“I got something.” His voice dropped, all secret-agent style. “It’s explosive.”
Mels sat up, but didn’t get too excited. With her luck, “explosive” was more hyperbole than H-bomb. “Oh, really?”
“Someone tampered with the body.”
“Excuse me?”
“Like I told you, I was first on scene, and I snapped some photographs—you know, in an official capacity.” There was a rustling over the connection, and then a muffled conversation, like he was talking to someone and had covered up the receiver. “Sorry. I’m at the station house. Let me get out of here and call you back.”
He hung up before she could say anything, and she had images of him dodging fellow officers on his way to the parking lot like he was one of Eli Manning’s receivers.
Sure enough, when he called back, he was out of breath. “Can you hear me?”
“Yeah, I got you.”
“So my photographs of the body have something on them the official ones don’t.”
That was her cue to OMG, and in this case, she didn’t have to fake it. “What’s the difference?”
“Meet me and I’ll show you.”
“Where and when.”
After she hung up, she checked her watch and dialed Matthias’s room phone again. No answer.
“Hey, Tony,” she said, leaning into the aisle between their cubicles. “Can I borrow your—”
The guy tossed the keys without missing a beat with whoever he was talking to on the phone. As she blew him a kiss, he covered his heart and gave her a little swoon.
Striding out of the newsroom, she got in Tony’s Toy and headed across town, using a route that just happened to…well, what do you know, it was the Marriott hotel.
And she was a good half an hour early for her meeting with the Mouth.
By crazy luck, she found an open, metered parking spot just across from the lobby entrance—except it took her two tries to get the car in place, her parallel-parking skills rusty from her using too many garages since she’d moved back to Caldwell.
Plus, feeling like a stalker didn’t help her at the wheel.
As she walked into the lobby, she felt like someone from security should stop her and turn her away, but no one paid her any attention—which left her wondering exactly how many other people were to’ing or fro’ing over things they felt icky about.
At the elevators, she hopped a ride to the sixth floor along with a businessman whose wilted attire and red eyes suggested he’d flown in the night before from somewhere far away.
Maybe even flapping his own arms.
Stepping free, she hung a right and went down the carpeted hall. Room service trays were set out next to doors, treacherous welcome mats with their smudged plates, half-empty coffee cups, and stained napkins. At the far end, a maid’s cart was parked in front of an open room, the light from inside spilling into the corridor and highlighting fresh toilet paper rolls, folded towels, and a lineup of spray bottles.
Matthias’s door still had the Do Not Disturb sign on it, and she took that to mean he hadn’t checked out. Putting her ear to the panels, she sent up a quick prayer that he wouldn’t pick this moment to open up.
No running water. No muttering from the TV. No deep voice on the phone.
She knocked. Knocked a little louder.
“Matthias,” she said to the door. “It’s me. Open up.”
As she waited for a response that didn’t come, she glanced over at the maid who had come out with a plastic bag full of trash. For a split second, she considered playing the whole I-forgot-my-key-card thing, but in post-9/11 Caldwell, she had a feeling that wasn’t going to work—and might end up with her getting tossed out on her hey-nanny-nanny.
Well, wasn’t this a credit to her character: The invasion of his privacy wasn’t even on her no-go radar; it was the fear of getting caught that stopped her.
Disgusted with herself, and pissed off at him, Mels hit the elevator again, and when she got to the first floor, she intended to march out to Tony’s car, get in the damn thing, and be wicked early for her meeting with Monty and his flapping gums.
Instead, she casualed her way around the lobby, peeking into the gift shop, wandering down to the spa…
Yeah, ’cuz of course he’d be buying bathrobes and getting a cucumber wrap on his face. Right.
When she came up to the main restaurant that was open, she nearly abandoned the wild-goose chase, but it only took a moment to peer in—
On the other side of the tables of diners, sitting at a window, Matthias was eating with a brunette woman in a limoncello-colored dress.
Who was she—
Was that the nurse? From the hospital?
“Would you like a table for one?” the maître d’ asked.
Ah, yeah, that would be a negative—unless the thing came equipped with an airsick bag. “No, thanks.”
Across the way, the brunette started to laugh, throwing her head back so that her hair flowed all around. She was so perfectly beautiful, it was as if she were a moving photograph that had been touched up in all the right places.
As Matthias sat accross from her, he was hard to read, and in an absurd moment of possessiveness, Mels was glad he was wearing her sunglasses. Like that was the equivalent of her pissing on his fence post.
“Are you meeting someone, then?” the maître d’ asked.
“No,” she replied. “I do believe he’s busy.”
23
Dee’s laughter was…well, kind of divine, as a matter of fact. To the point where it fritzed out part of Matthias’s brain, and he couldn’t think of what he’d said that was so funny.
“So how’s your memory?” she asked.
“Spotty.”
“It’ll come back. It’s only been, what, a day and a half?” She leaned to the side as her plate of eggs, sausage, toast, and hash browns arrived. “Give it time.”
His bagel looked anemic in comparison.
“Are you sure that’s all you want?” She gesticulated with her fork. “You need to put on weight. Myself, I’m a strong believer that a big breakfast is the only way to start the day.”
“It’s nice to be around a woman who doesn’t pick at her food.”
“Yup, that’s not me.” She motioned for the waitress to come back over. “He wants what I have. Thanks.”
It seemed rude to point out that if he ate that much he was going to explode, so he just pushed the bagel aside. She was probably right. He felt out of it, sluggish and empty, the club sandwich he’d had for dinner with Mels having been long burned off thanks to that ninja motherfucker with the happy trigger finger.