The 6:20 Man(88)

CHAPTER





58


THEY RODE BACK TO NEW York. Devine pulled in front of the walk-up, and Montgomery climbed off and passed him the spare helmet.

“Can you come up for a little bit? Now that it’s fully hit me that I was the unwitting messenger for a criminal syndicate, I don’t want to be alone. I might slit my wrists.”

“Don’t joke about that,” said Devine.

“I’m not joking.”

They went upstairs, got beers, and returned to the roof and sat in the deck chairs.

“Now, you said you met Cowl about a year ago. But I imagine Area 51 has been going on a lot longer than that.”

“So how did they work the signals before me? Did he just use a different method?”

“He built the house that the train overlooks three years ago. And now I guess I understand why he allowed a gap between the tree canopies and the wall. So the person on the train could see. So maybe that method of communication dates to back then.”

“You know, one morning while I was there I couldn’t sleep and got up early. I looked out the window and Brad was raising the umbrella at one of the tables by the pool.”

“Red or green?” asked Devine.

She thought for a moment. “Red. I thought it was odd. I mean, it was so early. And I think the train came by a few minutes later.”

Devine looked thoughtful. “There was a guy on the train who said he saw another woman by the pool, before you hooked up with Cowl. She was a brunette and she wore a bikini early in the morning sometimes, too.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

She sat back, looking perplexed at first, and then a look of understanding came into her eyes. “I thought Christian was helping me by introducing me to Brad in Italy. But maybe Brad was looking for a new messenger girl and Christian was really helping him.”

“I think you might be right. Hey, do you think this ‘brunette’ might have stayed in this building, too?”

Michelle suddenly became rigid. “When I was moving some things into my bedroom here, I found a credit card slip that had fallen behind a drawer.”

Devine perked up at this. “Do you remember the name on the credit card?”

“I do actually because it was so unusual. Dominique Deveraux. Very alliterative. I mean, it sounds fake.”

Devine took out his phone and searched the name.

“Okay, Dominique Deveraux was a character on the TV show Dynasty. Both in the original series back in the 1980s and then on the reboot on the CW.”

“Maybe it was an alias, then.”

“Hold on, here’s another Dominique Deveraux.” He clicked on a link and read down the page. “Age twenty-four, originally from California. And—”

He stopped speaking and stared at the screen, his look troubled.

“And what, Travis?”

He glanced up at her. “Deveraux killed herself nearly one year ago, by jumping into the East River.”





CHAPTER





59


DEVINE RODE BACK TO THE town house in Mount Kisco.

After they learned about Deveraux’s fate, he and Michelle had first talked about her going into hiding. He had even thought about calling up Campbell to have his people protect her. But in the end they had decided that her best protection was to stay put. To not let Cowl or others know that anything was amiss. But he had told her to keep a watch out and call the cops if anything looked off.

He had communicated with Campbell about these latest developments and his meeting with Elaine Nestor, and arranged to meet with the man later.

There was no one at the town house at this time of the day. Valentine wasn’t on the couch and the Mini Cooper wasn’t in the garage. Tapshaw must be at her office, he thought.

He knocked on Speers’s door; there was no answer. He called out, “Helen, you decent?” There was still no answer.

He tried to turn the knob. It was locked. That wasn’t unusual. He locked his door, too. He could have picked it, but he didn’t want to risk it. If she had a camera in there . . .

He went to his room, looked up the number for NYU Law School, and placed a call.

He was passed from person to person and department to department until he came to a man who seemed to be the right one.

Devine said, “My daughter, Helen Speers, just graduated from NYU. I haven’t been able to reach her and I’m getting concerned. She still lives in the same apartment. I’m on the West Coast. I wanted someone to go and check on her.”

“That might be a matter for the police, Mr. Speers.”

“Look, I paid a ton of money for her to go to law school there. Can you at least help me?”

“Please hold for just a moment.”

He heard classical music for about thirty seconds before the man came back on. He said in a somewhat snarky tone, “We have no record of any Helen Speers being enrolled at the law school or having just graduated, Mr. Speers. You might want to check with your daughter about that. Have a good day.”

Devine put down the phone. Okay, Helen Speers is not who she claims to be. So who is she and why is she here?

Devine thought back and recalled that Speers had come here just about the time he had. Was she a plant? If so, by whom? She had been very curious about everything, telling him time and again to let her recommend a lawyer for him. Since she hadn’t gone to law school, he wondered what she would have done if he had taken the woman up on her offer. And where did she go during the day with her briefcase?