WIN, Coben, Harlan [ebook and pdf reader .txt] 📗

of the tenant departing the building?”

“Huh?”

I point at the screen. “Before he met up with this visitor, I assume the deceased left the building?”

“Oh, right. Yeah.”

“Could you show me?”

“Give me a second.”

This video is even less eventful. Ry Strauss keeps his head down. He wears the hoodie. He walks by, though I do note that he seems in a rush. I check the time—forty-two minutes before he returns. This all adds up in my view.

“You said he never left in the daytime, correct?”

“Not that anyone remembers.”

“So this”—I point to Strauss walking out during the daytime—“would be unusual?”

“I’d say, yeah. Hermit normally only went out like super late at night.”

That piques my interest. “How late?”

“You’d have to ask Hormuz. He works the night shift. But really late, way after midnight.”

“Will Hormuz be on tonight?”

“Yeah. Whoa, someone is coming with packages. Excuse me a moment.” The young doorman departs. I take out my phone and call PT.

“Did your guys find a phone in Strauss’s apartment?” I ask.

“No.”

“No landline either?”

“No. Why?”

“I have a theory,” I tell him.

“Go ahead.”

“Someone called Strauss on a phone and told him something worrying. Perhaps that his cover was blown. We can only speculate. But someone called him and told him something so worrying that the hermit left his apartment during daylight hours. My suspicion is, it was a setup.”

“How do you figure?”

“The killer placed the call to Strauss and said something on the phone they knew would get Strauss to react. When Strauss leaves the building, the killer intercepts him at gunpoint and forces Strauss to bring him back to his apartment.”

“Where the killer shackles him to the bed and kills him.”

“Yes.”

“And leaves the Vermeer behind. Why?”

“The obvious answer,” I say, “is that his murder wasn’t about the stolen art.”

“So what else would it be about?”

“It could be a lot of things. But I think we know the most obvious one.”

“The Hut of Horrors,” he says.

We are silent for a while.

“The Bureau hasn’t put that part together yet, Win.”

I say nothing.

“They still don’t know why your suitcase is there. When they do, they’ll want alibis for your cousin. And for you.”

I nod to myself. His is a solid analysis.

“It seems likely,” I say, “that Ry Strauss was involved in some way with the Hut of Horrors.”

His voice is grave. “It does.”

I feel a chill at the base of my neck. “So I’m wondering.”

“Wondering what?”

“Everyone has always believed that Uncle Aldrich and Cousin Patricia were random victims of serial predators. Uncle Aldrich was killed, so as to abscond with Patricia to the hut.”

“You don’t think so anymore?”

I frown. “Think it through, PT. It can’t be random.”

“Why not?”

“Because Strauss had the Vermeer.”

He takes a second. “You’re right. That can’t be a coincidence.”

“And that means Patricia wasn’t a random victim. She was targeted.”

We fall into silence.

“Let me know how I can help, Win.”

“I assume the Bureau will be analyzing these CCTV videos?”

“We are, but the quality is crap. And this has been a pain in my ass for years—why the hell do we keep all the cameras up high? Every criminal knows that. He just kept his head down.”

“So nothing else on him?”

“They’re still analyzing, but all they can tell us is he’s slight, short, bald.”

“It’s more important that you scour the nearby buildings for CCTV,” I tell him. “We need to figure out where Strauss went when he left the Beresford and who he encountered.”

“On it. Where are you going now?”

I check my watch. Enough work for the moment. My mind shifts quickly to the 9.85 rating.

“Saks Fifth Avenue,” I say.

*  *  *

I am nearing Saks when the phone rings. It’s Nigel calling from Lockwood.

“Your father heard about the Vermeer,” Nigel tells me. “He also heard that Cousin Patricia was in the house.”

I wait.

“He would like to see you. He says it’s urgent.”

I push the door open and enter Saks by the men’s suits department. “Urgent as in tonight?”

“Urgent as in tomorrow morning.”

“Done,” I say.

“One favor, Win.”

“Name it.”

“Don’t upset your father.”

“Okay,” I say. Then I ask, “How is he, Nigel?”

“Your father is very agitated.”

“Over the Vermeer or Cousin Patricia?”

“Yes,” Nigel says and hangs up.

I head into the basement of Saks and pass the Vault jewelry department.

The rendezvous app has a rather lengthy questionnaire to “discover your type in order to make the best matches.” I skipped answering the questions and went straight to the comment section.

What’s my type?

I wrote one word: Hot.

That’s my type. I don’t care whether she’s blonde, brunette, redhead, or bald. I don’t care whether she’s short or tall, heavyset or emaciated, white, Black, Asian, young, old, whatever.

My type?

I use one type of criteria and rank them thusly:

Super Super Hot.

Super Hot.

Hot.

More Hot Than Not.

That’s it. The rest, as I say, does not matter. I hold no prejudices or biases when it comes to hotness, and yet I ask you: Where are my laurels for being so open-minded?

I am first to arrive in the suite. The app tells me that my rendezvous partner is still fifteen minutes away. The shower is supplied with Kevis 8 shampoo and Maison Francis Kurkdjian Aqua Vitae scented shower cream. I take advantage of that. I strip down and close my eyes under the heavy stream of the propulsive-power-jet Speakman shower head.

I think chronologically for a moment. We have the Jane Street Six attack. We have the art heist at Haverford College. We have my uncle’s murder and my cousin’s abduction. Three different nights. The first two are connected by the Vermeer found in the possession of the most famous of the Jane Street Six. Then we add in the suitcase, and it becomes apparent that all three are somehow linked.

How?

Most obvious answer: By Ry Strauss.

We know Strauss was leader of the Jane Street Six. We know he was in possession of the stolen Vermeer (where is the Picasso, by the way?). We know that the suitcase, last seen when Patricia was abducted, was in his tower apartment.

Was he the mastermind behind all three?

I get out of the shower. Ms. 9.85 Rating should be here