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  Yeah, and maybe he was going to get a raise in his next paycheck, too, but he didn’t think so, Sam concluded gloomily.

  Still, he had to ask himself: What was different about this one? Why hadn’t the killer made contact afterward? There was a reason—there was always a reason. He just didn’t know what it was. Yet.

  The questions that crowded into his mind in the wake of that were so urgent and the answers so elusive that Sam banged his fist against the Plexiglas in frustration. Deland and her assistant glanced his way, their eyes frowning at him above their surgical masks.

  The message was clear: He was disturbing their work.

  Sam didn’t even bother mouthing an apology. He turned on his heel and went in search of Wynne.

  He found him outside, to the left of the frosted-glass front door, leaning against the four-story building’s grimy stucco wall. Located just off Canal Street, the coroner’s office was in a seedy area heavy on small shops and ethnic restaurants that swarmed with activity even this early in the day. Pedestrians clogged the sidewalks. Vehicles of all descriptions crawled bumper-to-bumper in both directions, creating a continuous background buzz that sounded like a swarm of angry wasps. The heat wrapped around Sam’s face like a hot, wet towel the moment he left the air-conditioning behind. Inhaling was like breathing in soup. The smells—car emissions, decaying plants, various kinds of spicy food cooking—would have been nauseating if he’d let himself pay attention to them, which he didn’t. Two tortured-looking palmetto trees struggled to survive in wrought-iron cages set into the sidewalk. Wynne—or at least as much of Wynne as could fit, which was about a fourth—stood in the spindly shadow of one of these. His arms were crossed over his massive chest, his head was bent, his eyes were closed. His mouth worked as he chewed something very slowly and deliberately. Bubble gum, Sam assumed, because of the faint grape smell and the fact that Wynne had bought a six-pack of grape Dubble Bubble along with the doughnuts he’d scarfed down earlier. Since quitting smoking six weeks ago, Wynne rarely went longer than fifteen minutes without putting something in his mouth. As a result, he was gaining weight like a turkey in October, enough so that his baggy shorts were growing less baggy by the day and his shirts—today’s model was vintage Hawaiian, featuring a big-bosomed girl doing the hula on the front—strained at their buttons.

  “Okay?” Sam asked, surveying him.

  Wynne gave a single slow nod.

  Despite the nod, Sam continued to eye him skeptically. Sweat beaded Wynne’s forehead, his face was flushed red, and his curly, fair hair had frizzed in the heat until it looked like a brass-colored Brillo pad. To put it mildly, Wynne was not, at the moment, a poster boy for FBI spit and polish. But then, that’s what four weeks on the road chasing a murderous nutjob did to a man, Sam thought. He himself was a case in point. He was sporting a couple of days’—he’d forgotten exactly how many—worth of stubble, faded jeans, and a T-shirt that had once been black but had been washed so often and so haphazardly over the past month that it was now a kind of tie-dyed-looking gray. The jackets and ties that Bureau protocol called for had been left back in their hotel rooms. This particular August, New Orleans was a hundred degrees in the shade with a sticky humidity that never seemed to let up.

  In other words, it was just too damned hot.

  Wynne opened one bleary eye. “I need a cigarette. Bad.”

  “Chew your gum.”

  “Ain’t helping.”

  In front of them, a black Firebird pulled over to the curb and stopped. Both doors opened at almost exactly the same moment, and two men got out. Tensing automatically, doing a quick mental check to make sure his Sig Sauer still nestled in the small of his back where he could get to it in a matter of seconds if need be, Sam squinted at them through the shimmer of heat that rose from the sidewalk, watching, narrow-eyed, as the pair headed purposefully toward him and Wynne. Their initially brisk pace slowed as they drew closer.

  “You guys learn anything in there?”

  Sam relaxed as he recognized the speaker as Phil Lewis, an FBI agent from the local field office whom he had first met some six years previously, when Sam had come to town to spearhead an investigation into a hashish-smuggling ring that was using the port of New Orleans as an entry point to the U.S. drug market. Despite the camouflage provided by the inches-high blond pompadour the guy tended like a girlfriend, Lewis was short, maybe five-nine or so beneath the hair, stocky and cocky in the way small men often are. Today he was decked out in a pale yellow sport coat, a gleaming white T-shirt, pressed jeans, and Ray-Bans. The African-American guy with him was taller, thinner, and a little more conservative in a crew cut, navy sport coat, and khakis. And Ray-Bans.

