Murder Games Read online

  Stuck I’m okay with. Compromised is something else.

  Monroe, satisfied, rested his hands across his protruding gut. But not before throwing her a lifeline.

  “You’re right. My apologies, Needham. Of course you would never do that,” he said.

  I’m not sure how long the room would’ve remained silent after that, but the sound of Monroe getting a text made sure none of us would ever know. He glanced at his cell.

  “MDI just arrived,” he said.

  Elizabeth nodded. In a minute or two, the investigator from the medical examiner’s office would be walking into the room. She didn’t want to be there when he did.

  After a few steps toward the door, though, she stopped and returned to the side of the bed for one last look. She then took a picture, a close-up of the nine of diamonds.

  Watching her, I could only think of the nickname Grimes had come up with at the diner. The Dealer.

  This is all a game to you, isn’t it? A sick, perverted, and twisted game that’s only getting started. Are you really going to play every card in the deck? It’s what you want us to think, right?

  I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t sure of anything, not yet. Except for one thing.

  The Dealer officially had the upper hand.

  Chapter 35

  “OKAY, I’VE got some bad news and some bad news,” said Elizabeth twenty minutes later down in the lobby. “Which one do you want first?”

  “Definitely the bad news,” I said.

  She’d been off grilling the hotel manager and his perfectly coiffed hair about their security cameras while I questioned the member of the kitchen staff who took the room-service order. Our rendezvous point was the lobby, which had been kept clear by the police, save for the few guests actually there in the afternoon who had come down from their rooms looking for answers. Why are there so many cop cars and news vans parked in front of the hotel?

  Elizabeth let out a sigh. “The security cameras are nonoperational.”

  That was bad news, all right. “How is that possible?” I asked.

  “Long story,” she said. “Apparently it involves a certain movie star who was here with a woman who wasn’t his wife.”

  “This place is just hook-up central, isn’t it?”

  “More than we know,” she said. “Turns out someone on the security staff tried to sell footage of them in the elevator to TMZ and the movie star got wind of it. TMZ couldn’t buy the footage because it was stolen property, but the star threatened to sue the hotel anyway. Next thing you know, the owners had the cameras in all the public areas disconnected.”

  “That’s a bit of an overreaction, no?”

  “Or a stroke of marketing genius,” she said. “It seems word got around to some of the hotel’s high-end clientele, presumably the horniest ones.”

  “Do you think—”

  “That our killer knew he wouldn’t be recorded? It’s possible.”

  “I’m afraid to ask,” I said. “What’s the other bad news?”

  “The room-service guy,” she said. “Right after he yelled for help he somehow decided to snap a picture and post it on Instagram.”

  “Christ, please tell me it wasn’t a selfie,” I said.

  “No, but the damage is done.”

  I knew exactly what she meant. As soon as that picture went viral—and there was no doubt it would—all bets were off. So, too, was any agreement with Grimes. I could see his headline now. CITY IN PANIC! WHO WILL BE THE NINE OF DIAMONDS?

  The mayor was really going to love that.

  “What about the room-service order?” asked Elizabeth. “Anything?”

  “At first, nothing,” I said. “The order was Champagne and strawberries, and it was definitely a man who ordered it.”

  “That doesn’t mean it’s our guy, though. We don’t even know for sure that he’s a he.”

  “We do now,” I said. “The woman who took the order remembered that the guy first asked for steak and eggs. But it’s a vegan restaurant, so no steak and no eggs. Still, why order that in the first place?”

  “Because he simply forgot,” said Elizabeth.

  “I thought the same thing, and then it dawned on me.”

  “What?”

  “Me,” I said. “From the start, this guy’s wanted me involved in the investigation. He knows my background studying serial killers and wants to show me that he knows. So he tries to order steak and eggs. In fact I bet he knew all along that it was a vegan restaurant.”

  Elizabeth shot me a blank stare.

  “Steak and eggs,” I repeated. “That was Ted Bundy’s last meal.”

