Tessa said nothing.
“You were only eleven, you probably don’t remember that.”
“No. I do.”
“Really?” He sounded doubtful.
“I have an above average memory.”
She thought about the shooting and recalled that the gunman had missed the VP and was killed by Oh.
“You shot the guy? Is that what you’re saying?”
He shook his head. “No, I didn’t kill the assailant.”
“Well, then why was it mutually agreeable that you leave?”
He was quiet. Seconds passed. “Tessa, when Hadron Brady began shooting, I dove for cover. I didn’t return fire; I didn’t throw my body in the line of fire to protect the vice president. Rather than embarrass the service any further, I resigned, and they agreed to help me disappear so my actions wouldn’t reflect negatively on the agency.”
She processed everything. “You ran for cover?”
He nodded but said nothing.
He’s a coward. Your dad is a coward!
She told herself that obviously he’d been afraid when the shots were fired, but then she realized that if Patrick had been there, he might have been afraid, anyone would’ve been, but he wouldn’t have hidden, run away, backed down, dove for cover. He would have protected the person he was guarding. No matter what.
“What are you thinking?” Paul asked her.
“I’m thinking that if all this is true, you should have told me the first time we met, at your cabin.”
“I was trying to wait for the right time.”
“What makes this the right time?”
A small hesitation. “Apparently, it’s not.”
She felt a swarm of emotions. None of them good. “I think I’m done talking now.”
“Yes, well.” He rose. “I’ll see you later. I won’t meet with you without Patrick’s permission next time. I promise.”
She had the sense that she should say something about the custody case- So what’s happening with that? Are you still gonna go through with it? -or maybe she should tell him that she forgave him for not being up-front with her, but instead of any of that she just watched him walk away.
He’s a coward. That’s all he is.
Your father is a coward.
She waited until he’d left the hotel before she tapped the keyboard to pause her computer’s video chat program that she’d been using to tape their entire conversation.
Then she scrolled down.
And clicked “save.”
I might have found something.
In the footage, in addition to mentioning room 809, the room in which we’d found the wheelchair, there were several references to room 814. It wasn’t clear if Hadron Brady, the shooter, had stayed in it or simply used it temporarily to snap his rifle together, but when I cross-referenced that room number against the maid’s records detailing which rooms were made up yesterday afternoon, the timing worked. The maids had cleaned it.
Timing and location.
The two rooms the killers chose were the same ones Brady had used.
Before telling Marianne what I’d noticed, I thanked Nick and Chelsea for their help, excused them, and they grudgingly collected their things and left the room.
“What is it?” Marianne asked.
I pointed at the screen. “Is anybody staying in that room?”
She looked it up. Shook her head. “No. Not since Tuesday.”
So if the killers used it; evidence might still be present.
But then why would the maids have serviced it?
This whole case was beginning to remind me of a cave system-a series of subterranean passageways that you can’t identify by looking only at the surface-you only find the connections when you actually climb down and start picking your way through the tunnels.
And the next tunnel I needed to explore was above me, on the eighth floor.
Tessa knew that she could wait here of course, wait for Patrick-however long that might be.
Or she could call him, but this wasn’t exactly the kind of thing you tell someone over the phone: “By the way, my dad stopped by to let me know he’s a cowardly ex-Secret Service agent. Oh yeah, and he’s been following us all morning. Talk to you soon. Ciao.”
And if she phoned Patrick and said she wanted to talk to him about something later, he’d just worry.
No, she needed to tell him in person.
Earlier, when he’d left to look around, he’d walked down the hallway that led behind the guest reception counter.
She grabbed her things and headed toward it.