Bed of Bones (A Sloane Monroe Novel, Book Five) (9 page)

He walked over to the bed and bent down, hoisting a blue leather handbag off the ground. It had fringed tassels on both sides and a white skull on the front. I liked it.

“Here,” he said, dangling the bag in front of me. “Take it.”

What he meant to say was: take it and go.

The bag slipped off his fingers, plopping down on the table.

He folded his arms and waited, his forehead creasing when I didn’t rise.

“You got what you came for; you can go now,” he insisted.

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“Maybe I don’t want to.”

I leaned back in the chair. It was firm and uncomfortable against my bony posterior, but I wanted him to think I was relaxed enough to stay all day. “Maybe I don’t want to leave.”

He made a huffing sound.

I smiled.

“Are you always so pushy?”

“When I need to be—yes,” I stated.

He sat down. “I was hungry. I hadn’t eaten all day.”

I hoped the conversation about his food cravings would lead somewhere productive.

“
Okaaayyy
.”

“I saw a couple lights on inside a fast food joint across the street, so I walked over. I figured I had enough time to place an order and get back in time for the movie. When I got there, the doors were closed, locked.”

“Why are you telling me this?” I asked.

“You asked why I don’t have any injuries.”

“Were you in the theater when the bombs went off or weren’t you?”

“I don’t feel comfortable talking about this—I don’t even know who you are.”

I leaned forward, extended my hand. “Sloane Monroe. I’m a private investigator. Now, did you see something?”

He scratched behind his ear.

He had.

“Ronnie. Look at me. What…did…you…see?”

“Nothing!”

“You’re lying,” I said.

A phone jingled nearby. His body quivered. He looked like he wanted to crawl under the table and hide.

“Are you going to answer it?” I asked.

“What?”

“The phone.”

“It can wait. I’m sure it’s nothing.”

He pressed his hands together, briskly rubbing them back and forth like he was trying to start a fire without any matches.

“Let me ask you something,” I said. “When the theater exploded, did you race back to check on your boss, your friends, your girlfriend, anyone? Or did you run?”

He attempted to suck air into his lungs with a series of rapid, shallow breaths. His face reddened. He grasped his throat with his hand, pointed with the other. “My…inhaler.”

“Where is it?”

“Suitcase. Side pocket.”

I unzipped the top of the case, retrieved the inhaler, and pressed it into his hands. The phone was ringing again. While he administered a few pumps into his lungs, I followed the sound. It was coming from the bathroom. By the time I stepped inside and found the cell phone, the noise had stopped. Again.

Ronnie’s footsteps rapidly approached. I flung the door shut, locking myself inside. He pounded and wailed against the door like a child, begging me not to touch what didn’t belong to me. But I’d already seen what he was so afraid of. There were numerous incoming text messages—all the same—all from the Bible. All from the book of Proverbs. But it was a different verse this time, 1:16: For their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed blood.

I opened the bathroom door, my gun aimed, ready. “You better start talking.”

CHAPTER 17

The presence of a pistol directed at the center of Ronnie’s head made him sing like an actor on Broadway.

He confessed, saying before the blast he’d witnessed two people standing close to one another outside the theater. They appeared to be engaged in a conversation of some kind. From his vantage point, he was unsure whether they were male or female. One was larger in stature. Based on this, Ronnie concluded he was a man. He wore a heavy coat and a tight, dark cover over his head. The other person looked more like a woman. Her body was blocked by the man, but at one point Ronnie saw her hand, dainty and petite, too small to be male.

When the theater exploded, only one thought had pierced Ronnie’s mind: getting inside and finding his friends. He sprinted back across the street. As he entered the parking lot, a man slapped closed the door to a fossil of a pickup truck. Ronnie had cupped his hands around his mouth, shouting “hey” in the man’s direction. The man turned. Ronnie recognized him. It was the same man he’d seen in the parking lot not a minute before. A ski mask was half on, half off his face, like he was in the process of removing it when he’d been interrupted. Upon seeing Ronnie, the man fisted his hands, his boots crunching through the snow, making a beeline straight for him.

