A Safe House

40

Stone woke the following morning with the bed beside him empty. He ordered breakfast, watched Morning Joe, read the Times, and did the crossword. Jenna had not reappeared.

Dino called.

“Good morning.”

“Is it? I heard Jenna was a handful at the Carlyle last night.”

“You might say that. I lost count of how many drinks she had, but she was the Toast of New York for about four hours. I managed to prevent her from dancing on the table, but that was the best I could do.”

“I heard there were shots fired later.”

“Man on a motorcycle. Jenna kept trying to open the window to make it easier for him.”

“How is she feeling this morning?”

“She hasn’t surfaced yet. I suspect she’s too embarrassed about her behavior last night, or maybe just too hung over.”

Joan buzzed him. “Hang on, Dino. Yes, Joan?”

“Is Jenna leaving today?”

“I haven’t seen her this morning. Why do you ask?”

“Because there’s a pile of luggage and shopping bags by the garage door. Fred hasn’t seen her, either.”

“She’ll turn up. Dino, you there?”

“I’m hanging. Do you want to file a missing person report?”

“Do people pack seven pieces of luggage when they’re about to go missing?”

“Viv packs that much to go away for the weekend.”

“No, Jenna must have forgotten to empty a couple of shops on Madison Avenue yesterday. She’ll turn up.”

“Whatever you say, pal.”

Stone’s other line rang again.

“It’s Fred, sir.”

“Good morning, Fred, what’s up?”

“Miss Jenna drove up in a brand-new Mercedes estate wagon, the AMG one, with the window sticker still on it, and had me put all her luggage into it. Then she kissed me goodbye and drove away.”

“Drove away where?”

“She didn’t say. She didn’t say anything at all but ‘goodbye.’ ”

“Well,” Stone said, “it sounds as if she no longer wishes to seek shelter here.”

“It looks that way to me, sir.”

“Since we don’t know where she’s going, we can’t do anything about it, can we?”

“I suppose not, sir. Sorry to have disturbed you.”

“You did the right thing, Fred. Now I’m going to do the right thing.”

“What’s that, sir?”

“Nothing.” Stone hung up.

Joan buzzed again. “Fred told me.”

“Yes, it sounds as though she was shopping Eleventh Avenue this morning, instead of Madison.” Eleventh Avenue was where the car dealerships lived.

Stone called Dino.

“Bacchetti.”

“Well, now she’s officially missing,” Stone said. “Apparently, she bought a new Mercedes-AMG station wagon this morning, filled it to the brim with luggage, and drove off into the sunrise.”

“Now do you want me to file a missing person report?”

“No, she’s a grown woman, and a rich one at that. She can go anywhere she pleases.”

“If she doesn’t mind being dead,” Dino added.

“Well, there is that, isn’t there.”

Harley Quince arrived as the luggage was being loaded by Fred, but he didn’t see Jenna. Then Fred caught sight of him and gave him a hard stare, so he accelerated out of there. He drove around the corner, executed a U-turn against traffic, turned back into the block, and stopped. The Mercedes wagon was gone. That luggage hadn’t looked as though it had belonged to Barrington, so it must have been Jenna’s, Quince reasoned. He tore up the street to the next corner and looked both ways: the Mercedes was a block up Park Avenue, with its left blinker on. Quince accelerated after it, threading his way through the dense traffic.

Fred had witnessed Quince’s action from the garage door, and there was no time to get the Bentley out, so he grabbed Stone’s little-used Norton motorcycle, got it started, and roared out of the garage, turning toward Park Avenue. Fred stopped, lowered the kickstand, stood on the bike seat, and surveyed the traffic; he saw the wagon turn left on Fifty-Seventh Street, so he dropped back onto the seat, retracted the kickstand, and headed uptown, not bothering with traffic lights or outraged cabdrivers who didn’t like to be passed on their left, next to the center garden area.

Fred muscled the bike onto West Fifty-Seventh Street and saw the black motorcycle and its black-clad rider a block ahead and two blocks behind the Mercedes. Jenna apparently had a heavy foot, and she was driving a very powerful car, so the black motorcycle was having a hard time gaining on her. Fred could keep up with the other bike, though.

Then there was an accident at the corner of Madison Avenue, and the black cycle was momentarily trapped. Fred turned behind a FedEx truck and onto the sidewalk, scattering pedestrians, and made it all the way to Fifth Avenue, where he turned into Jenna’s lane. She stopped for a traffic light. “Thank God,” Fred said aloud to himself and poured it on until he screeched to a halt outside her window. He rapped on the window and she turned and looked at the man in the helmet, horrified. She was digging in her purse for something, and Fred was very much afraid it was a pistol.

He unbuckled the chin strap and pulled off the helmet. “Ms. Jenna!” he shouted.

She froze for a moment, then said or, rather, mouthed, Fred? Her window slid down.

“There’s a black motorcycle behind you, miss. The one from last night, I’m afraid.”

“What should I do?” she asked.

“You proceed as planned, and I’ll deal with him.”

The light changed and she roared away. Fred looked over his shoulder and saw the black motorbike coming his way.