Outside the Wilhoites’ house, it was a quiet June early afternoon in a comfortable suburban neighborhood. The breeze whispered through the blossoming crabapples, the sun shimmered rainbows in the water from the irrigation systems hidden under pristine green lawns. But inside the Wilhoites’ otherwise unremarkable Cape Cod, it was crazy town. Lewis and Robyn, and Gracie, and Melissa, even the absent Daniel were all embroiled in a family drama worthy of daytime TV.
Now Jane was part of it.
As she backed her Audi away from the house and onto the narrow street, Jane could only hope she was about to play a role in the final scene. As soon as the curtains closed, with Gracie safe and the Wilhoites out of her life, she would make a grateful exit. Except for the wedding. Jane winced as the car bumped over the curb. She shifted into first, then turned toward Boston. This story better have a happy ending. She couldn’t call Jake for help, because Robyn had insisted—implored—no police.
“The University Inn,” Robyn had told her. A boutiquey hotel near Faneuil Hall, “the U,” everyone called it. The place where Lewis and Gracie were now supposedly swimming in the rooftop pool. Gracie, who had no idea this ugly dispute was swirling around her, was simply a little girl on a summertime adventure with her stepfather.
“He always forgets to charge his cell,” Robyn had explained. “That’s what must have happened. He didn’t hang up on you, his phone went dead. Lucky he’d told me all of it.”
Robyn had also explained that Lewis wanted Jane to come to the hotel and wait in the lobby. At some point in the afternoon, he would bring Gracie to her, introduce them, and leave. Lewis would call Jane’s cell to tell her when.
Surely this was the dumbest idea anyone had ever concocted. Even though Jane was kind of a public figure, and almost a family member, and, as a result, safe, it was still dumb. Jane had almost said that out loud. But then Robyn had dissolved in tears and run upstairs, leaving Jane and Melissa staring at each other. Jane had no choice but to go as instructed.
She stopped for gas at the station just before the entrance to the Mass Turnpike, grabbed a cello-wrapped pre-fab turkey sandwich and a Diet Coke, then added some Twizzlers for Gracie, just in case. In midday traffic like this, Jane calculated it would take half an hour to get to the University Inn.
Dumb, dumb, dumb, she thought, as she pulled onto the Pike. And good-bye to her TV career. Marsh Tyson at Channel 2 would be crossing her off the employment list, that was for sure. Maybe she should turn this whole thing into a Lifetime TV script, get a million dollars, and run off with Jake.
She shifted into third, passed a rickety landscaping truck, then a yellow bus full of kids, goofily smiling faces plastered to the square windows. A mop-topped little girl waved at her as she passed. Jane waved back, then the bus was behind her.
She couldn’t understand it, using a child in a battle for parental power. Seemed like that’s what Lewis was doing. And who knew about Robyn, who seemed to be letting him off the hook while helping perpetuate all this. Why didn’t Lewis simply bring Gracie home?
The crime scene tape was down from Curley Park, Jane noticed. She pulled to a stop, ready to hand her car over to the maroon-jacketed valet guy at the U. She got out of her car, brushing the turkey sandwich crumbs off her black jeans and onto the potholed pavement of North Street.
“Nice to see you again, Ms. Ryland,” the valet said.
Again? Oh. The same guy who’d parked her car when she worked the Curley Park story. Just yesterday! The name above his shirt pocket read Tim.
“Thanks,” she said. “Seems to have calmed down, huh? They arrest anyone?”
“I was about to ask you,” Tim said.
“No idea,” she said, thereby admitting to both of them how out of it she was.
She gave him her keys, then hitched her tote bag up over her shoulder, remembering yesterday. Remembering the distasteful reality that disaster made good television, and that she’d understood good television might mean a job for her. How could all that yesterday seem so far away?
Now she was about to camp out in a hotel lobby with a pack of Twizzlers, waiting for the delivery of a—what would TV news call it? The hostage in a custody drama? Or simply a little girl caught between two selfishly unreliable parents?
Tim held out a rubber-banded stack of pale blue numbered tickets, poised a ballpoint pen over one. “How long will you be this time?” he asked.
“Good question,” she said.
