“I’m not sure how much Emily really saw,” Will said. “She was too far away. Still, she was willing to say anything to protect you. If that’s not love, I don’t know what is.”
“You were going to report me to the police if Emily didn’t help you?”
“I might have let her think that.” Will was playing it coy. “But she was just as afraid of the guilt you would feel.”
“You made her write prescriptions. What else did you force her to do?”
“When I needed the occasional cash infusion, she helped out,” Will said. “Was that so wrong? Helping a friend out in tough times? Haven’t I given you cash over the years when you needed it?”
“There’s more, isn’t there?” Alex said, getting up. He loomed over Will. “What else did you demand of her?”
Will shrugged and took another drink. The casual dismissal enraged Alex. Will had gone through life with delusions of grandiosity and entitlement, and he looked down on everyone else. Nothing would snap him out of that but a sharp, violent shock. The obvious thing was to grab a knife from its wooden block, but Alex would never use one of Mrs. Sipher’s cleavers on her son, and Will knew that. Alex had once witnessed Maclean taking charge of an unruly group of rebels at a watering hole on the border between Iraq and Syria. Just as his friend had done there, Alex picked up a wine bottle by its neck and smashed the other end against the countertop. Red wine splashed over the cabinet and floor, and glass flew everywhere. Alex held the jagged edge of the bottle against Will’s throat. “What else?”
Will made a small squeak. “I didn’t try to sleep with her, in case that’s what you’re suggesting.”
“You think that makes this better?”
“Maybe?” His eyes darted around. “I can’t believe you just did that in my mother’s kitchen.”
Alex pulled the broken bottle away from Will’s throat by a couple of inches, but he didn’t set it down. It wasn’t much of a weapon; it wasn’t much of a stunt, either, compared with Maclean’s slick move. Alex’s hand was sticky from the wine. He knew that Will wasn’t afraid of the impromptu blade. It was the shock of seeing Alex, who’d always treated everything in Mrs. Sipher’s house with care, suddenly smashing things that would keep him talking. “This is why she tried to get CJ to overturn your conviction.”
“That’s true,” Will said. “I’d almost forgotten about that. CJ’s such a bastard. You’d think he’d help out when his ex-wife asked him for help, but he said no.”
“Ex-wife?” Alex repeated blankly. “Who?”
“Didn’t you know? How could you not know?” Will gave him the tightest of smiles. “Oh, no. Emily hid that from you too.”
Alex recoiled. It made no sense, and yet . . . the idea made the earth under his feet suddenly feel unstable, as if it were about to give way and let him fall into an even deeper pit. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Emily and CJ used to be husband and wife.” Will’s irises were like black holes, alien in their opiate-induced expansion. “Maybe you should ask him where she went.”
CHAPTER 43
BOBBY
“Whoa, you guys are back again?” Bobby shrank back from the cops at his door. He rubbed his eyes. “Seriously, I’m going to have to start charging you rent.”
The two detectives glanced at each other, clearly unamused.
“We need to ask you some more questions, Mr. Costa,” the lady cop said.
There was a sound in his head like the scratch of a record. He’d had trouble sleeping. Thoughts about Emily flitted through his mind. She wasn’t really in trouble, was she? Alex was such a weirdo, with his odd hours and panic attacks and creepy mutt and druggie friends. It was probably all a false alarm. Bobby had read the note Emily left in the apartment, after all, and he knew she’d kicked stupid Alex to the curb. Everything could be explained away; he had no reason to feel bad. So why did he keep thinking about her? Finally, he’d turned to legal and illegal pharmaceuticals for assistance. Then he’d passed out for a nice, hazy while. Only that sweet slumber had left him ill equipped to talk to the cops.
“Right,” Bobby said. “What do you want to know?”
“We’ll give you a minute to put on some pants, Mr. Costa.”
Bobby looked down. He had yesterday’s briefs on and not much else. “Oh, riiiight.”
