Midnight Pass: A Lew Fonesca Novel (Lew Fonesca Novels) by Stuart M. Kaminsky Page A

Janice Severtson needed a comb and a good dry cleaner. Her white robe was splotched with blood.
    “Can we come in?” she asked. “Please.”
    I stepped back and the weeping trio came in. I closed the door and turned to watch them sit on the small sofa. Janice Severtson was trying to comfort them, kissing the tops of their heads, hugging her children.
    “How did you find me?” I asked. “And why?”
    “I called the desk after I recognized you earlier,” she said. “I said I didn’t remember your name but that we knew each other from Sarasota. I described you. They found someone who remembered checking you in.”
    “I hope the description was kind,” I said, putting my jeans on over the orange boxer shorts I had been sleeping in.
    She didn’t answer that one. I pulled my shirt on over my head.
    “I called some friends I can trust in Sarasota,” she went on, looking at the dark television screen and hugging her sobbing children. “Found someone who knew you. My husband sent you, didn’t he?”
    “Yes,” I said.
    “Can I trust you?” she asked, continuing to soothe her children. “I have no one else to turn to.”
    “You can trust me. But I’m not sure why you should believe you can.”
    “No choice,” she said with a shrug. “I want you to take Sydney and Kenny back to their father.”
    Both children said, “no,” but Janice wasn’t listening.
    “At three in the morning?” I asked.
    She sat the children on the little sofa against the wall and told them she would be back in a second. Kenneth Jr. turned his head into his mother’s shoulder. The little girl looked down and bit her lip. Then Janice motioned for me to follow her into the bedroom, where she closed the door.
    “I just killed Andrew Stark,” she said. “I’ve got to go back to the room and call the police. Take my children home. Please. My husband is a good father. I don’t want them involved.”
    “Let’s go to your room and have a look before we call the police.”
    I slipped my bare feet into my unlaced sneakers and opened the door.
    Janice Severtson hugged both her children and told them she would be gone for just a minute. They weren’t crying anymore. They looked as if they were nearly asleep.
    “Can we watch television?” Kenny asked.
    “Sure,” I said, handing him the remote.
    He clicked it on. A voice in Spanish rattled excitedly about a soccer match going between guys in green uniforms and guys in yellow ones.
    “They play soccer in Mexico in the middle of the night?” he asked.
    “It’s a tape,” I said.
    He nodded knowingly, eyes blinking as he changed the station and watched a crocodile slither into a pond of water.
    “Be right back,” Janice Severtson said, following me through the door after I checked my pocket to be sure I had my room card.
    Even at three in the morning, the atrium wasn’t empty. Five men were seated eight stories down talking softly. A crew of cleaning people was sweeping and scrubbing. Janice Severtson looked down across the open space at the closed door of her room a floor below.
    “What happened?” I asked quietly.
    She wiped her eyes with her sleeve, took a deep breath.
    “He tried to rape me,” she said. “He hit me, pulled my hair. He’d gotten up during the night. He was drunk. There was a knife on the table. His knife along with his wallet and keys. I told him to stop. He didn’t. I told him he’d wake the children, that they would see us. I begged him. He grabbed my wrist and laughed. We were standing there, just…I twisted my arm and pulled free and then I brought the knife down. He looked surprised. The children slept through it all. Thank God, the children slept through it. Andrew, he lay there with the knife in his chest. I didn’t know what…You know the rest. I’ll go back and call the police. You take care of my children, please.”
    “You’re sure he’s dead?” I asked.
    “Yes. I covered his body with the blanket so the children wouldn’t see him when