  “Okay, let’s put aside how weird it is that you know that,” she said. “What does it mean? Is he actually telling us anything?”

  “I’m not sure, but at least it’s not bad news,” I said. “He’s talking to me, and as long as he does there’s no telling what else he might—wait; what are you looking at?”

  She was squinting up at the mezzanine balcony, which hung over the lobby like one of Salvador Dalí’s clocks.

  Something had caught her eye. Make that someone.

  “Get down!” Elizabeth yelled.

  Chapter 36

  I HAD around six inches and sixty pounds on her, but Elizabeth took me down faster than a house of cards in a hurricane. We crashed to the floor, her arms wrapped around me, the wind knocked entirely out of my lungs as I landed with a horrific thud on my back. Is that one of my ribs that just snapped?

  The only way I thanked her for saving my ass was that I cushioned her fall. Chivalry is not dead…and neither were we.

  Not yet, at least.

  The shots continued, bullets screaming past us. Even louder were the screams of the guests in the lobby who had come down from their rooms. To think they wanted to know about the commotion outside.

  “This way!” said Elizabeth.

  She’d rolled off me onto her stomach and into a crawl, quickly heading toward the shelter of a nearby couch. I fell in line behind her on my hands and knees, trying my best to keep up and keep low. Never had ten feet looked so far away.

  More shots. They were relentless, one after another. Each getting closer. Too close. Right before my eyes a glass coffee table exploded, the shards raining down on top of us.

  He had us lined up now; crawling wasn’t going to cut it.

  Change of plans.

  “Run!” shouted Elizabeth.

  We both pushed off the floor, sprinting the rest of the way. Screw going around the couch, we hurled ourselves over it. No points for style, but we were still breathing.

  More like gasping. The adrenaline felt like a clamp on my throat as we plastered ourselves against the back of the couch.

  “You all right?” asked Elizabeth, reaching for her semiautomatic. It was a Glock 19, one of the first guns my father taught me how to shoot.

  “Yeah,” I said. “You?”

  “Just peachy.”

  “Did you see him?” I asked.

  “I saw his hand…and the gun,” she said. “That’s it.”

  That was enough for me. “Thanks,” I said.

  She checked her clip. “Yeah, well, you’re no good to me dead, Reinhart.”

  “A simple ‘You’re welcome’ would’ve sufficed.”

  The shooting had stopped, but that didn’t mean it was over.

  “Give me your shoe,” she said.

  I hesitated. My shoe?

  “Hurry!” she said.

  Shoe first, ask questions later. I pulled off one of my loafers, handing it to her.

  “Ferragamo,” she said, glancing at the label on the insole. “Nice.” She promptly tossed it high over her shoulder as though it were a piece of trash.

  No, check that. As though it were a clay pigeon.

  Faster than you can say “Pavlov’s dog,” the shot rang out. First movement and an itchy trigger finger will do it every time.

  He missed, though. The only sound after the shot was my shoe hitting the ground on the
front side of the couch.

  “Quick, give me your other shoe,” said Elizabeth, sticking out her hand.

  Seriously? “Are you trying to let him hit it? Why does he get a do-over?” But I knew what she was doing. Better my shoe than her head. “Here,” I said, giving it to her.

  She launched it even higher this time, quickly turning to take a peek over the back lip of the couch. The only sound, though, was my second shoe hitting the ground unscathed.

  “Shit,” said Elizabeth. Translation: He was gone.

  The next second, she was, too.

  Chapter 37

  ELIZABETH PEELED around the couch, running toward the stairs leading up to the mezzanine. There was no stopping her. Or what followed.

  Irony was the only word for it. The sudden silence in the lobby had acted like the mother of all starter pistols. Welcome to all hell breaking loose, part 2.

  My view from behind the couch was of the front entrance, the double doors now bursting open as cops with their guns drawn split off left and right, high and low. Most of the hotel guests remained hiding behind whatever cover they’d found, and those few who ventured out into the open were quickly barked at to take cover again lest the shooter have thoughts of opening fire for a second time.

