“Now I understand,” Jack said.
“It’s a trick Tamlyn taught me.”
“She’s an intelligent woman.”
“Very.”
Before leaving Jack’s apartment, Stone had asked if Hillary had a compact that he could borrow. They found several in her dressing room, and Stone had chosen the one with the largest mirror.
“Can you tell if someone’s following us?” Jack asked quietly, so the driver wouldn’t hear.
“We’ll need to make a few turns before I’ll know for sure.”
They’d instructed their cabbie to take them to the Equinox Hotel, a couple blocks south of the Lincoln Tunnel, so it wasn’t long before the taxi turned west.
After watching the road behind them for several seconds, Stone whispered, “Three cars made the turn with us.”
Two intersections later, their cab turned south.
“We’re down to one,” Stone said.
“Maybe no one’s following us,” Jack suggested.
“We should know soon enough.”
Two more turns and the cab that had been with them since Fifth Avenue was still there.
“It must be Estrada and Kroger,” Jack said.
“I’d say the chances of two cabs traveling across town to the Equinox at the same time from the same spot is highly unlikely,” Stone said. “But let’s make sure.” He leaned forward and raised his voice. “Driver, change of plans. Please take us to the Conrad downtown.”
“Sure thing,” the cabbie said.
While the Conrad was considerably farther south, it was on the west side of Manhattan, like the Equinox, so the route they had taken thus far would not seem unusual for their changed destination.
It also involved a few more turns, all of which the cab trailing them took.
“It seems the fish has taken the bait,” Stone said.
“Agreed,” Jack agreed.
“Shall we set the hook?”
“Let’s.”
The cab dropped Stone and Jack off at the entrance to the Conrad, where they purposely took no notice of the other cab turning the corner and pulling into the spot their taxi had just vacated.
While Jack made arrangements for the night at reception, Stone took a seat on one of the curved blue couches in the lobby and pretended to be looking at something on his phone.
From there, he could see the two men who’d exited the other cab and immediately recognized them as Estrada and Kroger, from Dino’s photos.
After a couple minutes of taking furtive glances at the hotel doors, Estrada entered the lobby. He soon spotted Jack at reception, then looked around for Stone.
Stone leaned back, his phone raised in front of him, and tapped the screen like he was writing a text. What he’d done instead was open his camera so that he could watch Estrada.
The man glanced at Jack again and then walked over and took a seat on a couch slightly behind Stone, and in easy listening distance of anything Stone might say.
Over at reception, Jack finished up and joined Stone at the couch, showing no sign that he’d noticed Estrada.
