Central Park by Guillaume Musso (ebook reader macos .TXT) 📕

grandmother used to say. After a moment, she opened her eyes.

“We must have missed something,” Gabriel said, eating the final bite of his sandwich.

He signaled for the waiter to refill their coffee cups. Alice nodded in wholehearted agreement.

“Yes. We have to start again from scratch. Make a list of all the clues and try to find a pattern. The phone number for the Greenwich Hotel, the number scratched into your arm—”

She stopped mid-flow. A shaggy-haired waiter had just flinched after noticing the bloodstains on her blouse. She discreetly zipped up her jacket.

“I suggest we divide up the money,” Gabriel said, taking out the sixteen hundred dollars. “There’s no point putting all our eggs in one basket.”

He handed eight hundred-dollar bills to Alice, who put them in the pocket of her jeans. That was how she found the small cardboard rectangle at the bottom of the pocket. Frowning, she unfolded it on the table.

“Look at this!”

It was a claim ticket, the kind given out by coat checks in chic restaurants and hotel luggage drops. Gabriel leaned forward to read the number on the ticket: 127. A watermark of the intertwined letters G and H formed a discreet logo.

“The Greenwich Hotel!” they exclaimed simultaneously.

In a single second, their despair was gone.

“Let’s go!” Alice said.

“But I haven’t finished my fries yet!”

“You can eat later, Keyne!”

Already, Alice was checking the hotel’s address on the touchscreen in the center of the table. Gabriel went to the counter to pay their bill.

“Corner of Greenwich and North Moore Streets,” she told him when he returned.

She picked up a knife from the table and slipped it into her jacket pocket. He threw his jacket over his shoulder.

They left the café together.

The Honda came to a halt behind two double-parked taxis. In the heart of Tribeca, the Greenwich Hotel was a tall brick-and-glass building not far from the bank of the Hudson.

“There’s a parking lot just down there, on Chambers Street,” said Gabriel, pointing at a road sign. “I’ll park the car and then—”

“Forget it,” Alice interrupted. “I’m going in on my own. You wait for me here, with the engine running, in case anything goes wrong.”

“And what do I do if you’re not back in fifteen minutes? Call the police?”

“I am the police,” she replied, getting out of the car.

Seeing her walk toward the entrance, a doorman smiled and opened the door for her. She nodded her thanks and went into the lobby.

It was a discreetly luxurious space that led into an elegant and dimly lit library-salon. A Chesterfield sofa and some armchairs were arranged around a large fireplace where two huge logs burned. Farther on, through glass doors, was a flower-filled interior courtyard reminiscent of Italy.

“Welcome to the Greenwich, ma’am. What can I do for you?” asked a young woman with wispy auburn bangs. Her outfit conformed to the hotel’s eclectic, trendy décor: tortoiseshell glasses, a blouse with a geometric design, and a wrap skirt.

“I’ve come to pick up a bag,” Alice announced, handing her the claim ticket.

“Of course. Just one minute, please.”

The woman gave the ticket to her male assistant, who disappeared into a small adjoining room and reemerged thirty seconds later with a black leather briefcase, the handle bearing a tag with the number 127.

“Here you go, ma’am.”

Too good to be true, Alice thought, taking the briefcase. She decided to push her luck. “Now I’d like you to tell me the name of the person who left this bag here.”

The receptionist frowned. “Well, ma’am, I presumed it was you. Otherwise I wouldn’t have given it to you. If the bag does not belong to you, I would kindly ask you to return it—”

“Detective Schafer, New York Police Department,” Alice said, unfazed. “I’m investigating a—”

“You have a pretty strong French accent for a New York police detective,” the woman interrupted. “I’d like to see some identification.”

“Just give me the customer’s name!” Alice demanded, raising her voice.

“That’s enough. I’m calling the manager.”

Realizing she had lost this duel, Alice retreated. Gripping the briefcase, she quickly crossed the lobby and went out the door.

No sooner had she stepped outside than an alarm went off, a piercing siren that made every pedestrian on the street stare instantly at Alice. In a panic, she realized that the sound was coming not from the hotel, as she had first thought, but from the briefcase itself.

She ran a few yards down the sidewalk, looking for Gabriel and the car. She was just about to cross the road, when an electric shock ran through her body.

Dazed and breathless, she dropped the briefcase and collapsed onto the asphalt.

Part TwoMemory of Pain

8Memory of Pain

THE SIREN SCREAMED for a few seconds longer, then went silent as suddenly as it had come to life.

Lying on the ground, Alice struggled to recover full consciousness. Her ears were buzzing and her vision was blurred, as if someone were holding a veil in front of her eyes. Still woozy, she saw a figure loom over her.

“Get up!”

Gabriel helped her to her feet and then guided her to the car. He put her in the passenger seat and went back to retrieve the briefcase, which was a little farther down the street.

“Quick!” Alice said.

He got in and started the car and drove off at full speed. A sudden turn to the right, then another, and they were back on the West Side Highway, which ran along the river.

“Shit, they must have seen us!” Alice yelled, emerging from the mental fog caused by the electric shock. White as a sheet, she felt nauseated, and her heart was pounding. Her legs were weak. Bile burned inside her chest.

“What happened to you?”

“You saw for yourself!” she replied, exasperated. “The briefcase was booby-trapped. Someone must have known we were at the hotel. They must have remotely triggered the alarm and the electric shock.”

“You sound kind of paranoid, you know.”

“I wish you’d had that shock instead of me, Keyne! Listen, there’s no point in us trying to escape if someone is tracking our every move!”

“But who