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“I’d have to pull them off another case.”
“We can’t let paying clients down.” Emmy muttered a curse and turned to me. I also muttered a curse. “Dasha, how do you feel about a trip to New York?”
Blyat. “I just offloaded Paulo in New York.”
“So? Can’t you manage to avoid one dude who’ll spend the whole time either fucking his boyfriend or abusing the poor guy’s credit card in Bloomingdale’s? Haven’t you put a tracking app on his phone?”
“I can avoid him.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
The problem was that I’d only spent one night with Alex, and I liked waking up next to him more than I ever thought possible. But Emmy would be paying me ten thousand bucks a day if I babysat Hallie in New York, and I wanted a new rifle. And a new motorcycle. And a new solar array for the cabin I used as a bolt-hole.
“There’s no problem. I’ll go to New York.”
At least stalking a member of the Mob would make a change from hunting the Bratva.
“Excellent. Just keep Hallie safe and do your facial-recognition voodoo. If she really has found Kaylin La Rocca, we can write a report for Nico so he can lament her poor taste in men and move on with his life.”
Fantastika.
One day, if I managed to build up a nice nest egg and gain a full complement of wrinkles, maybe I’d be able to move on with mine.
15
HALLIE
“Did it work?” I said softly into the phone.
“Nope.” Dammit. “Other hosts may allow you to meander freely through their hallways,” Collier mimicked in a high-pitched voice. “But that’s not how we operate at Belgravia Place. Our residents value their privacy and security. You’ll leave your package here at the desk, or you won’t leave it at all.”
“He sounds as if he’d be a hoot at parties.”
“You’ll serve those appetisers on silver trays with your nose in the air, or you won’t serve them, period.”
Cesare Cavallaro lived in the penthouse at Belgravia Place, a thirty-three-storey pillar of glass and steel that rose into the sky near the Hudson River. The building had been constructed by Seco Developments, a Cavallaro company run by Cesare’s older brother Alonzo. Generous balconies cut into the sides of the building, the railings overflowing with greenery and a sea of yellow flowers. According to the Seco website, the building was carbon neutral and featured a rainwater-harvesting system and solar panels on the roof.
I’d taken a position in a café opposite, laptop open, headphones on, just one more remote worker looking for excellent coffee and a change of scene. The privacy filter on my laptop kept my real purpose hidden from prying eyes as I waited for any sign of Maria Cavallaro.
That was her name.
Maria.
And Kaylin’s middle name was Marie, which seemed like a mighty big coincidence.
One of Collier’s NYPD buddies had come through with a few snippets of information—Maria had first been spotted with Cesare almost four years ago, at a gala dinner in aid of victims of domestic violence, before Kaylin appeared at the hotel in Manassas, before she called Nico begging for help. A blurry picture showed a blonde who could have been Kaylin. Since then, she’d dropped out of sight apart from going to the occasional party with Cesare and her turns at the club. Daisy de Ville had made her first appearance two years ago.
“Maybe the evening shift won’t be so uppity?”
“Unlikely. Plus there was a guard standing near the elevators. Not a rent-a-cop; probably one of Cavallaro’s men.”
“You gonna come join me for coffee?”
“Once I’ve changed into regular clothes.”
Collier had gone in dressed as a bike messenger, and let’s just say that if the concierge had been a woman, she’d have let him go anywhere he wanted. One lady outside had tripped over a kerb because she couldn’t keep her gaze off his package, and I didn’t mean the box he was carrying.
I went back to watching the front entrance. There was a parking garage too, but that would be harder to stake out. The roller door opened into a narrow service road alongside a neighbouring apartment building, and there was a camera monitoring the area.
