Author: Sidney Sheldon
Category: Thriller
Go to read content：https://readnovelfree.com/p/38519_68
Dublenko’s expression soured. “Princess Sofia. That’s what he called her. Fuck knows what her real name was. Frankie was totally obsessed by her.”
“You resented their friendship?”
“Ah, whatever.” Dublenko waved a hand dismissively. “It was bullshit, that’s all. I remember Frankie telling me she was descended from the Moroccan royal family. Like, sure. That’s how she wound up dumped on the streets in Brooklyn, right?”
Danny hesitated. Something Dublenko just said had reminded him of something, but he couldn’t think what.
“I left the Beeches before Sofia arrived there, but I met her once, right before Frankie left town, and a precious little bitch she was too. I heard that before she met Frankie, the male staff at her previous home used to pass her around like one of those blowup dolls. Give it to her up her royal ass.” Victor Dublenko laughed lecherously at the memory. “She was just another skank, used goods, but Frankie didn’t want to hear it. ‘My princess,’ he called her. She put some kinda spell on him.”
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After satisfying himself that Dublenko had told him all he knew, Danny paid him and caught a cab back to his hotel. It was dark now and bitterly cold outside. Retreating to the warm cocoon of his room, he locked the door, threw his notes, tape recorder and briefcase on the bed and checked his messages. Nothing interesting. After a brief call to Céline—for the third night in a row Danny got to tell his wife’s voice mail how much he loved and missed her—and another failed attempt to reach Matt Daley, he dialed Claire Michaels’s number.
“This gay guy that Matt mentioned, Lisa’s lover. Did he tell you his name?”
“I don’t think so,” said Claire. “Oh, wait. He might have said something in passing. Franco? Francesco? Is that possible?”
Hanging up, Danny stripped off his clothes and jumped into the shower. Something about pounding jets of hot water always helped him think. He felt as if today he’d been handed multiple pieces of the jigsaw puzzle. And if he could only somehow see how they fit together, he might have the answer to this riddle. The problem was that they weren’t the pieces he’d been looking for.
He came to New York looking for information about Lisa Baring’s past. Instead, he’d learned a lot about Lyle Renalto’s. Only there was no Lyle Renalto, there was only this Frankie Mancini. Frankie Mancini…who was gay…so he couldn’t be Azrael the rapist-killer, right?…but who was apparently linked with Lisa Baring. Though not as her lover. Just as Frankie had not been “Princess Sofia’s” lover, whoever she may have been. Just as Lyle Renalto had not been Angela Jakes’s lover. Everything was linked, but each link came full circle back to itself rather than connecting with the others.
Lisa…Lyle…Frankie.
Lisa…Angela…Sofia.
What am I not seeing?
It wasn’t just the people who came full circle but the places too. New York, L.A., Hong Kong, Italy, New York. And Morocco. That’s it. Dublenko said Frankie’s Princess Sofia claimed to come from Morocco. That’s where Matt Daley and Lisa were going to run off to, before Lisa disappeared.
Was Morocco important, or just a coincidence? Danny’s head ached.
Drying himself off, he sat down on the bed and looked again at Frankie Mancini’s photograph in the Beeches yearbook. Lyle Renalto smiled mockingly back at him. Frankie was younger than Lyle, his face more fleshy and rounded. Yet despite the differences, they were clearly the same person.
On instinct, without really k
nowing why, Danny switched on his computer and pulled up the picture Inspector Liu had provided of Lisa Baring, the one he’d given the NYPD and various agencies and organizations in the city with so little success. He stared at Lisa’s face for a long time, almost as if he expected her to speak, to reveal her secrets. Finally, he zoomed in on her eyes, the eyes that had bewitched Matt Daley—and presumably Miles Baring before him—reducing him to a shadow of his former self. They reminded Danny of other eyes he had seen. Eyes he had seen somewhere else. Eyes he had seen long ago.
All at once, there it was. Literally staring him in the face.
Heart pounding, Danny McGuire picked up the telephone.
How could I have been so blind?
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
INSPECTOR LIU LOOKED AT THE HOTEL manager distastefully. The man was bald, apparently uneducated and morbidly obese, his whalelike blubber squeezed into a gray polyester suit two sizes too small for him and so shiny it was almost silver. Yet he seemed to be running one of the most expensive establishments in Sydney, a five-star hotel right on the harbor whose clients included rock stars and politicians. There was no justice in this world.
“You’re quite sure it was her?”
“Look, mate,” the manager wheezed, handing back the photograph of Lisa Baring. “I might not be Stephen friggin’ Hawkins, all right, but I know how to recognize a face. Especially a face that gorgeous. It’s part of my job.” He scratched his armpits unselfconsciously. “It was a couple of months ago now. Stacey upstairs’ll have the exact dates for you. She checked in with a bloke, good-looking fella, but she paid the bill. I’m pretty sure they reserved under ‘Smith.’”
“You don’t verify your guests’ passports?”
The manager snorted derisively. “We’re not the bloody FBI, Mr. Liu.”
“Inspector Liu,” Liu said coldly.
“And no offense, but we’re not the Chinese police state either,” the fat Australian went on, ignoring him. “If I started sniffing around every Mr. and Mrs. Smith who checked in here, I’d soon go out of business, let me tell you.”
“Who paid the bill?”