He shut the door and rambled around his apartment. This was not a solid start. He pulled on his jeans and found a T-shirt that he thought might pass the sniff test, even if it had Cheetos dust on it. He could hear the male detective in the hall. “Pretty sweet deal being a super. You think they all get to sleep in till four in the afternoon?”
He couldn’t hear the lady cop’s answer. His hands were shaking. He lit some incense just in case there were any lingering smells that might raise suspicion.
“Sorry ’bout that,” he said, opening the door again. “I get up real early, so sometimes I need a nap.”
“We have more questions for you about Alex Traynor and Emily Teare.”
“That guy is weird.” Bobby lowered his voice. “You should probably come in. I don’t want the other tenants hearing this.”
The cops followed him inside.
“Sit, sit,” Bobby said, pointing the cops toward his saggy olive sofa. He used to get such great stuff when tenants moved out, but it had been a while since there’d been a worthwhile couch. Most of the tenants were too lazy to move a good one inside a walk-up building. “You want anything to drink?”
“This isn’t a social call,” the male cop said.
“So, I guess you’re here because of the stuff I told Alex last night?”
The cops shot each other a conspiratorial look. “Yes, exactly,” the lady cop said.
“So, I’ve been thinking about it more, and I’m sure Emily was wearing gloves when she came in.”
“It was seventy-five degrees last Friday,” the lady cop said. “Why would Emily be wearing gloves?”
“I dunno.” Bobby shook his head. He wanted to be as honest as he could about this. It wasn’t like he wanted to see something bad happen to Emily. He’d be sad if she left the building and her sweet silky stuff disappeared with her. “She also had her hoodie pulled up over her head. It was kind of like somebody in a spy movie, you know?”
“What are you saying?” the male cop asked. “That it wasn’t really Emily you saw?”
“No, it had to be her.”
This was why Bobby hadn’t wanted to talk to the cops. Give them a little dose of truth, and who knew what kind of trip you’d end up on? Anything he gave them, they’d tear into like wolves with red meat. When he’d seen Emily, he’d been hiding in her closet, panicked that she was about to discover him. He hadn’t paused for one second to ponder whether that was really Emily under the hoodie. Instead, he’d been relieved when she’d finished her circuit around the living room and left again, locking the door behind her. He’d waited for a time, counting to a hundred, before he crept out of his hiding place. He’d looked out the window and spotted Emily across the street, handing some guy the laptop. He’d watched as Emily headed east and the man moved west.
“You don’t sound so certain, Mr. Costa.”
“No, I’m sure,” Bobby said. “Sometimes people do that when they don’t want to be bothered.”
“Did she speak to you?”
“Maybe?” Bobby was sweating now. “She gave me a little wave.”
“We need to talk to you about something else, Mr. Costa. On Monday, you told us about Emily receiving letters that upset her.”
“Oh, yeah.” Bobby was happy to shift to this subject. “There were a few of them. First one I remember was back in March. Emily came to see me because she was freaked out. She wanted to know who left it for her, because it had been sitting on top of the mailboxes in the lobby.”
“Did you see who left it?”
Bobby shook his head. “No. But there was a letter every few weeks, I think. Emily asked me a couple times if I’d seen any
one strange in the building. The truth is not a day goes by when there aren’t a bunch of weirdos around here. This is Hell’s Kitchen, after all. I keep an eye on them, but no one stood out.”
“We need you to look at some photos,” the lady cop said, pulling out her phone. She held it up. “Do you know this man?”
“Oh, sure.” Bobby felt relief; this was a question he didn’t mind answering. “That Asian guy. He’s a friend of theirs. I forget his name. He hasn’t been around lately.”
“What about this man?” She pulled up a different photo.
“Okay, that’s Will Sipher. He lived in the building for about a year. He was going through a rough patch.”
“Did you get along with him?”
“Oh, yeah. Will’s a good guy.” There were two kinds of tenants Bobby liked: ladies who smelled nice and had pretty underthings, and men who were good tippers. Will fell into the latter category, unlike that cheapo Alex. That was why Bobby was willing to overlook details, like that time a girl overdosed in Will’s apartment. Will had been very, very generous with Bobby after that incident.
