; it was not unlike something my mother would do, but I didn’t say anything, that would piss her off even more. “We’ll come to your apartment and wire you.”

“You can’t do that. He’s watching me. I don’t know how, but he knows every move I make.”

“Shit.” My thoughts exactly. “Okay, how about this? We can meet you at the paper. He wouldn’t think anything funny if you went there.”

Marty and Bill Bennett would, but I’d just have to deal with that later. “If you go in the main entrance, I’ll wait there, near the security guard. You should come alone or with just one other agent, so no one will get suspicious.” I could see it now: A crew of FBI agents with all their gadgets showing up at the newspaper would definitely set off the red lights.

“Four o’clock.”

“Sure.”

I heard the dial tone and I hung up.

He was right. Vinny. About Torrey being dangerous. About him contacting me again. How did he know Torrey would be that predictable?

I thought a little more about Vinny. He wouldn’t have let his guard down, would he? Enough to let them get him? I thought about his kiss this morning, and I didn’t think I’d ever wanted to see anyone again this much. No, he had to be all right. Torrey had to be lying. It had to be a trap and I was happy I’d called Paula so she could sic the feds on Torrey’s lackeys. Torrey couldn’t possibly be in town. Could he?

CHAPTER 21

I was in the middle of plucking my eyebrows, trying to keep my mind off Vinny, when I heard the doorbell. Thank God. He was here. He was okay.

I buzzed him up, opened my door. But when I saw who it was, I wanted to cry.

Dick Whitfield knew where I lived and that was a bad thing.

“You have to tell me what’s going on,” he insisted, pushing his way into my living room. “Why are you on vacation? What’s going on with Mark Torrey?”

I still held the tweezers and wondered how much of a weapon they would make. Seriously, Officer, I didn’t think I really could take his eye out with that pointy end . . . I shook myself back to reality. “I can’t tell you. Now, I’m terribly busy and you have to leave.” I didn’t like it that he was in my space, looking at my things. This apartment had gotten way too much bad karma recently. Maybe it really was time to think about buying a condo somewhere.

A thought dawned on me. “Do you know the Laundromat on Grand Avenue?”

He frowned but nodded.

“I really need a favor. I’ve got a huge laundry bag in my car, and I just can’t get over there now. Could you drop it off for me on your way back to the paper?”

He stood up and for a moment I thought he was going to do it. But just for a moment.

“Listen, Annie, I’ve taken just about as much abuse from you as I can.”

Oh, Christ, he was going to tell me I’d hurt his feelings. No shit.

“I’ve been doing your errands now for a while, and you don’t seem to take me seriously.”

Okay, and the problem is what?

“I’m a serious journalist, and I take my job seriously.”

He was repeating himself and seemed unaware I hadn’t responded.