  If only anyone knew where he was.

  “Mezzanine!” I shouted.

  Every hand on every gun immediately swung up to the overhanging balcony. I stood and turned, thinking I’d see Elizabeth still heading up the stairs, but she’d already disappeared.

  So had the shooter. It has to be the Dealer, right?

  “Clear!” yelled two cops in unison after reaching the mezzanine. They were echoed by another at the elevator bank and still another by the entrance to the hotel’s restaurant. Everywhere was clear.

  Except nothing was clear. There was no Elizabeth. No Dealer. No idea where they were.

  I went about gathering my shoes in front of the couch, the seat cushions now tufted with bullet holes. That was it, though, for my immediate to-do list. All I could do was wonder if there was something more I could be doing. Should be doing. Sitting on my ass didn’t feel right.

  Where the hell are you, Elizabeth? This whole thing doesn’t feel right.

  Suddenly every gun was swinging wildly again, no two in the same direction. A loud crashing noise had come from somewhere beyond the lobby, but where? And what was it, exactly? It wasn’t a gunshot; it was more like something falling hard to the ground. Real hard.

  I craned my neck trying to trace the sound, which was nearly impossible given the size of the lobby. It was too cavernous, too much like an echo chamber. Everyone was clearly thinking the same thing.

  Including the hotel manager. I’d seen him pop up from his hiding place behind the front desk as though he were the target in a game of whack-a-mole. His hair looked as if it had been through a wind tunnel.

  That’s all I needed, though—one glance at the guy to remind me of Elizabeth shutting him down earlier in the upstairs hallway. In a matter of seconds, she’d given a master class on human behavior.

  Human beings are pretty simple once you figure out what they want.

  What does the Dealer want right now?

  Chapter 38

  I MADE a beeline to the front desk. “Where is it?” I asked the manager. More like demanded. “Where’s that back exit?”

  You would’ve thought I’d asked the guy to tell me the square root of pi he was blinking so rapidly.

  “The back exit!” I repeated.

  “Down the stairs behind the elevators,” he finally answered.

  Instinct and nothing more had me heading toward those stairs on my own. I would’ve kept going, too, if my brain hadn’t kicked in.

  Never bring a knife to a gunfight? Hell, Dylan, you’re not even bringing anything.

  I didn’t get very far. The police had every path into and out of the lobby covered, and those not standing guard were talking into their radios or interviewing hotel guests, who were finally allowed out from hiding.

  “Hey, excuse me,” I said, approaching a cop underneath the mezzanine balcony. He was wrapping up his questioning of a Wall Street type in a slick suit who had the look of a guy who would later be in a bar bragging about his near-death experience to anyone willing to listen. I could almost see the overpriced IPA in his hand.

  “Yeah?” said the cop, although he couldn’t have sounded less interested if he tried. He was far more concerned with whatever he was checking on his phone.

  “I need your help,” I said. “I’m here with Detective Elizabeth Needham, and she’s now—”

  “What did you say your name was?”

  “I didn’t,” I said. “What I’m trying to tell you is that the guy doing all the shooting is probably looking for a way out of here, and there’s a—”

  “Back exit. Yeah, we know,” he said. “We’ve got men out there already.”

  “Okay, but what about between here and there?”

  “What about it?”

  “This guy isn’t an idiot,” I said, “and he’s not just going to turn himself in.”

  “Idiot or not, he ain’t a magician. We’ve got every door covered.”

  “No, as a matter of fact, we don’t,” came Elizabeth’s voice.

  I turned to see her halfway down the stairs from the mezzanine, the look on her face making my question all but redundant. “No luck, huh?”

  “I lost him in the stairwell,” she said. “He nearly took my head off with a fire extinguisher when I looked up over the railing.”

  The officer immediately went for his radio. “Suspect headed for the roof,” he announced.

