“Unless that’s all you have to say and you want me to get the hell away.”
“Wings sound good,” Brad said, sipping his Guinness.
Joe motioned to their waitress and put in the order. So far, neither Robert nor Eileen had noticed the two of them.
“So what’s up with you and Leslie?” Brad asked, breaking into Joe’s thoughts.
“Pardon?”
Brad leaned back. “You’re not an old friend at all, are you? You may be Matt’s cousin, but you just met Leslie recently, right?”
He stared at Brad. “I’ll tell you this. I’d die for her. And I’d kill for her.”
Brad was dead still for a minute. “See, here’s what you don’t understand about me. I wouldn’t die for anyone. Les actually knows that about me, and she doesn’t hate me for it. The whole world can’t be as noble as Matt—and you. What is it with her and dead people, do you think? It works out great for me. I get all kinds of credit I don’t deserve. But how does she do it?”
“She’s a great researcher.”
“Oh, bull. She was always good, but since the explosion…You know, she was actually more or less pronounced dead at the scene. They had her over with the corpses, but then one of the paramedics caught something…a pulse. They lost her, then zapped her back. Think she met a bunch of dead people and brought them back with her?”
Joe leaned forward. “Maybe she can smell out the dead. And maybe she can smell out the living—who create the dead.”
“I’m telling you, you need to question Hank Smith. You don’t believe me? Ask your buddy about it, Sergeant Adair. He knew about it. Genevieve complained to him about the guy. I honestly don’t know what her problem with him was, other than something to do with the company. But she wanted Robert’s help—she wanted Hank arrested.”
Brad sounded on the up-and-up. And with the information he’d recently gleaned, Joe knew exactly why Genevieve would have had a beef with Hank Smith—and all of Tyson, Smith and Tryon. He really didn’t like Hank Smith. It would be easy—and convenient—to discover the man was guilty.
The wings came. “You’re not seeing Leslie tonight?” Brad asked.
“Yeah, I am. I’ll be staying at Hastings House.”
Brad smirked. “It helps to look like the man she loved, huh?”
“Actually, it’s none of your business.”
Brad laughed. “All right. I suppose you’re not sleeping with her. You’re too noble for that, right? Or are you? Maybe you’re just playing the good guy, strong and reliable, and when the time is right…You’re a player, the same as any man. And don’t go looking at me like that. She’s never going to love me, so good luck to you.” He shook his head. The wings had arrived, and he dipped one in hot sauce. “I’m not as big an asshole as you probably think. I love Leslie. She’s a friend, one of my best friends. I was pretty nuts about Genevieve, too. I cared enough about her to respect her and not hit on her when she told me it wasn’t happening.” He chewed for a minute. “I felt sick when I heard she had disappeared. Did you know her?”
“No.”
“She was beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. Huge eyes, hair like a deep auburn blanket of silk around her shoulders. And her voice…The main thing, though, what a fighter. When she thought something was right…”
“You’re talking about her in the past tense.”
“Do you really think she could still be alive?” he asked.
There was genuine hope in the guy’s voice, Joe realized. He wasn’t using the past tense because he knew for a fact that she was dead, only because he was afraid to think otherwise.
“Maybe. No one’s proved she’s dead, so…”
“No one’s proved that any of those girls is dead, either,” Brad said dully. “But I’ll bet they are.”
At that moment, Joe’s cell phone began to ring.
He noticed that Robert Adair’s phone had just started ringing, as well.
“What if I’m wrong?” Leslie murmured.
“What if you’re right?” Nikki asked.
They had walked around the block. And around the block again. And each time, Leslie had slowed as they had got to a certain section of the sidewalk. The way she figured it, if she really had heard crying when she’d been in the basement, it had come from somewhere around here.
Because of construction, there was a wire mesh fence surrounding the corner building, with a barrier of narrow boards across a gap about ten feet wide between the building being worked on and the one next to it.
Leslie tried to figure distances. Hastings House was on the opposite side of the block. But beyond the boards and wire, this building’s basement would abut the basement below the servants’ pantry.
The cocktail hour was still in full swing. There were people everywhere. Down the street, Leslie knew, cops would be on duty all night, guarding the perimeters of the dig.
“We can slip behind those boards,” Leslie mused.
“But we shouldn’t. Why don’t we call the cops?”