  “Nah,” Sam replied, leaning a shoulder back against the building and folding his arms over his chest. “Long time no see, Lewis. I see you’re still a fan of Miami Vice.”

  “What?” Lewis looked bewildered and suspicious at the same time. Beside Sam, Wynne snickered.

  “Forget it.” Sam jerked a thumb at Wynne. “This is E. P. Wynne. Phil Lewis. And ...?”

  “Greg Simon,” Lewis’s partner said. Perfunctory handshakes were exchanged all around, and then Sam looked at Lewis.

  “You got anything?” Sam meant anything he needed to know, which Lewis perfectly understood.

  “Nothing but a call from Dr. Deland’s office about two suspicious-looking characters claiming to be FBI agents forcing their way into the Fitzgerald autopsy.”

  “That would be us,” Sam said. Wynne nodded.

  “Yeah.” Lewis frowned. “You want to tell me why we’re interested in this case?”

  Ordinarily, murder investigations were left up to local police forces in the jurisdictions in which they occurred. The FBI was called in only on certain extraordinary cases.

  “Possible link to multiple homicides with the UNSUB crossing state lines,” Sam said. Bureau policy was to share information on developing cases with local field agents, but in this case Sam interpreted that to mean on a strictly need-to-know basis. At this point, in Sam’s estimation, what he’d just said was about all Lewis needed to know. He remembered all too vividly how the details of the last investigation they’d worked on together had gotten leaked to the Times-Picayune within hours of the investigative team uncovering them. For all its population, New Orleans was a small town that way, and unless something had changed, Lewis had a way-too-cozy relationship with local reporters.

  Having this thing turn into a media circus was something they did not need. Especially when they were no closer to making an apprehension today than they had been when Sam had gotten the first call at the first murder scene four weeks ago.

  “Hot damn,” Lewis said, rubbing his hands together in transparent glee. “You mean we got ourselves a serial killer?”

  “Nah. Looks like a series of professional hits.” Sam slouched against the wall again. “ ’Course, it’s too early to say for sure.”

  Lewis gave a nod toward the building. “What was she into to get herself whacked?”

  “Could be a lot of things. At this point, we don’t really know.”

  “But you’ve got an idea,” Lewis said, watching Sam.

  “Actually, I’ve got no fucking clue,” Sam said, which had the double virtue of being the absolute truth while at the same time visibly annoying Lewis. Beside him, Wynne was working on blowing a big purple bubble. The sickly sweet grape smell wafted beneath Sam’s nose.

  “Bullshit,” Lewis said.

  Sam shrugged. “Think what you want.”

  “You’re operating in my neck of the woods now.” Lewis’s voice was sharp. “Whatever you’ve got on this case, I have a right to know it.”

  “You’re absolutely correct. You do.”

  “So?”

  “When I find something out, I’ll send you a memo.”

  “You ...” Lewis went red with anger but swallowed the rest of what he’d been going to say. Sam gave him the faintest of smiles. Wynne’s bubble popped with a loud sm
ack.

  “You got a problem with memos?” Sam asked innocently. “I can do e-mails.”

  “You suck, you know that?” Lewis said through his teeth, and started walking. “Come on, Greg, we need to head on in and tell Dr. Deland’s staff that, hard as it may be to believe, the creeps they were complaining about really are FBI agents.” As Simon started to move, Lewis glanced back over his shoulder at Sam. “You gonna hang around for a few minutes? When we come back out, maybe we can give you a lift over to Goodwill, help you pick out a couple of sport coats.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “Dickhead.” If that was meant to be a mutter, Lewis blew it big-time. Sam heard and gave him a jaunty little farewell wave.

  “So when are you planning to start writing your book on winning friends and influencing people?” Wynne inquired with a sideways glance when Lewis and company had disappeared inside the building.

  Sam grinned. “Anytime now. I’m just working on building up the fan base first.”

