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  Her father started to stand, ready to make the three-block walk to his own apartment.

  “Have you got a second?” she asked.

  “Of course.” He eased back into the recliner.

  She told him about the visit she’d had from Robert and Cynthia Bell, followed by her drop-in at Kendra’s townhouse. “I spent most of the day reading up on the case again. The press was scathing. I couldn’t find a single sympathetic article about Martin’s wife. But I didn’t see any official indication from the police department that she was actually a suspect.”

  “But let me guess: The NYPD didn’t say anything to clear her name, either.”

  She shook her head.

  “Don’t quote me on this, but let me teach you how to read between the lines. The Martin Bell case was one where the newspapers were doing enough on their own to gin up public interest in the investigation.”

  “There was no need for the police to hold press conferences and the like,” Laurie said, following his logic.

  “Yes, but it’s more than the amount of coverage. It’s the angle. When I was working homicides, I had a case—a bad one. Kids were involved.” He frowned at the memory. Leo had loved his work as a police officer, but Laurie remembered the way certain types of crimes would zap her normally upbeat father and rob him of his smile. “One of the reporters got it in his head that the nanny did it. Something about being jealous that she couldn’t have children of her own. But here’s the thing: we knew she had an ironclad alibi, and we could see with our own eyes how much she mourned for those kids. So we put out a statement that made it clear that we considered the nanny to be a secondary victim of the crime. It shut down the negative press coverage about her in an instant.” He snapped his fingers for emphasis.

  “But the NYPD didn’t do the same for Kendra Bell,” Laurie noted.

  “Exactly.”

  “So she’s a suspect.”

  He shrugged. “I heard some things at the time.”

  “Such as?”

  “Remember how the press was calling her a druggie or whatever?” Leo asked.

  As much as the public seemed convinced that Kendra had killed her husband, the sensational coverage didn’t appear to have been backed by facts. All the articles boiled down to one basic observation: Martin Bell had been a superstar with a big public career, married to a recluse who had failed to live up to the potential her husband had once seen in her. There were anecdotes about her appearing intoxicated the few times she’d been spotted with him socially in the months before his murder. And a couple of anonymous sources alleged that she’d been withdrawing more cash than a stay-at-home mom was likely to spend. But Laurie hadn’t seen anything close to a smoking gun.

  “Stoner Mom,” Laurie said, recalling one of the headlines. “One of the neighbors—anonymous, of course—said Kendra seemed out of it sometimes. But other people made it sound more like she might just have a tendency to drink a little too much. Maybe if she was a drinker, she was hungover sometimes.”

  “I think it was more than that,” Leo said as he gazed toward the ceiling. “It was never disclosed to the press, but word got out around the department. Her behavior was apparently very strange the night of the murder. She acted like she was in a daze. The responding officers weren’t even sure she was processing what was going on. In short, they asked if they could do a blood draw to make sure she wasn’t under the influence of anything. Her husband had just been shot in cold blood and she was throwing a fit about taking a drug test without a search warrant.”

  “Wanting privacy doesn’t make someone a murderer,” Laurie reminded him.

  “Yes, but then they started looking into the finances.”

  “The cash withdrawals,” Laurie said. Kendra had been using her ATM card to make frequent cash-machine withdrawals from the couple’s joint savings account. “I wonder if the police leaked that to the press.”

  “It was more than just the cash,” her father continued, getting a second wind. “After Martin was killed, the police got a tip that Kendra was a regular at a dive bar in the East Village.”

  “I suppose it makes sense if she had a drinking problem. But she didn’t strike me as the dive bar type. . . .”

  “Exactly. It raises the question why she’d be going there. Turns out that, in the days before Martin’s death, Kendra had met a tough-looking guy three or four times at the same spot. Even more suspiciously, neither of them went back to that fine establishment after the husband was shot.”

  “So who was the tough guy?”

  He shook his head. “They couldn’t trace him. Like Kendra, he always paid cash. And, from what I heard, Kendra wasn’t especially helpful when the police asked her about him.”

  Laurie frowned, processing the new information. Kendra was in bed at the time of the shooting, so clearly she hadn’t committed the murder personally. Her detractors speculated that she had squirreled away cash from her frequent ATM withdrawals to pay a hit man. If Laurie could prove that Kendra had been meeting with a strange man prior to the killing, she’d have more than mere speculation for her television program. “Do you remember the name of the bar?”

  “Not sure I ever knew it. But I’m sure I can find out.”

  “Of course you can,” she said. Leo Farley had retired from the NYPD after Greg was killed, so he could help Laurie raise Timmy, but years later, even rookie police officers stood up straighter when he entered a room. Last year, he had accepted an invitation to join the department’s anti-terrorism task force on a part-time basis. As long as Leo was around, his reach within the department would remain wide.

  She walked her father to the door and gave him a good-bye hug.

  “You got what I meant about reading between the lines?” he asked.

  “I did. Thanks for the tutorial, Professor. Maybe the chief judge of the Southern District of New York would find it an interesting subject over dinner.”

