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I had to admit that he was making substantive leaps with relative ease. “You missed your calling in life,” I said.
That seemed to upset him. “I tell my girlfriend, Leigh, that all the—”
His phone rang. He glanced at it. “There she is, like she’s clairvoyant.” Daloia answered. He had a Bluetooth in his ear. “Leigh, what do you know?”
His girlfriend evidently knew a lot because he listened for quite a while as we drove toward the Massachusetts Turn-pike. When we were within a half a mile, he said, “Hold on, pumpkin.” He glanced over his shoulder at me. “You sure you got nothing else to do here?”
Before I could answer, my phone rang. Paladin.
“Dr. Cross, how are you?” Ryan Malcomb said.
“Excellent, and you?”
“Excellent as always,” he said. “I wanted to tell you that the search is going on as we speak.”
“Even better. Any commonalities come up?”
“Several.”
I glanced at my watch, saw I had nearly five hours before my flight.
“I’m not thirty miles from you,” I said. “Can I come see for myself?”
After a pause, Malcomb said, “It would be wonderful to meet you, and what we do is better explained in person anyway.”
CHAPTER 40
Manhattan
WHEN BREE WALKED THROUGHthe front door of Tess Jackson’s store on Lexington Avenue, she was startled.
Just two days before and three blocks away in Frances Duchaine’s flagship store, she’d seen few shoppers and fewer customers waiting to pay for purchases. But here there were scores of eager shoppers jamming the aisles and the checkout queues of Tess Jackson’s new flagship store, which was remarkably designed.
The interior lines of the store were simple, almost industrial, but overhead hung a colorful and whimsical depiction of hundreds of small fairies with gossamer wings flying among treetops laced in fog. Bree could not help grinning as she looked up, seeing how each of the fairies was unique, almost magical.
Remembering something she’d heard two evenings before, Bree climbed the stairs to a mezzanine, where shoes andaccessories were on display, and then continued up a third flight.
At the top, behind a desk, Ella Martin, a female security guard with linebacker shoulders, said, “The store stops down on the second floor, ma’am. These are corporate and design offices.”
“I know,” Bree replied. “I’m looking for a friend who works behind those double doors. I wanted to surprise him.”
“Who’s your friend?”
“Phillip Henry Luster,” Bree said.
That changed the guard’s attitude. “And how do you know Mr. Luster?”
“We had dinner together the other night at a fundraiser at Frances Duchaine’s home in Greenwich.”
“Okay,” Martin said, picking up her phone. “Who should I say is here?”
“Evelyn Carlisle,” Bree said. “From Newport Beach.”
The security guard made a call. A few minutes later, the doors opened and Luster emerged, giving her a look that mixed amusement with disappointment.
“My dear Evelyn,” Luster said, taking her hands. “Wherever did you get to the other night? Paula said you had terrible news and had to leave but she wouldn’t be specific.”
“I’m sure she wouldn’t,” Bree said. “Is there somewhere we can talk in private? Where I can explain what really happened?”
