Finlay Donovan Jumps the Gun (Finlay Donovan, #3)(88)
“Be careful,” she whispered as I crept to the first rung of the fire escape. The metal was slick. I hoisted the bag onto my shoulder and climbed as fast as I dared, avoiding the glittering patches of ice on the landings. By the time I reached the final flight, my lungs were on fire, the steam on my breath whisked away by a cutting wind. I glanced over the metal handrail. Moonlight glinted off the lenses of Vero’s binoculars through the trees. I gave her a quick thumbs-up, hoping she could see me. Her phone light flashed in response.
I took a steadying breath and climbed the last few steps to the roof.
Wind whipped over the waist-high ledge surrounding the deck, tossing my hair over my eyes as I looked for a place to hide the bag, somewhere out of sight, where only someone who was looking for it might see it. The landscape of the roof deck was sparse. The shallow jogs in the low wall didn’t leave many options, but the large concrete enclosure in the center of it … that might work.
There were no windows in it, just a heavy steel door and a sign that read PUMP HOUSE. A giant spool of fire hosing was mounted to its side, and the nook behind the hoses seemed just big enough to conceal the duffel bag. I hurried toward it, eager to hide the bait and get back to Vero, when a shuffling sound came from the far side of the pump house.
“Damnit, where the fuck are you?” someone whispered.
I backed slowly away from the pump house and spotted movement in the dark. A man was on his hands and knees behind the spool, his denim-clad legs sticking out as he searched for something. Ice crackled under me as I crept along the edge of the roof to see more of him. My breath caught as Wade stood and reached above his head, his jacket riding up as he searched the eaves under the pump house roof. The slender handle of a familiar Glock peeked out of the waistband of his jeans.
“There you are, you sneaky bastards.” He turned, a silver Zippo in one of his hands and a pack of Marlboros in the other. We both froze, staring at each other across the narrow slice of the roof.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” I said, a tremor in my voice.
His grin was crooked. “Neither are you.”
CHAPTER 34
Wade shook a cigarette from his pack and hunched over his lighter, dropping the tip of it to the bright orange flame. He sucked in a drag, watching me as he expelled smoke through his nose. “You can put your hands down, unless you’re confessing to something.” I lowered my hands, surprised to realize I’d been holding them up. He glanced at the duffel bag. “Does your boyfriend know you’re here?”
I tucked it closer to my side. “Should he?”
Wade shrugged. “Guess that depends on why you followed me. Look,” he said, flicking sparks into the wind. “I’ve got nothing against you, but I didn’t come up here looking for a hookup. I just came to find my stash.” He waved his pack of Marlboros at me. “It’s my last pack. Ortega’s got the whole place locked down. Can’t leave to go to the store.”
“You were up here looking for cigarettes? At three in the morning?”
“We all have our vices. Mine’s no worse than whatever you came looking for.” He took another lazy drag as his eyes made a slow pass over me. “So what’d Nick do to piss you off? Must have been something pretty shitty to make you pack your bag and move out of his room at this hour of the night.”
I followed the jut of his chin toward the duffel under my arm. “Oh! No, this isn’t my bag … I mean, it is my bag, but it’s not what you’re thinking,” I stammered. “Nick didn’t do anything wrong. I just … couldn’t sleep.”
“Welcome to the club.” He held his cigarettes out to me.
“I don’t smoke.”
One corner of his mouth hitched up. “And I don’t screw other cops’ girlfriends on icy roofs in thirty-degree weather. So what the hell are we doing up here?”
“I wish I knew.” I slumped against the back of the pump house beside Wade and checked my phone. EasyClean should have been here by now, and there was still no word from Vero. No one was coming. I should have been relieved to have my suspicions confirmed, but if Joey had really been EasyClean all along, why did I still feel so uncertain about him?
I dropped the duffel bag by my feet. “You won’t tell Nick I was here, will you?”
“If I tell Nick I was up here with you, he’ll probably shoot me, and I prefer to keep my ass in one piece.”
“Thanks.”
He gave a shallow nod, blowing smoke through his nose as it was whisked off by the wind. I remembered back to two nights ago, when I’d caught a whiff of it as I’d crossed the drill field. I wondered if Wade came out here every night. If he didn’t sleep well, the same way Nick hadn’t been sleeping well. Welcome to the club, Wade had said, as if this was a curse they all suffered. No wonder so many of them were in therapy. As much as Stu complained about how little money he made as a department shrink, he probably had no shortage of patients who were … cops.
My mind raced back to the day I’d first met Dr. Stuart Kirby. Nick had thanked him for writing a letter stating Theresa was competent to act as a witness in Feliks’s trial. Sam said Stu had met with Theresa a few times after her arrest. How much had she divulged to him behind closed doors? What details had she confessed to him, assuming the information would be held in confidence between therapist and client? Had she told him about what had happened to Carl? Where she and Barbara had hidden his body?