Ex-Purgatory by Peter Clines (best book club books TXT) 📕

think so? Have you ever met?”

George shook his head. “No.”

“Ever talked on the phone before?”

“No.”

“Exchanged e-mails? Online chat? Message boards? Anything?”

“No.”

“So how would you recognize him?”

George closed his mouth again.

“According to the receptionist you were on hold for a minute and a half while Mr. Burke got to the phone. You talked for a little over seven minutes. What did you talk about?”

“Nothing.”

“You didn’t say anything? You just stood there with the phone in your hand?”

“No, of course—”

“So what did you talk about?”

“I asked who he was. He made a joke.”

“What kind of joke?”

George tried to roll his shoulders. The cuffs bit into his wrists. “I said I thought I had the wrong person. He said if there was another Barry Burke, he probably had a goatee and a sash.”

The blonde furrowed her brow. “What the hell does that mean?”

“Star Trek,” said one of the agents behind George. “In the mirror universe all of the Enterprise crew wore sashes to show their rank, and the evil Spock had a goatee.”

“Shut up, Winston,” she snapped.

“Sorry, ma’am.”

“I just told you to shut up.” Her gaze settled on George again. “So,” she said, “did you recognize Burke?”

He thought about it for a long moment. “No.”

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

“Did he recognize you?”

George paused with his lips half-open. “I don’t know.”

The blond woman stared at him. “In the past week you’ve stopped twice at the Army recruiting office on Lindbrook. Why?”

“Look, I think I at least get to know what this is all about. I’m pretty sure that’s in the Bill of Rights.”

“We’re getting to it,” she said. “Why were you at the recruiting office?”

“My car broke down. I was looking for help. Somebody with jumper cables.”

“And the second time?”

“Same thing.”

Her eyebrows went up. “Your car broke down twice in one week, both times in front of the same office?”

“No,” said George. “The first time was half a block away. The second time was a little before it, but then I knew they had the cables.”

“Who did you talk to there?”

“A sergeant, I think. I don’t know military ranks that well. And a lieutenant.”

“Names?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know.” The huge officer’s name floated up in his memory. “The big guy, the lieutenant, was named Freedom.”

The blonde traded looks with one of the men behind George. Not the Star Trek fan. He glanced over his shoulder and saw the man thumb-typing into a BlackBerry.

“Yesterday afternoon,” the blonde said, “you visited a woman named Karen Quilt at the Four Seasons Hotel.”

“Yes,” said George.

“Do you know Miss Quilt?”

“No. I mean, just from her pictures and stuff.”

“Never met her? Never sent her any e-mails or anything?”

“No.”

“You have any feelings for her?”

He blinked. “What?”

“Do you have dreams about her? Fantasies?”

George paused, then shook his head. “No.”

The blond woman noticed the pause. “Are you stalking her?”

“No!”

She picked his phone and her thumb swung back and forth. She held it out so he could see the message on the screen. “Nikolai Bartamian texted her address to you. The hotel she’s staying at.”

Something twisted in his gut. “Yes.”

“I’m guessing for someone in his line of work, that’s very frowned on. You know there’s a good chance he’ll get fired for that, right?”

“Yeah,” said George. “He said he might.”

She gave him another long stare. “So you’re not stalking her, but you’re willing to risk your friend’s job to get the address of a woman you’ve never met. Am I getting this right?”

“No.”

“So clear it up for me.”

“I just …” He hung his head.

“You wanted to see if she recognized you?”

“Yeah.”

“Why did you think she would know you?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I can’t explain it, I’m sorry.”

“Did she recognize you?”

He sighed. “No.”

“According to her security force in the lobby, you were in the penthouse with her for almost twenty minutes.”

“It was only ten,” he said. “A lot of that was elevators and finding the room.”

“If she didn’t recognize you, what were the two of you talking about for ten minutes?”

“Old movies,” he said. “And Sherlock Holmes.”

“Don’t fuck with me, Bailey.”

He pressed his lips together in a line.

The blonde held out her hand again. The man with the splints took George’s phone away and handed her a brown folder. She tapped it against her hand twice before opening it. Her gaze left George and dropped to the pages inside the folder.

“Are you aware,” she said without looking up, “Miss Quilt is connected to a suspected terrorist? A man wanted by the CIA and Homeland Security, not to mention MI5 and pretty much every other intelligence organization on Earth?”

“I thought everybody knew that,” he said. “Hasn’t it been in People magazine and TMZ and all that?”

“You watch TMZ?”

“No.”

“Read People?”

“No. I think it was an issue of Maxim I found in the cafeteria.”

“And you looked it up online, didn’t you?”

The back of his throat sizzled. He swallowed again and nodded.

“It’s funny,” she said. “We’ve been going over your browser history, and it seems like you double-checked a lot of this information last night after you met with her.”

She held up a photograph. There was a string of numbers and letters down the side of the image. The photo was fuzzy, and the subject’s head was shaved almost bald, but there was no mistaking his harsh features and small glasses. They were sunglasses in the picture, and George found himself wondering if Karen’s father wore polarizing lenses.

The blonde pushed the photo closer to George. “Have you seen this man?”

He looked at the photo for a long moment. “I’m not sure.”

“Think carefully, George,” she said. “Your answer could influence the next thirty-five to forty years of your life.”

And then, just when George was ready to give up, the door opened and the President and First Lady walked into the room.

The President looked at George in the chair. Christian, the First Lady, put her hand up to her mouth, aghast. She turned back to another suit in the doorway and murmured something.

“What’s all this?” President Smith asked. “I just asked you to get him for a talk.”

The blond woman looked confused,