Whatever it was that had bothered Andy about Hampton’s apartment still gnawed at her. It rested at the murky bottom of her mind, unwilling to be named. She pushed the empty plate aside and sat back in her chair. She watched as Isabelle ate her chicken pie in a café they’d stopped at as they were making their way to Roman’s Diner. René and Marc had opted to stay in the van.
She pushed her empty soup bowl away, tuning in to the conversations around her. To her right, a young woman sat next to an older man, a lovers’ tiff in full swing. Her eyes followed them as they paid and left, the man reaching out to the angry woman in a silent peace offering once they got outside.
When her gaze returned to Isabelle, she found herself being observed with a bemused smile.
“When are you going to tell me?” Isabelle asked.
“Tell you what?”
“What’s been bugging you ever since you and Iona went out to the bar with that corporate lawyer. You’ve been stewing over it all day.” A last bite of the pie. “And you believed that Russian woman when she said her men didn’t kill Arlene, despite what you told Siv.”
Andy finished her Americano. She didn’t stop to think when exactly Isabelle Templeton had started to excel so much at reading her body and her mind.
She mulled over the multitude of loose threads in her mind. Maybe she should test her theory. See if it sounded as outlandish to someone else’s ears as it did inside her head. She could trust Isabelle. Isabelle was new to Ma Soeur. There was no history tainting her perceptions.
She blew out a slow breath. “The calendar in Arlene’s apartment.”
“What about it?” Isabelle folded her napkin in half, looking down at the frail white paper.
“Don’t you think it’s odd that the days on it were marked off past the day of Arlene’s murder?” Andy asked. “Past the date that you dreamed it? Why would she do that? Why mark off something ahead of time? Surely you mark one day at a time if you are counting down to an event?”
Isabelle tilted her head as she digested the thought, biting down on her bottom lip.
Andy was getting used to the gesture. It was the sign of a mathematician weighing the odds, considering her words carefully, not willing to spend them unwisely.
“The calendar was marked off until today, the twenty-first,” Isabelle said. “Until the Sandbergs’ arrival in the city. Arlene was supposed to look after them while they were here. Maybe that is why the days were crossed out.”
“Maybe. But what if we are being manipulated? What if someone tried to control the way we would react to your dream? There is nothing to suggest that Arlene valued paper calendars. Or paper for that matter. There were no physical books in her apartment, and there are no online photos of her. The Fortress office indicates it to be the same there. All her appointments were made on an online diary.”
Andy tapped the table with two fingers. “There was nothing in that calendar on the fridge, except the crossing out of a list of fourteen days in succession up to today, and some other random days during which nothing of significance happened in Arlene’s life, both personal and professional. Jam checked as best she could. And there was no writing on it, no birthdays and holidays, almost as if somebody knew they wouldn’t be able to mimic her handwriting. That it would betray their presence. Their game. It’s almost as if the calendar was placed there.”
Andy considered her next words. “And the clock is interesting. It was stuck on two fifty-nine p.m., even though the attack happened at night. Did someone do that deliberately? Did they hope it would throw us off the scent?”
Another fold in Isabelle’s napkin, a quizzical tilt of the head in the other direction. “Why would someone do that?” she asked.
Andy stroked her chin, her jaw. “They expected us there and they wanted to manipulate our perceived timing of Arlene Hampton’s death.” She couldn’t believe she was saying it out loud. “They wanted to make sure they got away with it. That we didn’t interfere.”
Isabelle sat back, the folded napkin clutched in her hand. Concern had pushed the curiosity aside. She worried her hair, tugging it behind her ear. “You know what your theory would imply, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Whoever killed Arlene knows about Ma Soeur. Who we are. What we do. How we operate.”
“Yes. Or…” Andy waited to see if her worst fear would dawn on Isabelle.
She didn’t have to wait long.
Isabelle ran a hand over her mouth. “Or someone within Ma Soeur murdered Arlene Hampton.”
* * *
“Who would do such a thing? And why?” Isabelle asked again, not satisfied with Andy’s vague guesses.
Andy shrugged, stepping to the curb to wave down Marc and René in the van. Isabelle stood next to her, swaddled in a brown coat that ended to reveal her knee-high brown boots. “Who? Come on, I know you have a name swimming around inside that head of yours.”
“I don’t,” Andy said.
“When will you learn to stop lying to me?”
Marc tried to make a U-turn across the road. “All I know is that there is a leadership struggle at Ma Soeur. Some people want Kate gone. If they could set her up, make her seem incompetent and weak, they could open the door for a takeover. Right now that is exactly the case. She seems vulnerable.”
