Guilty Minds by Joseph Finder Read Free Book Online

number with a Washington area code.
    I still liked the idea of pretending to be the journalist. Kayla probably had a relationship of trust with her, reporter and source. If Mandy asked to meet, she was likely to agree to it. If that didn’t work, I’d try something else.
    I left the lobby and returned to the car. Then I took out my phone and fired up Burner. I chose the area code for Washington, 202, and texted Kayla’s phone:
    Kayla, it’s Mandy on a new phone. We have to meet.
    Then I waited.
    More than a minute.
    Then a text came back:
    When?
    Relieved—it had worked—I texted back:
    Now. 30 min.
    A pause, shorter this time, then:
    OK, where?
    I thought a moment. As soon as she saw me, she’d figure out that I had impersonated the reporter from Slander Sheet
.
I’d have to talk fast or do something to convince her I wasn’t a danger. That was best attempted in some public space.
    I texted her the name and address of a Starbucks I’d passed not too far from her apartment building.
    OK, she replied. 30.
    Meaning she’d be there in half an hour.
    I got to the Starbucks ten minutes later and found a table with sightlines to both entrances. I sipped a black coffee. The table wobbled. I looked around to see if she’d arrived early, but I didn’t see anyone who resembled her. Just the usual assortment of Starbucks customers. A young intern in a rumpled white button-down shirt placing an order for eleven beverages including a banana chocolate Vivanno, whatever that was. A couple of hipsters. A businessman in a suit and tie looking at an iPad, probably between appointments. A guy and a girl, college-student age, chatting awkwardly, maybe on a date.
    After I’d been sitting for fifteen minutes, a petite blond woman entered. She was wearing heavy black-framed glasses, an oversized sweatshirt, and flip-flops. The sweatshirt said CORNELIUS COLLEGE in red block letters. She was small, vulnerable-looking. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail. She scanned the interior, back and forth.
    She looked frightened. That’s what grabbed my attention most of all. What was she afraid of?
    Finally she sat down at a table and took out her phone. She glanced at it, looked around some more. I got up and approached her table. It was crowded enough in the coffeehouse that it didn’t necessarily seem creepy when I said, “Can I join you?”
    She looked up at me, scrunched her eyes. “Sorry, I’m meeting a friend.”
    I nodded. “Mandy asked me here.”
    “Who are you?” she said with suspicion.
    I stuck out my hand. “Kayla,” I said, “I’m Nick Heller.”

11
    W hat happened to Mandy?” she said. She was wearing no makeup and was young enough that she looked beautiful without it. Her skin was nearly translucent. I noticed purplish circles, like bruises, under her gray-blue eyes. Her eyes were pretty, but they were red-rimmed.
    “It’s just me,” I said.
    “I don’t get it. Who are you? Besides Nick whoever? I mean, a lawyer, a reporter, what?” She had a fairly thick southern accent.
    “I’m a private investigator. I’ve been hired by Slander Sheet to verify your story.”
    She kept her handbag on her lap. It was a Chanel. I wasn’t sure, but I had a feeling by the way she clutched it that it might not be counterfeit. “An investigator?” She narrowed her eyes in suspicion.
    “They’re really going out on a limb on this story, so they want to make sure it’s solid.” I was lying, sure, but I justified it to myself on the grounds that she was, too. “They want to make sure they don’t get stuck with a bad story the way
Rolling Stone
magazine was, with that UVA story.”
    “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    “It’s not important.”
    She looked around the coffee shop. “So Mandy’s not coming?”
    “Right.” She seemed anxious.
    I’d known a few call girls, and I recognized the basic profile. They tend to be materialistic. They like their Chanel bags and their Jimmy Choos. They like to