handle. Kit knew she had only seconds left to extract the detail she needed.
“Was he in Miami for business—or just pleasure?” Kit asked.
“Actually, no one seems to know why he went there. We don’t do any business in that area.”
Kit’s breath quickened at the comment. So Ungaro and Wainwright had lied. She wondered if they had simply been covering for Healy because they thought the truth was none of her business.
“Sounds like a personal trip then.”
“He didn’t say anything to you?” Sasha said, narrowing her eyes. “You talked to him that day. According to his assistant, he’d originally been booked on a flight to Ann Arbor and then changed his plans at the last minute.”
“No, he just said he was going out of town.”
Sasha swung open the door. “I’m sorry but I really do have to scoot. I’ll call you when my schedule opens up again.”
“Of course,” Kit said and quickly left.
Out on the street she started walking fast, with no destination in mind, just fueled by her agitation. The fact that Healy had altered his original plans and headed to Miami added credence to the idea of him on a hunt for X, as well as the possibility of X getting wind of it and gunning him down with his car.
She replayed the brief encounter with Sasha. Abruptly cancelling the meeting seemed odd, but Kit sensed it had been legitimate. Just as she had an agenda for being with Sasha, she suspected that Sasha had an agenda for her as well, and the woman wouldn’t have bailed unless she had to.
She stopped finally and looked up at the street sign. She’d reached the corner of 59th Street and Third Avenue. It would be good to find a café where she could order a cup of tea and try to subdue her free-floating dread, but the places around her were packed with people lingering over a late brunch. It wasn’t far, she realized, to the old Antiques Center, which was open on Sunday afternoons. She decided to head in that direction. For the past week she’d had her eye out for a crystal chandelier for the dining area in Avery Howe’s cottage, and Baby had mentioned seeing a couple of good ones at a booth in the mall.
The Antiques Center wasn’t a place she shopped often. The three-level space of endless glass-walled stalls felt frozen in the 1970’s, and many of the vendors were pushy, refusing to let you browse in peace. Baby complained that there was so much dust she needed Benadryl just to step inside. But Kit sometimes popped in when she was at the end of a project and in search of a few finishing touches—like the odd Asian stool for a seating area or a ginger jar to add a little history to an entranceway.
She walked the last few blocks and entered the mall. Inside, in the windowless interior, it could have easily been six in the morning. Not only were there few customers wandering along the dim, narrow corridors, but also many of the stalls were closed, probably, she realized, a common occurrence for Sundays. She glanced distractedly at some of the ground floor stalls, stacked to the ceiling with dishes, glasses, paintings, busts, and endless knickknacks. She descended two flights to the lowest level where the shop Baby had mentioned was located.
It was even more deserted down there. Only two stalls in the main corridor were open, both run by old Chinese men who she knew from experience liked to squabble over customers. The chandeliers, Baby had said, were at Hanson’s, which was down the corridor to the right and around the corner. Just bag it, Kit thought. The place was creepy today. But it seemed crazy not to check out the chandeliers as long as she was within yards of them. Even if the booth turned out not to be open, the chandeliers might be visible from the front window.
After nodding at one of the Chinese vendors, who was sitting quietly outside his shop, threading something in his hands, she wandered in the opposite direction, past a small pool with a fountain in the middle of the hall. The repetitive splash of water was the only sound.
She reached the end of the corridor, swung left, and saw that Hanson’s was indeed closed. But even from this end of the hall she could spot two chandeliers hanging just on the other side of the glass window. She hurried to the end of the corridor