The Prof Croft Series: Books 0-4 (Prof Croft Box Sets Book 1) by Brad Magnarella (best business books of all time txt) 📕

presumed. Floyd prodded me, and I scooted across the seat—one not covered in plastic, I noted with some relief. After climbing in after me, Floyd closed the door. I shifted in a sudden darkness that smelled of oily hair tonic.

“Where is she?” the man in the passenger seat asked.

“I’m assuming you mean Caroline?”

He remained staring straight ahead, his silence thickening the air.

“Well, as I told Floyd here, I consult for the NYPD. I was called to a case last night and left Caroline in the company of a guy named Angelus. By the time I returned, she had already left.”

“With someone who looked just like you,” the man said.

“Apparently.”

“You see, the problem I’m having here is twofold.” The man’s voice was low and husky, as though each word were passing over a grater. Was he Mr. Moretti? “One, we have several witnesses who saw you and her leave together. And two, no one in the NYPD can corroborate your story.”

“Well, I can explain the second,” I said, my voice thin and unconvincing. “Detective Hoffman doesn’t like that I’m consulting for the Department. He did in fact pick me up from the gala last night, at about—”

“Enough bullshitting,” the man cut in. “Where is she?” I could make out his hair now: iron-colored, combed back in severe lines. He shifted a pair of broad shoulders that were almost level with his ears.

“Believe it or not, I’m trying to find that out, too. I did manage to get an address for this Angelus. It’s on the Upper East Side, Seventieth Street. A butler stonewalled me, but I’m—”

“Where is she?” he repeated.

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” I cried in exasperation. “I don’t know where she is, but I’ve tracked down the address of the last person I saw her with. Someone who…” I stopped, uncertain how to complete the sentence. …can change his appearance? …has wild-crazy powers?

“I’m going to ask you one more time,” the man said. He turned until an aging face waxed into view. “Where’s Caroline?” Familiar blue eyes stared hard into mine. “Where’s my daughter?”

17

“Mr. Reid?” I said.

I’d met him once, a year before, his hand crushing mine when we shook. I had known that if my trial relationship with his daughter progressed, there was a good chance I’d be seeing him more often—something I was inwardly dreading—but, Jesus, not like this, not on a pier in the back of an SUV with a wise guy jamming a pistol against my ribs.

“I spoke with your department chair,” Mr. Reid said.

“Who? Snodgrass?”

“He said he’s caught you watching Caroline through her classroom window while she teaches.”

Heat broke out over my face. “Once or twice, maybe.”

“And that you frequently ask her out to lunch.”

“Well, yeah. But to which she frequently says yes.”

“He described it as an unhealthy infatuation.”

“I don’t know about the unhealthy part.”

“He also says you’re unstable. That you were the main suspect in a homicide investigation a couple of years ago, a crime you were arrested for but made some sort of a plea deal to get out of.”

“Well, Snodgrass doesn’t like me much, either.”

“Sounds like your unpopularity crops up whenever it’s most convenient.” Though Floyd snorted beside me, Mr. Reid didn’t crack a smile. “Be that as it may,” he continued, “Snodgrass was telling the truth. The records were buried, but everything he told me was in them.”

“If you’re implying I hurt your daughter, Mr. Reid…” I licked my lips. “God, nothing could be further from the truth. I’ve been trying to reach her on her phone since late last night—you can check the phone records. And right after Floyd and Whitey visited me this morning and I understood she was missing, I started looking for the man I’d last seen her with. I got a street, I found the townhouse, I interrogated the butler. I mean, we’re wasting our time sitting here.”

“The townhouse on East Seventieth Street?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“So what were you doing in lower Manhattan?”

“I was, um, helping the NYPD with something.”

He sighed and turned away. “The NYPD again.”

“I know how that sounds. I know how this all sounds.” I had never felt more impotent in my life. Not only were my powers offline, but every word I spoke sounded like utter horse manure. And this in front of a man whose daughter I was in love with.

Though I did have to wonder how Mr. Reid had gotten mixed up with Moretti’s men, especially since Caroline insisted he would never deal with gangsters. Either there was a side to her father she didn’t know about, or, desperate for his daughter’s safe return, he had decided to compromise his ethics. Filing a missing person report with the NYPD was no guarantee of action after all. If you wanted results, you had to pay for them. Hiring Moretti’s men, who could probably use all the work they could get these days, fell into that category.

“There’s only one way you’re getting out of this,” Mr. Reid said. “And that’s by giving me something I can use.”

I racked my brain. “I, ah…” I remembered something and leaned forward. “When Angelus first asked to speak with your daughter at the gala, she blew him off. But when he said it had something to do with her father, with you, she agreed.”

Mr. Reid stared through the windshield in the direction of a garbage boat chugging up the East River.

“Do you know why that might have been?” I pressed.

He turned just enough to make eye contact with Floyd.

The pistol jabbed into my side. “Let’s go,” Floyd said.

“Wait. Mr. Reid,” I pled, “I’m telling you the truth.”

“The first time I met you, you struck me as a bullshit artist,” Mr. Reid said. “I even told Caroline that. Wish she would’ve listened.”

My door opened, and Whitey was there to yank me out by the arm. I stumbled into the harsh gray light, Floyd emerging against my other side. As the two wrestled me back toward their car, I heard the Escalade wheeling around behind