“Have you seen him around the building over the past few weeks?”
Bobby nodded. “Some of his mail still comes here. You’d think those guys at the post office would be able to handle a change of address, but I guess not.” He laughed nervously. His palms were still sweating, and he rubbed them on the front of his jeans.
“When was the last time Will came by?”
“Uh, maybe a couple weeks ago?”
“Did you ever see him with Emily?”
“Oh, yeah, but she hates . . .” Bobby bit his tongue. Aargh, why had he blurted that out?
“But what, Mr. Costa?”
“Well, she, uh, wasn’t happy to see him. Actually, she said something about kicking him in the nuts if he showed up again.” He didn’t like where these questions were going. Was Will Sipher that guy on the street with Emily? He’d been five stories up, peering nervously through the window. It was impossible to say for sure. But if it was, it proved Will hadn’t hurt Emily, because she’d walked away from him. So why make trouble for Will?
The cops gave each other a loaded look, and then the lady cop swiped on her screen again. “What about this man?” She held it up again.
“That pain in the ass.”
“Excuse me?”
“He’s an asshole, that guy. I found him loitering around here a few times.” Bobby squinted at the phone. “I got into it with him this one time in July, and he shoved me against a wall.”
“Have you seen him recently?”
“Not since that time he pushed me. I was going to call the cops if he came back. What’s his name?”
“Kevin Stanton.”
“Doesn’t ring a bell,” Bobby said.
“He’s the father of the woman who fell off the roof,” the lady cop said. “Cori Stanton.”
Bobby stared at the screen. “Holy shit.”
“Excuse me?”
“I . . . I think I might’ve seen Emily on the street with him.” Bobby’s mouth was dry. There was no good way to give the cops this bit of intelligence. He was going to screw himself over if he wasn’t careful.
“When?”
“Like, a week ago, maybe?”
“You don’t sound very certain, Mr. Costa.”
“Well, I’m not,” he said. “Emily wasn’t missing then. It wasn’t like I was trying to spy on her, okay? She talked to a guy on the street. It was, like, a minute at most. He could be that guy, but I didn’t get a great look at him. He was bald, though.”
“Was it an angry exchange?”
“No. I mean, I didn’t hear it. But it seemed . . . I dunno, polite?” He took a deep breath and tried to steady his nerves. “You don’t really think this has anything to do with Emily running off, do you?”
“We’re still investigating.”
“Yeah, I know, but . . . she’s not really in danger, right? This is just something between her and her boyfriend. I mean, that’s the most likely scenario.”
The cops regarded him coldly. “It’s been several days, and there’s been no sign of Dr. Teare,” the lady cop said. “No contact with friends, no financial activity, no sightings of her. You want the truth? We’re worried about her safety. The longer someone’s missing, the less likely they turn up alive.”
CHAPTER 44
ALEX
When Alex got to CJ’s building, he felt like he was coming apart at the seams. Just his luck, it was Jayson who opened the door.
“Sorry to crash in on you,” Alex said, trying to keep his voice steady, “but I really need to talk to CJ.”
“Sure. He’s in his study,” Jayson said, keeping his voice low. “The kids are already asleep. Have you had dinner? We ate already, but there’s plenty of Thai curried chicken left. Want me to heat some up for you?”
Jayson Leeward was one of the kindest people Alex knew, but he could barely look the man in the eye. “No. Thanks.” Alex didn’t mean to sound terse, but his brain was reeling. Emily had been married before? That news wasn’t earth shattering. But Emily had been married to her gay best friend? That, he couldn’t get his mind around. Will had to be lying. Only the lie was so outlandish, so ridiculous, it seemed like it might be true.
“Is there any news about Emily?” Jayson asked.
“Nothing yet.”
“I’m so sorry.” Jayson sighed. “You know where his study is.”
CJ and Jayson’s apartment was beautiful, filled with plants and overflowing bookcases and pieces of tribal art they’d gathered around the world. Alex could feel Jayson’s eyes on him as he walked back to CJ’s alcove. He knocked on the door, then opened it slowly.
