The Death Dealer

She stopped speaking. She was trembling, her face ashen. Either she really deserved her shot at Hollywood, or the fear she was feeling was real.



“Miss Star?”



She looked at him, as if she had forgotten that he was there.



“And the word? What was the word?” Joe persisted gently.



“Nevermore,” she said.



CHAPTER 5



“I’m going to the meeting tonight,” Genevieve told Sam. “No matter what’s going on. I can’t help it—I’m worried about my mother. About all of you.”



“Because of Thorne’s murder,” Sam agreed.



“I know he made plenty of enemies, and the Poe angle could just be the killer’s way to throw people off track, but…well, what did you think of his book?”



“I think it was a good book,” Sam said. “The man could write.” He looked past her for a moment, then turned back to her and asked, “I take it you saw that ‘psychic’ on TV?”



She nodded.



“You believe in psychics?”



“I don’t know what I believe.”



She heard a sound then and turned around.



Joe was there, leaning against the wall, arms crossed over his chest as he watched her. She swore silently.



“Joe, hi. Come on in,” Sam said.



She rose uneasily. “You two know each other?” she said.



“We met years ago,” Sam said. “Joe and Matt Connolly were cousins.” He stared at her. “But I guess you knew that.”



“I never knew Matt,” she said.



“Oh, right,” Sam said uncomfortably. “Anyway,” he said, “Joe and I actually go way back.”



“A long way,” Joe agreed pleasantly. “So how are you doing?”



“Hanging in,” Sam said. He must have noticed the way Joe looked at Genevieve—as if she had committed a sin—because he looked curiously from one to the other.



She hoped she wasn’t looking guilty. She shouldn’t feel guilty. She hadn’t actually lied to Joe.



As if trying to diffuse the tension, Sam asked her, “So Joe is working for you, right?”



“Yes,” she said, meeting Joe’s eyes.



“She’s an amazing woman. She hires me, but she still likes to do all the work herself,” Joe said dryly.



She forced a tight smile. “I thought I’d drop by to see a friend,” she told him. “You did say you’d been held up.”



“So I did.”



“Hey, Joe, do you know if they’ve questioned all the drivers, trying to figure out who hit me?” Sam asked.



Joe nodded. “Not that it did much good. Apparently, if you’re a crook in this city, you find a dark sedan with mud on the license plate so no one can read the number. A lot of people noticed a dark sedan driving dangerously. Some say it was blue, others say it was forest-green, and one man is positive it was black. What do you say?”



“No idea. I’m sorry I can’t be more helpful,” Sam said. “Really sorry.”



Joe moved farther into the room to stand by the bed. “Sam, do you think the driver might have been gunning for you?”



Sam had nice brown eyes. They were intense as he stared at Joe, then Gen. “I’m praying not. I’m praying that someone else didn’t die because of me, and that a dozen people aren’t laid up in a hospital like I am—because of me.”



“Do you think the Poe Killer is after more members of the society?” Joe asked.



“Hell if I know,” Sam said bitterly, shaking his head. “That psychic says so, huh?”



Genevieve expected Joe to say something derisive, but he didn’t. He just waited for Sam to go on.



“My wife is afraid it’s true, though,” Sam said. “Really. Afraid…Oh, God. I’m sorry, Genevieve, I shouldn’t be talking to you about fear.”



There they were. Back to her ordeal once again, she thought. Why wouldn’t people let it rest?



“Sam, please,” she said awkwardly, avoiding Joe’s eyes. She knew he was angry with her for leaving the apartment.



Too bad. He would just have to get over it.



“There are many kinds of fear,” she said to Sam. “And I’m afraid, too. Afraid for my mother.”



“The police haven’t said anything about needing to protect you, right?” Joe said to Sam.



“No. But Dorothy has decided that she wants to hire off-duty officers to guard my room,” Sam said, shrugging. “I honestly don’t know what I think, but God knows, I have time here to try to figure it all out. But if it’s going to make Dorothy happy, I guess it’s fine to bring in some security.”



“That’s never a bad idea,” Joe said, to Genevieve’s surprise. Had he changed his mind on his conviction that Bigelow’s murder had nothing to do with Edgar Allan Poe and the Ravens?



