Page 39 of The 6:20 Man

“Murdered?” he said, looking, he hoped, appropriately dumbfounded. “Last I heard it was suicide.”

“Then you’re behind the curve. I broke that story last night,” she said triumphantly. “Before any of the single-digit stations. My scoop.”

“How’d you manage that?” he asked, thinking that he had learned that it was murder before she had, from Detective Hancock.

“I’m really good at my job and I have great sources. Confidential sources.”

Yeah, I saw your confidential source outside of Ewes’s house, thought Devine. He hoped the loose-lipped cop had told the woman’s parents before they found out on the news.

“So, getting back to Ewes. Did she have any enemies?”

“How exactly did you decide to pick on me? A lot of other people work at the firm. And a lot of them knew Sara better than me.”

“That’s not what I heard.”

“Then what you heard was wrong. And where did you hear that?”

“Confidential, sorry.”

“Stop the van,” he said.

“Oh, come on.”

Devine reached a long arm across and slammed the gearshift into Park, jolting them to a stop and causing Potter, who was not wearing a seat belt, to end up facedown in Devine’s lap. He looked down at her thick red hair planted in his crotch.

He said, “Hey, don’t you want to buy me a drink first before you do that?”

This line actually got a guffaw from the cameraman-driver.

But not from Potter.

She sat up and looked at him furiously. “You don’t want to make an enemy of me.”

“You’re right, I don’t. Which is why I’m getting out now, but I won’t be pressing charges for false imprisonment.”

“You sound like a lawyer.”

“No, but I know a really good one. So depending on how you end up playing this, you might be hearing from her.”

“The First Amendment is pretty broad.”

“And it cuts both ways.”

He got out of the van and hustled toward the station.

The van zoomed past him, blaring its horn all the way. And he knew it was Potter with her hand on it, her fury still fully engaged.

He reached the station and climbed on board just as the doors of the inbound train opened for passengers.

He sat down at a window, checked his phone, and saw that the media was indeed now reporting Sara Ewes’s death as a homicide.

As the train moved out of the station and toward the city, Devine assessed his current situation. The cops were coming from one end, the press from another. Suicide had turned to murder. The NYPD was no doubt under a lot of pressure to solve the homicide of an upstanding young woman at an upstanding white-glove investment firm.

And ex-Army alpha male Travis Devine might just make a fetching target.

It was clear that his roommates could not provide him with a viable alibi. Valentine had been asleep, Speers could not confirm his whereabouts, and he recalled that Tapshaw had been out that night. And thus he would remain on the suspect list, red meat for Hancock and company.

But he had a couple of aces in the hole.

Security at Cowl and Comely was very tight. During nonbusiness hours you needed a security card to get into the building. Even during business hours your card was required to access the elevators. Visitors had to present ID and were photographed and signed in at the security desk after whoever they were visiting was contacted and the okay given. Then they were escorted to the elevator by security, and only the floor they were authorized to visit was made accessible. When they were done, the only floor they could punch in and access without a security card would be the lobby. All of the coming-and-going information on guests and employees was electronically recorded.

Devine knew that he and his security card had been nowhere near Cowl and Comely when Sara Ewes was being killed. They would not be able to overcome that.

But on the ride in to see Waiting for Godot, he thought about all the ways he still might be screwed.

He assumed the play might have a whole new meaning for him after all this.

Out of the frying pan and right into the pits of hell.