Али Брэндон - Double Booked For Death

“All clear,” she confirmed a bit breathlessly. “Are we almost finished?”

“Almost,” Jake muttered in an absent tone. She wandered back over to the desk and peered again at the shelves. “There’s got to be something here.”

She paused for a look at the pushbutton phone near the empty docking station. “Let’s see who Morris has been chatting with,” she said and pressed the “Speakerphone” button, opening the line. “If I can just find the ‘Redial’ button . . .”

She found it. Darla heard the familiar beep, boop, bop of tones as the last number that Morris had input now automatically replayed. Jake put a silencing finger to her lips as the line began to ring, but Darla needed no warning. She was holding her breath and mentally counting the rings as they sounded . . . One, two, three .

It was not until the fifth ring that someone picked up. They heard clattering, as if someone were fumbling with the phone, and then a woman’s sleepy voice answered, “Hillary Gables.”

TWENTY-SIX

“THIS IS HILLARY GABLES.”

Darla’s jaw sagged as she heard the agent repeat her greeting in a sharper tone. Then came a small gasp, and the speakerphone voice demanded, “Morris, is that you? Damn it, don’t play games with me. I’ve got caller ID. I recognize your number.”

Getting no response, Hillary stormed on, “Don’t think you can threaten me, you son of a bitch! I’m not afraid of you. I can take you down with what I know. So if you want to keep our little secret between us, I suggest you quit the harassment and bring the money to the club tonight like we agreed.”

In the good old days, Darla irrelevantly thought, they would have heard the receiver slam down as Hillary ended the call. But since the agent was either on a cell phone or a cordless, the conversation ended with a barely audible click as she cut the connection. Jake hung up the speakerphone with the same one-touch efficiency and then turned to meet Darla’s gaze.

“I guess he really did kill Valerie,” Darla said, “and Hillary knows all about it. And now she’s blackmailing him.” She heard the disappointment in her own voice and realized that, despite her suspicions, she really had believed James’s theory about twins being unable to murder their siblings. But apparently even the esteemed Professor James James could be wrong on occasion, as Hillary’s tirade seemingly had proved.

Jake, however, put up a restraining hand.

“Jump to conclusions much, kid? While I agree this is all pretty damn interesting, for all we know Hillary found out something else—like our theory that he wrote the books instead of Valerie—and is blackmailing him over that.”

“Maybe.” But Darla felt the venom in the agent’s words had hinted at something more than a simple case of ghostwriting. “I guess we need to tell Reese what we found out.”

“And what do you suggest we tell him? That we broke into Morris’s private office, autodialed Hillary Gables, and heard her say something about money? Remember what I said about thin? Well, we’re talking tissue paper here.”

“Then I guess we’ll have to find this club Hillary was talking abou—oh no!”

Darla had glanced at the window in time to see Morris on the sidewalk below, having just exited a cab. Now, she pointed frantically in that direction.

“He’s here. Morris is here,” she exclaimed with a panicked look back at Jake. “What if he catches us in here?”

“He won’t if we get the hell out right now,” Jake replied with a swift look around the apartment. “Okay, everything looks in order, so let’s head up to the third floor to visit with Mr. Clean for a bit. Once Morris is safely in the apartment, we’ll make our escape.”

They slipped out the door, and Jake paused long enough to twist the thumb lock on the inner knob before shutting the door behind them.

“Maybe he’ll think he locked the wrong lock last time,” she whispered as the sound of the front door opening drifted up to them. She jabbed a finger in the direction of the third floor, and Darla made a swift if silent beeline for the stairs. Over the frantic beating of her heart, she could hear the faint sounds of metal on metal from the lobby, and she guessed Morris was checking his mail, giving them a few extra seconds.

As they reached the third-floor landing, they heard him starting up the steps. Darla shrank back against the far wall and reflexively counted the footfalls, holding her breath when they stopped. Then she heard a key scrape in the lock, followed by a pause, and the sound of a knob jiggling. She could almost hear the question mark in his thoughts as he apparently found the dead bolt open and the twist lock on the knob locked instead. Did he suspect anything other than his own memory?

“Hey! Hey, there!”

The raspy female voice made both her and Jake jump. Darla gazed wildly about for its source and then recognized the voice as belonging to the first woman whom they’d randomly buzzed while trying to get in. As the woman continued to speak, she realized in relief that the sound was coming from the second floor.

“—was real sorry to hear about your other sister,” the unseen woman was saying, the words obviously directed at Morris. “I’d of made up a casserole to send around, except I didn’t know where to bring it.”

“Don’t worry, Mrs. Gleason,” she heard Morris reply. “Kind thoughts are as filling as food in such situations.”

“Well, you just let me know if you need anything, Morrie,” Mrs. Gleason said with a comforting click of her tongue. “Oh, and I haven’t forgotten about coming around to see that play you told me about. You think maybe Mavis can get me backstage? I’d love to meet that actor fellow who plays Othello. I just love him on that cop show on Tuesday nights.”

“I’m sure she can arrange it. Not tonight, but maybe for next Sunday’s performance.”

“That would be great. I’m going to go call for a ticket right now.”

A door closed, and then a second one opened and closed. Mrs. Gleason and Morris both were safely in their apartments, Darla assumed. But Jake gave a warning shake of her head and leaned carefully over the railing to take another look.

Sure enough, a door on the second floor opened again, and Darla heard the sound of shuffling footsteps. “Hey, Morrie,” Mrs. Gleason yelled, “which one, three o’clock show or eight o’clock show?”

“Eight o’clock, Mrs. Gleason,” Morris patiently called through his closed door. “The understudy will be playing Othello at the three o’clock performance.”

“Eight o’clock it is.”

The woman shuffled back into her apartment, the door slamming behind her again. Jake peered over the railing for a few more moments and then gestured to Darla, murmuring, “Come on, kid, let’s get out of here.”

They made their way down the two flights in silent haste, fortunately not encountering either Mrs. Gleason or Morris on the way. But Darla didn’t breathe easy again until they’d made it out onto the street and were a good two blocks back in the direction of Crawford Avenue.

“I’m too old for this sort of thing,” she declared with a sigh.

Jake shook her frizzy head and laughed. “Come on, kid, don’t be such a cliché. A little bit of adrenaline rush is good for the heart.”

“Well, then my heart is good for the next twenty years or so,” Darla replied, though this time with a grudging smile. The smile faded, however, as she asked, “So what are we going to do about Morris and Hillary?”

“I was thinking we track them down tonight and see about witnessing this little exchange they’ve got planned. Now that I know what’s going on, no way am I going to let Hillary face off against Morris by herself. It might only be blackmail over a writing credit, but you never know how these things might go down.”