Dorothy and Sam’s mother returned just then. They both greeted Joe and spoke with him about hiring private security. He put through a call to a friend, and before he and Gen left the hospital, an off-duty officer was sitting in the hallway.



“I thought you were going to wait at your apartment for me,” Joe said a few minutes later, as they got into his car after dismissing Gen’s driver. He looked at Genevieve and saw that she was blushing slightly. Whatever she said, it would be an excuse, he knew. She obviously felt guilty. But then her chin lifted.



Guilty and defiant, he amended. Ah, yes, that was Genevieve. Then again, that defiance was part of what had saved her life.



“I was staying in and waiting, but then you called and said you’d be late. And I told you I’d find something to do to fill the time.”



“Good one,” he said.



“Hey, Joe, you’re the one who said the whole Poe thing was a smoke screen.”



He groaned. “Whether it is or isn’t, don’t you think you should be a little bit careful for a while?”



“It’s my mother I’m worried about,” she said. “She’s the Raven, not me.”



“Still…”



She gazed at him sharply. “What changed your mind?” she asked.



He was driving, but the traffic was light enough that he was able to look over at her before turning his attention to avoiding a kid on a skateboard who had just swerved into the street.



“Nothing has changed my mind,” he said, knowing it was what he wanted to believe, rather than the truth. To accept the fact that he believed a two-bit hooker—actress—had experienced a genuine psychic vision was more than he was ready to admit.



And yet it appeared, even to him, that it might be true.



After so many years prying into the lives of others, he had a good sense for whether people were lying or not. And Candy Cane, or Lori Star or whatever her real name was, hadn’t been lying.



Not only that, she was scared.



“So…” Genevieve asked, “where are we going?”



He cast a quick glance her way, a slight smile curving his lips. “I thought we should take a self-guided Poe tour. Just a pleasant walk around a few places our long-gone poet might have haunted. What do you think?”



She looked back at him, smiling quizzically herself. “You’ve acquired a new appreciation for the literary life and times of Edgar Allan Poe?”



“Don’t be silly. I’ve always been an aficionado,” he assured her.



Ten minutes later, he found a garage where he could park for a few hours without spending half a month’s rent, and they started walking.



There was something special, almost magical, about Lower Manhattan, he thought. It had nothing to do with Wall Street and all the money that changed hands there, or even the vibrancy of the people who were always rushing around following their own agendas.



Maybe it was magical, he thought, because he had learned to see it through Leslie’s eyes.



New York wasn’t just Wall Street and big bucks, or the egos of celebrities and business moguls. Nor was it any longer the huddled poverty of the thousands of immigrants who had made their way here, first via Ellis Island and now via Kennedy Airport.



It was both, and it was more.



He and Genevieve walked. They toured the area around Lower Broadway, pausing at Trinity Church, looking toward the empty place where the World Trade Towers had once stood, which gave them both pause.



Finally they moved on.



“Are we actually on a thinking tour?” she asked him, curious and amused.



“I’m sorry. Does it feel like I’m just dragging you around aimlessly?” he asked her.



“Hey, I like to walk. Just so long as we’re not walking because you don’t want me going home by myself,” she said.



He couldn’t help but ask, “Is it so bad for someone to be worried about you?”



She looked away. “I don’t want to spend my life being a burden, being someone others have to worry about all the time.”



“Hardly a burden,” he said gruffly.



And so they kept going.



“This has been my home my whole life,” she said, “and I still love being here. I love to go into Trinity and St. Paul’s. I love to go in and look at George Washington’s pew, and wonder what it might have been like when we were a country fighting for its independence.”



He flashed her a smile. “Yeah, cool, huh?”



And amazing.



They were near Hastings House, in fact, near the area where she had been held prisoner underground. He saw no deep-seated bitterness or fear in her eyes, and she had just told him that she had moved on, that she loved this part of town.



Was it true?



Whether it was or not, Lower Manhattan, the area around St. Mark’s, and his small cottage up in the Bronx, were places where Poe had spent time when he was in New York.



“‘The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne the best I could,’” he quoted aloud.



Genevieve arched a brow at him. “Is that word-for-word?”



“I think,” he said with a shrug.