She almost coughed up a mouthful of beer. “Okay, that’s a first. No guy’s ever asked me that before, especially when I’ve made the first move. I usually have to stop them from ripping my clothes off.” She eyed him appraisingly. “You’re a nice guy, or at least you seem to be. You’re certainly different. You don’t seem to care about what so many people care about in this city.”
“Meaning money? Prestige?”
“All of that. It’s a great town for culture and entertainment and I love the vibe, but it’s also hypercompetitive. Whatever folks have, it’s never enough. I hate that.”
“You mean like Brad Cowl?” he said.
She finished her beer and stared dully out at the gap to the water. He picked up his beer and asked, “If you went back to college, what would you get a degree in?”
“People,” she said slowly, drawing the two syllables out.
“So psychology, then?”
“No, I want to be a photographer. A picture can capture everything. No matter how much people lie to you, their true selves are always revealed in their pictures.”
“Always, even when they know you’re taking them?”
She looked at him. “Especially then, because they try so hard to hide who they really are, it comes out in some other way in their body language, their expression.” She slipped her phone from her pocket. “Say cheese.”
Montgomery took his picture and looked down at it.
“What do you see there?” he asked, mildly curious.
“A troubled man. But a good one. You have a lot on your mind.”
“So, you think we’ll get through all of it okay?” He didn’t know why he was asking, but for some reason he wanted to know her answer.
“I don’t know, Travis. I don’t think anyone knows for sure. Especially us.” She glanced over at him. “What would you do today if you knew tomorrow wasn’t coming for you?”
“I’d go and see my father.”
“Why? To make peace with him?”
The image of him and his father getting drunk the night they had celebrated Devine’s getting the job at Cowl and Comely came into his head.
“No. I’d tell him to stay out of my life and let me run it the way I want to. And that I didn’t want or care about his opinion of me anymore.”
She stared at him for an uncomfortably long moment.
“What?” he finally said.
“That’s pretty much exactly what I said to my mother.”
CHAPTER
41
DEVINE LEFT HER ON THE roof and hit the street once more. He had only gone about ten feet when he had an idea. He used his phone to look up the real estate records to see who owned Montgomery’s building.
Bingo. It was owned by the good old Locust Group.
He put his phone away and was starting to walk toward the nearest subway station when two men approached from the shadows.
Detectives Shoemaker and Ekman.
They both looked grungier and even more pissed off than the last time. And that was saying something. Shoemaker took the cigarette out of his mouth and tapped it dead on the pavement with the heel of his shoe.
He’d probably like to do the same to me, mused Devine.
“So, are you following me now?” he asked. “I feel very special.”
Neither man said anything.
“Found Detective Karl Hancock yet?”
“He doesn’t exist,” said Ekman.
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
“Because we think you made him up.”
“And why would I do that?”
Ekman barked, “To make yourself look innocent. An alleged victim of some nutty conspiracy to throw us off the scent.”
“Oh, right. And it worked so well. I mean, you guys spent, what, minutes, going down the rabbit hole because of it?”
Shoemaker said darkly, “Shut up with the smart mouth. Who were you visiting in that building?”
“It’s got nothing to do with what you’re looking into.”
“We’ll be the judge of that,” snapped Ekman.
“No, you won’t be.”
“You think we’re messing around here?” said Ekman, drawing so close Devine could smell his fuggy breath. “You think we screw around with murder investigations?”
“I think you’re trying to do all you can to solve it. At least I hope you are. Have you checked the video feed? Examined the electronic entry log for the time in question? You have a time window you can fit your suspects in. I actually pointed all that out to Detective Hancock.”