“Alex!” CJ sounded genuinely happy to see his face. “Come in. Is there any word—”
“About Emily? Nothing. I’m here about something else.” He closed the door behind him. The study was really just a converted walk-in closet painted a soothing pale blue and outfitted with a compact ergonomic desk and chair. “Actually, it is about Emily. Were you and Emily ever . . . married?”
CJ’s face didn’t betray any emotion, but he blinked. “How did you find out?”
“From Will Sipher.”
“I didn’t think Emily had told anyone. I certainly wouldn’t have expected that character to be her confidant,” CJ said. “Knowing him, he probably did a background check.”
“You’re telling me it’s true?”
“It was a long time ago, when we were in college,” CJ said. “It feels like another lifetime.”
“But you’re gay.”
CJ eyed him coolly. “I understand why you’d assume that. But it’s not like you and I have ever talked about our sexuality. I’m bisexual. I always have been.”
Alex was embarrassed that this fact startled him. “You date men and women?”
“I’m dating, as you put it, my husband. We’re been together for a decade. Please don’t ask something stupid like ‘How can you be faithful to one man if you’re also attracted to women?’ You’re attracted to women, right? Yet you’ve been faithful to Emily, I think.”
Alex gulped. “But if you were in love, why’d you get divorced?”
CJ leaned forward, steepling his hands. “First, we were only married for a few months. It was just after Emily’s parents died in that horrifying car crash. We were both in school. She just . . . crumbled. Emily is one of the strongest people I know, but she broke down. I didn’t know how to help her. When I look back, it was a stupid thing to do, but I wanted her to know I’d be there for her no matter what.”
Alex felt like everything around him was happening too quickly, and he couldn’t process it all. “Why did it end?”
CJ sighed. “Have you ever tried to sacrifice yourself to save someone else?”
Alex thought about that girl who died, the one he could’ve saved. “No.”
“Mother Teresa said that for a sacrifice to be real, it must cost, must hurt, and we must empty ourse
lves,” CJ said. “I grew up believing that. I felt like I had a duty to take care of Emily. That’s what I told myself I was doing. But I wasn’t being honest. I was attracted to men and didn’t want to face that side of myself. It wasn’t something I thought I could ever tell my family. By marrying Emily, I was trying to fix myself too. In the end, Emily was the one person I could really be honest with.” CJ smiled. “That was the irony. I told her how I really felt, and we split up.”
“Are you still in love with her?”
“No. I love her, but as my friend,” CJ said. “In case you’re wondering, she’s not in love with me either. She’s genuinely in love with you. And I’m in love with Jayson.”
“Why keep it a secret?” Alex demanded. “Why didn’t one of you tell me?”
“How much of your romantic past do you want to unbury for the person you love?” CJ asked. “Maybe that sounds like a cop-out, but Emily and I agreed it might make our partners insecure if they knew about our past. We agreed to let it stay buried.”
“Did Emily tell you what really happened on the roof the night Cori died?”
“She’s never talked about it,” CJ said. “I thought you blacked it all out.”
“I did,” Alex said. “But tonight, Will told me what happened. He said I was arguing with Cori. She shoved me, and I shoved her back, and she fell off the roof.”
“Do you think that’s true? I don’t believe anything Will’s forked tongue spits out.”
“It’s true,” Alex said. “I found prescriptions Emily had written for him. He was using what I’d done to extort drugs and money out of her.” He looked at his hands and saw that they were shaking hard; his whole body felt like it was falling apart. “For the past year, Emily’s been sacrificing herself for me.”
“When she said she saw that poor woman jump, she lied?”
“Yes. Will said she was too far away to see what happened.”
“But if she didn’t see it, how are you so sure Will is telling the truth?” CJ asked. “What was Will doing on the roof?”
“He’d been sleeping with Cori, but he’d broken up with her. He heard us arguing and came up. Just in time to see it happen.”
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