Nickel City Storm Warning (Gideon Rimes Book 3) by Gary Ross (100 best novels of all time txt) 📗

elevators, to get into any of the meeting rooms. There’s a special slot for it in the plastic ID badge cover.”

James Torrance leaned forward as his son sat back. “There’s no re-entry to guest room floors from the stairwell without a card for that floor. Keypads secure staff areas.”

I waited a second or two to be sure they had finished. “Not enough. Even if your cards couldn’t be duplicated and your keypads hacked—and I know someone who could do both faster than you can eat a Snickers—your main lobby entrance is always open. Ms. Wingard is high profile. Imagine someone who wants to kill her dressing up for dinner at one of your public restaurants. No cards for those, right? Or for restaurant parking?”

Randall Torrance drew in a breath. “Valet parking gives us control of restaurant access. You need to get the ticket stamped just to get—”

James Torrance stopped his son by placing two fingers on his wrist as if taking a pulse. Randall’s nod was barely discernible.

“So he sees her with a crowd at the elevator,” I said. “This man who wants her dead. The elevator is where polite people hold doors. He gets on with the crowd, follows her off…” I leveled my eyes at the Torrances. “Even worse, maybe the people who want to kill her have already paid for their conference registration.” I waited for a response, maybe for James or Randall Torrance to say something dismissive. But no one spoke as those at the table looked at each other. “Ms. Wingard has a cousin who lives here,” I continued. “He’s already hired my company, Driftglass Investigations, for round-the-clock protection. The door-to-door detail is from a local outfit subcontracted through the publisher’s security company in New York. The publisher couldn’t replace them without breaking a contract.”

“Which local company,” Ophelia asked.

“Weisskopf.”

Bart Novak snorted. “Aren’t they, like, museum guards, unarmed?”

“Which is why they’ll be taking orders from me,” I said. I looked from Novak to Rory to Ophelia, letting my gaze come to rest on the Torrances. “She’s going to need at least adjoining rooms but preferably a suite for my people and equipment. At some point, I’ll need to inspect your hotel.”

The boardroom was quiet as James Torrance stared at me with an annoyance mirrored by his son Randall and their bodyguard Matt in the corner. “Is that all?”

“For now,” I said. “I wasn’t going to talk about this today, but since you mentioned security I figured it was as good a time as any to let you know.”

Heads nodded. There were coughs, whispers, murmurs of assent. Judge Vassi smiled at me. “Jim, something tells me this lady will be in good hands.”

9

Near the end of May, Detective Sergeant Pete Kim retired after twenty-five years with the Buffalo Police Department. Kim made sure I was invited to the party hosted by the Homicide Squad, a buffet dinner in the back room of Chef’s Restaurant on Swan Street.

I had met Kim when a missing persons case I was working on uncovered information about a drug-related murder. I did my civic duty by sharing it with homicide detectives Terry Chalmers and Rafael Piñero. During the inter-squad operation that followed, Kim and I had been pinned down with Chalmers and Piñero in a gunfight that left Chalmers wounded and a major drug dealer-turned-sniper dead in a bell tower fire. Having made it outside together before the SWAT team breached and something ignited old papers in the tower, Kim and I shared a ride back to police headquarters when everything was over. Apart from my name not appearing in the newspaper—which would have given Eli Aronson more fuel for his cross-examination—the best thing that happened that night was the start of a friendship. A casual, non-demanding friendship that would deepen over time. Kim and I met occasionally for beer and darts and sometimes only to talk. It was our conversations that mattered most.

Korean-American—“Inscrutable,” he sometimes joked—Pete was known as a loner in the department, well-liked but with few real friends. Perhaps it was his self-deprecating humor others didn’t get. Or maybe it was the habitual slouch that made him look tired and shorter than he was. The only child of immigrant doctors—an oncologist and a cardiologist, both still living—he said he felt like an underachiever, especially when newbies to HQ thought he was the IT guy. But he was patient, laid back, insightful—a solid detective with a strong eye for detail and an impressive close rate.

He had never been married but had a six-year on-again, off-again relationship with a widow named Betty Park. A small, amiable woman with short black hair, a generous smile, copious curiosity, and oversized glasses, Betty taught in the university’s School of Pharmacy. She had got on well with Phoenix the few times we dined together. According to Pete, they were on shaky ground because, tenured Korean-American pharmacy professor or not, she had been too old when he met her to give his parents the grandchild they wanted. That Betty was a grandmother herself, courtesy of her Silicon Valley software engineer son, only deepened Dr. and Dr. Kim’s disapproval.

Apparently, they were on again for the party. Just inside the doorway, looking lost and wearing a simple green dress, Betty stood beside Pete as he talked with two men. The top of her head just reached the biceps to which she clung. When she spotted us coming down the carpeted corridor to join the line of well-wishers waiting to enter the back room, she let go of his arm and rushed out to embrace Phoenix. “At last!” she said softly so only we could hear. “Somebody I know, somebody I like.”

Phoenix laughed. “How have you been, Betty?”

“Just fine. Now that Peter’s retiring, I’ll put in my own papers next month, after I finish grading and wrap up all my committee work for the year.”

“You don’t look old enough to retire,” I said, my lips brushing her cheek.

“Thank you, Gideon.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “Still a