Decker walked back to his car.
I’m never moving here.
Chapter 30
AS HE WAS ABOUT TO drive off, his phone buzzed. He didn’t recognize the number.
“Decker.”
“Please hold for Ms. Roe.”
A moment later a familiar voice said, “Mr. Decker, it’s Kasimira Roe. I wonder if we can meet?”
“I’m game. We didn’t really finish the first time, did we?”
“No, we didn’t.”
“At your office?”
“No, at my home. It’s on Miami Beach. I’ll switch you back to my assistant and she can provide the address.”
“When?”
“As soon as you can get here.”
“Anything particular you want to discuss?”
“Just get here as soon as you can. I’ll transfer you back.”
Decker got the address, plugged it into his phone, and set off once more for Miami.
*
The high-rise looked ultramodern and expensive and super chic, thought Decker, which meant he hated it. He half expected Justin Bieber, or some other young celebrity he really knew nothing about, to walk out dressed in torn jeans that cost more than Decker had in his checking account and jump into a Lamborghini.
He cleared security after both the guard and concierge ran unimpressed gazes over his rumpled and distinctly uncool clothes and deeply scuffed shoes.
And this is my nice stuff.
He rode the elevator up and walked to a double set of white doors at the end of a wide hall.
He knocked, and the door was immediately answered by a young woman in a maid’s uniform.
Jesus, do they really still make them wear that get-up?
The woman asked Decker to take his shoes off, which he did reluctantly, since his socks were not in the best shape and then there was the smell. He had always had sweaty feet. And the humidity here didn’t help matters.
She led him down a plushy carpeted corridor that was outlined with soaring white columns. A wall of windows looked over the ocean. The other walls were covered with what looked to be some serious artwork.
The maid knocked on a door at the end of the hall, and a woman’s voice said to come in.
Decker stepped into the small, intimate room with cushy furnishings and a gas fireplace that he imagined didn’t see much work in this climate.
Roe rose from her chair. She was dressed in a white pleated skirt and dark blue jacket with a white blouse peeking out from underneath. Her shoes were flats. Her hair was tied back in a bun. She shook his hand and asked him if he wanted anything.
“Information,” he replied as he sat down across from her.
“I checked you out, Mr. Decker. I hope you don’t mind.”
“I would’ve been surprised if you hadn’t, knowing the business you’re in.”
She smiled and it was a pretty smile, he thought, lots of teeth and more girlish than professional woman. “May I be frank?”
“I prefer it, since I always am.”
“You were described by just about everyone I talked to as possessing a motor that just won’t quit, a deep desire to get justice. And for also being a royal pain in the butt.”
“My language about myself wouldn’t have been nearly as polite.”
The girlish smile faded, and the professional shield came down. “Alice Lancer has not been located.”
“That’s right. Do you know a woman named Patty Kelly?”
“I don’t believe so, no. Why?”
“She’s Judge Cummins’s secretary. Looks like she’s done a runner, too.”
She looked genuinely startled. “Do you think it’s connected to Alice’s disappearance?”
“What do you think?”
“I would think you can’t rule it out at this point.”
“Did you find a record of any threats against the judge? Or any reason why Cummins needed protection?”
“My people are looking at our records. But any disclosure has to be cleared through our legal counsel.”
“But I was hoping for some professional courtesy. I came all this way, after all. At your invitation.”
“Um, I’m going to have a glass of wine if you’d care to join.”
“Never got into wine. But if you have beer?”
She rose, opened a glass door set in the cabinet, took out a bottle of open red wine, grabbed a glass from the overhead cabinet, and poured out a goodly portion into her wineglass. “Dos Equis okay?”
“Fine.”
She pulled a bottle of beer from the fridge, poured it into a glass, and handed it to him. She resumed her seat and took a sip of her wine. “My father was the one who got me into wine.”