“But he’d left with you two by that point. By the time I caught up with all of you…” She pulled a pack of Dunhills from her purse, lit one with a slim gold lighter, sucked the air back into her lungs, and exhaled with her head tilted toward the sky. “By the time I reached you, Jay and Mr. Cushing and Graham Clifton were dead. And I couldn’t do anything but stand around and watch.” She shook her head bitterly. “Like a brainless asshole.”

“Even if you had caught up with us in time,” Angie said, “there wouldn’t have been anything you could have done to change what happened.”

“Well, we’ll never know now, will we?” Desiree said with a sad smile.

Angie gave her a sad smile in return. “No, I guess we won’t.”

She had no place to go and no money. Whatever Price had done with the two million after he’d killed the other woman and blown out of the Ambassador may have died with him.

Our interrogation seemed to have worn her out and Angie offered Desiree her suite for the night.

Desiree said, “Just a quick nap, I’ll be fine,” but when we passed through Angie’s suite five minutes later, Desiree was flopped on her stomach, still dressed, atop the bedcovers, as deep in sleep as anyone I’ve ever seen.

We went back into my room, shut the door on Desiree, and the phone rang. It was Devin.

“You still want to know the name of the dead girl?”

“Yeah.”

“Illiana Carmen Rios. A working girl. Last known residence, One-twelve Seventeenth Street Northeast, St. Petersburg.”

“Priors?” I said.

“She took ten or so falls for hooking. On the plus side, she probably won’t have to worry about doing any jail time in the near future.”

“I don’t know,” Angie said as we stood in the bathroom with the shower running. If the room was bugged, now we had to worry about what we said again.

“Don’t know what?” I said as the steam rose in clouds from the tub.

She leaned against the sink. “About her. I mean, every story she told had a fantastic quality to it, didn’t you think?”

I nodded. “But none any less so than most of the stories we’ve heard in this case.”

“Which is what bothers me. Story upon story, layer upon layer, and all of it either complete or partial bullshit since this thing began. And why does she need us?”

“Protection?”

She sighed. “I don’t know. Do you trust her?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t trust anyone except you.”

“Hey, that’s my line.”

“Yeah.” I smiled. “Sorry.”

She waved her hand at me. “Go ahead. Take it. What’s mine is yours.”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” she said and turned her face up toward mine. “Really,” she said softly.

“Feeling’s mutual,” I said.