The Manolo Matrix (18 page)

Internet Broadway Database at www.ibdb.com. Not as well known as the movie database, but way more useful to a theater buff like me. There, I checked the theaters whereCats andLa Mancha played.

“No luck there,” I said. “Different theaters.”

Since I was online, though, I checkedOne Thing After Another, The Love Set, andWhen in Rome. All plays. Old ones—from the twenties and thirties—which explained why I’d never heard of them before.

Now that I’d become acquainted with them, though, I still didn’t know what to do with the information.

I sighed. “I hate this. I can’t get a fucking clue.”

Devlin came over behind me and put his hands on my shoulders, then looked down at the paper I’d been scratching my notes on. “Actually, you’ve got the fucking clue. You just can’t find the fucking answer.”

I couldn’t help it. I’d been so certain he was going to offer me platitudes that when he didn’t—when he laid that smart-ass remark on me—I burst out laughing.

“How about you?” I finally asked. “Did you check the spine? Any clues? Any electronic chips?”

He picked up the book and showed me the slot between the leather binding and the bound pages.

“Nothing there.”

“You’re positive?”

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He didn’t even answer me that time, and I took that for a yes.

“So, is this what it’s like? Working for the FBI, I mean.”

“Can’t say I’ve investigated that many rare books,” he said. “And I’ve never once obtained evidence by resorting to sexy musical numbers.”

“Yeah, I can see how that probably doesn’t come up too often.” I frowned and shook my head in mock despair. “Sounds like a pretty boring job, then.”

“Terribly,” he said. “Tedious and dull.”

“Really?”

He shrugged. “A lot of the time, yeah. But the point is for the tedium to pay off.”

“I can’t imagine trading the theater for tedium,” I said. Then I immediately backpedaled. “I mean, theater can be tedious, sure. Lighting checks and technical rehearsals and all that b.s., but the payoff…standing on that stage, drawing energy from the crowd. Don’t you miss that? How did you walk away from that?”

“I didn’t,” he said.

“You…what?”

He laughed, low and soft. “What I mean, is I may have left theater, but I still have that rush.

When the evidence pulls together, when you finally get to the heart of the case—well, that’s a rush more powerful than any I felt on stage.”

“Really?”

“I know it sounds hokey, but I like helping people. Flashing a badge and packing a gun’s not too bad either.” A shadow crossed his face, and I realized we’d taken this conversation a little too far.

“So,” I said, trying to cover. “You really think the book’s okay?”

A pause, but then he nodded slowly. “I’ll rip it apart page by page if you really want me to, but this book is intact. If there’s something hidden inside, then someone would have had to rip it apart to put it there.”

He had a point. “Okay. You’re right. We have the clue. Now we just have to find the answer.”

He took my hand and squeezed. I held on, wishing I didn’t ever have to let go. “We’ll find it,” he said, and I have to admit, I liked his positive thinking.

“Right,” I said. “I know. I just wish I knew what was supposed to happen today.”

“Doesn’t matter,” he said, and I felt my eyebrows rise up behind my bangs. He grinned. “I mean it doesn’t matter because we’re going to stop it with plenty of time to spare. Okay?”

I nodded. “Okay.” I stood up, then started to pack up my laptop. “We should get out of here.”

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“You know where we need to go?”

I shook my head. I didn’t have any idea where the clue led, but I did know that I was supposed to be the protector. That was a part I was playing by ear, but I had a feeling my instincts were dead-on. No pun intended. “All I know is that we need to move.” I pointed to the bed, and the book that was still on it. “But the book stays here.”

We’d paid for the room with cash—not a common thing these days, but since I’d foisted so much cash on the clerk, they really couldn’t argue.

It was enough money, in fact, that I knew we were covered for a few days. So while Devlin looked at me like I was a nut-case, I wrapped the book in one of the hotel-provided laundry bags, dropped down to my belly, and crawled under the bed to inspect the setup. After a few seconds of that, I crawled back out, turned on my side, and peered up at him. “Got any string?

