Michelle Montgomery was staring into the pool water. This time her bathing suit was—shocker—not a bikini. It was a one-piece the color of the sky. After Devine had met the woman and intimated that there were lots of guys watching her, maybe Montgomery had decided to show some modesty.
Devine thought that right up until the moment she turned, revealing that the one-piece had a thong backside showing off her tanned buttocks. Montgomery catwalk-stepped away and then raised both her hands overhead and flipped off the morning Harlem Line riders with both barrels.
He had to smile. The lady had a certain style, he had to admit. Along with a pair of brass balls.
The train rode on while Devine thought about the previous night, with Helen Speers. It had been a while since he had been with a woman. He knew the exact date, in fact. And that might cause him problems down the road, because that woman had been Sara Ewes. They had had sex at her place in Brooklyn. It had been a wonderful experience and Devine had thought there would be many more. But it was not to be. And it had not been his decision. It had been hers.
His phone buzzed. By the string of weird digits, he could tell it was an international number.
“Hello?”
“Mr. Devine?”
“Yes?”
“This is Ellen Ewes. I apologize for the early call.”
That explained it. The phone number was from New Zealand.
The mother sounded eerily like Sara on the phone. And he felt immensely uncomfortable hearing her voice when he had just been thinking about having had sex with her deceased daughter.
“No problem, Mrs. Ewes.”
“Please make it Ellen. I understand the police have been by to see you.”
“They have been. I told them what I knew and it was left at that.”
“Did they tell you why they came by?”
“Yes, that you had contacted them.”
“Can you come by the house later? We’d like to talk to you.”
“I can come by after work. Say around eight?”
“Eight will be fine. We’ll see you then.”
He put his phone away and thought about this all the way into the city.
*
Devine was sitting at his cubicle when a message dropped into his business email box.
5:00 top floor. I’ll have someone escort you. BC
He fingered his phone, very glad that all of his “evidence” from that night was safely on his personal cloud. But even with that, Cowl could have something up his sleeve.
He looked around the room and noticed several people staring at him before quickly looking away. This had happened so frequently throughout the day that Devine finally stood and walked over to one woman who had done this multiple times.
“Is there a problem?”
Her name was Lydia White. She had dark hair and was heavyset and was probably going to make it to the finish line at Cowl because she was smart, worked like a dray horse, and knew what she wanted. He hadn’t spoken fifty words to her, and she had never given him the evil eye like this before.
“I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me?”
“And that’s supposed to mean what, exactly?”
All tapping had ceased, and the rest of the Burners stopped working to listen.
“The detectives talked to you,” said White.
“They talked to a lot of people,” replied Devine.
“No, I asked around. It seems they really just talked to you, at least more than once. And you knew Sara.”
“We all knew Sara, everybody in this room.”
“Maybe you knew her better than the rest of us,” said White in an accusatory tone.
“And you’re basing this on what?” he said.
“I don’t have to base it on anything.” She looked him over. “You were in the Army. You know how to kill people.”
“Yeah, I was killing the enemies of this country. And don’t bother thanking me for my service. I think we’re past that.”
White flushed at his words and looked away.
He glanced around at the others. “Anybody else have a problem they’d like to bring to my attention?”
The keys started tapping again, soon turning into an avalanche of sound. That was why most people here wore headphones or AirPods.
Devine sat back down. And put in his AirPods. They did nothing to quell all the noise in his head.
He worked until 4:58. Then the door opened and there appeared Willard Paulson, Cowl’s lapdog. He caught Devine’s eye and motioned him to come.
Devine left with the Burners’ gazes on him the whole way.
Paulson said nothing, and Devine had nothing he wanted to say to the dweeb. Paulson used his card to access the elevator bank. It looked just like Devine’s, a 125, as Valentine had described it. Easily cloneable bullshit.