  “You know he’s probably gonna call Smolski”—Leonard Smolski was the head of the Violent Crimes division and their boss—“and complain that we’re holding out on him. And Smolski’s gonna go ape-shit.”

  “Last time I shared details of an investigation with Lewis ...” Sam began, meaning to fill Wynne in on the ins and outs of the media blitz that nearly derailed the drug-smuggling case. But he was interrupted by the sudden strident peal of his cell phone.

  Sam became instantly alert at the sound, and he straightened away from the wall. Wynne watched him like a dog with a squirrel in view as Sam thrust a hand in his jeans pocket, yanked the phone out, and glanced down at it. A number flashed on the ID screen. It made him frown.

  “Yo,” he answered, already knowing that the voice on the other end was not going to be the one he both wanted and dreaded to hear.

  “Something weird,” Gardner said in his ear. “We’ve turned up another Madeline Fitzgerald. Attacked last night at the same hotel.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah. Only this one lived.”

  “You’re shitting me, right?”

  “Nope. She signed into the emergency room at Norton Hospital at 3:12 a.m. with unspecified injuries, was treated and released.”

  “What? What?” Wynne demanded, balancing on the balls of his feet now as he stared at Sam and tried to make sense of the conversation. Sam waved him off.

  “And we’re just now finding this out?” Sam felt like slapping his palm to his forehead duh-style. They were the FBI, after all. Consistently being a day late and a dollar short was not how they were supposed to operate.

  “Hey, not my fault. Apparently a friend drove her to the hospital. Hotel security notified the police, who called us. Ten minutes ago.”

  Sam took a deep breath. Lack of timely cooperation from the local police was nothing new, of course. But it was still maddening as hell. “Where is she now?”

  “I knew you were going to ask me that.” Gardner sounded smugly self-satisfied. “She caught a cab in front of the hotel fifteen minutes ago. The driver took her to the Hepburn Building. One-thirty-six Broadway.”

  “Gardner, you da man,” Sam said, and hung up with Gardner’s pert “not in this life, lover,” echoing in his ears.

  FOUR

  So her throat hurt. So she was bruised and sore and scared. So she was operating on about two hours sleep. Get over it, Maddie told herself fiercely as she washed her hands in the Hepburn Building’s first-floor ladies’ room. She could think about what had happened later, after the presentation was over. If she and Jon did a good job now, if Creative Partners got the account, her struggling business would suddenly, for the first time ever, be on solid ground. Even better than solid ground. They’d be making money—lots of money. Enough money to buy the kind of settled, secure life she’d always dreamed about. Now was clearly not the moment to fall apart. Just because some psycho maniac had broken into her hotel room and tried to kill her was no reason to lose focus.

  You gotta have priorities, she thought wryly. A nervous breakdown would just have to wait. What she needed to do was just stay in the moment. After all, what was the alternative? Turn tail and head back to St. Louis with a whimper while waving a fond farewell to the Brehmer account?

  Not happening.

  So get a grip. Maddie took a deep breath and worked on taking her own advice. While she’d been in the hospital basically having her tonsils examined, Jon had already tried to have the appointment postponed, without success. Mrs. Brehmer’s people had made it clear that either the meeting went down at ten a.m. today as scheduled or it didn’t go down at all. Reliability was Mrs. Brehmer’s watchword, as Susan Allen, her personal assistant, had apologetically informed him. If Brehmer’s Pet Foods couldn’t even rely on Creative Partners to be at such an important meeting on time, well, then ...

  Right. Reliable R Us, Maddie thought, turning off the taps and drying her hands on a paper towel. The show must go on and all that. She had always been good at compartmentalizing, and she would compartmentalize this, tucking it away to be examined in depth later. Popping in another pain-deadening throat lozenge, she grimaced at the Listerine-like taste even as she gave herself one last critical once-over in the mirror. Her hair was brushed into a sleekerthan-usual business-friendly bob. The slight bruise on her cheek had been camouflaged into near invisibility by a crafty combination of coverstick and blush, and the rest of her makeup was flattering but minimal. Her cream linen suit with its slim, knee-length skirt was resolutely conservative. The white silk shell beneath was the epitome of tastefulness. The beige pumps and shoulder bag continued the ladylike theme. The only jarring note in her understated ensemble was the bright blue-and-yellow silk scarf, grabbed on the fly from the hotel gift shop, that she had twined around her neck to conceal the ugly purple bruise that marred the front of her throat.

