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Next Day
WHEN THE ALARM CLOCK sounded, Alex reached over to slap it off before he flipped onto his side and slapped me on my ass.
“Really?” I said as I turned over to look at his smiling, handsome face, which was dark with stubble. “This is how you wake me?”
“It’s kind of how I put you to bed last night, if I remember correctly, Mrs. Wenn.”
I reached out my arms and stretched them toward the ceiling in a triumphant memory of how attentive he’d been last night—and how wild our lovemaking had become in the process.
Sometimes I did like a good smack on my ass. Sometimes I did like it a little rough. With Alex, who happened to be my first love as well as the love of my life, I always felt safe, so I generally was up for anything when we made love, which happily was often.
We were still naked, and as he moved closer to me and kissed me on the lips, I could feel him against my leg. He wasn’t fully aroused yet, but he was on his way.
“You’re insatiable,” I said.
He buried his lips against the nape of my neck and said in a thick voice, “You make me insatiable.”
“And your stubble is going to do me in, just as it always does.”
“I know where you’d like my stubble.”
“You’re terrible.”
“Tell me I’m wrong.”
“If I did, it would only be a lie...”
“We’ve got time, you know?”
“How much time?”
“If we skip breakfast and just have coffee—maybe thirty minutes?”
“But that would just be a tease.”
“Think of it this way—just imagine how flush and radiant your skin will look afterward. Blackwell approved.”
I laughed when he said that and then held his face in my hands before I pressed him down toward my sex.
“Have at it,” I said. “And then? Let me have my way with you.”
* * *
LATER, AFTER WE’D MADE love, taken a shower together, and dressed, we went to the kitchen.
Alex was wearing a charcoal gray suit with a cobalt-blue tie that matched the color of his eyes, and I was wearing a red business suit with matching heels. Since it occurred to us while dressing that neither of us had meetings until ten, we decided to slow things down a bit and enjoy the Times over a cup of coffee before going to Wenn Enterprises, the massive conglomerate Alex had inherited from his father upon his death. Alex had served as CEO and Chairman of the Board since then, with only one brief exception—when Stephen Rowe had managed to steal Alex’s company away from him seven months ago.
But that was beyond us now—until suddenly it wasn’t.
“Jesus,” Alex said from his seat at the kitchen island, where he was reading the Times. “Meredith Rowe is dead.”
I handed him his cup of coffee and said, “Dead? How?”
“Look,” he said, turning the paper to me, where I saw a photograph of her. “It’s front-page news. She was found last night at 8:23 p.m. on a sidewalk at East Sixty-Seventh Street. It appears to have been a mugging.”
“On East Sixty-Seventh Street?”
“If you’re going to mug someone, that’s where the money is, Jennifer.”
And so it was.
“What else does it say?”
“Not much. When they went to press, they likely didn’t have much information because it says, ‘This story will evolve as the Times learns more.’”
“Then, at this point, they’ve already learned more,” I said, reaching for my briefcase at the far end of the island. I removed my MacBook Air from it, started it up, brought up the Times site, and looked for Meredith’s story. “Here,” I said. “There is more.”
“What does it say?”
I scanned the article. “This is terrible,” I said. “They believe it was a mugging because Meredith’s earrings were literally ripped out of her ears, which tore her lobes. There also were bruises on her face, which suggests a fight of some sort, and there was no jewelry found on her body, nor did police find a purse or a handbag, which naturally she would have had on her. Even her shoes were missing.”
“Her shoes?”
“If she was wearing an expensive pair of heels, they would have wanted them for a specific reason—to sell them. And given Meredith’s money, she likely had three grand on her feet. This is awful.”
“Has Stephen been questioned? Quoted?”
“No. But they’re divorced now. After all of the negative press he’s received over the past year, who knows if he’ll even give a statement. I’m betting that he’ll keep silent. Or, if he’s smart, he’ll say something kind about Meredith and move on.”
“What about their girls?”
“It says here that they had shared custody. I would assume that the girls would go to Stephen.”
“When we go to Wenn, we need to make sure that Ann sends flowers from both of us to Meredith’s funeral—whenever that’s announced.”
“I’ll ask her myself.” I took a sip of my coffee and shook my head. “I’ve never met Meredith, but I can only imagine what she went through when Janice Jones spoke publicly about her affair with Stephen. That was the day that Rowe was hauled out of Wenn and brought in front of the media, which must have humiliated Meredith even more. What that woman has endured over these past several months is beyond unfair. And now this.” I paused. “You know that Rowe is going to be considered a suspect.”
“Probably, but my guess is that he has nothing to do with it. He’d know that all eyes would be on him. He’s evil, but he’s also too smart to be put under that kind of scrutiny.”
“What was Meredith doing on Sixty-Seventh Street at eight o’clock anyway?”
“Maybe going to a party of some sort? It was Thursday night—the cocktail-party circuit starts then.”
“But if she was driven there, how could this have happened? Her driver would have protected her.”
“To be revealed, I guess. And speaking of parties, are we still on tonight for the Witherhouses’ party?”
“We are, unless Maxine cancels out of respect for Meredith, which I doubt she will. Knowing Maxine, she’ll just use Meredith’s death to lift her party into the stratosphere. She’ll know that everyone will be talking about it. And Maxine Witherhouse will be watching it all and smiling like the Cheshire Cat that she is.”
I checked the time on my watch. “We should go. Before my meeting, I want to hear what Blackwell has to say about Meredith.”