* * *
Not sixty seconds ago, Catherine Siskel’s in-house intercom had buzzed. She’d raced down the stairs as soon as Nancie Alvarez alerted her. That cop? Now with Tenley? Damn cops. Their lies and their pretense. He’d pretended he had someplace to be. And where the hell was it? Downstairs, interrogating her daughter? Why?
Now every head turned toward her as she entered the surveillance room. Workers popped up like frightened prairie dogs, then plunked down in their seats at her glowering reaction. Tenley and that detective turned to acknowledge her arrival. Nancie approached her, but Catherine held up a palm. I’ll handle this.
“Detective Brogan? Tenley?” She waved the others back to work. “Might I ask what’s going on here?”
Her head throbbed. If the public learned that contrary to what their mayor had specifically promised, every bit of surveillance video for City Hall was being taped and stored, that’d be the end of his tenure as mayor, the end of his career, and the end of the careers of every single person who knew about it. For a moment, though, she had the advantage. The cop looked like he’d been caught with a hand in the cookie jar. Which he most assuredly had.
Catherine pressed her lips together, struggling to calm her raging blood pressure. Politics and power run best on a need-to-know basis, she’d learned at the Kennedy School. Sometimes, even usually, that kind of compartmentalization worked. But the unavoidable reality was right here, right now. And there were no more degrees of separation.
She’d told this cop a lie—that her husband Greg was missing, whereabouts unknown.
She’d told her daughter the truth—that Greg was dead.
And now they were here, together, side by side, looking at the surveillance screen of the very place where Tenley knew the “missing” Greg had been killed. If they had shared information about that, Catherine was doomed.
“If you’re looking at the city’s proprietary surveillance system, you certainly have a search warrant,” Catherine said. “May I see that please? Now?”
“Ms. Siskel,” the detective began, “don’t misunderstand. The reason I’m here is that—”
Tenley was looking at her, Catherine realized with a pang, exactly the same way she had twelve or so years ago, standing with her little toes curled over the edge, right before the first time she dived into the deep end of the neighborhood pool. Catherine had yelled at her, Do it! And she had.
Now Tenley was in another precarious position. This time, Catherine had already instructed her about what to do, and Tenley seemed to understand. But who knew how the girl would react, faced with a cop asking questions? Again? Poor Tenley. A dead sister, and a murdered father, and a miserable failure of a mother.
“Just a moment, Detective.” Catherine signaled across the desks. Nancie Alvarez came to her side. “Give us the room, please, Nancie.”
In fifteen seconds, the three of them were alone. To face whatever the hell this cop was trying to pull.
“Now, Detective.” Catherine knew the best way to control the conversation was to be the only one talking. She smiled, barely, to indicate she had the power but she would be reasonably pleasant about it as long as he didn’t try to argue. “I can assure you that you need a warrant for this, whatever you’re doing. Come with me to my office now. I’m sure we can work it out.”
“Not gonna happen,” the detective said. “And feel free to call headquarters. But right now,” he turned, gesturing at the screen, “I’m essentially doing nothing more than looking out a City Hall window. There’s certainly nothing prohibited or illegal about that. In fact—”
He stopped. Placed both palms on her daughter’s desk and, elbows splayed, leaned toward the computer screen. He muttered something, clearly irritated. Unclicked a radio from his belt, pressed a button. “D? Anything?” he said.
Catherine heard the tension in his voice.
“Door’s still closed. No ignition.” A voice came from the other end.
Catherine took a step toward the computer, trying to see what the cop had reacted to with such seeming dismay. What were they talking about? All she could see were trees, pedestrians, and the rooftops of the buildings across Congress Street. Cars. More pedestrians. Storefronts. She looked at Tenley, raised her eyebrows, questioning. What?
Her daughter shrugged, pleading, eyes wide.
She’s on the deep end of something, Catherine thought again. But what?
The detective had turned to Tenley, pointed his cigarette-pack-size black radio at her.
“You know who was standing by that vehicle, Miss Siskel,” he said, saying her name correctly. “And you need to tell me. Now.”
“What vehicle?” Catherine stepped between Tenley and the cop, barricading her daughter behind her. Reaching out a hand, she touched Tenley’s thigh. Be quiet. “What are you talking about?”