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41
Johnny and Sebastian were long gone. Thirty feet away, Bert was arguing with someone on the phone as we stood in front of police headquarters. Connor’s bodyguard Armin stood with me, scanning the surroundings for any potential threats. I thought about telling him not to bother, that if Miranda wanted me dead she would have had me poisoned at my own dinner party.
But then I remembered that poisoning Connor’s father had evidently just been part of a giant Rube Goldberg machine to land Connor in jail. Miranda’s plans were impossible to predict, so I kept my mouth shut and let Armin scan away.
A phone call came in – Anh, back in Los Angeles.
“Lily, I just saw it on the news – is Connor okay?!”
“No. We think Miranda’s framing him for his father’s murder.”
“WHAT?!”
I spent a few minutes running down the major details. Finally I ended with, “It’ll be okay. We’re going to find some proof that he didn’t do it, and it’ll all be okay.”
I sounded more like I was trying to convince myself than her.
“Do you need anything? Can I do anything for you?”
“Just keep running the business a little while longer.”
We talked for a few minutes more – mostly her trying to buck my spirits up, and telling me that she had everything under control, and not to worry – and then we said goodbye.
A few seconds later, Bert hung up his cell phone. “Alright, I got permission for us to look at his belongings. Not touch, mind you, but we can look.”
“It’s better than nothing,” I mumbled.
We walked into the station, checked in, and were escorted by an officer down to the evidence locker. While the cop looked on, a bored clerk had Bert fill out some paperwork, then disappeared behind a door for ten minutes. He returned with a large manila envelope with a handwritten list taped to the front, then emptied the contents on the counter: a small set of keys, but no car clicker or car keys. A wallet. A gold Cartier watch. A gold Montblanc pen.
“No candy wrappers,” Bert said sardonically.
I frowned. “Where’s his cell phone?”
The clerk looked at the slip of paper taped to the manila envelope. He shook his head. “Didn’t have one.”
“That’s wrong – I saw him use it when he walked out of our place,” I said to Bert.
“Well, he didn’t have it on him when they got his stuff,” the clerk said.
“Go back and check in the vault,” Bert instructed the clerk.
“I’m telling you, if it’s not in the envelope – ”
“Go back and check in the vault,”Bert snapped.
The clerk huffed and puffed and rolled his eyes, but he went back into the vault.
“Are you sure he had a cell phone on him?” Bert asked me.
“Positive. He even told us he was texting his bodyguards he was coming down to the lobby.”
The clerk came back five minutes later. “No cell phone.”
Bert pulled out the police report again and flipped through the pages. He shook his head. “No mention of it. But they gathered everything at the hospital. So either the hospital has it – ”
“Or somebody took it,” I said.
