Darkness Calls. Caridad Pineiro

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ worn last night, he’d caught the odor of a holster with a well-maintained gun.

      Glancing at his watch, he noted he had to get going. Although it was a short subway ride downtown, the New York City transit system was sometimes unpredictable. The last thing he wanted was to go aboveground and grab a cab. Staying any length of time in the sun drained him of energy. After prolonged exposure, his joints and muscles grew excruciatingly painful and stiff. Leave him out in the sun way too long…He didn’t want to think about it, having once seen the shriveled remains of a vampire who had dared to think himself invincible.

      No, he recognized his limitations all too well. That was why he had used his lawyer to stall the meeting. Early morning and midday sun were too much for a vampire of his age to handle, even with the protection of clothing. The late afternoon was infinitely better, and so here he was, on his way to see her. He had no delusions about his reasons for heading into the sunlight. He had told himself all night long that it was lunacy. The only way this could end would be badly. He didn’t want to be attracted to her. He couldn’t afford to be, he reminded himself and shook his head.

      The things men did for women, he thought as he pulled the lapels of his jacket until they were flat, and walked to the door of his apartment. He grabbed a fedora from the coatrack next to the door and called his goodbye to Danvers, who was heading to the hospital for her late-afternoon rounds. “If you need me—”

      “I’ll call you,” Ryder finished, and Melissa sailed out the door, perfectly groomed.

      The brilliant doctor’s orderliness and control had helped him on more than one occasion. But he worried that as his companion she had no social life. He experienced a twinge of guilt; serving him kept her from enjoying a normal life.

      Running out of the apartment, he grabbed an elevator and took it down to the subbasement level, a floor normally frequented only by the maintenance men who checked the building’s electrical plant. Dark, damp and almost always empty, it had a second door that led to an underground access tunnel near Lexington Avenue. The entrance was hidden in the recesses of the building, next to a bomb shelter.

      Ryder had had both built during the fifties, at the height of the Cold War. The mason who had done the work had seemed to understand why Ryder wanted another avenue of escape in the event of a nuclear attack. The man had been paid well to do the work and keep the secret of the tunnel’s location and the fact that Ryder had a hand in the corporation that owned the building.

      The building was just one of the many properties in which Ryder’s company had an interest. After his “death” he’d recovered some of the funds he’d hidden before the Civil War, leaving the bulk of the money for his wife. With his funds, he’d bought real estate and with the earnings from the real estate, he’d invested in other things. Little by little, his holdings had grown and now money was not a concern.

      He stepped into the tunnel and secured the door behind him. The smell and heat in the tunnel was always bad and only slightly better in the winter. Thankfully, it was just a few yards to a similar entrance into a maintenance tunnel for the Sixty-eighth Street subway station. The subway would deposit him at the Brooklyn Bridge/City Hall stop. From there it was a short walk to Federal Plaza. Not enough exposure to the rays to do much damage, especially since the fedora helped shade most of his head and face and the sunglasses in his pocket protected his acute eyesight from the worst of the sun.

      Once out of the tunnel, he was in a little-used passage to the main subway entrance. He walked to the turnstile, pulled out his Metrocard and swiped it through the reader.

      Walking to the edge of the platform, he looked uptown into the tunnel, but there was no sign of a downtown train. Despite that, his body registered the subtle vibrations and sounds of something approaching. A few moments later, the rush of air from the tunnel confirmed the imminent arrival of the number six.

      With the hiss and squeal of brakes that grated on his sensitive hearing, the train lurched to a halt. Except for a number of younger people, clearly students on their way to Hunter College, few passengers got off. Most were headed to the main commuter stations like Grand Central and Times Square, where they would make the necessary connections to other trains. Ryder packed onto the crowded car and the scents and sounds of the mass of people attacked him. He closed his eyes as he always did and began a mantra he had learned many, many years ago from a Japanese man interred at a California camp during World War II.

      As always, the mantra soothed the anger of the animal within and brought him some measure of peace.

      Holding on to the pole, he swayed and bounced as the train rocketed to his destination. Once there, he raced up the stairs, slid on his glasses and did what he could to avoid the direct rays of the sunlight until he was finally in the cool interior lobby of 26 Federal Plaza, home of the New York City branch of the FBI. Tranquilly, he got in the line necessary to clear the security barriers, and, after waiting almost interminably, he was allowed through and directed to someone who would take him to the interrogation room.

      When he arrived, Diana was waiting by the elevator, her partner beside her. They were like the eternal yin and yang. Light and dark. Good and, well…still good but with a lot of other things thrown in that weren’t necessarily so straight. Things that roused something dark within him. He nodded and acknowledged their presence.

      “Latimer. Nice to see you’re finally here. Where’s your Mr. Ruggiero?” Diana said icily, and beckoned him down the hall.

      “I didn’t think his presence was demanded,” Ryder answered, sensing that her anger was simmering beneath the calm she was trying to present. “I have nothing to hide.” Well, at least, nothing pertinent to the investigation.

      Diana shot him a glance that clearly said she thought otherwise and then opened the door to one of the rooms. Inside, two other men waited.

      He walked in, and she quickly introduced Jesus Hernandez, the assistant director in charge, and a tall, very Irish-looking man by the name of Peter Daly, who was the lead detective from the NYPD homicide squad that was assisting with the case.

      A moment later he was invited to sit and the interrogation began.

      Chapter 5

      Ryder answered questions about his background—a fictional account of his life in New Orleans and elsewhere before he moved to New York. It was well rehearsed after years of practice. The narrative was one that had enough detail to satisfy but nothing that could be tangibly verified. No colleges attended or professional degrees earned despite the fact that at one time he had been a physician. Those details would only force him to create a tangle of lies that would trip him up and have the authorities wondering why he was being evasive.

      Detective Daly seemed to notice the lack of detail, for on more than one occasion he jumped in to ask a question that might lead Ryder on a path to that tangle. Ryder deftly avoided those inquiries, but it was clear the detective was not happy.

      Like Diana, this NYPD cop was not all that he seemed. Beneath the calm and observant exterior, there was a determined mind that would not be satisfied until he had the answers he wanted. Answers Ryder was not giving him.

      As the three FBI representatives moved on with the questioning, the detective said nothing more. He just sat back and whittled away at the explanations Ryder gave. When talking about the club it was easier for Ryder to go with the full truth, for it was a real establishment with real people. Plus, he ran a clean business and no investigation, no matter how deep or invasive, would find otherwise.

      His willingness to elaborate and cooperate seemed to mollify the investigators, although Diana and СКАЧАТЬ