  “Oh, don’t get any ideas. But I’m serious: Just because Kendra was never named a suspect doesn’t mean the whole NYPD doesn’t think she’s guilty.” His tone suddenly became troubled. “Her husband was killed while she had young children. It’s only natural that you’ll connect with her on some level. But she’s probably a killer. Be careful, Laurie.”

  12

  Exhausted from the day, Laurie cracked the door to Timmy’s bedroom after her father was gone. She could barely make out his silhouette on the bed in the pitch dark. Her little boy was well beyond any need for a night-light. He wasn’t even a little boy, she supposed, but she would choose to think of him that way for now.

  Once she had crawled into her own bed, she pulled out her phone, which had been turned off during dinner, to send Charlotte a quick text message. Still aching from spin this morning. Why didn’t you warn me? She pulled up the emoji menu and added tiny pictures of a bicycle and a happy face with devil horns.

  Charlotte quickly replied with a flexed muscle, followed by a kiss sign, followed by Zzzz to signify sleep.

  Laurie was still smiling about the note when a new voicemail alert appeared on her screen. The phone number looked vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t quite place it. She hit the play button.

  “Ms. Moran, it’s Kendra Bell. You caught me off guard today at the house. I didn’t even have a chance to tell you my side of the story. Can I meet you tomorrow afternoon? I looked at the patient schedule at work, and I can leave a little early. Would three o’clock work? And, please, you must keep your promise to keep my kids out of it.” Her voice was shaky.

  Laurie replayed the message, making sure it wasn’t her imagination.

  No, she was certain. Kendra’s concerns had been apparent earlier that night, but now she sounded different. She wasn’t simply anxious or nervous. She sounded rattled. Shaken. Absolutely terrified. And yet she was agreeing to do the show.

  Why are you so scared? Laurie wondered. What are you afraid I’ll find?

  13

  When Laurie arrived to work the following
morning, she found Grace in Jerry’s office. Both of them were huddled over the phone in Grace’s hand.

  “He hates dogs?” Jerry was saying.

  “What kind of person hates dogs? What’s wrong with him? That’s an automatic swipe left.” Laurie heard a little beep as Grace swept a perfectly manicured index finger across her screen.

  “Browsing for boys again?” Laurie asked, interrupting their latest online matchmaking session. She had been spared the now common practice of online dating, but knew that “swiping left” on someone’s profile was the virtual equivalent of slamming a door on him. Laurie marveled at Grace’s carefree attitude about dating. She was perfectly content as a single woman, but obviously enjoyed the butterflies that came with meeting new people.

  Grace sheepishly tucked her phone into the pocket of her fitted black blazer. “Sorry about that. We were both in early, but I guess it’s officially work time.”

  Laurie waved a hand. “Don’t worry.” As much as she thought of Jerry and Grace as her “work family,” she realized that ultimately, they also saw her as their boss.

  “We can’t all be as lucky as you and Alex,” Grace said. “You found the right guy at work. Meanwhile, I’m out kissing a bunch of frogs from the Internet.”

  “What about Ryan?” Jerry pointed out. “When he first started working here, all you talked about was how fine he was.”

  “Yeah, and then I got to know him,” Grace said, rolling her eyes. “No, thanks. Speaking of the ever-confident Mr. Nichols, he came by your office just a few minutes ago, Laurie. He wanted to know when Kendra Bell would be coming in for an initial interview. Excuse me for speaking out of turn, but sometimes I think that man forgets who literally runs the show around here.”

  “To be fair,” Laurie said, “I’m the one who asked him to go to Kendra’s with me yesterday.”

  “And how did that go?” Jerry asked.

  “It worked,” she said, reaching into her briefcase to produce Kendra’s signed participation agreement. “She agreed to do the show. It’s weird, though. She called me after we left her house last night, and she sounded absolutely petrified.”

  Jerry crossed his arms, mulling over the observation. “Well, you did put her between a rock and a hard place. Either she had to do the show, or her in-laws would have realized that she was the one holding it up.”

  Laurie nodded. “But that much was already true when we were at her place. When she called, it was different—as if something had happened in between that really rattled her.”

  “Maybe she looked into our track record,” Grace said. So far, Under Suspicion had solved every case they had selected for production.

  “Maybe,” Laurie said, thinking again about the unknown man that Kendra was supposedly meeting at a dive bar shortly before the murder. If Kendra had hired a hit man to kill Martin, she had more than Laurie’s investigation to be afraid of. The man who pulled the trigger would not want her talking to a television producer. She remembered her father’s warning from last night and found herself wondering where this case might take her.

  • • •

  Laurie found Ryan in his office, practicing putts on a strip of green Astroturf. He was just about to hit a ball when she said, “Grace said you were looking for me.”

  The ball went careening to the right and rolled onto the office carpet.

  “Sorry,” she said.

  “Good thing it didn’t count.” He held out the putter to her, offering her a try, which she declined.

  “Trust me. I’d somehow find a way to send it through the windows.” She told him about the frightened phone call from Kendra Bell the previous night. “She can leave early today, so we’ll meet at three. My guess is she won’t want us at her house because of the children, so I’ll see if she’s willing to come up here.”

  “I can’t do three. I’ve got an appointment with my trainer.”

