Jake would never meet Jane’s mom. She sighed, feeling that familiar wave of memory.
“Hi, Mom,” she said it out loud, as always, looking at the ceiling. “Missing you. You’d like him.”
So. It was finally going to happen. Jake and Jane. They’d cross this bridge first. Then, if necessary, cross the next one.
Coda jumped into her open suitcase, curling up in the middle with her tail carefully wrapped, depositing calico cat hair on the lining and using one paw to bat the crinkling tissue paper Jane always used. Coda would be fine over the weekend, with a stash of cat toys and water, and fed twice a day by the super’s son, Eli, from upstairs. Jane used to pay Eli in LEGOs, the currency of nine-year-olds. This year, turned a “grown-up” ten in March, he wanted scary chapter books, which Jane was happy to provide.
She extricated Coda from the suitcase, a shred of tissue dangling from one still-extended claw, and closed the top. Jane sat beside it on her bed, and Coda pounced onto her lap.
“Hey, Codarita.” She stroked the cat, head to tail. “Bermuda. Don’t tell.”
The glowing green numbers of the clock on her nightstand clicked ahead. After eight thirty? Jane frowned. Her cell phone was in her yoga pants pocket, silent. Not even a text. Where was Jake?
Coda settled in, purring, nudging Jane with a paw. “I know, cat,” she said. “I’d like some attention, too.”
She had gotten attention for today’s story. Victoria Marcotte herself arrived at Jane’s cubicle door, giving an elegant thumbs-up to Jane’s scoop on the Sandovals’ phone call from the police.
Jane stood up so fast Coda hopped to the floor, gave Jane a reproachful sneer, and scuttled under the bed.
At the Sandovals’. That’s where Jake probably was.
That’d make for some stimulating beach-blanket discussion.
You suspect Elliot Sandoval of murder? she’d ask.
No comment, he’d say.
But Elliot Sandoval wouldn’t-I mean, why would you suspect-did you arrest him? she’d ask.
Jane, he’d say. We agreed. No work talk, no cop shop details, no newsroom stuff, no exchange of information and no speculation. Just two-
– people on a pink sandy beach, she’d say. Pretending to agree.
Because all the while she’d be wondering if she was missing a story.
She opened her suitcase again, reassuring herself. Today was only Monday. Maybe whatever was going to happen would have already happened by Friday, and they could take off into the sunset-well, okay, they’d be flying east, but she knew what she meant. One day at a time.
Maybe by Friday, they’d have all the answers. Jake’s case solved, her story written. No need to worry about all that now.
15
“Game freakin’ over,” DeLuca whispered.
Jake nodded. DeLuca was right. They were both watching Elliot Sandoval confer with the man who’d just arrived.
Rumpled hair, rumpled jacket, briefcase, and big-shot attitude. Smart of the Sandovals to get a lawyer.
Still at the doorway they whispered, heads almost touching, Sandoval pointing to him and D. The lawyer shook his head, slowly, clearly unhappy. The wife sat on the couch, chewing gum, watching.
The new arrival was the same man who’d shown up at the cop shop to see Gordon Thorley. Dispatch had sent Jake and D to Waverly Road, and when they got back to HQ, a snarling Bing Sherrey told them of Thorley’s release. By then, Jake was focusing on their current murder, not the twenty-year-old one. But this guy had been in the interrogation room, no question.
Lawyer. Not the best news. But not necessarily game over.
“I’m Peter Hardesty, gentlemen.” The man turned to them. “Detectives, I should say. Which makes it all the more essential for you to understand that Mr. Sandoval here is my client. Correct, Elliot?”
Sandoval nodded, ruining Jake’s day. Even more.
“Fancy meeting you here.” DeLuca rolled his eyes, not even attempting to disguise it.
“Fancy?” Hardesty seemed confused. “Here?”
“Nothing,” Jake said. He gave D a “shut up” look. Hardesty had no idea they’d been watching and listening, through the one-way glass, during the Thorley interrogation. No need to let this guy in on that bit of intel right now. If they were destined to meet on the Confessor case as well, they could all cross that legal bridge when they came to it.
“However,” Jake continued, by-the-book, “your client is not under arrest in the forty-two Waverly Road homicide. Mr. Sandoval, is there a reason you need a lawyer?”
“If you got nothing to hide,” DeLuca added, “no reason to shell out big bucks for a high-priced-”
“If I’m not a suspect?” Elliot Sandoval took a step forward, a bluster of red starting at his thick neck, the color creeping up his jaw and blotching his cheeks. Even the scalp under his close-cut hair was turning red. “Why are you here?”
The AC kicked on, a dim mechanical roar. From down the hallway, a voice called out. “Who’s here?”
“Nobody, Sis,” Sandoval called back. He opened the front door, and the air conditioner rattled again. “You hear me? Because-”
“Mr. Sandoval?” Hardesty was shaking his head in earnest now. “I must advise you not to say anything.”
“Honey?” MaryLou Sandoval reached out a hand as if her additional protest could stop her husband’s voice. It couldn’t.
“I wanna know,” her husband persisted. “Why are you here?”
“Good question, sir,” Jake said. If they could get this guy talking, maybe they could elicit some information before this interloper lawyer killed the deal. “Let me ask you-”
“We’re done here, Detectives,” Hardesty said. “You know your way to the door.”
“It’s so dark inside. Are you sure we should go in?” Lizzie peered through the open front door into the gloom, seeing an entryway, a breakfront maybe, and a kitchen in the distance.
“Where’s your sense of adventure?” Aaron closed the door behind her, nudging her out of the way. He touched her, so carefully, so tenderly, it seemed she could feel the outline of his hand on her back, escorting her inside.
Oh-kay. She could handle herself perfectly fine, thank you very much, even after two glasses of rosé. Or was it three? She was overthinking again, making too much of it. She turned to him, trying out a brave and adventurous smile.
He was tucking a ring of keys into his pocket, its jangling the only sound in the stillness of the empty house on Hardamore Road. She’d never heard of this address, but she only handled the pending foreclosures, not the past ones. It was still furnished, in a haphazardly random way, like someone had to leave in a hurry. Which, she suspected, they did. A shame she couldn’t have given the owners another way out. The Liz treatment.
“I’m working late, right? That shows how diligent I am, right?” Aaron was saying. “This is my REO, the bank owns it, and I’m only checking whether it’s ready for the next step.”
“Next step?” It felt like trespassing. But if Aaron had the keys, she supposed he was correct, it was okay. She shook off her dumb unease. Funny kind of date. But this was their profession. Something in common. Something they already shared.
“Property removal,” Aaron said. “Maybe a call to the deputies to get rid of this abandoned stuff. Maybe a lock change. But someone’s gotta look at it firsthand, right? Take responsibility? Can’t let these things just sit here. Ever since that girl got killed, trying to get inside a foreclosed house last week. You hear about that? The press went crazy.”