Клео Коул - Espresso Shot

The glass front doors opened, and I looked up, expecting Quinn. But it was another man who snagged my attention. Tall and heavyset like an athlete gone to seed, he crossed the crowded reception area. His steps were cautious, as if he feared breaking one of the living, breathing Barbie and Ken dolls that surrounded him.

I know this guy , I thought as he approached. He was the same man who’d been loitering outside of Fen’s Fifth Avenue boutique the day before—at the very time Breanne was having her final fitting.

Now, as then, his appearance seemed wrong. Today he wore a too-tight wool suit of chocolate brown, black shoes with thick rubber soles, a white shirt so tight his neck bulged around the collar, and a tie the color of overcooked oatmeal. When he addressed the receptionist, his fingers tapped the counter impatiently.

“Ms. Summour, please.”

“I’m sorry. Ms. Summour isn’t in this morning. Perhaps you’d care to leave a message, or your card, and we’ll call you to set up an appointment for a later date?”

“I’ll come back.”

When the man turned around, his worn rubber heels squeaked. He strode past me, and I stood up, caught the receptionist’s eye. “Who is that man?”

She shrugged. “Never saw him before.”

“Thanks,” I said, bolting for the elevator. I made it just as the doors were closing. The car was crowded, but I squeezed inside. I used the close quarters as an excuse to get nearer to the big man. I smiled up at him once, but he looked away.

Damn. I waited until we reached the lobby before I tried again. As he stepped out of the elevator, I blocked his path. “You wanted to see Ms. Summour, right? I heard you talk to the receptionist. Maybe I can help. I know Breanne very well.”

His surprise turned to recognition, and I knew he remembered seeing me at the House of Fen, right before Monica Purcell showed up. Monica’s phone conversation came back to me in a rush. She’d said something about the rings, of course, but she’d also made another comment: “I’m sorry I missed you,” she’d told the person on the other end of the cell call. “I would have arrived earlier, but I’m running behind today ...”

This must have been the man that Monica missed. He certainly looked alarmed to see me. Suspicious now, he easily moved around my much smaller form and hurried away.

“Wait a minute!” I demanded.

But the man wasn’t waiting, and a tide of office workers was already pushing me back inside the elevator car. I gripped the door and searched for the big man, but he was gone.

“In or out, miss!” the man beside me barked as another figure stepped into the crowded elevator. His broad shoulders, sandy hair, and square jaw attracted an openly admiring glance from a leggy young thing in a micro-miniskirt.

“In,” I said, tugging Quinn’s arm.

“Sorry I’m late, sweetheart,” he whispered as we rode up. “There’s been a development. I’ll tell you about it later.”

I didn’t want to spill my racing thoughts in a crowded elevator, so I held my tongue, too. Unfortunately, there wasn’t any privacy in the reception area, either. So we approached the receptionist together, ready to ask for Monica, when the young man with the black lipstick hurried up to the front desk.

“Call 911!”

The receptionist’s eyes bugged. “What! Why?”

“It’s Monica. Petra just found her on the floor in the ladies’ room. She’s not moving, and we can’t tell if she’s breathing—”

“Where is she?” Mike demanded.

The young man pointed down a carpeted hallway, and Mike took off.

“You can’t go back there!” the receptionist called.

“He’s a cop,” I told her.

“Call 911. Now!” Mike shouted over his shoulder.

The receptionist dialed while I grabbed the hysterical intern. “What happened?”

“Like I said, Petra found her. She’s still with her. I took a peek, and I think she might be dead. She’s blue, and her tongue’s, like, hanging out.”

“Okay, take it easy,” I told him. “Take a breath and sit down.”

I was about to follow Mike but decided against it. I knew where Monica’s office was, and that’s where I went instead. The door was open, and the computer was on when I got there. Monica’s purse was on the desk, but I went right for the drawers. I lifted up that pencil tray and found the black lacquered box. The array of plastic, sepia-colored prescription bottles was still inside.

Using a tissue from a container on her desk, I carefully picked up each one and lined them up on the glossy, fine-grained wood. I examined the labels of each bottle. There was no pharmacy name or phone number printed, only the word Rxglobal and a Web address.

Still keeping the tissue between Monica’s things and my own fingerprints, I lifted the business card inside the box. The card was for a “Mr. Benjamin Tower, freelance photographer.” There was a telephone number and e-mail address. On the back someone—presumably Mr. Tower—had written a note:

Great lunch, Monica! Looking forward to working

with you!

I placed the card on the table beside the bottles and touched the computer mouse. The Runway New York! screen saver vanished, and Monica’s Internet start page appeared. I scanned the list of Web sites the woman had book-marked. Most were fashion designer home pages, the sites of competitors’ magazines, or news pages. One address jumped out at me: Rxglobal.

I hit the button, and the computer connected to the Rxglobal home page. There were lists of vitamins for sale, along with dietary additives, herbal supplements, and homeopathic remedies—in short, nothing Monica or anyone else would require a prescription to purchase. I cruised the site a bit to make certain I wasn’t missing something and came up empty.

Someone touched my shoulder, and I jumped in the chair. Mike was frowning down at me. “This is a crime scene, Clare. You shouldn’t be here.”

“How’s Monica?”

“Ms. Purcell is dead.” His tone was suddenly cold. “It’s not official, but that’s only because the medical examiner isn’t here yet. I’ve seen enough overdoses to know she’s gone.”

“Look at this.” I pointed to the bottles on the desk.

Mike snapped on a latex glove and read one of the labels. “Amphetamines.”

“There are at least nine vials here, Mike. She must have been abusing speed for months, probably to control her weight.”

He placed the bottle on top of the desk, examined several others. “A cocktail of these other drugs with the speed may have caused her death. We won’t know for sure until the toxicology report comes in. But I know one thing.”

“What?”

“These prescriptions are counterfeit. There’s a doctor name, sure—probably also bogus. But there’s no DEA number. Every legit prescription sold has a valid DEA number that consists of two letters, six numbers, and one check digit that’s too complicated to explain right now. There should also be a pharmacy name and address on the label, but all we’ve got is—”

“Rxglobal. I know. I was looking at their Web site.”

Mike peered over my shoulder at the terminal. “Yeah, that might be their site. Or they might have another site that can only be accessed with a special password. We’re going to have to look into this.”

“You said there were other developments. That’s why you were late, remember?”

Mike nodded. “This morning I traced that unlisted number you got from Monica’s cell phone. The call was made to a man named Stuart Allerton Winslow, a chemist who lives on the West Side, not too far from Monica’s apartment. This guy once owned a small pharmaceutical research company that went out of business because of multimillion-dollar law-suits filed against it in civil court.”