Killer Move

“Wouldn’t have found it at all if one of these guys hadn’t been going beyond their remit,” he said. He looked at one of the techs, a weedy, sheepish-looking guy. “Got a little too interested in what vintages were in the racks, lifted a bottle. And dropped it.”

Hallam lowered himself to his knees, pointed at the lowest section of the rack. “Mopping up the mess, he noticed a handle in here.”

He reached into a space that looked like nothing more than a gap for another bottle of wine, and Barclay heard a businesslike clunk, presumably a lever being turned. His heart sank.

Hallam stood back up, tugged at the rack again. This time it swung away from the wall, a four-foot section pivoting soundlessly.

There was a wide metal door on the wall behind, with a recessed handle. Hallam looked at his boss, evidently feeling that Barclay would want to take it from here.

Barclay wasn’t sure he did. He believed, on balance, that he’d rather walk back up the stairs and get into his car and drive somewhere else. Maybe Key West. Or Brazil. He stepped forward, however. That’s what being a cop is about. You’re the guy who has to take that step, who has to open the doors that all the other people don’t even want to know exist.

Behind the door, however, was another door. This was nearly a foot back from the first, suggesting a very thick wall. Barclay turned the handle, and was relieved when it didn’t open.

“Locked,” he said, but he knew that wasn’t going to be enough. He knew they were now into a period where they tried to locate keys for the door, and couldn’t; tried to establish whether the lock was tied into the security system and under its control; and eventually wound up bringing in someone with the equipment to cut through this barrier with brute force.

We’ve all got that door inside. Behind it we keep the things that are personal, and what’s personal to us may not be good. Either way, Warner wasn’t here to stand in the way of this door now.

“Get it open,” Barclay said.

Then he tramped back upstairs toward fresh air and sunlight and somewhere private to make a telephone call to a man he’d met once at one of Warner’s parties, a man who’d taken him to one side and given him a card and told him to call if—and only if—there was a problem that threatened to get out of hand and become public. All the sheriff knew about this man was that his name was Paul, and that he’d have been happy never to speak to him again.

But Barclay figured that if there was ever a day to make that call, this was it.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

I ran/walked/lurched back into Sarasota, under skies that were beginning to cloud up fast. I took a chance and went to an ATM when I got to downtown, reasoning that if it refused me or set off a siren, I could be long gone before anyone could drive to the area to detain me. In fact, the machine simply gave me two hundred bucks, without backchat or prevarication—the process feeling magical, unforeseen.

I took the money to a nearby Gap and quickly bought new chinos and a shirt, then made another stop at the Walgreens three doors down. I changed in a Starbucks restroom, giving myself a wash-toothbrush-antiperspirant makeover and dropping my old clothes into the trash. I walked straight back out past the baristas without allowing myself to check whether they’d noticed the transformation. People seldom do, too wrapped up in their own concerns and neuroses to even notice yours. That’s the kind of thing the positivity blogs yammer on about all the time, and evidently they’re right. Nobody knows about your hell. They don’t care. They’re too busy cooking in their own.

I hailed a cab and went to St. Armands Circle. I chatted with the driver about property prices on the way like I always did with anyone. After he’d dropped me off I walked over to where I’d left my own car the night before.

I turned the AC on full and waited until it was working. When it finally got cold I started to feel slightly better, despite the fact that from where I was sitting I could see the table outside Bo’s where I’d encountered Cassandra the night before. At some point in the last hour a thin film of protective scar tissue had started to build around what had happened since. Along with this had appeared something else, however: anger. She’d been a nice girl. A good kid. I didn’t yet have any real understanding of what was unfolding or breaking down all around me, but I knew that it had brought about her death. And for that, someone was going to pay.

That was in the future, however. The next step in my plan—and it was a plan that had no aspirations beyond taking one step at a time and hoping I didn’t fall on my face straightaway—was driving to The Breakers and dropping back into my role. Chatting with Karren, getting e-mails done. If I was “just that guy,” then any bad things becoming associated with my life would be judged according to character. The character I wished to project. The real me, whoever that was.