The Blonde

3:31 a.m.

Little Pete’s

Kowalski found everything he needed at Little Pete’s. He’d asked to use the bathroom, knowing it had to be in the back, near the lockers and storage closet.

Changing your appearance doesn’t require Lon Chaney-style theatrics. No hooks and wires, pinning your nose upward. At a distance, people recognize you by identifying characteristics like hair, physique, gait, clothing, and accessories. Facial recognition is secondary, at best. Want make sure someone doesn’t recognize you? Simply change as many identifying characteristics as you can.

Kowalski raided the employee lockers—helping himself to brown-tinted sunglasses, a plaid jeff cap, a white short-sleeve button-down shirt, a beige windbreaker—then slipped into the bathroom. He had to be careful not to antagonize his wrist. He’d sprained it badly when Kelly had kicked him out of the elevator car.

He pushed his hair down on his forehead and thought about the limp he’d use. No, no limp. A smaller step. A mincing step. He left the Dolce & Gabbana on, since no other pants fit. The shirt worked, though, as did the glasses and cap. He looked older and slightly goofier. Outside the bathroom, Kowalski stuffed his black T-shirt in the back of the locker, then transferred the contents of his coat into the windbreaker.

When he left Little Pete’s, no one seemed to notice.

A minute later, someone would ask, “Hey, is that guy in the dark jacket still in the bathroom?”

But by the time this did happen, Kowalski was already back at the Sheraton’s front door, slowly walking backward, as if he were directing some rescue team into the building. A flash of his Homeland Security badge—the one with the embossed foil with the holographic flying eagles—got him into the employee lounge, where Kowalski was told to wait until Charles Lee Vincent got back; he’d want to liaise. Yeah. Okay. Whatever. Kowalski grabbed a server’s jacket, slipped out of the lounge, and used the hotel staff elevator to make his way to the seventh floor. Along the way, he picked up a rolling luggage rack made of shining gold chrome. Rolled it back to 702, mostly using his good wrist. He hoped nobody had taken the bags yet.

In all of the fun and games, he’d forgotten all about them.

Philly PD was still in the room, so he rolled past and broke into another room a few doors down, using a passkey he’d found in the server’s jacket. They had cleared the floor, so there wasn’t a risk of running into a sleepy business traveler. Kowalski took off the jacket, walked back in with his Homeland Security badge. He could see it in the cops’ eyes: Oh, Jesus, one of these assholes. They directed him to the lieutenant on the scene, who asked, “Can I help you?”

“Not really.”

“If you need anything, ask. You check in downstairs?”

Kowalski didn’t reply. He strolled around the room, looking bored, spied the luggage—Kelly White’s bag, Jack Eisley’s bag— already sealed in plastic and resting by the front door. Kowalski waited for his moment, then calmly picked up both bags and carried them to the other room. Jacket back on. Found an oversized piece of luggage, cleared out the contents. Ripped away the plastic evidence bags, then shoved the material inside somebody’s trousers. Kelly’s bag and Jack’s bag went into the oversized piece of luggage, which was hunter green. Dropped it on the rack, escorted it outside and to the elevator bank. A member of Philly PD glanced up, didn’t say a word. Even if they saw the evidence bags were missing, they’d assume someone else had carried them downstairs. This was an assault case, not murder. Not yet anyway.

Kowalski found an empty room down on five—hey, stick with what you know, right?—hauled the two bags from the larger one, put them on one of the double beds. He fished around in them, using his good hand.

Nothing terribly exciting in Kelly’s, aside from a bottle of contact lens solution, Imodium wrapped in tinfoil, and a tube marked Tylenol, which was actually full of Antabuse. Did our girl have herself a little drinking problem? A random assortment of clothes and a surprising number of those little white plastic things that stores use to attach price tags to clothes. They were snipped in half and littered the bottom of her bag. Kelly White had done either a lot of buying or a lot of shoplifting.

He picked up a bra and held it to his nose. He didn’t realize what he was doing until he’d already inhaled.

He had done the same thing when the police had brought him Katie’s bag, the one they recovered at the Rittenhouse Square hotel where she had temporarily holed up with her bank robber brother. He had wanted to breathe in every last molecule of her that he could.

He had spent a lot of time with that bag.

Kowalski returned Kelly White’s bra to her bag, feeling vaguely guilty. If she was dead, was she somehow looking at him now? Was Katie?

But it wasn’t Kelly’s bag he was interested in. It was Jack’s. If he had a prayer of finding out what CI-6 wanted with Kelly White— no chance of his handler telling him—then he needed to find her companion: Jack.

He’d never left a mission incomplete before.

His handler’s behavior was troubling.

Had they found out about his extracurricular activities with the Philadelphia branch of the Cosa Nostra?

And where they preparing to punish him for it?

The answers could be his only defense.