Jennifer Sturman - The Key

“If you were investigating us, didn’t you find out about Mark Anders actually being Andrew Marcus?” I asked. “Didn’t that raise any flags or trip any alarms or anything?”

He shook his head. “No. It was sloppy of me, especially in retrospect, but I figured that looking into the junior associate would be a waste of time; he was unlikely to know much of anything. Instead I focused on Jake and on you, Rachel. I had my concerns about Jake, but you checked out clean. I wanted to approach you, but I wasn’t sure how. I needed to get a better sense of whether I could trust you.”

“And that’s why you were eavesdropping when we were at the St. Regis on Tuesday night?” I asked.

He nodded. “Yeah. Sorry about that, but I didn’t want to just march right up and introduce myself. Then Dahlia was attacked on Wednesday morning, and you disappeared, so I was left with Jake. I was trying to figure out my next move when I saw him meet up with Annabel Gallagher late on Wednesday.”

“And you were following him on Thursday, when I saw you at Starbucks,” I said.

“That’s right. It didn’t take long to put two and two together. I figured that they were behind both Gallagher’s murder and the attack on Dahlia Crenshaw. In fact, I almost stopped you that afternoon, to try to warn you, but I was worried that you’d alert Jake, since you and he seemed to be friends, and I didn’t want to lose track of him. That was an excellent disguise, by the way. I would never have recognized you if I hadn’t been able to hear you and Jake talking.”

“So you were following Jake. And you followed him to the boat basin on Thursday night.”

“Not that I did much good there. I wasn’t far behind him when I saw somebody else following him. Now I know it was Andrew Marcus, but at the time I thought it might have been another accomplice, so I had to give Jake more of a lead than I would have liked. And I didn’t realize he was counting on meeting you there. Then I heard shots, and I came running-”

“-and collided into me,” I concluded for him. “Sorry about that.”

He gave me a sheepish smile. “Occupational hazard.”

“Okay. So you were on to Jake and Annabel. But what do you want from us?” asked Peter.

“I’m on to Jake and Annabel-it sounds like we’re all on to Jake and Annabel-but we don’t have any proof.”

“Jake seems to think he can bluff his way though,” I told Ben, explaining about the e-mail Jake had sent me and his message from earlier that night. “And he thinks I’m clueless enough to buy his bluff.”

“The nerve of that guy,” Peter muttered.

“Good,” said Ben. “Then I think we have a chance.”

S unday morning felt like spring, as if March had skipped over April and gone straight to May. A gentle breeze wafted a strand of hair across my face as I got out of the cab. After several rigorous shampooings, my hair was back to its original dark red, and while I’d declared the results of my adventures in alternative hair color inconclusive-the Madonna wig left me with sincere doubts as to just how much more fun blondes had, and my experience as a brunette had been too action-packed to offer a valid basis for comparison-it was nice to once again recognize my image in mirrors and other reflective surfaces.

The streets of Chinatown were thronged with honking cars, and the sidewalks were thronged with pedestrians. I wondered who had decreed that dim sum was a good idea for brunch. I was as fond of dumplings as the next person, but to me brunch just wasn’t brunch without Hollandaise and hash browns. Still, when Jake had suggested dim sum it seemed appropriate to feign enthusiasm, so here I was at the corner of Bowery and Canal Street, trying my best to ignore the animal carcasses hanging in the shop windows. As a general rule, the less my food resembled actual living beings the more appealing I found it.

“Stop rubbing your ear like that,” said a voice in my ear.

I jumped but managed not to shriek. Being wired was new to me, and I’d temporarily forgotten that Ben was watching from the control center disguised as a delivery van parked nearby.

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you,” he added.

I stopped rubbing at my ear, even though the tiny transmitter planted within itched. Instead, I shoved my hands in my pockets and scanned the scene around me. The knowledge that so many eyes were watching made me feel fidgety, and because they were watching it seemed extra important not to fidget but to maintain an air of cool composure. Peter, especially, had been less than sanguine about Ben’s plan to entrap Jake using me as bait, but I’d assured him I’d be fine with Ben and the colleagues he’d rounded up maintaining constant surveillance. Technically, this was still an offthe-books operation, as the powers that be seemed happy to blame Andrew Marcus for everything, but Ben had convinced a couple of his co-workers to help him out.

Of course, if we were going to entrap Jake, we also needed him to show up, and he seemed to be running late. I removed a hand from my pocket in order to check my watch. “It’s ten past twelve,” said Ben’s voice in my ear. I returned my hand to my pocket and resumed trying not to fidget.

A few more minutes passed before Ben spoke again. “Is that him? On the southwest corner? About to cross Canal?”

I checked out the southwest corner, squinting against the bright sunlight, but I saw nobody who even resembled Jake.

“Rachel, that’s the southeast corner. Look to your right.”

I could tell right from left, at least. This time my gaze landed on Jake, standing on the opposite corner and waiting for the light to change. He saw me and waved. In his weekend wear he blended right in with the tourists, smiling broadly beneath the rim of a blue baseball cap. I really didn’t understand the appeal hats held for men who weren’t losing their hair, but I’d have to get to the bottom of that on another day.

I plastered an equally broad smile on my own face as he loped across the street.

“Hey, there,” he said warmly, as if he hadn’t tried to kill me a few short days ago, and I submitted to a hug as if I didn’t find it infuriating that he thought I was too stupid to realize that he’d tried to kill me. “You hungry?” he asked over the din of traffic.

I nodded. “Always.”

“Good, me, too.” I saw his eyes glance down at my hands, no doubt looking for my engagement ring. I’d left it off on purpose, thinking that if I could manage to flirt even a little bit I’d be more likely to puff up his ego while simultaneously loosening his tongue. And it was probably my imagination, but his smile seemed to take on a more cocky aspect once he’d ascertained the ring’s absence. “There’s a place I really like a block or so up Bowery. It’s sort of a tourist trap, but the food is awesome.”

“Awesome,” I echoed. “What’s it called?”

“The Golden Panda or Buddha’s Garden or something like that. I can never keep these places straight.”

“You don’t know its name?”

“I’ll know it when I see it,” he said with confidence.

That was all well and good for Jake, but I would have preferred to be able to give Ben and his surveillance team a bit more to go on.

“So it’s north of Canal on Bowery,” I said, striving to sound as if I always liked to state my destination in casual conversation. Jake put a hand on my back as we turned up the street, and I tried not to think about cooties. It would be hard to entrap him if I let my hostility show. I needed to ease things along gently if I were going to get him to reveal the critical details proving that he and Annabel had carried out the attack on Dahlia.

“So what about that Mark Anders?” he said, his tone all jovial collegiality. “That was crazy, wasn’t it?”