Ronnie didn’t know why, but his instincts told him to flee. Fast. In the process, his cell phone slipped from his sweat-drenched hands, plummeting into the snow.

He didn’t stop.

He didn’t look back.

He just kept on running.

Ronnie had made it to the hotel, his insides still empty, legs weak. He hunched over, leaning an arm against the prickly stucco exterior of the hotel. He gulped big pockets of air and closed his eyes, summoning the courage to glance behind him. He did so slowly, while at the same time reaching inside his pocket for the key card he needed to slide through the metal slot in order to gain entrance to the hotel. A family of four had exited a silver minivan, the children asleep in their parents’ arms. He saw no one else.

He’d swiped his card and tried not to focus on the throbbing pain shooting through his legs as he ascended two floors to his room. Safely inside, he collapsed onto the desk chair, grappling for the landline phone next to him. He’d planned to call the police, tell them everything. Then Melody’s phone buzzed, and he saw her purse. The phone was inside it, and he dug it out, stunned when he noticed the number on the caller ID.

It was his.

Someone had picked up his phone.

What he didn’t know was why they were using it to call Melody.

He’d tossed the phone on the bed, confused. The caller hung up and redialed, again and again. The phone went silent for a time and a text message popped up. A photo of Brynn. Her face had been crossed out, a thick, red X slashed with a marker. Under her name was a scripture: Proverbs 1:16. Ronnie had slammed the curtains shut, fiddled inside the drawer next to the bed, found the Bible. He read the passage, contemplated its meaning. His only thought had been that if he told anyone what he saw, then Brynn would be a dead woman.

“These scripture references,” I said. “They mean something.”

“Yeah, they mean the guy is twisted, screwed up in the head.”

As much as I wanted to continue the back-and-forth banter we were sharing, Ronnie needed to share his story with the investigators working on the case. In the meantime, I decided to squeeze what I could out of him before I forked him over. He seemed suspicious of this and refused to answer any more questions, saying he wouldn’t put Brynn’s life in danger.

“If you sit me in front of a bunch of nosy detectives, I’ll lie,” he said. “I’ll tell them I didn’t see anything.” Then he glared at me, his arms folded tight in front of him, a non-verbal display that he was closed for business.

Too bad for him; I was wide open.

In his frenzied rant, he’d missed all the obvious holes required to plug the questions that would arise when he plead the Fifth, like explaining why there were multiple calls placed from his cell phone right after the explosion went off to the one person investigators wanted to find most, and why a scripture message had been sent with Brynn’s photo attached.

I pulled out my phone and sent a text. Ronnie’s brow furrowed. I smoothed it out by requesting a glass of water, saying once I drank it, I would leave. I had an ulterior motive, of course. He got the water and I sipped it, slow and steady, like if I drank it any faster, my mouth might burn.

I smiled. Ronnie relaxed. He thought he was about to get what he wanted: my departure, posthaste.

Then Carlo arrived.

…

Carlo didn’t acknowledge Ronnie when he entered the hotel room. He didn’t even glance in his direction. He placed his gloved hand out, palm up. I inserted Melody’s phone into his palm. He dusted it, then scanned it, searching through her text messages, her recent calls, her emails.

Ronnie remained at the table, enraged. He thought I’d tricked him. I suppose I had. For a split second, my thoughts turned to Giovanni. I wanted to know where he was, how he was doing. If anyone had answers, Carlo did. But we were here for another reason.

Carlo looked at me. “According to these text messages, Melody received a similar scripture message every hour on the hour the day her film premiered.”

“I know,” I said. “While I was waiting for you to get here, I ran the number on her phone log. It’s a prepaid cell phone.”

“A burner. Thought so.”

“If he purchased it with a credit card, the company he bought it from would have destroyed the transaction record. And if he didn’t use a card, odds are he purchased it with anonymous digital crypto currency.”

“Bitcoins,” he said. “He could have avoided using a financial institution to pay for the phone and transferred the money directly from a computer. Either way we’re screwed.” Carlo shifted his gaze to Ronnie. “How did he know Melody’s phone was in your possession?”

Ronnie studied his hands, kept quiet.

“Is this how it’s going to be?” Carlo prodded. “I’m giving you a chance, one chance to tell me what you know.”