  “I’ll let you know how it goes. I’ll be interested to hear any alternative theories she has about the murder. The only public speculation has been about her.”

  “You’re not going to reschedule it?”

  “No. She works full-time and has two kids, and this was the time she had available. But have a good workout.”

  • • •

  Laurie had carefully worked her way through half of the real estate listings that Rhoda Carmichael had dropped off at her apartment the previous night when the Realtor called her cell phone. “So don’t leave me hanging,” Rhoda said. “Give me your list of must-see’s so I can line up some viewings.”

  Laurie flipped through the binder and realized she had only dog-eared two pages so far. The properties were all stunning by any reasonable definition, far beyond anything Laurie could ever afford on her own. But they were all so . . . cold. Almost too pristine. She couldn’t picture herself and Timmy in any of them.

  “The one at Eighty-sixth and Lex would be a great location for us,” she said halfheartedly, wondering why the listing included only two photographs. “And the apartment on Ninetieth has a good setup for Ramon to have a separate living area from us, but it’s a little too far east.”

  “Well, don’t forget the new Second Avenue subway,” Rhoda chirped. “What used to be the boondocks is now prime neighborhood real estate.”

  “It’s more about being close to my father and the school. We have our routines.”

  “I swear, Laurie.” Supposedly Rhoda was born and bred in Queens, but somehow she had a slightly Southern accent. “Sometimes I get the impression you don’t want to move at all.”

  And you’re right, Laurie thought to herself. I want to be married to Alex, but I don’t want to upend everything else about my life. “Maybe we can bribe the Hollanders next door to move and just combine two apartments,” she said whimsically.

  “Good luck getting your co-op to agree to that. And then where are you going to live during a year of construction?” Laurie’s trial balloon was quickly deflated. “The Eighty-sixth and Lex property won’t last long. Let me get you in there today. Does noon work?”

  Laurie sighed. She was available, and Alex should be, too. “Sure, set it up.” At least she’d have an excuse to see Alex in the middle of the day.

  14

  The smell of Rhoda Carmichael’s perfume filled the elevator, a combination of lilies and baby powder. Rhoda held her ubiquitous cell phone in her right hand and a handbag the size of a small child in her left.

  Alex flashed Laurie a smile with his eyes as they watched the floors tick upward. She knew he was sharing her thoughts: Rhoda is going to ask us to sign a contract on sight.

  Rhoda hadn’t slipped the keys into the lock before the warning signs emerged. She talked up the “partial view,” which was Realtor-speak for a sliver of sky beyond a brick wall. “Old, established building” meant outdated, snooty, or both. And the kiss of death was “such charming potential,” which was like describing a person as having a “good personality.”

  As Laurie walked through the apartment with Alex, she tried once again to visualize their new life together. Timmy had become an enthusiastic trumpeter, so the walls needed to be solid enough to protect the neighbors. Both she and Alex would occasionally work from home, so at least one home office was a must. And, of course, Ramon needed his living space and a kitchen worthy of his skills.

  Within moments, they were talking about the need to move walls and replace bathrooms and kitchens. The thought of it was exhausting. This apartment wasn’t going to work.

  “Is your father’s situation a deal breaker?” Rhoda asked.

  Laurie blinked, not understanding the question.

  “The location,” Rhoda explained. “You’re very selective about it now. Between your son’s school and your father’s apartment, I’m working with a six-block radius. If I could broaden the geography, I’m sure I could find something perfect for you.”

  “We have some wiggle room, but my son has school. My dad has his life. That’s not changing,” Laurie said.


  “I know. But I was thinking about it. You have Ramon, who seems capable of anything, including driving your son. So if your father lived near you—or even with you—you could buy just about anywhere in Manhattan, and Timmy would still have a way to and from school.”

  Laurie pictured her son riding in the back of a Mercedes instead of tagging along at her father’s side, backpack in tow. It wasn’t how she imagined his future.

  “I can’t ask my father to move,” she said. “Besides, he and Ramon would end up arm wrestling for the role of boss of the household. Too many strong personalities for one apartment.”

  Alex laughed, picturing the scene.

  Rhoda held up both palms, giving up the fight. “Very well then. We’ll find you the perfect spot. Another thing to be mindful of are the demands of the various co-op boards. Some of them might have concerns about you.”

  “We’re not exactly a couple of hardened criminals.” Laurie knew she sounded defensive, but how couldn’t she?

  “I know, I know,” Rhoda said quickly. “I shouldn’t have worded it that way. But I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the buildings had concerns about the nature of your work, Laurie. After all, it has put you in danger previously, so just be prepared for them to ask you about it.”

  “They’ll have nothing to worry about,” Alex assured her. “As I mentioned, the U.S. Marshals Service is going to insist on adding a top-notch security system to any place we decide to move.”

  Rhoda let out a dramatic sigh. “Well, that’s going to present a different issue for some buildings. I’m sure they’ll be worried about the inconvenience to other residents of that kind of work, no different than any other renovation.”

  “So either I’m a walking target for danger,” Laurie said, “or Alex comes with too much security. Any other causes for rejection we should be aware of?”