The Flight Attendant(88)

“So you’re saying I can be absolutely confident that I didn’t kill him?”

“Yes, absolutely. One hundred percent,” said Ani.

“Huh.”

“You don’t sound relieved. You’ve been saying since the beginning you were convinced you didn’t do it. I’d think this information would make you happier. What’s going on?”

“It’s just…”

“It’s just what?”

“It’s just surreal, I guess. And the poor man is still dead, and I still left him behind in the bed.” Vindication, she thought, was not especially gratifying when everything she did was pathetic. She’d had so little faith in herself that she’d run and she’d lied and she hadn’t done a whole lot to help find the person who really had killed the interesting fellow who had washed her hair in the shower, and to her, at least, had only been giving and generous and kind.

“Well, unless the FBI or the Dubai police think you’re actually a spy or a paid assassin, I can’t imagine you’re a serious suspect. Whoever killed him was very well trained. A professional. A hit man. Did you see anyone like that when you were at dinner with Sokolov at the restaurant? In the hotel lobby maybe?”

“I have no idea what a hit man looks like.”

“You said he went somewhere between dinner and when he returned to his room. You have no idea where?”

“None.”

“The only person you saw him interact with was Miranda?”

“That’s right.”

“And Miranda doesn’t seem to exist,” her lawyer said. “The security cameras in the lobby show people using the elevators in the middle of the night. But they all seem to match guests, and they all seem to have reasons for coming or going: an early-morning flight or a late-night party. And none is a single woman matching the description you gave for Miranda.”

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t know. Maybe she left Alex’s room but not the floor. Is that possible?”

“I guess so. It’s a huge hotel with at least three wings.”

“And multiple elevator banks?”

“I think so,” Cassie answered. Then: “Have you heard from the FBI today?”

“No.”

“Well, maybe that’s good news. Maybe they don’t care. Maybe they’ve decided, just like you, that I didn’t kill Alex. Or they’re just going to let Dubai take care of it—which, as you’ve said, could take years. Maybe your investigator’s theory is right, and this is all about fraud and angry Russians and I had nothing to do with it. They’ll just follow the money.”

“That could be. But please don’t get your hopes up.”

“Why not?”

Enrico had come to the lobby and was leaning against a column, his arms folded across his chest, watching her. He looked concerned. “First of all, it’s not even lunchtime here in New York. For all we know, we’ll hear from them again in ten minutes. Maybe two hours. Maybe tomorrow. My point? It’s early. Besides, this is just how I’ve interpreted the coroner’s report. They may view it very differently.”

“And second?”

“Second? The more I think about that report, the less I’m sure the FBI even matters. Whoever killed Alex Sokolov now knows you were in the room after they cut his throat. You were there. You saw the body, and you saw this woman who may or may not be named Miranda. Even if you somehow manage to dodge an FBI bullet, Cassie, you still have to dodge theirs.”



* * *



? ?

Enrico took her hand, and they started down the street from the hotel toward the Villa Borghese, entering the park by the ancient gates at the Piazzale Brasile. She looked over her shoulder, studying the street for hats: black ball caps and straw sun hats. She was more confident than ever that they were out there. Someone was out there. She could feel it.

It was late enough in the day that they didn’t really need the shade from the trees, but still early enough that the vendors remained at work and there were plenty of tourists and locals enjoying the hot, humid August afternoon. Enrico said that he lived with two other young men, including his brother, in an apartment on the far side of the park.

“This is how I get to work,” he told her, motioning with his free hand at the pine trees that looked to Cassie more like lollipops and open umbrellas than the pines she could recall from her childhood in Kentucky. “Nice commute, right?”

“It is,” she agreed.

“At the villa, there are so many lemon trees. So pretty. It isn’t on the way, but sometimes I walk past it anyway. I make a detour.”

He had said his apartment was small: the three men used the living room as a makeshift third bedroom, and there was no dining room, really. But it was on the second floor of a four-story building with a shared rooftop terrace, and he told her that the views of the neighborhood at sunset were beautiful. He assured her that his roommates, both waiters, would be gone, which she took to mean he was bringing her to his apartment for a drink on the roof before adjourning downstairs to his bed. Right now she was leaning against allowing him to bring her to either venue.

“May I ask you a question?” she said.

“Of course.”

“Do you own a gun?”