The Givenchy Code (15 page)

W
e were approaching Grand Central when Stryker’s phone rang. He unclipped it from his belt, then answered with a curt hello. I couldn’t tell who was on the line, and Stryker’s side of the conversation gave no clues.

“Girlfriend calling to check up on you?” I asked when he hung up.

He didn’t smile back, and I immediately became concerned. “What?”

“That was Talia, my friend at the DMV.”

I frowned, unsettled by his tone. “And?”

“She ran the plates. The car was registered to Todd.”

He was looking at me as if he expected some sort of reaction. But I couldn’t react. For that matter, I couldn’t even get my head around his words.

“Todd,” I finally repeated. “My Todd?”

“That’s right.”

“But…”

“I don’t like this,” he said.

I didn’t either. I wasn’t entirely sure what“this” was, but I didn’t like it one bit.

I didn’t have time to ask about it, though, because Stryker was passing the cabbie his money and climbing out of the taxi.

The cab had dropped us at the entrance on 42nd Street, near the clock surrounded by statues of Hercules, Minerva and Mercury. I made a silent entreaty, begging help from the gods as Stryker pulled me inside, out of the warm wash of the golden flood lights bathing the façade.

We passed under the celestial map and clambered down the stairs. The station’s been in a lot of movies, but nothing really does it justice. Considering it’s just a train station, it really shouldn’t be such an awe-inspiring building. But it is.

Not only is it beautiful, but it’s also all-inclusive. I swear you could live there if you really wanted to make the effort. There are shops around every corner, along with an endless variety of food kiosks on the lower level for when you just want to have a relaxing quick meal.

For fancier cuisine, you need to visit the area above the concourse. On the east end, you can reach the mezzanine from a fabulous staircase that was modeled after one at the Paris Opera House. Once up there, the opulence—not to mention the price—ratchets up even more. Todd took me to dinner once at Michael Jordan’s The Steak House N.Y.C. (fabulous), and during my freshman year, I worked as a waitress for a private party in The Campbell Apartment, a fabulous bar fashioned from the former stationmaster’s old office. The bar had been closed then, and my view of the place had been from the serving side of a silver appetizer tray, but the space had been one of the most spectacular I’d ever seen. I’d wanted to go back for years but had somehow never gotten around to it. Maybe when all this was over, Stryker could take me and we could toast our success.

It was late, already past one, and the station was beginning to empty out, but the last trains had yet to run, and the late-night crowd stumbled around us—teenagers, drunks, and more than a few people who really needed to discover the joys of bathing.

We’d been moving so fast that I hadn’t had time to think, but now my mind latched onto Stryker’s news.
Todd?
What would my clue be doing in his CD player? For that matter, what was he doing with a Jag? I had a bad feeling but no time to think about it.

“Where are they?” Stryker asked.

“What?”

“The lockers you remember seeing here,” Stryker said.

“Right.” I shoved thoughts of Todd out of my head; I could deal with that later. I made a circle, examining my surroundings. “Um…” I trailed off with a shrug. I’d never used the lockers here, and I couldn’t remember where (or when) I’d last seen them.

“No problem,” Stryker said. “We’ll ask.”

I followed him to the Information desk, then waited as the attendant finished with an elderly tourist who’d apparently never read a train schedule. Finally, it was our turn.

“Lockers?” the attendant repeated. “I’m afraid we don’t have any.”

I leaned forward, elbowing in closer to Stryker. “I’ve seen them here. I know I have.”

“Recently?” The clerk looked genuinely baffled.

“Well, I don’t actually remember that part.”

“We took them out after nine-eleven,” the clerk explained.

I glanced at Stryker, feeling stupid. The man had tried to warn me.

“What about some sort of package-checking service?” Stryker asked.

“Sorry. No. Security concerns, you know.”

“Of course. Thanks anyway.”

Stryker moved away, his hand loose on my elbow. I followed, my legs feeling numb.
No lockers.
No clue.

No chance.

What the hell was I going to do now?

S
ince we didn’t have a better plan, we followed the signs to track 15, which had one more departure before shutting down for the evening. The train was already there, and a few people milled about. The platform was totally nondescript. A big empty area. Nothing that looked like a clue. No graffiti that was meant only for my eyes. No geometric patterns laid into the tile floor we walked on, cleverly planted by the assassin. Nothing. Not one thing.

“Any other ideas?”

I tried to think. There were subway stations all over the island, but the only actual railway stations I was aware of were Penn and Grand Central. “We’re fucked,” I said. “We interpreted the clue wrong, we’ve been following a wild-goose chase. And to make it worse, we’re the ones who made the whole chase up.”

“No.” He shook his head. “We’re right. This feels right.”

I turned in a circle, my arm outswept to encompass the entire platform, the entire station. “Feels right?” I repeated, incredulous. “Stryker, nothing about this feels right.”

