Greg Rucka - Critical Space

"But it's possible?"

"She won't have much of a meal," I said. "It'll be a rush."

"She can be a few minutes late," Chester said.

"I'll let Dale know. If he can find a route he likes, it'll fly."

"Agreed," Moore said. "The NYU lecture and drinks to follow, you know the location?"

"There's a bar in the neighborhood that I like. The Stoned Crow, it's small, entrance is on Fourth Street. Gets a regular crowd most weeknights, but there's a space in the back that's easy enough to secure. There's a pool table back there, some booths, a dart board. It'll be fine. We scouted it week before last."

"How do you want to handle the guests for that?"

"Well, we could search them."

"Her Ladyship would rather if you didn't," Chester said. "These are the people who make Together Now work. She doesn't wish to do anything that might alienate them."

I looked at Moore, shrugged. "Eyeballing works, too."

"All right," he agreed. "Anything else?"

"Not for now."

Moore checked the Rolex on his wrist. "I've got oh-six-twenty-three."

I checked my own watch. "I agree."

"How long is it going to take us to get to the studio?"

"Maybe thirty minutes. It's pretty much a straight shot over to the West Side."

"Then we'll egress at oh-eight-thirty."

We all seemed happy with that, so Chester headed for Lady Ainsley-Hunter's bedroom to inform her of the itinerary and I got up to use the phone on the desk, dialing Dale's cellular. He answered immediately, and I told him the news about Scarsdale, and he was surprisingly obliging about the whole thing.

"I'll pull the maps now," he said. "Anything else?"

"There'll be a change in the rotation. Natalie's going to take the perimeter today, I'll be backing up Moore with Lady Ainsley-Hunter."

"I'll pass it along to Corry when I see him. When do you want us there?"

"Quarter past eight. Radio when you're in position."

"See ya then."

I hung up the phone, drained the last of the tea in the cup, and refilled for a third time from the cart. "You were right," I told Moore. "The tea's helping."

"That's the restorative power of a cuppa." He glanced over at Lady Ainsley-Hunter's door, making certain it was still shut. "Any news on the Keith front?"

I tore open a packet of honey with my teeth, then said, "Bridgett and Special Agent Fowler are in New Jersey. Joseph Keith – or someone using his Visa card – bought a suit at a mall off Route Seventeen yesterday morning."

"A suit?"

"A three-piece suit, navy blue, and two dress shirts, three ties, a package of cotton handkerchiefs, and a pair of burgundy leather dress shoes. And some cufflinks."

Moore rolled his eyes. "Well-dressed stalker."

"Well, you know, they were married," I said.

"Who was married?" Lady Ainsley-Hunter asked.

She had just emerged from her bedroom, Natalie and Chester following. She was wearing a white shell with a mock turtleneck collar that left her arms bare, and light silk pants the color of an avocado's flesh. She'd touched her cheeks, lips, and eyes lightly with makeup, and had spent some time on her hair, as well. In each earlobe was a small pearl on a stud, and its companion necklace was visible at her neck. Her feet were bare.

Lady Ainsley-Hunter looked expectantly from me to Moore, giving each of us time to come up with an answer. When neither of us did, she smiled.

"Right," she said. "Which of you is going to tell me about my stalker, then?"

"I've spent the last twelve years becoming very adept at listening to what people are saying behind my back," Lady Ainsley-Hunter said. "It's the world I was born and bred to. It's a required survival skill in a class-based society."

She was seated on the edge of her bed, pulling on a pair of white cotton socks that looked stunningly inappropriate. I'd taken the seat by the dressing table, and we were alone for the time being, the others waiting in the sitting room for the second round of breakfast – this for Her Ladyship and Natalie – to arrive.

"Neither you nor Robert want me to fret over something I cannot control. I suppose I could be offended or outraged or otherwise angry, and I am, a bit."

"You're concealing it well."

"Another trait I had to learn early." She finished tugging up her socks, then grabbed a foot in each hand and pulled them in against her thighs, rocking slightly on the mattress. "Is this man dangerous?"

"Possibly."

She pursed her lips and blew out a breath. Then she shrugged. "Very well."

"That's the most understated response I've ever heard from a principal."

"You don't know very much about the peerage, do you?"

"Not really."

"The women I grew up with, went to school with, the ones who are my age, they think I'm pitiful. As in, deserving of their pity."

The look I gave her made her laugh. It sounded bitter.

"Ninety percent of those women are anorexic or suffering from some other eating disorder," Lady Ainsley-Hunter said. "Everything is about appearance, about station, about finding a good husband. These are women who spend their whole year preparing for the Season, choosing what they will wear, who they will invite, who they will deign to speak to."

"It's that shallow?" I asked.

"It's not shallow at all, if you're a part of it. It's the culture." She let her feet go and reached down for the pair of black boots at the foot of the bed. "When I was nine years old, I went with my father to Thailand. He was with the Foreign Office then, going on a fact-finding tour, and I begged and begged to go with him. On that trip, I met a little Thai girl, my age, perhaps a year or two older. She was quite sweet, quite kind to me. She and I played by the pool at the hotel. She wore a black bathing suit, and I thought it was quite adult, because it didn't have frills or ruffles.

"One afternoon, while we were playing, two men came over, one of them Thai, the other I'm not certain about, but he was Caucasian. I thought the Thai man was my friend's father. And my friend left with them, and I stayed in the pool."

She paused, yanking the right boot on and then smoothing her pants leg down over it. "You know how when you're little you can occupy yourself with a pleasure for hours and hours? You can play with the same toy, you can read the same book again and again?"

I nodded.

"Growing up in the north of England, not really weather for taking a dip," she reached for her other boot, "one does not swim for fun. Only if one has fallen into the lake. I was in and out of that pool for hours. So I was there when she returned. She was happy to see me, she jumped into the water, wanting to play.

"As soon as she was in the water, though, blood began clouding around her middle. She'd been bleeding between her legs, you see, and the bathing suit, being black, had hidden it. But in the water, it sort of… billowed out. As soon as she saw it, she started to cry."

She looked at the remaining boot, still in her hand.

"The pool attendant came and pulled her from the water. I thought that he would call for a doctor, but he didn't, he began shouting at her. And the man that I thought was her father, he came running back, too. The two men started shouting at one another, my friend between them. The attendant was shaking her, and the water from her suit made the blood run down her legs. She kept crying the whole time.

"Then they left, or, more precisely, they were forced to leave. The man who I believed was her father – he was dragging her after him. He didn't seem like a very kind parent, I remember thinking.

"My own father arrived, and I told him what I'd seen. I wanted to know where my friend had gone, you see. I was going to be at the hotel, at the pool, for another three or four days, and I wanted to have someone to play with. My father went to talk to the pool attendant, and when he came back he looked as if he'd swallowed something both sour and sharp at once, as if it was in his stomach, making him ill."