58
In fairy tales, siblings were always strongest when they were together. Hansel and Gretel. Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Hell, even Cinderella’s stepsisters were unbeatable before their heels were chopped off to prove a moral. Real life, however, hadn’t been that kind to Victoria and Teagan. Not with a mother whose love remained surface-deep and a father who would pit them against each other to better teach them the definition of defeat.
At best they were teammates, competitors.
At worst they were rivals, sworn enemies who knew each other to the core: every strength, weakness, and point of vulnerability. Warren’s death had created a bridge for them. A space to nuture a new kind of dynamic. It had widened their common ground, opened a door of communication that had previously been dead-bolted and boarded-up. But as Victoria approached her sister’s building, a new truth settled in her bones, and she disassembled the bridge brick by traitorous brick.
She ignored the festive boutique window displays, grateful for the deserted street and eerie yellow glow from the streetlights. To her right, walking paths wound through the rocky rifts along the Hudson. The guardrails were low. It wouldn’t take much to push someone Teagan’s size over the edge, just a little shove at the right angle.
Gravity would do the rest.
She crossed to the entrance with her head bent against the wind. A sign outlined the rental office’s business hours, but the door was locked. She only had to wait a few minutes for someone to exit, but she paced against the cold and her nerves, pretending to fumble with her keys to not draw suspicion as she thanked the couple before slipping inside. She shook off the cold in the silence of the lobby, pressing the elevator button before circling the waiting area.
It was nice. Trendy. Victoria hadn’t been to The Heights since Teagan had moved in, circumstance or work schedules keeping her from making the trek downtown. A tubular vase of flowers cozied the harsh lines. Chic lounge chairs flanked geometric tables, all white, and floor-to-ceiling windows looked out on what was a fabulous view of the Hudson during the day. All she could see now was murky blackness, occasionally interrupted by industrial streetlights.
Victoria pressed the elevator button again and then dipped to the side where a tiny room was lined with mailboxes. She noted a security camera in the upper corner, the red light focused on her as she meandered casually back and forth. She pulled the hood of her sweatshirt over her head and swiveled back toward the elevators.
The doors opened with a puff of hot air. A woman with earbuds emerged, focused on her phone and humming a song off-key under her breath, unaware that she was barreling into Victoria.
“’Scuse me,” she said with a hurried nod as they danced around each other.
“Sorry,” Victoria said at the time, groaning when she was hit with a slap of recognition. In black workout gear and with her hair twisted in a loose braid, Judy’s face filled with surprise.
Judy. As if the night could get any worse.
“Victoria, hi!” Judy said, hand to her chest as she looked up. She hit pause on her playlist and gave a confused smile, the ghost of eyeliner dotting her lids as if she’d wiped her face in a hurry.
“Hi.”
“What are you doing here?” she asked. “Are you looking for me? I know we had a rough day, and I just want to say that I’m sorry if I overstepped any boundaries. I was going to apologize tomorrow, but if there’s something you need in the meantime, I’d be more than happy to—”
“Judy,” she said firmly, hoping to stopper the awkward ramble. She either hadn’t heard about the fire or she was good at pretending. And from what she’d seen, Victoria leaned in favor of the former. Judy wasn’t an actress. “Relax. I’m visiting my sister. I didn’t know you lived in The Heights.”
“Yeah, going on six months now. A studio—you don’t pay me that well,” she tittered nervously. “I love it, though. I’m surprised I haven’t run into Teagan. Small world.”
You have no idea. “I was just thinking the same thing.”
“Well, I won’t keep you. It was good seeing you. I’m on my way down to the gym, so . . .” Judy said, offering a timid smile and shaking her water bottle in explanation.
The picture that X sent of Judy and Warren at the Gala flashed through her mind. There wouldn’t be a better chance to get her alone outside of a work setting. “Can I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
Judy twisted, the color draining from her cheeks. “That’s . . . not a question. I’m sorry, when did I lie?”
“When I asked you about the Gala. You said you didn’t go, but I know you were there. With Warren.”
If she’d looked pale before, Judy turned positively ghostly at the mention of Warren. “Okay, I don’t know what you heard or who you’ve been talking to, but I wasn’t there. I wasn’t invited. I couldn’t have even gotten through the door. The Connors would’ve kicked me to the curb before I’d raised my bony, unpolished hand to show my poor-person ID.” She tugged at a flyaway, her eyes flitting around the lobby. “Not that I think I’m poor—never mind, I didn’t go to the Gala. I worked late that night.”
