Page 27 of Devil's Due

“How high-security?” McCarthy asked, and handed over his license. Marsh scanned it in and handed it back.

“Can’t talk about that,” he said, and smiled. He was a huge man, intimidating when the situation called for it, but generally good-natured. Lucia liked him. She especially liked that he never let anybody he didn’t know pass without ID. “Let’s just say Ms. Garza here isn’t the most high-profile resident we’ve got.”

“Jagger and Clapton both keep apartments here,” she said. “For when they come to town.”

“You’re kidding. ToKansas City?”

“Home of the blues.” She shrugged. “You’d be surprised. This place has millionaires, CEOs, a few movie stars. I’m lucky they let a peon like me in the door.”

“You’re good to go, Mr. McCarthy,” Marsh said. “Check in before you leave via intercom. Elevators won’t work without a passkey or us releasing one for you.”

McCarthy was looking at her as she slid her passkey into the slot in the apartment elevators and pushed the button for the sixth floor. “What?” she asked.

He shook his head. “You must be loaded, living in a place like this.”

“Let’s say I have resources.” Not that she was particularly proud of how she’d come by them. The elevator rode smoothly up to six and dinged arrival, releasing them into a corridor with gleaming white walls, original artwork at regular intervals and deep plush carpeting.

“Jagger live next door?”

“He has his own floor,” she said, and led Ben to the second door on the right. Two key locks. Once she’d ushered him in, she flipped on the lights and went to the control panel to shut off the intrusion alarms. The blinking lights went from red to a steady, soothing green.

“Damn,” McCarthy was murmuring. “So I guess breakfast at Raphael’s was just par for the course for you.”

She glanced around, seeing it through his eyes. A sleek, modern kitchen in black and golden woods; a panoramic view past the dining table. A balcony out past the living room, overlooking the city. It was comfortable and classic, and it had virtually nothing of her personality in it.

“Looks like a really nice hotel,” he said. “This how you live?”

“Pretty much,” she said, and went to pick up the phone. She called the pizza place and ordered two large pies. McCarthy, it seemed, was a meat-lover. She wasn’t much surprised. Hers remained, of course, vegetarian.

“Make yourself at home,” she said, and picked up the TV remote from the low coffee table. She tossed it to him, and he fielded it without hesitation. “You said you missed TV. Have at it.”

She walked past him and grabbed clothes from the closet before making her way to the bathroom to change. She heard the TV start up as she was pulling on a black knit top. Baseball, it sounded like.Men, she thought, and smiled. Her hair needed brushing. She took care of it and thought about applying makeup, but it seemed ridiculous at this point. She looked tired, but she’d come by it honestly, and no amount of concealer was going to help.

You realize, she told her reflection,that you’re thinking about makeup and appearances when you’re about to eat pizza. With an employee, no less.

Unsettling. She shook her head, tossed her sleek black hair back over her shoulders and went out into the apartment.

McCarthy was on the couch, feet up, watching—yes, she’d been right—baseball.

“Beer?” she asked. He turned to look at her, and kept looking. “I assume beer and baseball still go together.”

“Sorry,” he said, and muted the sound on the TV. “It’s been awhile.”

Whether he meant baseball or something else was open to interpretation. He stood up and joined her in the kitchen as she opened the refrigerator and pulled out a cold bottle. Imported beer, the only kind she willingly drank. She popped the cap with an opener and handed it to him, opened a soft drink for herself, then clinked their bottles together. “To surviving another day,” she said.

“Amen.”

They tipped bottles and drank. McCarthy was still watching her, but his eyes closed when the taste of the beer hit his tongue. Sheer ecstasy, from the look on his face.

“Wow,” he said, when he put the bottle down on the counter. “It reallyhasbeen awhile. And obviously, you know beer.”

“I try.” She took down two plates. “You want to tell me anything?”

“Like?”

“Like your theory on why the evidence exonerating you showed up so conveniently when it did?”

He took another sip of beer. Stalling for time.

---