For the last year, Heather had gotten the impression that Jessica and the rest of the people she'd grown up with were trying to avoid her, and she discovered she didn't mind-the people she was meeting through Jeff were a lot more interesting than the Le Cirque crowd had ever been. Carolyn was even worse than the people who had once been her friends. She had managed to not even mention Jeff's name in the last two days.
So Heather kept walking, heading away from the East Side, where she was all too likely to run into someone she knew from high school, someone coming home from a Junior League or DAR meeting. She wandered toward the West Side, but not until she found herself on Broadway, three short blocks from Jeff's building, did she realize exactly where she'd taken herself.
She almost turned away, almost hailed a cab to take her back home, when she paused, recalling Jeff's words as he'd told her where they were going: "We'll know when we get there."
Had he been leading her tonight? Was that why she'd walked all the way across town and fifty blocks north? She shook her head hard, as if to rid herself of the thought, then flushed as a passerby gave her a funny look and turned away-the same kind of look she sometimes gave one of the crazy people on the streets.
But they actually think they hear voices, she reassured herself. I'm only remembering what Jeff always said.
Yet even knowing it was only her recollection, Heather didn't raise her hand to hail a cab, though half a dozen of them were prowling the street, starved for fares, thanks to the perfect weather. Instead she gave in to an urge to walk the final three blocks and see the dark windows of Jeff's apartment.
Except that tonight his windows weren't dark, and as she gazed up at them a few minutes later-as she always had when she knew Jeff was waiting for her-she saw him standing just as he had always stood, looking down at her. Her heart skipped a beat. It couldn't be! It wasn't possible! Jeff was dead! Confused, knowing what she'd seen was impossible, she glanced around as if in search of someone who might have been playing tricks on her.
When she finally trusted herself to look back up at the window, the figure was gone.
But the window was still lit.
Who could it be?
The super? The moment the thought came to her, she knew that had to be the explanation. She could almost see the building superintendent, Wally Crosley-"Crawly Wally," Jeff had always called him-creeping around Jeff's apartment, helping himself to whatever he thought might be worth something. Her hand went into her purse and she felt for the keys she hadn't used in so long. They were still there. A few seconds later she was climbing the half-dozen steps to the building's door. She let herself in.
When she came to the third floor landing, she hesitated. What if it wasn't the super? she wondered. What if it was someone else?
She glanced down the hallway toward the back of the building. A light showed under the door across from Jeff's, which meant that Tommy Adams was home. She considered ringing his bell before she rang Jeff's. At least then she wouldn't have to face Crosley alone.
Heather was just reaching for Tommy's buzzer when Jeff's own door opened. But it wasn't Wally Crosley who stood there.
It was Keith Converse, and it seemed to Heather that he'd been drinking. His face was flushed, and his eyes didn't look quite focused. "It was you," he said. Then, to clarify, he added: "Down in the street just now."
Heather nodded. "I-I was just out walking."
Keith's brows lifted. "All the way over here from Fifth?"
Part of Heather wanted to leave. She'd heard about how Jeff's father could get when he was drinking, and if he started blaming her for what had happened to Jeff-
"I don't know why I got up and went to the window," he said. "I was just sitting in Jeff's chair, trying to think, and…" His voice trailed off, but then he pulled the door open wider. "Something just made me go look. Maybe I was looking for Jeff."
Heather's eyes blurred with tears. "I know," she whispered. "When I went out tonight, I didn't even know where I was going. He always told me we'd know where we were going when we got there." She shook her head, as her hand tightened on the key she was still holding. "But he's not here. He's…" Her voice trailed off, too, as she found herself unable to speak the words.
"He's not, Heather," Keith said quietly. She looked up at him, started to speak, was about to argue with him, but he held up his hand, silencing her. "Just listen to me, all right? No one else will. Everyone else thinks I'm nuts. But I talked to a man this morning. A man who saw Jeff yesterday." Heather frowned, said nothing, but didn't turn away. "He saw Jeff get out of the van after the crash."
Heather's breath caught in her throat, and when Keith held the door still wider, she stepped through it.
Eve Harris automatically glanced at her watch as she crossed Columbus Circle and saw the black car with official license plates already sitting in front of the Trump International. There were people you kept waiting and people you didn't, even if you were on the City Council. Carey Atkinson and Arch Cranston were two of the people you didn't. Chief of Police Atkinson and Deputy Police Commissioner Cranston, whose mostly ceremonial job had been bought with some of the largest soft-money political contributions in the history of the city, definitely ranked as people she should be on time for. So it was nine p.m. on the dot-exactly the time they'd arranged-when she walked through the front door, turned left, and entered the foyer outside the restaurant.
"I can show you right in, Ms. Harris," the maitre d‘ said, tipping his head just enough to be respectful without sinking into servility. "The gentlemen are already here." Even though she wasn't late, Eve made a silent bet with herself that Cranston would make a stupid remark about the unpunctuality of women. Smiling, she followed the maitre d' through the second set of doors into the restaurant-an elegantly simple room, and expensive enough that there was no need to crowd the tables close together. All the tables offered a degree of privacy unknown in most of the city's restaurants, but the headwaiter led her to a table at the rear of the room-away from the windows that Atkinson considered a security risk, and from the doors that admitted a blast of wind every time they were opened. Eve was more than willing to give up the view of Central Park to escape the draft, and, like the men, she preferred the privacy of the area behind the bar.
"That's what I love about you," Arch Cranston said, leaning over to kiss Eve's cheek and ignoring her attempt to turn her head away. "You're always on time-not like other women!"
Eve silently credited her mental gambling account with a five dollar win. "Flattery will get you everywhere, Arch," she replied, covering her annoyance at his cliché with one of her own. Arch, dependably, had no clue he was being mocked, but Carey Atkinson winked at her as they all sat down.
"So what's it going to be?" Atkinson asked as he signaled the waiter. "Are we going to pretend to be civilized and make small talk, or shall we get right to it?"
"I've never pretended to be civilized," Eve replied. "That's how I keep my seat. But I hear all kinds of things, and right now I'm hearing some very strange things about the young man who died in the Corrections transport van yesterday morning."
The two men glanced at each other, and while Cranston shifted uneasily in his seat, Atkinson leaned forward and asked, "Just what is it you're hearing, Eve?"
She could see by their expressions that they knew exactly what she was talking about, but she'd been in politics long enough to know when a charade needed to be played out. "I happened to run into Jeff Converse's father this afternoon," she said. "It seems he doesn't believe his son is dead."