Nemesis (9 page)

“Are you hurt?”

“No. But he scared me so much I'm still shaking.”

“Did you notify the police?”

“The police? No. I don't trust the police, I told you that. You're the only one I trust.”

“Building security?”

“No, it was too late by the time…” Gulping sound. “Jake … can you come over here? Now? It's not too much to ask, is it? I'll tell you everything that happened when you get here. Please?”

He sat for half a dozen beats, holding the cell tight in his fingers, before he said, “All right. Half an hour.”

 

8

The same burly security man who'd been on duty the evening of Runyon's first visit was behind the desk in the lobby. The name
George
was stitched above the pocket of his uniform jacket. “Mr. Runyon, right,” he said. “Ms. Daniels is expecting you.”

“She say anything else when she called down?”

“Like what?”

“Like anything.”

“No. Just that you'd be here about now.”

“How did she sound?”

“Sound?”

“Upset, anxious, nervous?”

George looked puzzled. “Like she always sounds.”

“Calm, then. Normal.”

“That's right.”

“Did you see her when she came back from dinner?”

“Tonight? No, sir. If she went out, it must've been through the garage.”

“The guard down there, Frank, said he hasn't seen her.”

“Well, then, she must've been in all evening.”

Runyon said, “Tell me something. How tight is the security in this building?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“Just curious. I'm in the security business myself.”

“That so? What kind?”

Runyon told him, showed his ID. George frowned as he studied it. “Ms. Daniels didn't say anything about you being a PI,” he said. “She in some kind of trouble?”

“Confidential matter.”

George seemed to want to press him, settled instead for saying, “Sure, none of my business. I was a cop myself for four years, back in the nineties.” He sounded bitter rather than proud of the fact. “Didn't work out, so I went into private security. Pays the bills, but it's not exactly exciting work. Not in a place like this.”

“So the security's pretty tight.”

“Tight as it gets. Nobody gets in or out unless they live here or they're invited or announced.”

“Cameras on every floor? All working, all monitored by you?”

“On my shift, that's right.”

“And you've been here all evening.”

“Since I came on at four.” One corner of George's mouth turned up in a crooked half smile. “Rules here are so strict I have to make an appointment to take a leak.”

Verity Daniels opened the door so quickly after Runyon pressed the bell that she might have been waiting next to it. Maybe she had been. As soon as he was inside the studio with the door shut, she stepped in close and tried to embrace him, murmuring something he didn't pay attention to. He caught hold of her, not roughly but not gently, either, and stood her off at arms' length.

She blinked, looking hurt, uncertain. “I'm sorry, I didn't mean … I'm just so glad you're here.…”

“Tell me what happened.”

“Can't we sit down first? I'm still shaky.…”

He let go of her, watched her walk to the blond-wood sofa and lower herself. When she saw that he hadn't moved, she said, “Aren't you going to sit down?”

“No. Tell me what happened.”

“I went out to get something to eat … a restaurant just around the corner. I wasn't gone more than an hour. He … he was waiting when I got off the elevator. I didn't know he was there until he grabbed me from behind, told me not to scream or he'd … he'd cut my throat. I don't know where he came from, how he got into the building … he was just there, waiting for me.…”

She paused, looking up at Runyon in a beseeching way. He said, “You get a clear look at him?”

“No, he was wearing … you know, one of those ski masks.”

“Recognize his voice?”

“No. Gruff, deep … I don't know. I was so scared.…”

“Then what?”

“He made me let him in and show him where I kept the money, the ten thousand dollars … it was still in the backpack. He said he didn't come for it at Lands End because he still didn't trust me. He … he made me lie facedown on the floor and threw a blanket over me. The last thing he said before he went away was that I'd be hearing from him again. He wants more money, Jake … another ten thousand. If I don't get it for him, he said … he said he'd come back again and
kill
me for sure.”

Usually Runyon was slow to anger; it took a lot of situational pressure to build up heat, tighten his insides. Hot and tight now: it was an effort to maintain a blank-faced calm.

“Jake? What's the matter?”

He said, “The Q-Phone. Where is it?”

“In my purse. Why?”

“Get it for me.”

She hesitated, then stood and went to where her purse lay on the breakfast counter that separated the living room from the kitchenette. She found the Q-Phone, gave it to him. He shoved it into his coat pocket, and without looking at her, crossed to the table where the landline phone sat. The interface was still hooked to it and the Olympus recorder; he disconnected the wires, put both items into the same pocket with the Q-Phone.

“What
is
it, Jake? Why did you do that?”

“I'm finished here, that's why.”

“What do you mean? I don't understand.…”

“I'm not working for you anymore. Business terminated, as of now.”

“Terminated? But you … you can't just walk out on me after what happened here tonight.…”

“Nothing happened here tonight.”

“I was almost killed!”

“No, you weren't,” Runyon said. “Nobody grabbed you in the hallway, nobody put a knife to your throat, nobody came in here and took money from you.”

“How can you say that? He did, he did!”

“There's no way an outsider could get into this building with the security as tight as it is.”

“Well, maybe he lives here!”

“That won't wash, either. Nobody who can afford to live in a place like this needs ten thousand dollars badly enough to run an extortion scam, or would risk picking a victim on his own turf if he did.”

Sputtering noise in her throat. Violent headshake.

Runyon said, “Security cameras on every floor. If you'd been grabbed in the hallway, the cameras would've recorded it and the guards would have been up here in two minutes.”

“He must have done something to the one on this floor—”

“Working just fine. George on the desk downstairs would've noticed if it hadn't been, sent somebody up to see why.”

“Damn you, Jake! Why won't you believe I was attacked!”

“There's not a mark on you. Clothing's not disarrayed, makeup's perfect, not a hair out of place.”