  Easy there, Dick Tracy. Elizabeth leaned in a bit so she could read the cop’s nameplate. “He’s not headed for the roof, Officer Jenkins,” she said.

  “Did he use that back exit?” I asked.

  “No,” she said. “He didn’t use any exit.”

  “Then where the hell is he?” asked Jenkins. “Where did he go?”

  Chapter 39

  IT WAS way too early the next morning.

  “You don’t have to be here,” said Elizabeth.

  “He asked,” I said. “He wanted you to bring me, right?”

  “Yes, you were summoned,” she answered, tacking on some air quotes. “But he’s the mayor, not the king.”

  “Are you sure he knows the difference?”

  The reception area outside Mayor Deacon’s office suggested the Taj Mahal rather than City Hall. Trump’s Taj Mahal, that is. The curtains were red velvet, the chandelier was dripping crystal, and the walls were painted with gold leaf.

  “Trust me, the mayor knows the difference,” said Elizabeth. “Kings don’t have to get elected.”

  Or reelected, for that matter.

  Edso Deacon, the former air force pilot who went on to amass untold wealth in Manhattan commercial real estate, won his first term as mayor on a two-pronged promise. As a slogan, it was everywhere.

  Deacon: Tough on crime, tough on poverty.

  After the election, Deacon indeed made good on his campaign promise to do more for the poor. He spearheaded a host of programs that were shown to make a difference.

  Crime, though, was another story. As in the cautionary tale about all political honeymoons. They always end.

  Deacon’s programs to fight crime were eventually seen as ineffective. There were no results to tout, no statistics to point to. In fact murders and violent crime were actually up since he had been elected.

  The press had taken notice. A lot of notice. One story after another centered on Deacon being the mayor of a dangerous city—although not for much longer if things didn’t change.

  While Deacon’s approval ratings dipped, a former district attorney with a winning smile started shaking hands at a lot of subway stops. Tim Stoddart’s formal announcement that he was running came at the very site where two cops had been gunned down while on a stakeout. The triggerman was a prisoner who had been furloughed. To hear the for
mer DA’s stump speeches you would’ve thought Deacon was Willie Horton himself.

  So Deacon would be damned if some serial killer was going to be the death of him come November. He wanted a second term at all costs, according to Elizabeth, and until he got it he was hell on wheels.

  Now I was about to witness his wrath firsthand.

  A minute later, Deacon’s secretary stepped out of his office. I expected her to turn to us, announcing politely that the mayor would see us now.

  Instead she didn’t even glance our way, walking straight back to her desk. I couldn’t help noticing that she’d left his door open.

  “Elizabeth!” came Deacon’s booming voice. “Get your ass in here!”

  Chapter 40

  “SO, THIS is him, huh? Our ‘catcher in the rye,’” said Deacon, eyeing me up and down. He was grinning, but he wasn’t happy.

  Clever reference, though, Your Honor. J. D. Salinger’s signature novel motivated Mark David Chapman to kill John Lennon, or so Chapman claimed.

  Elizabeth formally introduced me to the mayor, who immediately motioned for the two of us to have a seat on the couch along the wall. But not before I met the only other person in the room, the mayor’s chief of staff. He introduced himself.

  “Beau Livingston,” he said, giving me the sort of firm handshake and direct eye contact they teach you in a job-interview workshop. “That’s definitely an interesting book you wrote.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “Apparently you’re not the only one interested in it.”

  Oops. I’d pretty much teed it up for the mayor.

  “So when the hell are we going to catch this asshole?” asked Deacon, although it was clear that by “we” he meant Elizabeth and me.

  We’d barely sat down, but we were already in the hot seat.

  “I’m doing everything I can,” Elizabeth answered respectfully but firmly. There was just a trace of edge and a hint of push-back in her voice. Suffice it to say she wouldn’t have been in the room, let alone been Deacon’s “personal” detective on this, if she didn’t know how to hold her own against him.