He frowned, but he didn’t contradict me. Which was too bad. I was hoping he’d had something brilliant tucked up his sleeve. We could use a dose of brilliance right then. MENSA membership notwithstanding, at the moment, I was fresh out.

“I’m not giving up,” he said, taking my elbow. “And neither are you. Come on.”

I let him lead me back into the station. We followed the long hallway past the various stores that catered mostly to tourists and harried commuters. They were closed now, and I looked longingly at the drugstore, wishing for a soda.

“C.P.R.R.,” Stryker said as we paused in the walkway. “Central Pacific Rail Road. We’ve got ‘Central’ and ‘Rail Road,’ but no ‘Pacific.’ Any ideas?”

“None,” I admitted. “How about JWC? Mean anything to you?”

“Not a thing. Let’s go back to the Information desk. Maybe if we flip through the brochures, we’ll have a spark of inspiration.”

I nodded agreement, and we headed that way. A man passed by, a woman glued to his arm. They’d been drinking, if their wavering walk and overloud voices were any indication, and I slowed, something about the woman’s stumbling gait catching my attention.

“Mel?”

“Sorry,” I said, letting Stryker lead me. But I was walking slower now, trying to force free a thought that was rolling around in the back of my mind. Something familiar. Something important that I just needed to remember….

We’d reached the Information desk, and Stryker grabbed a tourist brochure and started tossing out random facts about the station. But suddenly I wasn’t hearing him anymore. Because my synapses had finally clicked. And if I was right, this wasn’t about Grand Central Station. Not exactly, anyway.

“What does it say about The Campbell Apartment?” I asked, interrupting Stryker’s review.

He scanned the brochure, finally finding the entry on an interior page. “Here we go. One-of-a-kind space, old-world elegance, used to be the stationmaster’s office and salon and—”

He looked up sharply. “The stationmaster’s name was John W. Campbell.”

“That’s it,” I said.

“I’d think so. And listen to this,” he added. “In case we have any doubt, the address for The Campbell Apartment is
15
Vanderbilt Avenue.”

“Well, hallelujah,” I said, holding out my arm for him to take. “Let’s go have a cocktail.”

“T
he bar closes at one,” Stryker said as our footsteps echoed on the ornate staircase.

“Maybe we’ll get lucky and someone will still be inside closing up.”

“Let’s hope.”

We reached the landing, then found the understated entrance to the bar hidden in one of the station’s many nooks and crannies. A simple black banner with The Campbell Apartment printed in white marked the stairs leading up to the entrance. The walls were stone, the stairs decked out in red carpeting. I took them two at a time and tugged on the brass handle.

Nothing.

“Too late,” I said. I pounded on the door, then pressed my face to the glass and tried to see through the etched panes. I could make out light, but no movement. I pounded again, hoping someone would come to investigate. Again, nothing. “What time does it open in the morning?” I asked.

“Not until three.”

I met Stryker’s eyes. We both knew that three was too late for me.

“I think I can break in,” he said, not missing a beat.

“What?”

“The restaurant,” he said. “I think I can break in.”

For half a second, the word
felony
flashed in my head, but I snuffed that little thought right out. Instead of making a protest, I said, “Good. Because I sure can’t, and we need to get inside. If you can get us in there, then go for it.”

Less than three minutes later, I was feeling pretty foolish in my choice of words.
If
he could get us in? There was no
if.
There was simply Stryker and some thin metal tools and a faster-than-you-can-say-
felony
moment.

Stryker opened the door, the movement of his arm hustling me inside. He closed it silently behind us.

“What about alarms?” I asked.

“Didn’t see any wiring, didn’t see a control panel.”

“So does that mean there is no alarm system? Or you just couldn’t find it?”

He stopped and turned, and I could see his face in the slight illumination of the emergency exit light over the door through which we’d just entered.

“If there’s an alarm,” he said, “we’ll know soon enough.” And then he eased forward into the room. I followed. What else could I do?

The place was just as glamorous as I’d remembered. The entrance opened onto the main room, which was worthy of royalty. The dim lighting from fringed wall sconces wasn’t enough to guide our way, but coupled with the light from the city filtering through the windows of leaded glass, we could see just enough to maneuver by.

“I was thinking earlier that I wanted to come here again,” I admitted. “This wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.”

“Again?”

“I worked here once. A waitress at a catered reception.”

He paused, his attention on me fully. “Another clue that has a personal connection to you.”

“Just a small one,” I said, but he was right. “It has to be a coincidence, though. I can’t imagine I put that in my profile. It was just a one-shot deal.”

“Maybe,” he said, but I could tell he didn’t fully believe it. “Doesn’t matter right now. We need to get in and get out.”

“Right. Where do you think we should look first?”

“Same place we were going to look in the station,” he said. “Storage.”