“I told you, he didn't cut me, he just threatened to. I showered, changed my clothes, combed my hair—”

“All of that even though you were so scared you couldn't stop shaking? No, lady. Somebody holds a sharp knife pressed to your throat for any length of time, there's bound to be nicks, scratches, you couldn't wash away. Your throat is smooth. Get grabbed, held, muscled from behind, then thrown down on the floor, you'd have bruises, carpet scrapes. None of those anywhere on you, either.”

The frightened-victim façade had begun to crumble. The shape of her mouth shifted, the crimson-painted lips thinning and pulling in against her teeth. Body rigid, hands opening and closing at her sides. Eyes darker, shinier, fixed on him in an unblinking stare.

Runyon, prodded by the slow simmer of his anger, kept hammering at her. “If I searched this place, I'd find the backpack was still here, wouldn't I? Empty, and not because the phantom intruder stuffed the cash into his pockets. There never was any payoff money. No home invasion. No threatening phone calls. No extortionist. It was all a hoax, wasn't it? One long string of lies from the beginning.”

“No!”

“Why? Why play that kind of sick game?”

“I'm not sick! Don't you say that to me!”

“Your idea of a practical joke? Excitement, cheap thrills? Or do you just like messing with other people's lives?”

“No, no, no, no!”

“How long did you think you could keep it up? Long enough to get me into bed? Part of the fun, right?”

“Bastard!” The victim's pose was completely gone now. So were all the softer feminine qualities, real or faked. What was left was a kind of naked graven image: cold, feral, egomaniacal. “You can't just walk out on me!”

“Yes I can. You're worse than a liar, you're a manipulative cheat, and I don't work for cheats—my boss doesn't work for cheats. I resent the hell out of having my time wasted for your private amusement.”

“I paid you for your time, I
paid
you!”

“Not nearly enough. Good-bye, Ms. Daniels.”

He got halfway to the door before she came flying across the room at him. The move was sudden, as if she'd been launched off the couch; he saw her out of the corner of his eye, coming at an angle behind him from the left, and pivoted to set himself—not quite in time to get his crossed arms all the way up in front of his face. Her fingers were hooked into talons, the bright red tips glistening like daubs of blood. One of them snaked through his guard, slashed a painful furrow across his neck up under the chin, before he caught hold of her wrists, twisted her body sideways against the thrust of his hip.

She swiveled her head, still struggling violently, and spat in his face.

He held onto her just long enough to get leverage, then shoved her away from him. It was the only thing he could do short of subduing her with judo, possibly hurting her in the process. It wasn't a hard shove, but she stumbled anyway, lost her balance, went down on her ass on the carpet. The hem of her skirt bunched up over chubby thighs; she made no effort to pull it down. She sat there trembling, her eyes fire-black with hate.

“You son of a bitch!” she yelled at him. “You
cocksucker
!”

Runyon wiped her spittle off his cheek, opened the door without turning his back to her, and got the hell out of there.

*   *   *

Driving across the city, the deep scratch under his chin burning like fire, he kept berating himself. He'd always considered Jake Runyon to be nobody's fool. Well, for the past week he'd been somebody's. Fool with a capital
F.

All the years he'd been a cop and a private investigator, all the cases he'd handled and people he'd dealt with on both sides of the law, all the fine-honed and usually reliable instincts, and still he hadn't seen all the way through Verity Daniels until tonight. Never encountered anyone like her before, but that was no excuse. Should have been alert to the possibility of deception, trickery; should have paid closer attention to Tamara's reservations and his own. Should have tumbled to the truth before tonight. All that slop about not trusting the police. The secretiveness, the inconsistent behavior, the flirtatiousness and inappropriate comments. The two straight no-shows at Baker Beach and Lands End. And yet his usually reliable shit detector had kept right on malfunctioning.

Too soft-hearted, too concerned with the client's welfare … No, that wasn't right. The client's welfare always came first, in any investigation. Had to: that simple rule was what the business was built on. If he didn't believe in it and follow it, he might as well go into another line of work.

His fault in this case, not the policy's. He'd misjudged Verity Daniels, mishandled her and the situation—a mistake, an unprofessional error. Well, all right. Everybody makes mistakes. Learn from it, put it behind him, move on.

*   *   *

The strident buzzing of the doorbell sat him up in bed, instantly alert. The digital clock next to Colleen's picture on the bedside table gave the time as 12:51.

He'd been asleep less than two hours.

The bell went off twice more, insistently, while he threw on a robe, turned on a light, and padded barefoot across the front room. He said into the intercom, “Who is it?”

“Jake Runyon?” Male voice, unfamiliar.

“That's right.”

“Police, Mr. Runyon. Mind letting us in?”

The skin pulled tight across his shoulders. Police showing up at this time of night meant bad news, nothing less. He thumbed the button that released the downstairs door lock, then belted his robe and opened the apartment door to wait.

They came up quietly enough, two of them, both in plain clothes. One Caucasian, heavy-set, in his fifties; the other Hispanic, younger, whippet-lean. He'd never seen either man before. They had their badges out, held them up for inspection when they reached the landing. Detective inspectors. Whitehead and Rodriguez.

Runyon stepped aside to let them in. They stood looking at him in silence, then around the room and at the open door to the bedroom. “Anybody else here with you, Mr. Runyon?” Whitehead asked.

“No. What is it you want?”

Rodriguez said, “We've had a complaint against you.” Controlled aggression in his voice. The confrontational type.

“What kind of complaint?”

“You ought to know.”

“But I don't. What kind of complaint?”

“Assault with intent to commit rape.”

The anger began to bubble in Runyon again. He didn't say anything.

Whitehead said, “Aren't you going to ask who made the complaint?”

“Verity Daniels, I suppose.”

“Well?”

“Did she tell you who I am, what I was hired to do for her?”