And suddenly she was heading for the door. She was a good four inches shorter than Nick’s six feet, but she didn’t seem intimidated by him at all. Nor, in retrospect, did she seem as thrown by the man with the bullet hole in his head. The girl’s face was pale, she was trembling, but she hadn’t fallen apart, as most “civilians” might. No question, this wasn’t her first dead body. Nick’s either. Even though he was mostly a B&E guy, and had never carried a piece, he’d seen a body before. His second night at Walpole, before getting the transfer to Shirley. Piece of crap dealer hung himself in the cell next to Nick’s, and he’d had to spend six hours next to the body, listening to it bloat and leak. Something he’d never forget.

He thought about stopping the girl as she passed him, but instead stepped aside. His mind was churning. This isn’t good, not good at all. This meeting, originally set up by the red-haired kid, was supposed to change everything. And now Jimmy the Lip was dead, and Nick was standing there, just a few feet away. He couldn’t begin to count the parole violations.

“You’re not waiting for that hotel security to arrive?” he asked. “The ones you called?”

“I didn’t call them,” she said. “And I don’t want to be here when they arrive.”

“And the police?”

“You can stick around if you’d like. This doesn’t involve me at all.”

And then she was through the door. No question, she had her own problems; Nick didn’t think she had anything to do with Jimmy the Lip’s death, but he had no idea what she had been doing in his room. The fact she hadn’t called the police was a big red flag, the sort of flag that maybe made her a more likely ally than adversary. Nick took one last look at Jimmy the Lip, then followed the girl, quickening his step to catch up. She was heading away from the elevators, toward a door at the end of the hall marked “Emergency Exit.”

“Hold up. I’m coming with you.”

“Like hell you are,” she said, quickening her pace. “I’m getting as far away from this, and you, as I can. Like I said, this doesn’t involve me—”

“I find you in a room with my dead fence. That makes you involved.”

She looked at him.

“Fence? Like in the movies?”

“Whatever. Look, when they find the body, they’re going to look at the cameras from the casino, from the elevator, from wherever else they’ve got them. And they’re going to see you, and they’re going to see me. And they are going to put us both on this floor, maybe entering that room.”