Gray Night by Gregory Colt Read Free Book Online Page B

anyone here,” I said. But, that wasn’t right anymore. Not after Henry. “Or I… I do now. I know more about them than anyone,” I whispered.
     He stopped, bent halfway into the car listening. I thought he would stand and talk to me when I saw the door move. He sat down instead. I was not letting this happen. When he shut his door, I opened my side and plopped myself right down into his passenger seat. I shut my door, put on my seatbelt, and gave him the sweet smile I reserved for formal occasions. “ I work alone . Does saying that work in real life?” I asked, trying to tighten my seatbelt.
     He looked at me for a long time, apparently coming to a decision.
     “396?” I patted the dash to fill the silence.
     He turned the key and created thunder.
     I was about to say, ‘guess not’, when he leaned over, grabbed the loose end of my seatbelt, and yanked hard, pinning me to the seat.
     “454,” he said, throwing the shift into reverse. He put his arm behind my headrest turning around to look behind him. “Nice outfit.”
     Silence reigned for several blocks, and that suited me fine. It gave me time to think about how to proceed. So when he did speak, I knew what I wanted.
     “I suppose you’re going to want to run by your place and change clothes,” he said.
     “No,” I lied. “I’ve wasted too much time this morning as it is. We need to get started and my apartment’s in the complete opposite direction of—where are we going?”
     Adrian nodded. “A friend of mine, Nick Roarke, has an office not too far from here.”
     “I see.” Henry had mentioned Nick Roarke a couple of times. I think he was a private investigator who worked with Knight sometimes, maybe even friends or something. I didn’t like the idea of another person I didn’t know working on this, but that was silly. The truth is we could use all the help we could get. “And what is it he can do for us?”
     “Lend us his office, for one thing,” he said. “Nick’s out of town. We share information, so whatever I have he’ll have copies of, and his office is closer than my place. Figured it would be a good idea to stay in the city since we still have some time today. Start talking to contacts. See if there’s any word yet on those stolen items, or anything at all concerning the museum. We don’t have much to go on, but Richard was right about having a better chance tackling this from our end of things. We’re in a better position than the police to find those items if they start being shopped around, or if anyone starts talking. So the sooner we get word out the sooner we hear back. The sooner we hear back—”
     “The sooner we have a lead,” I finished.
     He nodded.
     “What else did Richard say after I left?”
     “Not much. Went over the morning’s events. You called. He came. The police were already there. He spent most of the time cancelling the opening today and shutting the museum down through the weekend. Then he handed me this,” he said, pulling a thick manila envelope out of his jacket and handing it to me.
     I opened it and slid out the papers. “Oh, it’s my work,” I said. “You know, copies of my research and journals and things from the last several months.”
     “Yeah. Lot of info there. I was hoping you could highlight what’s relevant. We should go over it in detail later, but right now let’s focus on the stolen pieces.”
     “Yes. No, this is good. I meant to grab this myself when I thought I was going to be doing this on my own.”
     “And that’s why you’re not sitting in the parking lot behind the museum right now.”
     “What? What do you mean? That you’re tolerating me because of this?” I asked, waving the folder.
     “It helps,” he said. “But also the part about doing this on your own.”
     “I was going to. I would have.”
     “I know.”
     “I just led a team for nine weeks in Central America. I can take care of myself, Mr. Knight.”
     He looked