“Wow,” I said. “I guess I should think more highly of myself.”

He reached out and touched the right side of my face, and it seemed each of his fingertips contained a slight electrical charge. I wondered if he had any idea how powerful his touch was, how strong that animal magnetism. Even not quite trusting him, I felt the warm rush of attraction.

“He hurt you very badly,” he whispered.

I didn’t tell him that Bennett Walker wasn’t the first man to hurt me, or the last, or that there was scarcely a man in my life who hadn’t-or that the ones who hadn’t yet had the opportunity would be headed off at the pass by me pushing them away. Or that he would be the next to join that club if he came too close.

“What goes around, comes around,” I said. “I’m a firm believer in revenge.”

His fingertips brushed the fine hair at the nape of my neck, and a chill went through me.

“I could make you forget him, Elena,” he said, his voice warm and soft, lowering his head until he was close enough to kiss me.

“I’m sure you could make me forget my own name,” I said, moving just out of his reach. “But not tonight.”

I could feel his eyes on my back as I walked away from him. I could feel his touch on my skin long after that.

Chapter 50

“So much for that last-minute phone call to notify Estes,” Weiss said, walking up to the front door of Bennett Walker’s little weekend house: six thousand square feet of stone and marble that looked like it had been uprooted from Europe and planted in South Florida, gardens and all.

Edward Estes’s black Town Car pulled around the circular drive, and the attorney got out of the back, his face taut and drawn, pissed off, Landry thought. Good.

“Hell,” Landry said, “I thought he would have been here an hour ago having the rugs shampooed.”

“This is an outrage,” Estes snapped, his anger directed at the assistant state’s attorney. “The governor will hear about this.”

“He already has, Mr. Estes,” Paulson said. “These are Detectives Landry and Weiss. They’ll be conducting the search.”

Estes ignored the cops and looked down his nose at the papers Paulson’s hand. “That warrant is invalid on its face. I have a call to Judge Beekman to-”

“Do you have a key to this place, or do we have to let ourselves in?” Landry asked, unimpressed with Edward Estes and his attitude.

“You’re going to proceed with this?” Estes said to Paulson. “When this warrant is thrown out, anything taken during this search is fruit of the poisonous tree.”

Landry raised his eyebrows and looked at Weiss. “Did you hear that? Mr. Estes seems to think we’re going to find something here to incriminate his client.”

“That isn’t what I said, Detective.”

“Maybe he knows something we don’t,” Weiss suggested.

“Yeah,” Landry said. “Like how many bodies Bennett Walker has gotten rid of over the years that we don’t know about.”

“Make a remark like that in front of the press, Detective,” Estes said, “and you’ll be looking for a new profession.”

Landry shrugged as if it made no difference to him.

“Professional poker,” Weiss suggested. “Money for nothing.”

“I thought maybe I’d become a defense attorney,” Landry said to him. “How hard can that be?”

“You’re a very amusing comedy act, Detectives,” Estes said. “Unfortunately, being a buffoon isn’t a trait that will impress a jury.”

“I don’t know,” Weiss said. “Seems to work for most of you guys.”

Paulson cleared his throat. “Mr. Estes, our office notified you as a courtesy. As you can read in the warrant, we have sufficient grounds for the search. Why don’t we get on with it, so it can be completed with the minimum amount of fuss?”

“I would prefer we wait for my client,” Estes said.

“Where is he?” Weiss asked. “Out burying the murder weapon?”

Estes turned to him. “Mr. Walker is an innocent man. He is to be presumed innocent. If you have an obvious bias, Detective-”

“Not at all, Mr. Estes,” Landry said. “We only go where the evidence leads us.”

“What evidence?” Estes said. “You’re here on a fishing expedition.

“We can put the victim here the night she died,” Landry said. “We have a witness who puts your client in the victim’s car, leaving the premises, less than twenty-four hours later. We can connect the car to the site where the young woman’s body was found, and I’m betting we’ll be able to put your client’s foot in the boot that left a print both in the car and at the dump site.”

“My client has a very solid alibi for the night Miss Markova went missing.”

“Mr. Barbaro has recanted his earlier statement,” Landry said.

He had to imagine it wasn’t very often anyone got to surprise Edward Estes, but he had just managed to do it. With information Elena had given him. She would have been pleased.

“That’s news to you, isn’t it, Mr. Estes?”

Estes didn’t respond. He pulled his cell phone from the inside breast pocket of his tailored suit and stepped aside without a word.

Landry smiled like a shark. “Tell your client Elena sends her regards.”

Chapter 51

Jeff Cherry already had his money spent. He knew a guy who worked at a salvage yard that sent a lot of “pre-owned” luxury cars to Russia. The guy had pretty much promised he could get him a sweet little Mercedes convertible for 25K, with a clean VIN.

Sure, he could have put the cash in the bank or paid back the half dozen or so people he owed, but what the hell. He worked hard for his money. Well, yeah, there was a certain right-time-right-place element to it, but on the flip side, he was providing customer service by keeping his mouth shut. Information management, he called it.

He had chosen a public place for the payoff because he wasn’t stupid. He watched enough TV to know better. So he had picked the parking lot at Town Square shopping center. He parked on the side closest to Sal’s Italian Ristorante because he liked their pizza, and he didn’t know if his client was going to be on time or what, so he might as well have something to eat in the meantime.

He was a man with a plan. This payment would be Installment One-to keep quiet about the Russian girl Saturday night. Then he would go for Installment Two, which was really the more crucial piece of information he held. He had kept it in his pocket for a long time-almost a year-and now he finally had found the guts to make it pay off.

With the aroma of tomato sauce and Italian sausage filling his nose, and thoughts of his new ride filling his head, he settled in to eat.

Chapter 52

Bennett Walker drove around, thinking, his head spinning with questions of what he should do, questions about what had happened, what must have happened; imagining scenarios of what might happen, of where it all might fall apart. He had to stay calm. From experience, he knew he couldn’t panic. As long as he kept his wits about him, winning was always possible.

That was how he had to look at it-as winning, not as surviving. That was what Edward had told him years ago.

Easier said than done.

The pressure was on. The press was on the story. Their focus was on him. Never mind that he hadn’t been the only man seen with Irina Markova that night. He was the only man named Walker, married to a Whitaker, who had been on trial for rape and assault in the past.

His voice mailbox had been full for hours with calls from the many people in his life who were angry with and/or disappointed in him. And all of them would be asking him the same question he had been asking himself: How the hell had this happened?

He didn’t have an answer.

If Irina Markova hadn’t challenged him. If she hadn’t been the whore she was. If they hadn’t done so much X. If he hadn’t been drunk…