I DAMN near wore out those rubber clogs walking the seedier streets of East Tampa, looking for some hole to crawl into. I had a hundred dollars cash in my wallet, enough to rent a motel room for a night—maybe two if the room came with a mirror on the ceiling and an hourly rate. There was a surprising shortage of choices, and I wasn’t about to stop one of the locals and ask for a rec. Not without backup.
And that was the thing: I had no more backup. Anthony and I had more than our share of problems, but I always knew that if any man so much as laid a finger on me he’d end up trampled by an army of Costellos. At least that was true yesterday. Now that same army was hunting me. For the first time in a long while, I understood what it meant to be alone.
My Fitbit logged twenty thousand steps before I came across the Jackalope Inn, a circa-1970 structure with teetering breezeways and rusted-out railings—the kind of establishment that feels incomplete without a SWAT team huddled in the parking lot. Perfect, I thought. Even I wouldn’t think to look for me here.
Inside, the man behind the bulletproof glass told me it would be forty bucks for the night. I spent another five bucks at the vending machines, coming away with a Diet Coke and a bag of almond Mars bars—my first meal of the day. The room was more or less what I’d expected: a sagging twin bed, flea market paintings, peeling wallpaper, a carpet I’d make sure never to touch with my bare feet. What I hadn’t anticipated was the odor. It was as if somebody had sprayed every inch of the place with synthetic fruit punch. Whatever stench they were covering up didn’t stand a chance.
I switched on the TV in hopes that the voices might calm me. Big mistake. The Jackalope Inn only offered local channels, and at the ten o’clock hour they were all showing the nightly news. Anywhere I flipped, there he was: a full-screen headshot of my recently deceased husband. I didn’t want to watch, but I couldn’t look away. So I sat there chomping on Mars bars (almond my ass—not one lousy nut in the whole bag) and listening to the pundits make uninformed guesses about who whacked Vincent Costello’s portly nephew. Surprise, surprise: my name came up. Some ace reporter had already managed to obtain from an anonymous source a “firsthand account” of the knock-down-drag-out Anthony and I had at his uncle’s party—the one where I threatened to kill Anthony in his sleep.
Of course, there were other suspects. Anthony did work for the mob, after all. It was perfectly plausible that I’d been framed, in which case I was either lying at the bottom of a swamp or locked in a closet somewhere with duct tape over my mouth.
Listening to that crap was giving me a full-blown panic attack. I pictured Vincent sitting on the edge of his overstuffed recliner, watching the same program, growing more and more convinced that it was my turn to die. I switched off the TV, but the sounds of bellowing drunks and blaring sirens didn’t do much to calm me down. Someone was walking back and forth along the breezeway outside. Defoe, I told myself. It had to be. The more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that I wouldn’t survive the night.
Which is why I picked up the motel phone and made the call. The only call I could think to make.
“Nine one one, what’s your emergency?” the operator asked.
I hemmed and hawed, gave her something less than the full story.
“You stay put now,” she said in the kind of soothing voice that truly anxious people find maddening. “Help is on the way.”
She didn’t say what kind of help. I went to the window, pulled back the heavy curtain just far enough to peer outside. The Jackalope faced the kind of cityscape that sends urban dwellers running for the country. Busted streetlamps, heavily graffitied storefronts, potholes you could climb down into, delinquents gathered on every corner. But no Defoe. No Broch. Still, my legs were trembling, and I had to fight to keep down all that chocolate and syrup.
I was expecting either a squad car or a sedan, so at first a Jeep pulling into the lot below didn’t register. Then I saw who stepped out of it: Detective Sean Walsh, Anthony’s friend on the force. The man Anthony had tried to convince me was nothing more than a golf buddy who owed him a few favors. The man Vicki wouldn’t name. Was he here on behalf of the Tampa PD or the Costello family? Or had he come, as Vicki had suggested, to tie up one last loose end?
