“Those are all just details, Ellie. Say you want it to happen, and I’ll know it’s going to happen.” He pushed her hair back behind her ear and stroked her cheek. “You’re looking for reasons to say no.”
He had it wrong. She wanted to say yes. She wanted to unpack moving boxes with him and argue about how to arrange the furniture. She wanted to wake up with him every morning.
And it wasn’t the logistics of leases and square footage and rent control that kept her from leaping at the invitation, one she’d been hoping for at some level for months. As much as she wanted to, she couldn’t ignore the real reason he was asking her for this now.
“Do you really think we should move in together when you know we ultimately are going to want different things? It’ll just make things that much harder on both of us down the road when you—”
“We don’t need to decide that now. It’s taking it to the next step. We’ll make bigger decisions later—together.”
She saw Rogan standing in front of the precinct, watching them, keys in hand.
“But I told you, that one big decision has already been made. You’re asking me to change.”
Ellie had lived with a boyfriend once. He had wanted her to change, too. He couldn’t understand why she had to keep working as a cop when he was offering her the life of an investment banker’s wife. When she realized she had to leave, she had nowhere to go. She was stuck under his roof, still sleeping in his bed, still sleeping with him, until one of Jess’s friends decided to move to Nashville and Ellie scored her apartment.
“You’ve told me before about every guy you’ve ever dated wanting you to change. I don’t want you ever to change, at least not for me, not for anyone but yourself. But I know you, Ellie. You may not believe me, but I know there’s room for evolution in your life. That is not the same as asking you to change. I’m asking you to make room for some flexibility. To let yourself not make final decisions. To make room for another person in your life. To open up your mind to the possibility that life is a constant process of getting to know yourself, and that sometimes you get to know yourself better when you’re not so alone.”
She’d heard him say all this that first night, when they were fighting. Not everything was black-and-white. Maybe so, but most things were.
Rogan was staring at his shoes now, jiggling the keys.
“Damn it. Rogan’s waiting. We’ve got to find Adrienne Langston.”
“You can’t say yes before you leave?”
“Not like that, Max. I want to, but I want it to be real. I want us both to feel right about it.”
“Okay, I get it. The offer still stands.”
“We’ll figure it out, okay? I promise. I love you.”
He nodded, but didn’t respond as she turned to walk away.
Chapter Fifty
For the sixth time in a mile, Rogan hit the dashboard lights to cut through a snarl of traffic on Highway 27.
“What is it about white people and the Hamptons?”
To call 27 a highway this far east was misleading. The state should relabel it Gridlock 27. Parking Lot 27. Fancy Car Show 27. Come Memorial Day, this two-lane road that connected Southampton to Watermill to Bridgehampton to East Hampton to Amagansett to Montauk would be a knot of Porsches, Range Rovers, and Jaguars filled with beautiful people bouncing between the beach, gourmet restaurants, and designer boutiques. Cars were at least moving this time of year, but at a crawl.
“And what’s up with you?” he said. “You been staring out that window the whole ride. This got something to do with that pop-in from Donovan?”
She didn’t want to talk about Max to anyone else. It would feel like a betrayal. “I think you’d fit right in here with your black BMW and fancy Joseph Abboud suits.”
“Hate to break it to you, but Abboud’s not fancy. This here’s Valentino.”
“See what I mean? Wait. Turn right up here.” They had decided not to call ahead. Sometimes a witness’s startled face said more than her words. They wanted to see Adrienne’s expression when they showed her the photograph of Julia at the country house. They wanted to watch as they asked her about a phone call to their home from a family law attorney. They needed to be there in person as they raised the possibility that her husband had been sleeping with a girl she’d treated like a daughter.
Sometimes their work was cruel.
Ellie continued to navigate. As they passed the turnoff for the Maidstone Golf Club, they saw water ahead. “This is it. The last turn. Take a right. The Langston house should be on the left.”
As soon as Rogan made the turn, she saw the overhead lights of an East Hampton Town Police patrol car to her right. At first it was just the one car near the intersection, but further down, she caught sight of at least one more East Hampton marked car, a Suffolk County Police car, two unmarked fleet cars, and an ambulance.
A uniformed officer next to the first car held up a hand to stop them. She rolled down her window, and Rogan leaned over to speak.
“What’s up, guy?” The question was code, the kind of easy line retired cops gave during a traffic stop. To call an officer guy meant you were on the job.
Ellie found that badges worked just as well as macho code words. She wiggled hers near the open window.
“Home intruder,” the officer explained. “Smashed a back window out with a rock to gain entry. Good thing the resident was armed. Turns out you can be a pretty crappy shot as long as you’ve got six bullets.”
“Was this at the Langston house, by any chance?” Ellie asked. She rattled off the address.
“How’d you know? The poor lady’s terrified, but she got lucky. Suffolk County homicide detectives are here. They pulled a wallet off the intruder. I hear the guy did a dime and a half upstate. Murder. Was supposed to be life in prison but he got out early. Shoulda stayed inside, I guess. Good guys, one. Bad guys, zero.”
Life sentence for murder. Served fifteen. It all sounded too familiar. “The bad guy didn’t happen to be named James Grisco?”
“Yeah, that’s the name I heard. Seriously, how do you know all this?”
Rogan was on his third cup of coffee since they’d arrived at the East Hampton police station. It was two in the morning, and everyone was exhausted. “I’m surprised she hasn’t lawyered up.” He drained the rest of his cup.
They were watching Adrienne Langston and Suffolk County Homicide Detective Marci Howard through a one-way interrogation room window.
“She doesn’t need a lawyer if it’s justified,” Ellie said.
“That’s how poor people think. Rich folks from Manhattan call a lawyer every time they sign their name on a piece of paper.”
“So far she’s doing just fine on her own.”
Detective Howard was reluctant to involve them at first, insisting that the shooting had occurred in her jurisdiction. But when she realized that they had a head start on the background, she had at least permitted them to stick around and observe. She’d even stopped a few times to give them updates in a voice that hinted of a southern upbringing.
Everything they had learned indicated that James Grisco had arrived at the house with the intention of harming Adrienne. A rock was found inside the back kitchen window, surrounded by broken glass. Signs of the resulting struggle ran from the kitchen, through the dining room, to the adjacent study, where Adrienne had gone for the gun in her husband’s bottom desk drawer. The legally registered .38 had been purchased nearly twelve years earlier when George’s first wife complained that she thought she saw someone watching their house. Adrienne had fired all six rounds, managing to clip Grisco first in the shoulder and then deliver a fatal shot to the head. A knife was found next to his body.