The Collector
Page 59

“I don’t know. Probably growing up in the military. Uniforms, regimentation. Maybe unique is my personal rebellion.”
“It works for you.”
“And shouldn’t you be some big corporate honcho, taking the ambitious route—or the summering-in-Monte-Carlo private-jet-setter? Maybe you do summer in Monte Carlo.”
“I prefer Lake Como. No, I’m not a summering type, or a honcho. I didn’t have to go through the starving-artist stage, but I would have.”
“Because it’s not just what you do, it’s who you had to be. It’s good to have the talent and the love. Not everybody can or does.”
“Is writing who you had to be?”
“It feels like it. I love it, and I think I’ll get better. But I’d be a starving literary artist without the house-sitting. I like that, too, and I’m really good at it.”
“You don’t go through drawers that don’t belong to you.”
“Absolutely true.”
“I would,” he decided. “Most people would. Curiosity demands it.”
“Give in to curiosity, draw unemployment. Plus, it’s just rude.”
“Rude gets a bad rap.” Lightly, he touched his finger to the tiny dimple beside her mouth. “Let’s nuke dinner.”
“Now that you mention it, I’m officially starving. My dress is in the elevator.”
He waited a beat. “The windows are covered with one-way film to frustrate people much like yourself.”
“Regardless. Got a robe? Or a shirt? Or my luggage?”
“If you insist.”
He rose, and she decided he must have eyes like a cat to move so easily through the dim light. He opened the closet, and since he stepped inside it, she judged it to be a pretty good size. And came back with a shirt he tossed at her. “It’s too big for you.”
“Which means it’ll cover my ass. Asses must be covered at mealtime.”
“That’s strict.”
“I don’t have many rules,” she said as she put it on, “but those I do have are very firm.”
It did cover her ass, and the tops of her thighs—and her hands. She buttoned it primly, rolled up the sleeves.
He’d paint her like this, too, he thought. Soft and mussed from sex, heavy-eyed, and wearing one of his shirts.
“There now.” She smoothed down the hem. “Now you have something to take off me after dinner.”
“When you put it that way, rules are rules.”
He grabbed a pair of sweats, a T-shirt.
They took the stairs down.
“You took my mind off everything else for a while. You’re good at that.”
“Maybe letting it all go somewhere else—or everywhere else—will help us figure out what to do next.” She poked her head in the delivery bag. “God. It still smells good.”
He ran a hand down her hair. “If I could backtrack, I wouldn’t have gotten you involved in this. I’d still want you here, but I wouldn’t have gotten you involved.”
“I am involved, and I’m here.” Lifting the bag, she held it out. “So let’s eat. And maybe we can work out what to do next.”
He had some thoughts on that, tried to line them up as they heated the food, settled down in the nook he used for most of his meals.
“You were right,” she said after a bite. “It’s good. So . . . what do you have in mind? You’ve got your thinking look on,” she added. “Like when you’re working out what to paint and how. Not the totally focused, wickedly intense look you have when you’re drawing, but when you’re preparing to.”
“I have looks?”
“You do, and you’d see for yourself if you did a self-portrait. What are you thinking?”
“If the cops identify Hot Asian Girl, it may be moot.”
“But you don’t think so, and neither do I. HAG—an appropriate term for her—wasn’t worried about the security cameras. So either she doesn’t care if she’s identified, or she’s not in the system anywhere to be identified.”
“Either way, she didn’t appear particularly worried about police tracking her down on suspicion of multiple murders.”
“She’s probably done others, don’t you think? God, this is weird, eating chicken parm and talking about multiple murders.”
“We don’t have to.”
“No, we do.” She focused on winding some pasta around her fork. “We do. Being weird doesn’t make it less necessary. I thought I could think of it like the plot for a story, and a little removed. But that’s not working for me. Reality is, and you have to deal with it. So. She’s probably killed before.”
The tidy black hole centered between the body’s eyebrows came to Ash’s mind. “Yeah, I don’t think she’s new at this. And if we’re right, her boss has to have deep pockets. He wouldn’t hire amateurs.”
“If he hired her to get the egg from Oliver, she hasn’t delivered.”
“Exactly.”
Lila wagged her fork at him. “You’re thinking of a way to lure her out, with the egg. If she doesn’t deliver, she could lose her job, or her fee—or maybe even worse since whoever’s paying her doesn’t worry about having people killed to get what he wants.”
“If it’s the egg she wants—and what else?—she’s run out of options. I don’t know what Vinnie might have told her under that kind of duress. I think, considering who he was, he didn’t tell her anything. But if he did, he knew I’d taken it to the compound, to hide it for safekeeping, but not where in the compound.”
“If she somehow figures out it’s there somewhere, it still puts her in a bind. It’s a big place. And even if she could get in—”
“Big if with my father’s security. But if she was smart enough to, say, get hired as staff, or wheedle an invitation, she still wouldn’t know where to start looking. I put it—”
“Don’t tell me.” Instinctively she covered her ears. “What if—”
“What if something goes very wrong and she gets to you? If it does, you’re going to tell her the Cherub and Chariot is in the small safe in the office of the stables. We don’t have horses currently, so it’s not being used. It’s a five-digit code. Three-one-eight-nine-zero. That’s Oliver’s birthday, month, day, year. If I’d told Vinnie, maybe he’d be alive.”