Rubber bands? A belt you’re not using?”

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He stared at me, head cocked, a completely perplexed expression on a face that I was becoming quite fond of.

“Never mind,” I said. “The laundry bag has a drawstring.” I took my bundle, unwrapped it, tugged the cotton drawstring out, then wrapped the book tight again in the bag. And then, with Devlin staring at me like I was a loon, I inched back under the bed. This time, I made a little sling, using the drawstring hooked around one of the metal slats that held the boxspring in place.

I tied the book into the sling, tightened it up so that it would stay nice and firm, then shimmied back out.

This time, Devlin had a grin on his face. “Clever. If there’s some sort of tracking gizmo in that book, the assassin’s going to come here. And we’ll be long gone.”

“Exactly. And if it turns out we need the book, we can come back and get it,” I said. “An old trick from church camp. Well, not the tracking device part. But we hid our romance novels and chocolate under our bunks that way.”

I stood up and brushed the dust off my clothes—no worries that the maids would find the bundle under there. “Now we go to another hotel. And when this mess is over, we can send it back to the Library

Bar.” I frowned, then. “Do you think if we just leave a Do Not Disturb sign on the door that they really won’t disturb us?”

“I think so,” he said. “At least for a couple of days.” I must not have looked convinced, because he continued. “I could call down and tell the front desk to not bother us because we’re having hot sweaty sex in here.”

“Don’t even tease about something like that unless you plan to follow through.”

“Not right now,” he said, his voice like honey. “You look to be in a hurry. And I like to take my time.”

“Oh.” I grabbed up my tote bag, my face flaming. I couldn’t believe I’d laid such a come-on line at his feet. More, that he’d taken it. It was tempting. Too tempting, when you consider that Devlin Brady was hotter than sin. Especially now that he’d stopped being surly.

But he was right. Now just wasn’t the time.

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BIRDIE

The Marriott Marquis looms over Times Square, a huge hotel complete with a Broadway theater included within. I pace the perimeter, trying to decide the best option. They’ve chosen an excellent place to hole up my quarry, and I’m both frustrated and pleased.

After all, I wouldn’t want the game to be too simple.

Still, I anticipate that the tracking device will go black soon, and right now, it’s of little use to me, the red dot utterly still on the GPS grid. I stand there on the corner, my back to Times Square, the late night revelers surging around me. I’m oblivious to everything but the hunt, my concentration split between the hotel and my PDA.

Move, I think. Damn it, get going.

And then, miraculously, the blip shudders.

They’re on the move. And like a spider in a web, I’m right here waiting for them.

JENNIFER

We hung the Do Not Disturb sign on the door, headed down the elevator to the first floor, then stepped out onto the bright lights of Broadway. (It might have been past two in the morning, but the lights were still bright.)

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“Faces,” Devlin said as we walked.

I nodded, and scoped out the features of everyone who passed us on the street. And there were a lot of them. Mostly college-aged and mostly drunk. That was okay. The crowd made me feel safer.

A throng had gathered on one corner to listen to the street-band sound of some guy making music from ordinary kitchen items. It was loud, it was funky, and it was also oddly compelling.

Not enough to stop walking for, though. Once we stopped, we were a stationary target; I much preferred being a moving one. And so we pushed through the crowd, shoving and bumping our way through the people just like everyone else who was more interested in moving from point A to point B than they were in hearing the music man.

I heard a couple of curses come from behind us, and Devlin and I both turned. The crowd had tightened up, and a few people were having trouble getting through. I could make out the top of a woman’s head and a blur of baseball cap on the man beside her. They looked pretty stuck, and I was glad we’d made it through when we did. Crowds can be brutal.

The cross-street light was green, and we paused at the corner long enough for traffic to clear away.

“So tell me,” Devlin said, pointing to the theater marquees that seemed to surround us, “why isn’t your

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name on one of those?”

“Oh, God, Devlin. Don’t tease me.”

