Rook quoted a poem, “ ‘Some say the world will end in fire,/Some say in ice.’ ” He opened his car door and the heat rolled in. “Today, I’m going with fire.”
“I still can’t believe it,” said Morgan Donnelly as she sat down with them at a round café table in the corner. She unsnapped the collar flap of her crisp white chef’s tunic and offered the stainless sugar caddy to Heat and Rook for their iced Americanos. Nikki tried to reconcile the Morgan the baker before her with the Morgan the marketing powerhouse Noah Paxton drew. There was a story there and she would get it. The corners of Donnelly’s mouth turned down, and she said, “You hear about things like this in the news, but it’s never anybody you know.”
The girl came from behind the counter and set a sample plate of mini-cupcakes in the center of the table. When she stepped away, Morgan continued, “I know getting involved with a married man doesn’t make me look like the best person. Maybe I wasn’t. But when it was happening, it seemed so right. Like in the middle of all the pressure of the job there was this passion, this amazing thing that was just ours.” Her eyes filled a little and she swiped her cheek once.
Heat studied her for tells. Too much remorse or not enough were red flags. There were others, of course, but those indicators formed the baseline for her. Nikki hated the term, but so far Morgan’s reaction was appropriate. But the detective needed to do more than take her temp. As the ex of a murder victim, she had to be checked out, and that meant getting answers to two simple questions: Did she have a strong revenge motive, and did she stand to gain from the man’s death? Life would be so much simpler if Heat could just have her check off boxes on a questionnaire and mail it in, but it didn’t work that way and now Nikki’s job was to make this woman a little uncomfortable. “Where were you when Matthew Starr was killed? Say, between twelve-thirty and two-thirty P.M.?” She started throwing the high heat to catch Morgan off guard.
Morgan took a moment and answered without any defensiveness. “I know exactly where I was. I was with the Tribeca Film people for a tasting. I won a catering contract for one of their after-parties this spring, and I remember because the tasting went well and I was driving back here to celebrate that afternoon when I heard about Matthew.”
Nikki made a note and continued. “Did you and Mr. Starr have any contact after the affair ended?”
“Contact. You mean, did we still see each other?”
“That. Or any contact at all.”
“No, although I did see him once a few months ago. But he didn’t see me and we didn’t talk.”
“Where was this?”
“Bloomingdale’s. At the lunch counter downstairs. I was going to get a tea and he was there.”
“Why didn’t you speak to him?”
“He was with someone.”
Nikki made a note. “Did you know her?”
Morgan smiled at Nikki’s perception. “No. I might have said hello to Matthew, but she had her hand on his thigh. They seemed preoccupied.”
“Can you describe her?”
“Blond, young, pretty. Young.” She thought a moment and added, “Oh, and she had an accent. Scandinavian. Denmark or Sweden, maybe, I don’t know.”
Nikki and Rook traded glances, and she could sense him looking over her shoulder as she wrote “Nanny?” in her notes. “So otherwise no contact at all then?”
“No. When it was over, it was over. But it was very cordial.” She looked down at her espresso and then up at Nikki and said, “Bullshit, it was painful as hell. But we were both grown-ups. We both went our ways. Life goes…well…” She left that unfinished.
“Let’s go back to the end of your relationship. It must have been difficult in the office. Did he fire you when it was over?”
“It was my decision to leave. Working together would be awkward for us, and I sure as hell didn’t want to deal with the gossip residue.”
“But still, you had a big career there.”
“I had a big love there. At least I told myself it was. When that ended, I wasn’t focused on my career so much.”
“I’d be angry as hell,” said the detective. Sometimes the best way to ask a question was not to ask it.
“Hurt and fragile, yes. Angry?” Morgan smiled. “It ended up for the better. A relationship like that, you know, the fun-and-convenient, going-nowhere kind? I realized I was using that relationship to stay out of relationships, just as I was with my work. Do you know what I mean?”
Nikki shifted uncomfortably in her chair and managed a neutral “Uh-huh.”
“At best it was a place holder. And I wasn’t getting any younger.” Nikki shifted again, wondering how she had ended up as the one feeling uncomfortable. “Matthew was good to me, though. He offered me a huge chunk of money.”
Nikki snapped out of herself and back to the interview and made a note to check that out with Paxton. “How much did he give you?”
“Nothing. I wouldn’t accept it.”
“It’s not like he would have missed it,” said Rook.
“But don’t you see?” she said to him, as if he never would. “If I took his money, then that would be what it was all about. It wasn’t like people said. It wasn’t about rising to the top on my back with my legs in the air.”
Rook persisted. “Still, nobody would have to know you took his money.”
“I would,” she said.
And with those two words, Detective Heat closed her notebook. A carrot cupcake was screaming at her from that plate and it had to be silenced. As Nikki peeled at the ruffles of the bottom wrapper, she nodded her head to the trendy bake shop and asked, “What about all this? Not where I expected to find the infamous M.B.A. on Red Bull.”
Morgan laughed. “Oh, that Morgan Donnelly. She’s around somewhere. Makes an appearance once in a while and turns my life nuts.” She leaned forward over the table, toward Nikki. “The end of that affair three years ago turned out to be an epiphany. Before it came, I was getting hints, but I ignored them. For instance, some nights I’d stand there in my big old corner office up on the penthouse floor of the Starr Pointe, one phone going, two lines on hold, and a dozen e-mails to answer. And I’d look below on the street and say to myself, ‘Look at all those people down there. Going home to somebody.’ ”
Nikki was licking some buttercream frosting from her fingertip and stopped. “But come on, a career woman at the top of your game, that must have been very satisfying, right?”
“After Matthew, all I could think of was, What was I left with? And all the stuff that had passed me by while I was putting on the power suits and doing the career. You know, life? Well, here was the epiphany. One day I’m watching Good Morning America, and Emeril’s on, and he was making pies, and it got me remembering when I was a kid, how much I loved to bake. So there I was, in my pajamas and Uggs, creeping up on thirty, no job, no relationship, and let’s face it, not getting much out of either one when I had them anyway, thinking, ‘Time to reboot.’ ”
Nikki found her heart racing. She took a sip of her Americano and asked, “So you just took the jump? No net, no regrets, no looking back?”
“At what? I decided to follow my bliss. Of course, the price of bliss is a loan to the eyeballs, but it’s working out. I started small…hell, look around, I still am small…but I’m loving it. I’m even engaged.” She held out her hand, which had no ring on it.
“It’s lovely,” said Rook.
Morgan made a whoops face and blushed a little. “I never wear it when I’m baking, but the guy who does my Web site? He and I are tying the knot this fall. I guess you never know where life’s taking you, huh?”