  Last night someone tried to kill me.

  A shiver raced down her spine as Maddie did her best to thrust the wayward thought back into the “I’ll worry about that later” compartment. Jon had reported that Susan Allen’s dominant emotion on being informed of what had befallen Creative Partners’s owner and CEO during the night had been dismay.

  “You know, Mrs. B. is not real big on getting involved in her associates’ personal dramas,” the assistant had said doubtfully.

  A personal drama. That was certainly a unique way to look at just managing to escape a would-be ruthless killer by the skin of her teeth, Maddie thought with some asperity. But the bottom line was, Mrs. Brehmer just didn’t want to know, which was fine with Maddie. She didn’t want to know, either. Unfortunately, though, she had no choice: At some point she was going to have to face the reality of what had happened and deal with it.

  But not now. She was not going to think about it now. The unavoidable residuals of the attack—terror, panic, questions, decisions—all were going to have to be put on hold until later. Just for this morning, she was going to think about nothing except how much the Brehmer account mattered to her, to her employees, to Creative Partners as a whole, and go out there and do her best to wow the old witch. Or, um, make that wow the demanding-but-rich business owner who could put Creative Partners on the map with one stroke of her pen.

  As she held on to that view of the situation with dogged determination, Maddie shook off the shivers, picked up her briefcase, and exited the bathroom.

  Jon was standing where she had left him, among a milling group of people in business dress waiting over by the bank of gleaming brass-doored elevators, looking his usual handsome self in a navy suit, white shirt, and red power tie. He smiled at her, and she headed toward him, her sensible two-inch heels clicking on the terrazzo floor. The Hepburn Building was a fifty-story skyscraper located in the middle of one of New Orleans’s busiest commercial blocks. It was sleekly modern, an anachronistic new addition to a city that owed its fame to a decaying antebellum charm. Today the brown marble lobby was crowded, and the line at the security desk, where v
isitors were required to sign in, was growing longer by the minute. Two men, somewhat scruffy for such an elegant environment, were leaning over the counter, apparently holding up the proceedings as they carried on an intense conversation with the uniformed guard behind the desk.

  Even as she noticed them, the guard looked around. For an instant his gaze combed the shifting ranks of people waiting for the elevators, walking to and from the restrooms, visiting the small flower kiosk opposite the elevators. Then she must have made some attention-attracting move—perhaps the sunlight filtering in through the oversized windows had glinted off her gold earrings or something—because all of a sudden he seemed to focus on her.

  “Over there,” Maddie heard him say, and then to her surprise he pointed right at her.

  Me? she thought. Her eyes widened, her step faltered, and her hand rose in a gesture of disbelief to press against the cool silk between her breasts.

  The men who’d been talking to the guard followed the path of his pointing finger with their eyes and looked at her. Finding herself suddenly pinned by the gazes of two unsavory-looking strangers could not be considered a positive development at any time. But after what had happened the night before, her heart could be forgiven, Maddie thought, for the insane attempt it made to leap out of her body through her throat.

  Surely there must be some mistake—but if there was, it was a mistake that kept on keeping on. The men straightened and, without taking their eyes off her, began walking purposefully toward her. They made an unlikely pair, as if a street bum had hooked up with a slovenly tourist. Together, they looked so ratty and out of place in these upscale surroundings that Maddie couldn’t believe that the guard had even let them pass. But they had gotten through, and they were coming in her direction. As she registered the unescapable reality of the situation, her feet seemed to sprout roots that sank deep into the floor. Her eyes stayed glued to them; she could not look away. Her heart pounded. Her pulse raced. Her fight-or-flight response kicked in, veering strongly toward flight. Unfortunately, even if she could move, which she didn’t seem to be able to do, she was out of luck. Barring a retreat to the ladies’ room, which was the biggest trap in the world if they decided to follow her in or even wait outside, or the timely arrival of one of the cursedly slow elevators, there was no place in this starkly designed lobby to go.