“I’m not teasing,” he said, sounding truly serious. “You have a strong voice. You’re smart.

You’re resourceful. And you seem to want it. So why don’t you have it?”

“I guess I just haven’t gotten that break yet,” I said. I tried to keep it light, but honestly, I wasn’t too keen on having this conversation.

The last taxi zipped by, and Devlin stepped out into the street. “What does your agent say?”

“I, um, haven’t found an agent yet.”

He looked at me sideways. “Really.” He made it a statement, not a question, and all of a sudden, I felt this overwhelming urge to smack him. To tell him that I hadn’t gotten a break as a cute kid, and that

Broadway was a really hard place, and that he had no business judging me.

The thing was, though, I don’t think he was judging me. I thinkI was judging me. Because every time

Brian or my parents or my sister or anyone tried to ask me these questions, my immediate reaction was to go hide in a corner. Which was stupid, because I always told them the truth: I was working my ass off.

But if that was the truth, then why did I always end those conversations feeling like a big, fat liar?

Honestly, though, that was a level of self-analysis that I was so not going to jump to. Especially since I

wasn’t going to have a self to analyze if we didn’t get a handle on these clues.

I was spared telling him to drop it by the scream that ripped through the sky, followed by a word that turned my blood to ice. “Gun! Oh, shit, a gun!”

“Go!” Devlin yelled, and he practically pushed me out into the street. We raced across Broadway, dodging cars until we were over the median and standing in the middle of Seventh.

Behind us, I could still hear the people clamoring. I didn’t know if the gun had been for us, but I was guessing it had. And I kept expecting a bullet to whiz past my ear and lay Devlin out flat.

A taxi slammed to a stop, and Devlin wrenched the door open, ushering me in next to a terrified couple.

“Sorry!” I said. “Sorry!”

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Devlin got in after me, ignoring the rattle of curses from the driver. “We’ll pay their fare,” he said.

“Where are they going?”

“Waldorf,” the driver said.

“Fine. Great. Go.”

And we went, with Devlin giving the tourists a novel-length apology, only to realize they only spoke

German. At least they’d go home with a Those Crazy Americans story.

As soon as the Germans were safe at the Waldorf, Devlin told the driver to head back to Times Square, this time the Crowne Plaza on 49th.

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“We’re going back?” I said. “I thought we’d head downtown. Or Brooklyn. Queens has hotels, too.”

He just shook his head. “Times Square. If that was the assassin—and I think we can assume it was, although how we got so lucky, I don’t know—but if it was the assassin, he’s going to expect us to do exactly what you suggested.”

“So we’re pulling a fast one? How? He must really have a tracking device. I mean, how else could he have found us?”

“I don’t think it works consistently. When I interviewed Mel and Matthew, that was one of the things their statements seemed to suggest. And when we located and analyzed the chip, even though it was damaged, the lab confirmed that it appeared to be designed to send a signal only intermittently, on a randomly generated schedule.”

“Which means it might be black now.”

“Right. And even if it’s not, he found us in front of the Marriott Marquis. So if the tracking device was in the book, that’s where he’s going to continue to look.”

“Okay,” I said, not so much because I agreed, but because I was processing information. “Okay, so basically, you think we’ll be safe at the Crowne Plaza either because the tracker has gone black or because the little blip will show us at the Marriott?”

“Right.”

“I can live with that,” I said. And I hoped to hell I could.

Like so many Manhattan hotels, the street level lobby of the Crowne Plaza was basically empty, and we had to go up to check in. Unfortunately, we were stymied in that effort by a man behind a podium who was letting only those with keys enter. Great for security, bad for us.

Devlin explained that we didn’t yet have a room, but we would like one, and after a short interval, we were escorted up to the registration desk. I paid with the blood money, and five minutes later we were ensconced in a room. A minor victory—very minor—since my problem wasn’t living quarters. It was living.

We needed to figure out where to go next. And soon.

Frustrated, I scribbled a second copy of the clue onto Crowne Plaza stationery and handed it to Devlin.