Win (Windsor Horne Lockwood III #1)(91)
Belinda told Ian Cornwell that if he ever talked, she would tell the authorities that the heist had been Ian’s idea. Ian was, after all, the inside source. She also reminded Ian that there was not much he could offer the police anyway. He couldn’t identify the man in the ski mask, and as for Belinda herself, nothing she had told him was the truth. She did not attend Radnor High School. Her name was not Belinda. After tonight, he would never see her again. Even if he told the police the truth, the leads would be scant; Ian would only be incriminating himself, she reminded him. He had, after all, sneaked a high school girl into Founders Hall over a three-month period. At best, Ian would be expelled for that indiscretion and academically tarnished.
To further emphasize her seriousness, Belinda told Ian that if he did talk, they would come back and kill him. As she gave him that final warning, the man in the ski mask grabbed Ian by the scruff of the neck and pushed the muzzle of the gun into his eye.
The morning after the art heist, when Ian was found tied up, he debated coming clean and telling the truth. But the FBI agents were so aggressive, so sure that he was involved, Ian feared that everything Belinda told him would come to pass would. He would take the fall. Suppose, after he spilled his guts, they never found Belinda or the man in the ski mask. Would the FBI be satisfied—or would they need a convenient fall guy, a guy who, at best, showed poor enough judgment to let one of the two thieves repeatedly trespass?
It was clear to Ian that he had to remain silent and ride it out. As long as he didn’t trip himself up, the FBI had nothing on him—because, alas, he was innocent. That was the delicious irony: The only way they would be able to nail Ian for anything was if he told the truth about the fact that he didn’t do anything.
I asked Ian: “Did you ever see Belinda Evans again?”
When he hesitated, I made the spear shape with my fingers.
Yes, he said. Many years later. He couldn’t be sure it was Belinda, he said, though I think that’s a lie.
He was sure.
*
The late-night sex with Username Helena is not very good.
After I leave Ian Cornwell, it is too late to do more sleuthing. I am not sure that I need to do more immediate work anyway.
I know it all now.
There are a few loose ends, but if I let all this evidence settle for a few hours—plus having Kabir and my team spend the night nailing down a few additional details—I firmly believe all will become clear in the morning.
So, with that rationale in my mind, I keep my sex app appointment with Username Helena. She is willing and enthusiastic, and I am disappointed and surprised that I do not respond in kind. I find myself distracted. I know it appears that I am casual with sex, but the truth is very much the opposite. Sex is sacred to me. It is the closest thing I will ever know to religious euphoria. Many people feel like this in church or on a runner’s high or, in Myron’s case, when Springsteen plays “Meeting Across the River” followed by “Jungleland” in concert. For me, it only happens during sex. Sex is the excellent adventure, the grand voyage from which we completely disembark the moment we slip out of this bed. For me, sex is best when you have a—to use a business phrase I absolutely detest—“shared vision.” Tonight, there was simply too much static for a connection; it was merely a release, not all that different from masturbation.
As we lie back in silence, catching our breaths, eyes on the ceiling, Username Helena says, “That was nice.”
I say nothing. I debate a Round Two—perhaps that will put me more in the zone—but I’m not as young as I used to be, and it is getting late. I am idly wondering how we two will transition to exiting when my phone rings.
It is Kabir. The time is two a.m.
This can’t be good news. “Articulate,” I say.
“We have a big problem.”
CHAPTER 33
You found Arlo Sugarman.”
It has been twelve hours since Kabir’s phone call. My adrenaline spike has subsided, the crash thus imminent. I have not slept, and I can feel myself fraying at the edges. Stamina is a large part of my training, but genetically I am not predisposed to it. I am also aging, which obviously hampers stamina, and I have very little real-world experience in needing it. I have rarely had to stay up all night on patrol, as one might in the military, or been forced to go days on end with no sleep. I do battle—and then I rest.
The old woman speaking to me now is Vanessa Hogan.
I am back at her house in Kings Point. We are alone. Jessica set this up for me. At first, Vanessa Hogan was reluctant to consent to a second meeting. The enticement that pushed her over the edge, as I suspected it would, was that she and I would meet alone, only the two of us, and I would tell her the whereabouts of Arlo Sugarman.
“Could we start with you?” I ask her.
Vanessa Hogan is propped up via pillows on the same couch. Her skin tone is rosier than at our last meeting. She appears less frail. A scarf still covers her head. The house is empty. She’d sent her son Stuart to the grocery store.
“I really don’t know what you mean.”
“I recently visited Billy Rowan’s father,” I say. “Do you know he and Edie Parker’s mother are something of an item?”
“I did not,” Vanessa says, her voice dripping something overly sticky. “How nice for them.”