Day Four
July 24, 1952
Thursday Morning
Wilde’s office was dark and undisturbed when he got there. No one had broken in. He kick-started the coffee machine, dangled a cigarette in his lips and called Secret St. Rain at her hotel.
She actually answered.
“You dropped off the face of the earth,” he said.
“Sorry.”
“Where have you been?”
“It’s complicated.”
“We need to talk.”
A tone must have been in his voice because she said, “About what?”
“About you not really being Secret St. Rain,” he said. “About you being Emmanuelle LeFavre.”
A pause.
“How’d you find out?”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “What matters is that you lied to me. What I want to know now is how many more lies were piled on top of that one.”
Silence.
“Tell me none,” he said.
“I can’t do that. I’m sorry Bryson, I really am. I didn’t mean for things to get like this.”
The line went dead.
Two minutes later the door opened.
London stuck her head in, saw Wilde was alone and ran to him. She wrapped her arms around his body and laid her head on his chest. Her blood trembled. Her breath was quick. She wore the same clothes as last night.
“I thought you were dead,” she said.
“What happened?”
“Nothing, that’s the problem. The taxi guy dropped me off at the phone booth but the call never came,” she said. “I waited an hour. Then a car stopped on the opposite side of the street. I ran. I didn’t wait to find out what was about to happen.”
Wilde rubbed her back.
“It’s okay.”
“I was too scared to go home,” she said. “I went to your house. You never showed up. I figured you were dead.”
Wilde shook his head.
“I almost was. He took a shot but not a good one. I drove all over the damn city looking for you,” he said. “Then I waited outside your house.”
She exhaled.
“Do you think he killed Alexa?”
“I’m positive he did unless he was smart enough to figure out the map was a fake,” he said. Hearing the words out loud elevated his thoughts to a new level. “That’s what we need to do. We need to tell him it was a fake.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore.” A beat then, “Dayton River has some kind of connection to this guy. Alabama has River’s place staked out. If the guy shows up, maybe we can communicate with him-tell him he’s got a fake.”
London pulled back and looked into Wilde’s eyes.
“Why don’t we just tell River to give the guy the message?”
Wilde considered it.
He’d been hoping to ambush the guy.
The problem now was time.
Time was critical.
He lit a pack of matches on fire and watched the flames.
“Even if we get the message to him, he’ll think it’s a trick. He’ll probably think we’re just trying to draw him out.”
“We’ll get the real one back from Bluetone,” she said. “Then we’ll tell him what the problem was. The story’s the truth and he’s got to recognize it. It’s too convoluted to make up.”
“Maybe, maybe not.”
Wilde paced.
“The other option is to wait and hope he shows up,” he said. “I’m tired of him being the one in control.”