Alice tapped her nails against Hank Beckman’s steering wheel, trying not to think about the minutes that had passed since he’d instructed her to pull the car to the curb while he made his way into Mia’s building. Arthur started to ask another question from the passenger seat, but she shushed him, wanting to focus on the silence that existed beyond the sounds of her tapping fingernails and the car’s idling engine.
Silence was a good thing, she kept reminding herself. Silence meant no more gunshots. Silence meant Hank was all right.
Sirens broke through the hush that had fallen over the neighborhood since the gunfire. The sounds were muted at first, but grew louder, then stopped. Help had arrived. Whatever had unfolded at Mia’s address, backup officers would be there by now, along with ambulances for anyone who was injured. It was another half an hour before her cell phone rang. She nearly dropped it in her rush to answer.
“Hank?”
“Everyone’s fine.”
“Really? Danes? Shannon?”
“Danes came with cooperating law enforcement from New Jersey. They’re both absolutely fine. Not a scratch.”
“But the gunfire—”
“Mia popped off a few shots when they arrived. They both returned fire. When backup arrived, they entered the premises and found the subject on the floor, dead from what appears to be a single gunshot to the face.” Alice noticed that he had slipped into whatever sterile mode of speaking he had learned as an FBI agent. “It’s unclear whether the bullet came from law enforcement or was perhaps self-inflicted when she realized she couldn’t escape. The good news is, she was packing a .38.”
She didn’t understand the significance.
“That’s the same kind of gun used to kill Travis Larson. They’ll run the ballistics. This is the beginning of the end, Alice. This is a good thing.”
“Did you see her?”
“Mia? Yeah, only for a second. Danes cleared me out pronto.”
“What did she look like?”
“You don’t want to know. Look: it’s too early to be definitive, but I’ve been doing this a long time. My instincts are telling me we were right. This all still needs to play out, but we were right. You’re going to be okay.”
She felt herself start to cry and gave a reassuring nod to Arthur in the passenger seat. “So what do I do now? Do they still want me to turn myself in? I’m willing to. I’m ready to do it.”
“No, but I think you need to come here. Danes found something he wants to show you.”
“What is it?”
“I don’t know, but he thinks you need to see it for yourself.”
She and Arthur walked the quick block and a half to Mia’s apartment. Hank met them outside, ushering them past a perimeter that a uniformed officer was beginning to erect with yellow crime tape. They stopped at the landing outside the building entrance. Hank disappeared inside, then reemerged with Willie Danes. For the first time since that initial meeting when she’d found Travis Larson’s body at the gallery, he shook her hand.
“Once we were clear, we did a sweep through the apartment to make sure there was no one on the premises. This happened to catch my eye.” Danes handed her a framed photograph. “It was on her dresser.”
The woman at the center of the five-by-seven looked thin and pale, her hair like matted straw against her scalp. Five women surrounded her, trying their best to look celebratory. Two of them meant nothing in particular to Alice, but three were significant. One was sweet Mrs. Withers, looking very much the same as she had earlier this morning when she’d sunk those marshmallows in the hot chocolate. One was a relatively attractive younger woman—probably early twenties. She had long red hair with orange and blond streaks, and what Mrs. Withers had described as a honey-and-strawberries complexion. She looked like a younger version of Alice. The final woman had short, wispy white-blond hair and dark green eyes that penetrated the camera. Her long, lanky arms were wrapped around the frail-looking woman in the center and the redhead who was undoubtedly Mia Andrews.
In retrospect, the fifth woman in the photograph had been there at every turn of the previous month. She had been the one to initially tell Alice that Drew Campbell was too good to be true, only to encourage her to meet him when he called. She had been the one to tell Alice not to dig too deeply into the background of Highline Gallery. She had been the one to dissuade her from calling Robert Atkinson while the reporter was still alive to tell his story. She had been the one to inform the police that Alice owned a pair of crocodile-embossed gloves lined with fur that might or might not be real mink. She had been the one to encourage Alice to run from the police.
The final woman in the photograph—the one nestled closest to a cancer-ridden Christie Kinley as she hosted the final party of her life—was Lily Harper.