“I didn’t see it.”
Stone shook his head. “Me, neither. Only Fred saw it.”
A surgical nurse walked past them just then and into the waiting room. They got up and followed her.
“Mrs. Flicker?” she said.
Helene stood up. “Yes?”
“Your husband’s in recovery. He’ll be unconscious for a while, but if you’d like, I can take you down so you can see him.”
“Thank you,” Helene said.
“The rest of you can continue to wait here, if you’d like,” the nurse said. “But he probably won’t be up for having any visitors until tomorrow.”
She left with Helene.
“I’m going to go check with the detectives,” Dino said. “See if they’ve come up with anything new.”
“I’ll stay,” Stone said. “I don’t want to leave Helene alone.”
“I’llstay,” Joan countered. “You and Tamlyn go home and rest.”
Chapter 37
It took an hour beforeGennaro had calmed down enough to think straight.
Manny had screwed up. There was no denying that.
Still, though Barrington was still breathing, the attempt on the lawyer’s life hadn’t been a complete failure. He and his friendshadbeen sent to the hospital, after all.
Gennaro could deal with that.
On his computer, he began working on a new message to Jack Coulter. Not being a natural writer, it took him longer than he’d expected, but in the end he came up with a suitably threatening letter to set the next phase of his plan into motion.
As it was printing, the landline rang. He expected Rosa to answer it, but when she didn’t, he glanced at his watch and saw that it was after ten p.m. She was “off the clock.”
He was not going to miss her a single minute after he left. Not one.
He snapped up the receiver. “Hello?”
“Mr. Gennaro? Oh, good. I thought maybe you weren’t home.”
“Who is this?”
“It’s Stefan. Stefan Howard.”
Gennaro grimaced. “What do you want?”
“I, um, I met your guy at P. J. Clarke’s a few hours ago and got the impression you were doing my job tonight.”
“Yeah, it’s done.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“Did you…Did you kill him?”