Again, nothing.

Carlo opened the door, letting in one of the bald men I saw keeping watch outside Giovanni’s room at the hospital. Baldie’s arms were crossed in front of him, showcasing his bulging biceps. He approached Ronnie, his enormous hand swooping down, smacking Ronnie on the side of the head. Ronnie didn’t move, he didn’t blink. The same couldn’t be said for his perfectly-placed toupee which shot across the room like a hairy torpedo. Ronnie bowed his head, flattened both hands on top of the stringy locks that remained.

Baldie smacked him a second time—harder. Then again—harder still. After the third hand lashing, I heard a crack. A gash, the length of a dime, seeped blood from the side of Ronnie’s head. Baldie watched it drip before glancing down at his own ring finger, eyeing the thick metal like he was more concerned that the piece of jewelry was all right than Ronnie. Wouldn’t want to upset the wife, I guess.

Before the fourth blow, the force of which I expected would either send Ronnie flying or put him into a coma, I wedged myself between Baldie’s hand and Ronnie’s head. I shielded my arms over my face, braced for impact. Baldie stopped midair.

I looked at Carlo. “What is this? There are better ways to question him.”

“Until he cooperates, I’ll do what I need to do.”

“So you’re going to what—beat answers out of him?”

“I
will
have the truth before I turn him over,” Carlo replied. “All of it. Stay out of the way, Sloane. This is how we do things.”

I didn’t care. It wasn’t how
I
did things.

I glared at Baldie, my hand outstretched, finger wagging toward the door. “
You
. Get out!”

Baldie looked at Carlo like I had some kind of nerve. I did. I had all kinds. In the past I’d sanctioned unorthodox measures when the moment called for it, but not here, not like this.

“Give me a minute with him,” I said. “Just one.”

Carlo ran a couple fingers across his chin, considering my plea. He wasn’t smiling. He grimaced, looked at a forlorn Ronnie who’d rounded his body into a ball. Carlo held up a single finger. “One.”

One tilt of Carlo’s head and Baldie lowered his hand and started for the door, his shoulder colliding with mine as he passed. He grinned. I didn’t care. I got my one minute.

After they stepped into the hall, Ronnie looked up, opened his mouth.

“Don’t,” I said. I crossed the room, wet a washcloth in the sink, handed it to him. “Shut up and listen. If you value your life, you
will
answer all of his questions.”

“I thought you said he was a cop? That other guy, he’s no cop.”

“It doesn’t matter what they are or who they are. You might not believe this, but keeping valuable information to yourself isn’t helping anyone. If you think this is bad, wait until they get you into the interrogation room. You know what federal agents call a person with nothing to say?”

He shrugged.

“Guilty,” I said.

“I’m not.”

“I believe you, they won’t,” I said. “And neither will your friends, your family, your parents. How would you like Mom and Dad to see your face plastered all over the five o’clock news?”

He shrugged.

I braced my hands on the sides of his chair, leaned in. “Do you want to help Brynn or don’t you?”

“I
am
helping her. If I say something…she…that maniac will get to her. He’ll kill her.”

“If you don’t, Carlo will kill
you
.”

I had no way of knowing how far Carlo would really go, but at this point, I was ready to say anything.

Carlo reentered the room, alone, right on cue. He glared at Ronnie. “I’ll ask you once more: How did he know the phone was in your possession?”

“If I tell you, what will you do to protect Brynn?”

At the mention of her name, Carlo glanced at me, holding my gaze for a few seconds before turning his attention back to Ronnie. “You have no right to ask anything of me when you’ve offered nothing in return.”

“I don’t care.”

“Do you value your life, Ronnie?”

“I value hers.”

Carlo ran a hand across his brow. “Fine. I’ll make sure someone is stationed outside her room.”

“When?”

Carlo closed his eyes, his patience waning. “As soon as you answer my questions.”

Ronnie looked at me. I nodded.

“The photo of Brynn that he sent me—it wasn’t a photo I had in my phone,” Ronnie stuttered. “I recognize the top of her dress. She was wearing it the night before the film premiere at a gala honoring all the films being shown during the festival.”

“Where was this?”