Клео Коул - Espresso Shot

Matt leaned back in his chair. “Jeez.”

“I don’t know who this Stuart Winslow is, or how he’s connected to Monica—or even Breanne for that matter—but I’m almost positive he had something to do with the robbery attempt and maybe even Monica’s death.” I glanced at Quinn, relieved to see him nodding in agreement.

Matt scratched the back of his head. “But if this Winslow guy is the one who tried to run Breanne over, and he also tried to gun her down on Monday night, then what was the point? Why does he want my fiancée dead?”

I drummed my fingers on the table then stilled when it hit me. “Maybe it was Monica who wanted Breanne dead. Maybe she and Winslow were working together, even sleeping together—”

“ Maybe isn’t going to solve this, Clare,” Quinn interrupted.

“No,” I said. “It’s up to us to get to the bottom of it.”

“How?” Matt asked.

I met Quinn’s eyes. “I have an idea...”

Stuart Allerton Winslow lived in The Residential, a massive, prewar apartment building along Seventy-second Street. It was the kind of place that featured all the amenities: solid construction, firewalls and soundproofing, working fireplaces, a twenty-four-hour doorman, a laundry room, and a health club in the basement.

The Residential sat between Broadway and Central Park West, just a few blocks away from the steepled facade of The Dakota, the Gothic-Victorian landmark building where John Lennon was shot to death, and a pebble’s throw from Strawberry Fields, a quiet area of Central Park dedicated to the memory of the murdered recording artist.

We couldn’t see Strawberry Fields from our current location. We couldn’t even see outside. In the stairwell of The Residential, between the ninth and tenth floors, the window-panes were glazed to admit only light. The thick walls and steel-frame construction muted the city sounds, too, so the stairwell was eerily quiet, except for the insistent voice of Detective Mike Quinn.

“This is a bad idea, Clare. I can have a female detective here inside of twenty minutes. Let her do the heavy lifting. That’s what she’s trained for.”

I shook my head so vigorously I got a warning from Sergeant Sullivan.

“Don’t move or you’ll mess me up here,” Sully said. “And lift your blouse a little higher, please.”

He was kneeling beside me, taping a long wire to my bare midriff. Sullivan’s hands were warm, but the tape was cold, and there was a draft, too. I shivered.

“Listen, Mike,” I said. “No stranger can walk in there and pull this off. This Winslow has to believe that I’m a friend of Monica’s for the plan to work. He saw me in Fen’s during Breanne’s fitting and again today, at Trend ’s office. He’ll believe my story, because he’s seen me around Monica, and Trend .”

“You’ve told me this already. The only trouble is, we don’t know if this big guy you’ve seen is actually Winslow—”

“Excuse me, there, Ms. Cosi, but this microphone part has to go a little, er, higher.” Sully looked up at his partner. “Maybe you should do it, Mike.”

Sully stood up and turned around while Mike ran the thin wire through my bra and tucked the tiny microphone between my breasts. I shivered again, only this time it wasn’t the cold. I tried to catch Mike’s eye, but he avoided my gaze.

“Cover up, Cosi,” he murmured.

I dropped my blouse, and Sully faced us again. The sergeant was wearing headphones, and he handed another headset to Quinn. Then he touched a button on the digital recorder. “Say something, Ms. Cosi.”

I locked eyes with Quinn. “This will work. I know it.”

“Loud and clear.” Sully grinned.

Quinn crossed his arms. “What if you’re wrong, Clare? What if Winslow’s not the man you saw outside of Fen’s and again this morning? You couldn’t ID the guy from the driver’s license photo I pulled up from the state’s database.”

“It was an eighteen-year-old photo and blurry.” The man in the picture was a lot thinner than the one I’d seen, and his hair was a lot longer, but he was the right age, had the same color hair and eyes. His nose was wrong, too, but he could have broken it sometime after the photo was taken.

Quinn exhaled. He still wasn’t happy.

“Listen to me, Mike, even if Winslow isn’t the man I saw, he might be one of the men who robbed the underground restaurant last night. If that’s the case, then he saw me with Roman, and he knows I’m not a cop.”

“And what if he’s not one of the robbers, either?”

I shrugged. “I’ll just have to work a little harder to be convincing.”

“Can’t fault her spirit,” Sergeant Sullivan said.

“Shut up, Sully.”

“Hey, Mike,” Sully replied, “I’m just saying that if this guy is selling deadly drugs without a prescription, then it’s our job to stop him. Ms. Cosi is just doing her civic duty to help keep the streets of our fair city safe from predators.”

Quinn rolled his eyes. “Enough with the public service announcement. Let’s get this over with.”

I took a deep breath. I guess I should have felt nervous, but what I mainly felt was exhilarated. I couldn’t wait to get in there and nail this jerk.

“We’ll be right outside, and we can hear everything you say,” Quinn told me. “If something happens, we’ll be through that door and into the apartment in seconds, no matter how many locks and dead bolts are on it. If Winslow makes a move, stay out of his reach until we can get to you.”

I nodded.

“Apartment ten-sixteen, through the fire doors and to the left,” Sully said, the headphones squeezed his carrot head. “Nail him, Cosi. You can do it.”

“Thanks, Sully.”

Thirty seconds later I knocked on the door. There was no response after a ten count, so I knocked again. Finally, I spied movement behind the peephole.

“What do you want?” The voice was male.

“Mr. Winslow. My name’s Clare. I’m a friend of Monica’s. Monica Purcell .”

I heard a click, then the rattle of a security chain. I recalled the size of the man I’d seen at Trend this morning and lifted my chin. But when the door opened, I was in for a surprise. The man who answered was tall, but he wasn’t the big man I was expecting. I’d never seen this guy.

Okay, Clare, don’t panic. You’ll just have to talk faster.

“Mr. Winslow—”

“ Dr. Winslow. They haven’t taken the Ph.D. away from me. Not yet.”

The man appeared much older than fifty-seven, the age we’d come up with based on the birth date of his old driver’s license. He had a head too large for his scrawny body. His painfully thin frame was clad in gray sweatpants, and his matching sweatshirt was frayed at the neckline. Winslow’s facial features had been hard to make out on the old New York State license, but in person they appeared patrician. A thick head of brown hair crowned his chiseled WASPish features, but it was dirty, tangled, and thoroughly shot with gray. In short, the man was a sight, but his complexion was what truly unnerved me. Pale as a ghost, Winslow’s skin seemed almost powdered with the dust of ages past.

As he regarded me through slightly bulging eyes, I realized something was wrong with his pupils. They were too wide and dark, as if he were intoxicated, but I couldn’t smell alcohol on him, and (given my own difficult years with Matt) I’d bet the farm that he was on drugs right now.

“Well, Doctor ,” I said, “I’m a friend of Monica’s, and I’m here to inform you that she’s out of the picture.”

The man gave me no reaction to the news. Winslow just stared, expressionless.