Night Film(80)

I had to stay calm and make an exit—pronto. We appeared to be heading toward one of those dark passageways and I’d be damned if I was going to follow him down there and get my legs broken, maybe worse.

My eyes scanned the atrium’s periphery for the door back into the storage room, but it was lost in the glinting scenes around me.

The manager was a few feet ahead, glaring as he waited for me to catch up. But suddenly a tall, blond man tapped him on the shoulder, greeting him, shaking his hand.

I held back a few seconds. This was probably my chance.

The man introduced a friend beside him. The manager turned and I hastily did a 180, barging away from him through a large group, accidentally ramming the back of a waiter. A cocktail slid out of his hands, exploding onto the floor.

I picked up my pace, my eyes averted. The women were wearing stilettos, and their toenails were painted black, filed into points, like bizarre thorns. Abruptly, I spotted something out of place: dirty white Converse sneakers. A waiter was wearing them.

Hopper.

He’d actually put on one of the uniforms from the storage room. He was wielding a silver tray, wandering among the guests like he owned the place. I slipped beside him.

“I need to get the f*ck out of here. I’ve been caught.”

He nodded. “Follow me.”

We cut sharply left, elbowing through the crowd, skipping up the marble steps, Hopper striding deliberately toward the crumbling stone wall that ringed the entire plaza.

There was no visible door. But he extended his hand, pressing the face of a reclining stone statue of a woman covered in moss.

Nothing happened. Frowning, he ran his hands over it, pressing the weathered statue’s arms, legs, bare feet, trying to find whatever the hell opened the door.

I glanced over my shoulder.

Two guests sitting in the lounge were watching us, alarmed. One of them turned around, signaling to a waiter.

And then I saw the manager. He was pushing aggressively through the crowd, whispering into his earpiece, scanning the atrium’s perimeter.

He was seconds from spotting me.

“Any chance we can speed this up?” I muttered.

“I swear I just walked out of here.”

I stepped beside him, sliding my hands over the wall, and Hopper moved left toward another reclining statue. He pressed her hands, face, breasts, eyes, and thank Christ, she unexpectedly gave way into a regular rectangular door, which led into a long corridor with white walls and orange linoleum.

We sprinted down it, two stainless-steel doors visible at the end.

“And you thought I was getting our asses kicked,” Hopper said over his shoulder.

“Fallout from obtaining vital information.”

“Oh, yeah, what’s that?”

“Ashley crashed this party a few weeks ago. She went after a member known as the Spider. That’s what you call skills.”

“The Spider? What’s his real name?”

“Didn’t get it.”

We charged through the swinging doors into an industrial kitchen. It was lively, with cooks in uniform, bubbling pots, smells of roasted meat and garlic. A few glanced up curiously as Hopper and I raced around the counters, the stoves with sizzling pans, wheeled carts, dessert trays.

We flew out of a second swinging door into another empty corridor.

Hopper stopped, panting, pointing.

“Take it all the way to the end, make a right, the door leads outside.”

I took off, turning around when he didn’t follow.

“You’re staying?”

He was heading back into the kitchen. “Just getting started.”

“Be careful. And thanks for saving my ass.”

He smiled. “It’s not saved yet.”





52


I reached the end of the hall, followed it right, running toward the emergency exit door at the end. An alarm began to sound from an intercom.

The manager must have alerted a security breach.

I shoved it open, sprinting outside.

It was a brightly lit loading area, the driveway packed with supply trucks, two black Escalades. A lone waiter sat on a crate, smoking a cigarette. He smiled as I walked casually past and jogged down some steps, then along a stone pathway winding around the side of the house.

It had to be the eastern side.

Rounding the corner, I stopped dead.

In front of me was the mansion’s entrance, an elaborate columned porte cochere crowded with security guards dressed in black. A silver Range Rover was parked out front, the backseat window unrolled—whoever sat there clearly being checked on a guest list. The driveway curved left through dense trees, probably heading north toward Old Montauk Highway—the way out of here. Visible farther to my left beyond the foliage was a lawn, quite a few cars parked there.

I couldn’t make it out this way. The guards had obviously been alerted, because they were fanning out, heading inside. One turned in my direction, motioned to another—taking off toward me.

I backtracked and broke into a sprint, dashing past the loading dock again and the lone waiter. He stood up, shouting something as I raced past, veering around the next rambling wing of the mansion, the windows dark, though for a split second, maybe it was the wind through the brush, I swore I heard a man’s dull, prolonged moan.

Christ. I kept going, racing toward the backyard through flower beds and shrubs, rounding the corner.