“Thinking of bagging it, actually. Why?”
He gave her a look up and down, taking the woman all in; she was just mesmerizing to him right now. “I don’t know,” he lied as he looked away.
“Don’t you, Travis?”
He shot her a glance. “What?”
“You ever see me reading Braille? No. Because I’m not blind.”
She stood, put on her heels, and said, “Give me a few minutes to freshen up.”
He glanced up at her, thoroughly taken aback by this abrupt development. “You sure about this, Helen? I mean . . . ” To Devine it all seemed sudden, but also a long time in coming, with lots of glances and sneaked looks and innuendos that danced around probably the most natural, and difficult, phenomena between two people.
“I’m attracted to you, and you to me. We’re consenting adults, are we not?”
Devine didn’t answer; he didn’t think he had to.
He gave her ten minutes and then headed up.
She was lying on the bed when he walked into her room. She had on a loose-fitting top and a pair of pajama shorts. As he slipped next to her, Speers met him with her mouth. After five minutes of feeling each other out in both familiar and unfamiliar ways, they slowly undressed one another. She pushed him flat on his back and climbed on top.
She looked at his shoulder where the shrapnel had torn through, with some of the metal still in there. She next glanced down at his damaged calf.
“Still hurt?”
“Not right now, no.”
Her lips curled into a smile. “Thank you for your service, soldier.”
He grinned back. “Fuck me, legal eagle.”
“Your wish is my command.”
Twenty breathless minutes later, she toppled off her perch and nestled beside him.
“Been a while,” she said, nicking his chest with her nails.
“For you or me?”
“Both, I think.”
“Yeah.”
Speers closed her eyes, her hand gripping his, and fell asleep.
He lay there with her for about an hour before quietly disengaging and heading to his room.
Later, when four o’clock came and his phone alarm went off, Devine didn’t budge.
The rain was pouring outside and he heard a crack of thunder. A moment later the accompanying lightning brightened his room briefly.
No workout this morning. He needed to sleep anyway. But he stared at the ceiling.
And on its surface Devine saw the image of a dead Sara Ewes. And his heart felt like it was about to break.
CHAPTER
37
DEVINE HAD ARRIVED AT THE train station a little early and had a chat with a man who worked there. The security cameras were often not working, he was told. And the police had not been by to check them. That information had cost Devine ten bucks.
He had a mobile ticketing app on his iPhone and paid for his train passage that way. The conductor would simply zap the screen with his reader. So there would be a record for when he had used it. The only problem was you could still buy single tickets at the machine using cash. There would be no record attached to that, or so the police would argue. And he could have driven his motorcycle into the city. If he took the Henry Hudson Bridge on the way in there would be a toll and record thereof. But there were alternate routes he could take that did not include toll roads. So that would not be conclusive, again, as far as the cops were concerned.
But you didn’t use your card to get into the building that night, and your name still showed up on the entry and exit log. Someone cloned your card—the only question is who.
As he waited for the train, he thought about Cowl. The man must have somehow delayed giving the electronic log to the cops. How he had managed to do that in a murder investigation, Devine didn’t know. The guy was rich and influential and probably had a direct line to the mayor’s office. But at some point he would have to turn it over.
And Cowl intimated my picture was on the security video. Will the police think I’m stupid enough to have left that kind of trail?
But criminals were stupid. You heard such stories all the time. But what would his motive be? Not the pregnancy. Ewes had already terminated it. Then something occurred to him.
If I knew she was pregnant with my child, and I wanted the kid and found out she had terminated it?
That was a clear motive.
The train opened its door and he climbed on board. With these perilous thoughts running through his head, he was mentally exhausted before he’d even gotten to work.
The storm had spent its fury, and the 6:20 ran dry all the way to the palace pool.
And there she was. Now he knew her name at least.