“You left early,” Victoria countered, recalling their discussion when she’d phoned the office. God, that seemed like a lifetime ago. In many ways it had been. “I can pull video from security if I need to, but I’m hoping I won’t have to involve the authorities.”
“The authorities? Little overkill, don’t you think?”
“Why are you still lying?”
“I’m not, I’m . . .” Judy’s bottom lip trembled. She took a shaky breath and looked toward the ceiling, tears gathering in her eyes. “I . . .”
Victoria forced her face into a neutral expression, neither condemning nor welcoming. As a child, Victoria’s mother had taught her that a woman’s power rested in her grace, in her ability to maintain composure. If someone sensed negativity—impatience, unhappiness, displeasure—they took immediate offense, lashing out and locking down.
Women should be grateful. Appreciative. To parents first, and then to husbands. The obvious progression. Real women, the ones who survived the batting order of social hierarchies, didn’t bite the hands that fed them or turn their noses up at what they were given.
“It’s all right,” she said. “I won’t be mad.”
Judy whimpered. “He made me promise not to say anything.”
Nailed it, she thought. “Who made you promise?”
“Warren.”
The way she said his name, like he was the sun and she was a flower turning toward his warmth. Jesus, she had it bad. Main character in a Hallmark movie hadn’t been far off the mark.
Judy took a deep breath and met Victoria’s stare, tears streaming down her cheeks. “You’re right. I was at the Gala. Not for long, but Warren asked me to meet him there. Said it was important.”
“You and Warren were together.”
Judy’s eyes widened. “No! No, it wasn’t—it wasn’t like that. He was, Warren never would’ve been with someone like me. He was . . .”
“Married.”
“I was going to say out of my league, but—”
“But?”
Judy chuckled flatly. “I mean, there are all kinds of marriages. At first I thought you must’ve had an arrangement. He started scheduling lunch meetings or evening consults, and it was fairly obvious what was really going on; and you didn’t bat an eyelash. I wasn’t going to ask my boss for specifics, though. What happens in the bedroom, stays in the bedroom, that’s what I always say.”
Unless you have an audience, Victoria thought, but she pushed the pettiness aside. “So, you thought we had an open marriage and started sleeping with him.”
“Not me,” she said. “Warren was seeing someone, yes, but it wasn’t me. I wouldn’t have done that to you, Victoria. I could never betray your trust.”
“Uh huh.”
“I thought it was your neighbor,” Judy whispered. “The one with the bright colors and, um.” She motioned at her chest with a you know expression.
“Betty Knottier?”
“Yes, Betty.”
“Why did you think Warren was having an affair with her?”
“I saw them arguing at her car one night. I’d stayed late to finish the West Coast account lists. I think it was the weekend you had that benefit for children’s cancer research.”
Victoria thought back to early summer when the benefit had taken place. She’d been hot and irritated. Warren had wasted half the morning trying to convince her that redistributing territories would shake things up for the execs, bring in more revenue, when the real result would’ve been chaos and uncertainty among the ranks—and she would’ve been the one who had to handle the fallout when their best people started looking for jobs outside Livingston.
He hadn’t shown up for the benefit. A stomach bug, if she remembered correctly. But Judy wanted her to believe he’d missed the event because of a tryst with Betty.
Who was also dead.
A tragedy, or an awfully big coincidence.
“Okay, but arguing in the parking lot doesn’t prove they were sleeping together,” Victoria said. “Unless you heard them discussing private matters?”
“You’re being unbelievably calm about this.”
Was she? It felt like her skin was on fire. “Yes, well, I keep my therapist rolling in summer vacations, so I should be.”
Judy clucked her tongue. “Cliff’s Notes version: I couldn’t hear everything they were talking about, but Warren mentioned Dave. And being discreet. He emphasized how no one could find out. Then Betty saw me heading to my car and put on a big show of handing over an envelope she said was full of HOA receipts, but Warren looked mortified. Stuffed it into his jacket and gave a stiff wave before turning back to her. I thought it was random, but of course, I wasn’t about to start asking questions. You know how gossipy everyone around here can be.”
Everyone else.
“Sure.”
“The afternoon of the Gala, he had a lunch date.”
A jolt ran through Victoria. Hadn’t the women at the gym mentioned Betty being out with a man who wasn’t Dave? Tall with dark hair. That could very well have been Warren.
“I remember.”