I didn’t stick around to find out. Just like in the movies, I shimmied out of the narrow bathroom window, grabbed on to a tree branch, and lowered myself down. The back of the motel faced an abandoned lot. I started across at a full gallop, tripping over rubble, scraping my palms as I pushed myself back up. I didn’t know where I was headed or what I’d find on the other side, and I didn’t care. All I wanted was to put distance between me and Sean.
Which is exactly what I failed to do. Sean wasn’t gimpy like Defoe or bulky like Broch. He was the type to count calories and measure his body fat after his morning run. He came up on me out of nowhere, had me pinned to the ground before I knew I was in a fight.
“Hi there, Anna.” He grinned.
I didn’t hesitate to scream my head off. Sean let go of one of my wrists, clamped a hand over my mouth. I clawed for his eyes but couldn’t find them.
“Easy now,” he said. “You called us, remember?”
Us. Was it possible that even the 911 operator moonlighted for the Costellos? Or had she unwittingly forwarded the call to one of Anthony’s blackmail victims? Or to Sean himself?
“Yeah,” I said, once he took his hand from my mouth. “It was a false alarm. So sorry to waste your time.”
He lifted me to my feet but didn’t cuff me. He didn’t Mirandize me, either. There was nothing at all coplike about his behavior, which made me halfway certain I was headed for a pair of concrete boots.
I tried sweet-talking him as he led me back to the Jeep.
“Listen,” I said, “I don’t snitch. I won’t tell anyone anything about anything. I don’t know anything. Anthony kept me in the dark. Whatever secrets the two of you had died with him. I promise you, Sean. All I want now is to get as far from this tropical shithole as possible. There’s money in it if you help me. You don’t have to do this.”
“Do what?” he asked.
I didn’t say anything. He waited a beat, then burst out laughing.
“You think I’m here to…what? Whack you? You’ve got it all wrong, Anna. I’m here to help. Like you said, Anthony kept you in the dark. You’re new to this kind of thing. I figure you might need a little coaching.”
I leaned across the table until Detective Haagen and I were sitting eyeball to eyeball.
“And that’s what he did,” I told her. “He coached me. All the way to the station. He told me all about you. Sorry, but he isn’t a fan. He said if I wanted to stay out of prison I should dodge your questions, claim I found the body and panicked. Nothing more to it. Meanwhile, he’d get Vincent off my back, hand him the real killer.”
“Detective Sean Walsh said all of that?”
“Yes. But then if I believed him, I wouldn’t be sharing it with you right now, would I?”
I watched her think it over. For a cop, her poker face was downright lousy. I could see she wanted to believe me. She wanted to believe I was giving her testimony that would end her ex-partner’s career. At the same time, she was afraid of being duped by a mob widow who might very well be lying through her teeth to save her own hide. In the end, she stalled.
“I’ll have to talk to the DA,” she said.
“Fine,” I told her. “Meanwhile, can I go? I’ve told you everything I know. Everything from the moment I found Anthony to right now. I’m tired as hell, and I need about three showers.”
She looked confused.
“But where would you go?” she asked. “Back to the Jackalope? Wouldn’t a cell be the safest place for you? If what you say about Sean is true, we might be able to work something out.”
I gave her a trademark Costello sneer.
“You mean witness protection?” I said. “Detective, you’ve been inside my home. Hell, at this point you probably know it better than I do. You really think a bungalow in Tempe is gonna cut it?”
Now she looked worried, and I knew damn well what she was worried about: dead women tell no tales, and they sure as hell don’t show up to testify in court.
“Don’t sweat it,” I told her. “I’m the three Rs: resourceful, resilient, and rich. I won’t make any more mistakes.”
She shrugged.
“I can’t hold you. But I do need you to keep close.”
“Fine by me,” I said, standing.
Of course, legally speaking, I could have shut down that interview any time the mood struck me. Haagen was right to be cautious. I hadn’t lied to her, but the truth I’d shared was purely by design.