She could actually feel the frown on her face, and struggled to change her expression, wanting to please him, but needing to protect her file. She was the one with the numbers, not him. The numbers were the power. The numbers would always save her.
Change the equation.
“Yes, the Iantoscas.” She swiveled her chair to face him. Her new vertical blinds cast slashes on the wall behind him, the afternoon sun coming through as slivers of light. His face was shadow, the manila file a silhouette. “A happy story. Such a sweet couple. I’m so thrilled it’s all turned out for them. Aren’t you? That they’re current now?”
Okay, he’d missed something, a big something, and Aaron sure as hell could not figure out what. The freaking Iantoscas? No way they were current. No matter what Lizzie said.
He’d flipped through the paperwork trying to figure out what happened while Lizzie kept babbling. He wasn’t the numbers guy in this deal, that was kind of Ackerman’s department, but crap, there’d be no reason the bank would assign this home if there wasn’t a slam dunk foreclosure.
Nordstand Boulevard was set to be a kick-ass property for him. In Allston, right by Boston College and BU. Three bedrooms, big ones, a finished basement. All good. Now Lizzie was telling him the Iantoscas were paid up?
“How’d that happen? Them getting current?” He scanned the numbers. The pre-foreclosure filings were all there, he’d seen those before. Now they had red lines through them. Top copy signed by Elizabeth H. McDivitt. “They win the lottery?”
Lizzie was blushing again. He could make her feel uncomfortable, good to know. Plus, losing this one house wasn’t gonna blow the whole deal. Lucky he’d found out. Before it was too late.
“They didn’t explain that to me,” she was saying. “It’s maybe personal? Family? Someone died, something like that.” Big smile, as if that would matter to him. “I only fill in the blanks. Make sure the columns add up. I’m the numbers girl.”
“Well, you’ve got mine.” Aaron slid the folder back on Lizzie’s desk. He’d check with Ack about it. If they’d paid, they’d paid. It happened. The Nordstand Boulevard deal wasn’t signed. He could still cancel, and move on. Three o’clock. Ack would know what to do.
“Got your what?” Lizzie was frowning, a lock of her hair dropping into her eyes.
For such a book-smart chick, she sure had a clueless streak. Luckily for him. Cute enough, though. He could handle a “relationship” with her. Who knows what it’d do for his career. Couldn’t hurt.
“Number,” he said. “You’ve got my number. So how about dinner? Tonight?”
9
“Maybe Gordon Thorley killed this vic, too.” DeLuca sniffed, scratching the back of his neck as he looked at the body on the floor. “Maybe we could get him to clear all our cases. It’d be like, a public service.”
“Have a little respect, dude.” Jake took a final reference shot with his cell phone. Crime Scene would be here on Waverly Road soon, but he kept his own records. Like his grandfather taught him. Jake had been thinking about Thorley, too. But that case had to go on hold. “So. The victim’s lapel pin. ‘M’? Or ‘W’?”
“It’s both.” The voice came from behind them. “And she’s a real estate broker. What do I win?”
The gang’s all here, Jake thought. His cell pinged for the second time in two minutes. He knew it was Jane. He also knew he could not answer. They’d relaxed the rules a bit, impossible not to. But he couldn’t give her the scoop, especially not in front of DeLuca. And now the medical examiner.
“Hey, Kat,” he said. “Perfect timing.”
“As always,” DeLuca said. “Hot enough for you?”
“You should know, Detective.” Dr. Kat McMahon looked at D, a fraction too long. Today her white lab coat was unbuttoned. Underneath, the T-shirt tucked into her blue scrubs read SUMMER IN THE CITY.
Jane always described the ME as one of those curvy Russian dolls in a doll, all red lips and sleek hair. The two women had clashed at a couple of news conferences since Kat came to town last year, Jane demanding information about the latest homicide, Kat refusing to give it. Doing their jobs.
“Real estate broker?” Jake said.
“Yeah. Mornay and Weldon.” Kat snapped open her boxy black ME bag, yanked out two lavender latex gloves. “Don’t you watch late-night cable? Real estate brokers. That’s their logo. It flips upside down in the ad, you know? ‘M’ or ‘W’? They found me my place when I moved here.” A glove snapped onto one hand, then the other. “This how you found her? You got photos? I take it you don’t know who she is?”
“That’s a one phone call, now, thanks to you,” Jake said.
A real estate broker. Huh. If that was true, maybe the bad guy was a potential buyer. He tested that idea, his mind spinning out theories. Maybe she’d been here showing the house. The would-be buyer shows up, maybe attacks her? Some kind of robbery? Maybe to get keys? She struggles, he panics, and… If that was true, so much for his initial focus on the former owner. Or-maybe not. It was okay to speculate at this point in a case. Had to. But kiss of death to make a decision early on. That’s how cops made mistakes. “Yeah, this is how we found her. She fell when the deputies opened the closet door. That’s why she’s like this. Any hope for a cause of death?”
“Ninety degrees outside? The body moved?” Kat crouched in front of the victim. “Could be tough, because-ouch. Strike that. Look at the back of her head.”
“What the heck are they doing in there?” Jane’s back was soaked; her now-grimy white T-shirt would never be white again. Her black flats were caked with dust, her hair plastered to her head, and if she didn’t get water she would die. There was a big bottle of it in the car, but it was too risky to leave their stakeout spot in front of 42 Waverly to go get it.
Had they missed something? “TJ? Maybe the cops went out the back.”
TJ pointed to the ambulance. “Chill,” he said. “We’re fine.”
He was right. Her real problem wasn’t the fact that Jake and his posse were taking forever, or even the heat. The problem was that her boss was at that very minute, probably, going online with a story that there was a murder victim inside 42 Waverly Road, and Jane simply wasn’t sure that was true. What if Marcotte put her byline on it and it was wrong?
“Am I overreacting?” She pointed to herself with one finger. “You know I got fired, right, by the jerks at Channel Eleven? When they lost that lawsuit? When the jury said I was wrong?”
“Yeah, sure,” TJ said. “Everyone knows-”
“All I need,” Jane interrupted, “all I freaking-excuse me-need, is to have my byline on a story that actually is wrong. I could never salvage my career from that. I’d have to leave town and change my name.”
“Jane.” TJ, camera now on his lap, aimed a puff of air at the lens to get rid of the dust. “The medical examiner is inside. That’s a, well, I don’t want to say a good sign. But you know what I mean. There’s probably a dead person. The story will be correct.”
Jane had to give him that. She probably was overreacting. Being unfairly fired would do that to you. Having a crazy editor would do that to you.
“And, I hate to say it,” TJ added, “but would people really care? If it turned out there wasn’t a body?”
“I’d sure as hell care.” So would Jake, Jane didn’t say. He’d be pissed if the paper got his case wrong. Victoria Marcotte’s zeal for headlines could ruin everything. Jane’s career. Jake’s. Their relationship. Such as it was. “If the story is wrong, what’re they gonna do, run a correction on page twenty-six? Or some tiny online brief? People remember what they read. That’s what makes it history. Like I said, there’s only one true.”