“She knows we met with Martinez in Cancún,” he pointed out.
“True. Okay, try that.”
Stan: Kitty used to know her. They were best friends. Martinez mentioned her to Kitty. She wondered what happened to her.
“Send?”
“Yeah. Send it.”
I watched as he tapped the button, then we waited.
When she didn’t reply immediately, but read the message, Stan mused, “That’s a good sign.”
I hoped so.
Five minutes later, Star phoned us.
“You can’t bullshit me. I knew there’d be a reason you were asking.Damien Headley.Man, I wish I’d cut off his dick and made him eat it.”
“I’m grateful the fucker’s dead if he can still wreak havoc all these years later,” Stan confided. “How did you make that association?”
“I never divulge my workings-out. But be thankful I did. Okay, I opened up his database.” She fell silent. “Headley… wanted something from the hospital where she worked. That was his ransom demand.”
“What kind of something?” I asked.
“Kitty?”
“Yeah. I’m with Stan.”
“I bet.”
“Star,” Stan warned.
“I’ll behave,” she chided, but she was snickering.
I refused to blush. “Which hospital?”
“Bellevue. You were on staff there until recently, weren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“When was this?”
“Three years ago, nearly four,” I answered.
“That must have been close to his death,” Stan remarked.
Star chortled. “It wasn’t after.”
“Shut up, Star.” He ignored her cackling. “Currau switched out from the prison ward in Bellevue into his private room three years ago.”
“There are thousands of patients in the hospital,” I reasoned. “Is that what he wanted? Access to a patient file, Star?”
There was a clicking sound in the background. “Yes. But it wasn’t Currau Valentini…” She fell silent again. “Huh.”
“What, Star?”
“He wanted two files. One for some chick called Jackie Van der Mils and the other for… Anastasia Brackton.”