“Employee lockers, coat checks, anything else?”

“Let’s start with the coat check. If that comes up empty, we can look for the lockers.”

“We can split up,” I said. “It’ll go faster.”

“Not a chance in hell,” he said. And from the tone in his voice, I wasn’t inclined to argue. “Where’s the coat check?”

I was about to say that I didn’t know when I saw it. “There,” I said, pointing to a far corner. We headed in that direction and found a typical coat check booth, with a counter facing us and an oversized armoire behind.

While I looked for some sort of hinged gate to get me back behind the counter, Stryker simply hopped the thing, bouncing up, then over, like he was some Olympic gymnast.

“Nice,” I said, impressed with both the vault and his ass.

In front of me, Stryker turned immediately to the armoire, leaving me to tackle the problem of how to get back there with him. Not being as agile, it took me longer to hop over, and as soon as I did, I noticed the cleverly concealed gate that opened into the back area. Figures.

“Find anything?” I whispered.

He shook his head. “There’s not much in here, which makes sense considering it’s July. A few raincoats, an umbrella tucked into a corner.”

“Anything odd about anything?”

“Nothing I can see,” he said.

“What about ‘fifteen’? It’s the bar’s address, but maybe it’s relevant here, too.”

He pushed hangers aside one by one. “The hangers are labeled, but I don’t see fifteen.”

I sighed. I’d fantasized that we’d walk in, see a closet empty except for one item, and immediately pluck our prize from the darkness. No such luck.

I moved in closer and started going through the pockets of the coats that were there. Stryker helped, and when we finished, he opened the umbrella, inspecting it inside and out.

“Nothing.”

“You know,” I said, thinking aloud, “not everyone checks coats. Some people check purses, laptops, small animals…”

He gave me a weird look at that last one, but I just shrugged. An old boss of mine used to cart her miniature poodle everywhere. Most of the time, Bitsy dined with us at the table (oh, joy), but occasionally the mutt was forced to dine behind the scenes, babysat under the watchful eye of some poor hostess who’d been threatened within an inch of her life if anything should happen to the little darling.

I really didn’t like that dog.

“Small animals aside,” Stryker said, “you may have a point.” He dug in his pocket and came up with a small penlight, which emitted a thin beam of light when he pressed a switch. He swung the beam under the counter, revealing some painted panels with slight indentations. I pressed my fingers into the notches and gave it a shot. Sure enough, the panels were sliding doors. I opened them all the way to reveal rows of gym locker–style baskets. All were empty.

All except one with a stamped metal tag: Number 15.

I swear, I almost cried, I was so relieved. “What is it?” I asked. There was definitely something in the basket, but in the minimal lighting, I couldn’t really tell what.

Stryker reached in and tugged out a denim jacket.

I gave a startled little gasp. “Holy shit,” I said. “That’s my jacket!” My missing D&G jacket that had been a total splurge. “I thought it was gone forever.” I snagged it out of his hands and put it on, relishing the familiar comfort of the soft denim.

“When did you lose it?” Stryker asked.

“Months ago,” I said. “I’d worn it on a date with Todd, and—” I closed my mouth, suddenly realizing that I hadn’t lost it at all. It had been stolen. And that meant that someone had been planning—and watching me—for months, too. As if I weren’t already creeped out enough….

“Think about that later,” Stryker said. He was studying my face, and I could tell he knew exactly where my thoughts had gone. “Right now, we’re only concerned with the antidote.”

He was absolutely right, and as I nodded, I patted myself down. Sure enough, I felt something small and hard in the jacket’s left breast pocket. The pocket was closed with a metal snap, and I pried it open, then pulled out an ornate vial of liquid. Stryker shone the beam onto the vial, which, I realized, was really a small bottle of Very Irresistible Givenchy perfume. The distinctively beautiful graduated pink bottle had been defaced by someone printing DRINK ME along one flat surface in what they probably thought was a hysterical bit of closure. I was not amused. The liquid itself was a watery reddish color. Not the least bit appealing, and I eyed it with some trepidation.

“Mel.” Stryker’s voice was soft, but urgent.

“Right. Yes.” A stopper had replaced the spray nozzle, and now I pulled it out, then lifted the vial to my lips. I paused, my eyes meeting his. “You’d do this if you were me, right? You’d drink the stuff?”

“Absolutely,” he said, but there was a tiny bit of hesitation in his voice, and I wasn’t consoled. He must have read my mind, because his entire body seemed to sag. “Shit, Mel. What choice do you have?”

Damn.

“Bottoms up,” I said. I drank the contents, then tucked the vial back into my pocket.

A split second later, my head seemed to explode with light and sound. I was dead. I knew it. This was the absolute end.

I’d made the wrong decision.

I’d lost the game.

And, honestly, I was more pissed than scared.