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Deacon pointed to the man sitting next to her. ‘That’s Karl Hohl, the lawyer she called. She asked for the Yellow Pages, since we’d taken her phone, closed her eyes and pointed.’
‘I’ll have her turned around,’ Kate said.
‘Not yet,’ Marcus said. ‘I’d like to hear her voice before I see her face.’
‘All right,’ Kate said. ‘Then I’ll try to get her to talk.’
‘She hasn’t been cooperative,’ Deacon said. ‘You may have to make your judgment based on the recording.’
‘Understand. Try to get her to say “Hurry up”.’ Or something like that.’
As if sensing she had an audience, Alice Newman turned to look over her shoulder, and Marcus’s mouth fell open, dumbstruck. ‘Whoa. Holy shit. Holy fucking shit.’
‘You know her,’ Scarlett murmured, sounding unsurprised. ‘Who is she?’
Marcus sure as hell was surprised. ‘Allison Bassett, the older sister of one of Mikhail’s friends from school. Or so she said. I didn’t know her brother and I thought I knew all of Mikhail’s friends. But after he was gone, people came out of the woodwork to give their condolences. I met a lot of Mickey’s friends that I didn’t know, so I didn’t think anything of it.’
‘How did she make contact?’ Deacon asked.
‘She came to see me in the hospital when I was out of ICU, told me how torn up her brother was. Said that they’d just moved to the area at the begi
‘What would you talk about?’ Deacon asked.
Scarlett was uncharacteristically silent, watching the woman grimly.
‘Mostly me and my family, how my recovery was going, when I was going back to work. She’d read a few of our exposés in the Ledger and asked a lot of questions. She even asked about the McCord article, saying how disgusting he was.’ He shook his head, still reeling. ‘She must have been digging, trying to find out if I pla
‘And after you got out of the hospital?’ Kate asked. ‘Did she see you again?’
‘She stopped by Mom’s house a time or two. After I was healthier, I’d see her when I went to the gym and we’d talk while we ran the inside track.’
In the reflection in the glass he saw Kate frown. ‘You didn’t think it odd?’ she asked. ‘That maybe she was stalking you?’
Marcus blew out a breath, wondering how Scarlett was going to take what he was about to say. ‘No, I didn’t think it was odd because, yes, I thought she was stalking me, but not for any reason other than the normal one. I had several women visit me in the hospital. I also got emails, Facebook posts, you name it. When the news story came out about how I got shot . . .’
‘Women thought you were a super-stud hero,’ Deacon said dryly. ‘A savior of damsels in distress.’
Marcus shrugged uncomfortably. ‘Something like that. I got a number of interesting propositions, but I knew I was just the flavor of the week. It tapered off quickly enough, except for this one. That she was interested in me was pretty blatant. I flat-out asked her how she’d chosen my gym and she said it was so that she could run into me, that she’d bribed the guy at the counter to tell her when I came in so that she could work out at the same time.’
In the reflection of the window he watched Scarlett do one of her long blinks. He wasn’t sure what emotion she was hiding this time – fury that the woman had stalked him, fear that she’d come so close. Hopefully it was not hurt that Marcus had allowed it, because he hadn’t.
‘I told her I was flattered but not interested,’ he said firmly.
‘But she kept showing up,’ Scarlett said, her tone crisp and professional. Then he felt the fleetest of brushes against his hip – her fingers, still in her pocket, flexing to touch him. All she felt safe doing in the situation.
He let out the breath he was holding. ‘She did. I changed my workout time and she’d change hers. I finally told her that there was someone else.’ He dropped his voice to a murmur meant only for Scarlett’s ears. ‘And I meant it.’
Another one of those tiny brushes of her fingers. ‘Did she back off?’
‘She did, actually. She started working out with another guy and they were all over each over in no time. I was just happy that she wasn’t chasing after me anymore. Now I’m wondering who that other guy was, because he’d chat me up too. He just wasn’t as obvious about it. The gym – Silver Gym, a block away from the Ledger – would have a photo in their system of the guy. She called him DJ. Big guy, African-American, maybe twenty-one. Six-two, had to be two-sixty. Kid could bench three hundred. I can point him out if the gym can pull photos that match.’
Scarlett and Deacon exchanged glances. ‘His name was DJ,’ she said, ‘and he’s the right age.’
Marcus got it. ‘Demetrius Junior? He could have been. He had the right build.’
‘I’ll get on it,’ Kate said. ‘The question is, is she the one who you heard telling Demetrius that someone was coming when he was smothering you?’ She handed him an earphone and plugged it into her phone. ‘This is what we’ve got.’
Marcus put the earphone to his ear, hit play on Kate’s phone, and heard a harsh, angry voice asking for a lawyer. He listened several times, but shook his head. ‘I don’t know,’ he said honestly. ‘It’s such a fragmented memory, and this voice doesn’t even sound like the one I remember when I was talking to her face to face. Hearing her speak in person didn’t make me remember the time she spoke to Demetrius, so I don’t think my testimony is that relevant.’
‘I figured as much,’ Kate said. ‘But I had to check anyway.’
‘Her being associated with Demetrius’s son links her to the traffickers,’ Scarlett said.
‘Not closely enough,’ Kate said with regret. ‘Cross your fingers that we get something more useful out of her during interrogation.’
‘I can talk to her,’ Marcus said. ‘Maybe seeing me will startle her into speaking.’
Kate looked to Troy. ‘What do you think?’
‘You go in first,’ Troy said. ‘Confront her with what you know and see if you can get her to ID the older man. If she doesn’t budge, we can send O’Ba
‘What older man?’ Scarlett asked, eyes narrowing suspiciously. ‘What do you know that you’re not sharing?’
‘Chill, Scar,’ Deacon murmured, with a light touch to her shoulder. ‘Nobody’s keeping anything from you. This was hot off the press right before Isenberg brought you in here.’
‘I even made copies for you,’ Kate said. ‘But we didn’t want to influence Marcus before he’d had a chance to ID her.’ She gave Scarlett a sheet of paper on which several photos were printed. Scarlett held it up to the light coming through the glass, so that Marcus could see too.
He rested his hand against the small of her back and leaned to look over her shoulder. There were three photos. Beside each was an enlargement of a detail in the original. The first was a trio of young women in short shorts and skimpy tank tops, arm in arm, smiling for the camera. The second and third photos were graduation pictures of other people – but which also included Alice Newman in the background. In the third photo, Alice, dressed in her cap and gown, stood with a man old enough to be her father. He was fit and trim, wearing an expensive suit, his arm tight around her shoulders. They weren’t posing for the photo and the view of the man’s face wasn’t complete, but the enlarged detail showed he was smiling with pride.
‘We got the name Alice Newman from the DMV database after ru