“How’d you feel when he went home with your best friend instead of you?” I said.
She fell silent for a few seconds. I had a feeling she was thinking about how, if there were cameras outside the hotel, there might be cameras inside too. She said, unconvincingly, “He wasn’t my type.”
I’d deliberately led her down Mount Vernon across Charles Street, then left on River Street. I didn’t want to walk down Charles. Not yet.
“Huh. When you met him at Starbucks earlier in the day, you must have been at least intrigued enough to agree to see him again.”
“Yeah, well, he turned out to be kind of, I don’t know, sleazy? Anyway, he was definitely more into Alexa, and I figured, Hey, you go, girl.”
“Very nice of you,” I said acidly. “A good friend.”
“I wasn’t being nice. Just…”
“Reasonable,” I offered.
“Whatever.”
“So when you met Lorenzo at Starbucks, were you sitting at one of those big soft chairs in the window?”
She nodded.
“He just came and sat down next to you?”
She nodded again.
“Which Starbucks was this?”
“The one on Charles Street.” She gave a wave in the direction of Charles, about half a block away.
“Aren’t there two of them on Charles?”
“The one on the corner of Beacon.”
“And you were just sitting alone?” I said. “Sitting by yourself in one of those big soft chairs by the window?”
Her eyes narrowed. She didn’t like the way I repeated the bit about the big soft chairs. “Yeah. Just sitting there, reading a magazine. What’s your point?”
“Well, what do … What do you know,” I said. “Here we are.”
“What?”
We’d stopped at the corner of Beacon and Charles. Directly across the street was the Starbucks she was talking about. “Take a look,” I said.
“What?”
“No big soft chairs.”
“Well, but—”
“And see? There sure as hell aren’t any chairs in the window. Right?”
She stared, but only for show, because she knew she’d just been caught in another lie. “Look, he was just going to show her a good time,” she said in a flat, emotionless voice. She took out a cigarette and lighted it. She inhaled. “I was doing her a favor. I mean, she’s never even had a serious relationship.”
“Man, what a friend you are,” I said. “I’d hate to be your enemy. You knew Alexa had been abducted once before and was still traumatized by it. Then you meet a guy, or maybe you already knew him, and you set him up with your so-called best friend. A guy you thought was sleazy. A guy who put a date-rape drug in your best friend’s drink, probably with your full knowledge. And abducted her. Maybe killed her.”
A long black limousine pulled up to the red light next to us.
I was pushing her hard, and I knew it would get a reaction out of her.
I just didn’t expect the reaction I got.
She blew out a plume of smoke, then flipped her hair back. “All you can prove is that I went to Graybar with some guy. All that other crap—you’re just guessing.”
The rear passenger’s window in the limousine rolled smoothly down. A man I recognized stared at me, a natty fellow in a tweed jacket with a bow tie and round horn-rimmed glasses. His name was David Schechter. He was a well-known Boston attorney and power broker, a guy who knew all the players, knew which strings to pull to make things happen. He was utterly ruthless. You did not want to get on David Schechter’s bad side.
Next to him in the back seat was Senator Richard Armstrong.
“Taylor,” the senator said, “get in.”
“Senator,” I said, “your daughter is implicated in Alexa Marcus’s disappearance.”
Armstrong’s face didn’t register surprise or dismay. He turned to his attorney, as if deferring.
Taylor Armstrong opened the limo door and got in. I made one last attempt to get through to her. “And I thought you were her best friend,” I said.
“I don’t think I’m going to have a problem finding a new one,” she said with a smile, and I felt a chill.
The limousine had a large spacious interior. Taylor sat in a seat facing her father. Then David Schechter leaned forward and gestured for me to come closer.
“Mr. Heller,” said Schechter, speaking so softly I could barely hear him. A powerful man who was accustomed to getting what he wanted without ever having to raise his voice. “The senator and his daughter do not wish to speak to you again.”