“No, this is protocol.”
I stood up.
“Sitdown,” Wainwright said, raising his voice.
I did not.
I never was good at taking direction. Sue me.
“We spent the night at a hotel near Times Square. We woke up at seven o’clock,” I said. “Calvin took the dog out. I lay in bed.”
Wainwright opened the folder again. “What else?”
“What else,” I echoed mockingly. “Let’s see. We took a shower together, jerked off… oh, was that not the detail you were looking for?”
“Mr. Snow—” Wainwright started, and now he was frustrated again.
“IloveCalvin,” I said over him, thumping my own chest hard with each word spoken. “I wouldn’t ever raise a hand to him. I get down on my knees.”
“Just walk me through the rest of the morning,” Wainwright replied tightly.
“There’s nothing else to tell,” I argued. “Officer Rossi came to the hotel—he was assigned as police protection for me, when the assumption had been thatIwas the Collector’s next target. Calvin left first, and I went to work maybe… fifteen minutes after.”
Oh.
“Calvin’s brother called,” I added.
Wainwright waited.
“When Calvin had gone downstairs to meet Rossi. I talked to Marc.”
“Go on.”
I slowly, reluctantly, slid back into my chair. “Marc’s in the city on business. He’s an architect. He wanted to speak with Calvin, but I didn’t think it was a good idea.”
“You told him as much?”
I considered myshortnesswith Marc at the Emporium. “Sort of. Over the phone I asked him to meet me at my antique store. I didn’t want Calvin to stress over family matters while he was so wrapped up in this case. They have an… estranged relationship.”
“Why?”
“Why do you think?” I shot back.
“You?”
“By proxy, yeah. I’m a threat to the picture-perfect all-American 1950s lifestyle the Winters try to present their family as being.” I shut up suddenly and stared at the dent in the middle of the metal tabletop. I hadn’t given Marc even a nanosecond of my time since I’d left the Emporium that morning. But wasn’t it odd… very odd… that after a year, he suddenly walked back into Calvin’s life within an hour of his disappearance?
If I hadn’t answered the phone, Calvin might have been missing now with no one the wiser. He’d have almost certainly met with Marc, if even for a few moments. Because Marc was his brother. Despite the emotional distance between them akin to that of a canyon, Calvin wouldn’t hesitate to get into a car with Marc. Except Marc had been with me at the time of those text messages and phone call from the Collector.
Another consideration. Calvin had a younger sister. Ellen. I think she was a CPA or whatnot at an international tax firm. Hirth & Lock—Hirth & Stock? Lock, Stock & Barrel? Something like that. Point was, she too had a sufficiently high-paying, impressive-sounding, and extremely white-collar career. She and Marc wouldn’t have callused hands like Calvin. Wouldn’t have bullet scars like Calvin.
Calvin, hero or not, stood out like a sore thumb in that family. He was the stereotypical middle child who couldn’t be as impressive as the firstborn, and who would never be as innocent as the baby. He was forever overlooked and underappreciated until he somehow let down the Winter name.
I wondered where Ellen was today…. Pennsylvania with the rest of the family? Or perhaps… did CPAs travel?
Was I really considering the possibility of Calvin’s siblings conspiring to kidnap him? Okay, maybe notkidnaphim. Take him back to Pennsylvania—to his parents. To be talked straight, so to speak. Especially now that Marc knew we were engaged. The mere notion of Calvin being forced into some backward-ass therapy—to be conditioned to hate me, or hate himself—was enough to make me want to vomit. And I’d done that one too many times this week already.
My face must have blanched considerably while I worked through this possible motive, because Wainwright paused whatever line of inquiry he was on that I was ignoring to ask, “Are you all right?”