“Betty had called that morning asking for Warren. He was in a meeting, and she didn’t leave a message. After the meeting, though, he asked me to put the lunch on his schedule. I may have put two and two together.”
Math wasn’t her strong suit. “I can see why you’d make the leap.”
“Thank you,” she said, vindicated, some unspoken argument with someone else settled in her favor. “He went to lunch and came back angrier than I’d ever seen him, which was strange because before he left he’d been in a terrific mood. Warren’s basically Grumpy Cat in the mornings, but he’d been friendly and polite. He even asked Pauline from Marketing how their newest campaign was going and if there was anything he could do to facilitate the roll out.”
“Warren offered to help Marketing?” Victoria buzzed. Warren hated Marketing. Said the entire department could be eliminated and outsourced to teenagers with smartphones (since people were glued to them anyway—his competing views on technology had never ceased to astound her).
“Right? So weird. Just super happy. He said good things were coming.”
Like her resignation. Victoria tried that idea on for size, picturing Warren tap dancing around the office because she was going to leave.
“And after lunch?”
“Like night and day. He was furious and doing a really bad job of hiding it. He asked me to send over half a dozen dead files and wanted the exact amount we had available in the petty-cash fund.”
Victoria’s thoughts raced. The dead accounts could be explained in a number of ways: pulling for review or checking for performance issues. But the petty-cash fund? He wouldn’t need to know how much they had on hand unless he’d planned on using it immediately. That fact, compounded with the Cayman Islands accounts? Warren had been making moves.
Backing the medical company still didn’t make sense, though, and unless Dave had eschewed his lucrative career as a technological consultant in the private sector to go back to nursing school, then the connection to the Knottiers remained a mystery.
Why Betty?
She could’ve asked her if she wasn’t six feet under. Yet again, Victoria was stuck.
“How much was in petty?” she asked.
“Just over ten thousand. He had me get a certified check made out to cash but told me not to discuss it with anyone. That he’d take care of everything.”
Whoosh. “Did he say what it was for?”
“No, but that’s why he asked me to meet him at the Gala. He needed the check and didn’t have time to grab it beforehand.”
“And you have no idea what the check was for?”
“No, he didn’t tell me anything. Why would he? I’m his . . . I was just his secretary.” A sour look of disappointment flooded her face. Oh, but she’d wanted more. Warren must’ve known and used it to his advantage.
It was more cutthroat than she’d expect of him, but then again, so was stealing her company and forcing her to resign and become a soccer mom.
Ten grand was a hell of a lot for a date night with a mistress, though. A bigger picture began to form in the gray space between facts. “At any point in the few weeks before he died, did Warren show interest in particular accounts? Maybe he mentioned doing foreign filings for offshore accounts?”
Judy’s brow furrowed. “Not that I can remember, but he wouldn’t talk to me about that anyway. He had a few lunches with Jeff, but . . . you were the go-to for most of the larger acquisitions.”
Victoria made a show of checking her watch. She was well past the deadline X had set out, and even without Warren’s phone she’d expected . . . something. A threat, a stab wound. Not this palpable silence. “Listen, can you do me a favor?”
“Can you keep this conversation between us for a little while? I need to look into a few things in the morning and it would be a big help if I could do that without having to go through official channels just yet.”
Judy’s eyes lit up. Realistically, chances were good that Judy was going to spill to the first person she saw, but Victoria couldn’t do anything to prevent that from happening. And locking Judy in one of the building’s basement utility rooms was too harsh.
Wasn’t it?
“I won’t say anything,” Judy said, breaking through the wave of rusty chains and soundproofed walls.
“Thank you.” Victoria laced her response with gratitude and slapped on the curled-lip, doe-eyed deer face she thought of as her girl-talk look. “It’s refreshing to be able to count on someone again, Judy. Trust doesn’t come easily for us, you know? Women are pitted against each other far too often. Look how strong we can be when we work together.”
Her shoulders straightened, her chest puffed slightly. “So true, Victoria.”
“I have to get going, but I’ll see you in the morning. Is it okay if I message you if I think of anything else?”
“Sure, whatever you need.”
Victoria moved aside, nodding in understanding. “Thanks again.”
They separated, Judy continuing down the hallway where an arrowed sign was marked recreational facilities.
Victoria pressed the elevator button and watched the numbers descend, running through all the things she wanted to say to Teagan. When she stepped inside a shiver ran down her spine. Her reflection in the metallic doors shook as they closed, and she had a moment before the lift started to think about how strange she looked in the light.
How cold, how flat.
How dead.