Page 81

“Yes. To their credit, the police had the shooter’s location within an hour of arriving at the scene. Whoever did this, they used the building just south of Frasier’s, which makes sense, as it’s close enough, but at least ten stories higher. They killed a resident on an upper floor at around four p.m. that afternoon, set up on the balcony, and waited for Fraiser and Ungerman to go outside to their pool area. The forensics team estimated the angle and distance, which is how they narrowed it down to one or two balconies. They found the dead tenant in the bathtub, a bullet hole in their forehead, wrists tied, gagged.”

Black let out an irritated sound.

“Frasier was the main target?” he verified. “Is that what the cops think?”

“They’re still investigating, but the detective I grabbed definitely thought so. Ben Frasier was shot first, and it was his penthouse, so I would guess they’re right. Of course, both could have been equal targets, since whoever did this made a pointof taking out Ungerman with equal precision, and he could have just as easily left him there. There was nothing sloppy or indiscriminate about this. Two bullets. Two dead bodies.”

“What do you think?” Black asked. “Based on what you found out?”

Dalejem exhaled, thinking.

He gave Black his honest opinion.

“I think Ungerman was probably on the shooter’s list from the beginning,” he said frankly. “This doesn’t strike me as arbitrary, or a crime of opportunity. Whoever this fucker is, he’s methodical as hell… he could have let Ungerman walk. He made a deliberate choice not to.” Jem frowned at the trees of Central Park, his voice practical. “I would go even further and say the shooter maybe knew enough about the two of them to have some idea which would be more likely to react quickly to get out of harm’s way. They took out the one who might prove more difficult first… then took out the second before he could recover.”

A silence fell over the line.

Then Black grunted.

“Yeah,” he muttered. “You might be right. And yes, the faster thinking of the two would definitely have been Frasier. No doubt.” He paused, obviously still thinking. “Still, I think we can assume that Frasier was also theprimarytarget, even if Ungerman was on the list, as you put it. If this is a grudge thing, connected to the Rucker death, then Ben would have been the main person they’d want dead––”

“A grudge thing?” Jem asked, puzzled. “I thought this was about some super-secret tech? Something you thought might be based on one of Charles’ organic machines?”

Black exhaled, and Jem heard him rub a bristly jaw.

“The situation changed since you left,” Black said. “I’ll explain that later. My point is, Rory was never one for thinking.He generally did whatever Ben told him to do. Ben was definitely the leader and Rory the follower in that relationship… and that doesn’t even get into Ben having the net worth of a mid-sized country. I’d be surprised if Rory had so much as a million to his name, and whatever he had likely came from Ben, too. He lived off Ben, had done for years.”

“Were they married?” Jem asked.

“No.” Black paused. His voice grew thoughtful. “I’m not even positive they were ever seriously involved. I’m not sure how they ended up spending so much time together. Rory lived with Ben the entire time I knew them. I always figured they just shared certain tastes––”

“Right,” Jem muttered coldly.

Black paused, as if questioning something he heard in that word.

He seemed to dismiss it seconds later.

“Come back,” Black said, blunt. “I need you here. Unless you’re going to persist in this juvenile shit and stay in New York to avoid your mate. If so, consider yourself fired.”

Jem felt his jaw harden. “No, I––”

“Good. The jet is waiting for you. I expect you to be in the air within the hour.”

Before Jem could say anything in return, Black had already hung up.

19

THE PLAN

“He’s on his way back.”

I looked over as I softly closed the door to the guest room.

I didn’t answer until I’d walked all the way into the living room and then into the kitchen. I turned on the espresso maker and began making myself a cappuccino while Black watched me from the other side of the volcanic stone counter.

I started to ask if he’d learned anything new, then realized I knew the answer to that already. He would have told me right away if he’d learned anything.

It was just some compulsive thing that made me want to ask.