“Because of me? Because her little imported protégé got it wrong? She gambled and lost?”
“Anybody would have gotten it wrong if the scene was manipulated.”
Isabelle walked up to her and slid her hand down Andy’s arm into her coat pocket. Her fingers were cold. Andy wrapped them up in hers, rubbing them warm.
“Who are the people who want Kate’s job?” Isabelle asked.
“Surely you heard the rumors.”
“Andy.”
“Okay. René is interested.” A frustrated groan. “And she’s acting with Jam’s help, I gather.”
Isabelle pulled her hand from Andy’s grip. “I don’t believe that René or Jam would murder anyone. Not for a second.”
“Neither do I, but right now I don’t know where else to look.”
“What about the Sandbergs? Arlene had a girlfriend and Nilla Sandberg seems particularly heartbroken. And the Sandbergs know a lot about Ma Soeur. They could have had an argument. Nilla could have killed her in the heat of the moment—then made the effort to set up the scene to fool us?”
Andy considered the option. “Do they know about the dreaming as well?”
“I don’t know. Your mother will know.”
“But they’ve only just arrived in New York.”
“As far I can see that’s the case for Siv. I heard from Jam that Nilla’s been here since last week for a Harvard class reunion.”
* * *
The diner near Ma Soeur was homey and warm, with white and red the most prominent colors. Sixties memorabilia hung from the ceiling and a jukebox in the corner played an Eagles song at low volume. The scent of fresh bread and stale coffee mingled into something largely pleasant. At almost four on a Friday afternoon, most of the tables were empty, so Isabelle dragged Andy over to a booth in the corner that overlooked the street to the left and the diner’s entrance to the right.
René and Marc were outside, keeping guard.
Isabelle took a deep breath as she sat down. “You are walking toward this table when it happens. Detective Wright is on the ground, shot in the back, and you put your gun down to check on her.” She inhaled sharply. “And then someone shoots you too. In the chest and in the head, as you are turning toward them. It changed from the first dream. You’re no longer shot in the back.”
Andy looked around her. At the servers gathering at the bar, enjoying the slowdown at the end of their shift. At the cook in the back, visible only when he slapped down a plate of eggs and bacon, calling out the order. Clearly, someone woke up late today.
She counted the exits. She could only spot the door they’d used earlier but knew there would be one in the kitchen too, probably leading to an alleyway. If she were to bend down to check on Wright where Isabelle had said she would, she would find herself with her back to the room. She wouldn’t be able to see anything—not the entrance or the kitchen.
She trained her ears and listened carefully.
The main door made a double squeak as it opened. A silent whoosh as it closed. If she was crouched on the floor as Isabelle had explained, the window would be in front of her, with an aisle, meandering through a row of booths, to her right. To her left would be this corner booth and behind her another aisle leading to the front door.
She didn’t like the setup. Not at all. Too open. She wiped at her neck, her skin crawling with unease.
She looked at Isabelle.
Isabelle failed to wipe the terror from her face in time.
Andy reached out, enclosing her hands in a tight grip. “It will be okay. This helps. It does. I didn’t think it would, but it does.”
“Really? Because it feels so futile to me. Like a runaway train I can’t stop.” Isabelle attempted a half smile. “Let’s just hope I continue to be crap at this. That I’m zero for two in a few days’ time. I got Arlene’s date wrong. Maybe I mixed you up with someone else. Someone bad who deserves to die.”
Isabelle tried to blink away the tears. She wiped at her eyes.
Andy shook her head. “Someone set you up to fail with Arlene, but they can’t control everything, and they’ll find that out soon enough. And once we have her killer, who knows how we change things going forward?”
* * *
Andy stepped out of the diner to take a phone call as Isabelle finished her tea and paid the bill.
It was Kate. As usual, there were no pleasantries.
“What did Natalya say?” she asked.
“The money was not enough. She’ll contact you later to discuss proper compensation.” Andy held her breath. “She hinted at knowing something about Ma Soeur. About what we do. I suspect she’s going to hold you to ransom for information. And she wants to meet Isabelle.”
“That will be the day.” There was the muffled sound of a voice in the background, probably Claire’s. Then Kate returned. “Did she say when she wanted to meet?”
“No. But knowing her it would be soon.”
“Probably, yes. She’s never been the patient type.”
A moment’s silence.
“Kate,” Andy said.
“Yes?”
“She was angry. Be careful. Don’t meet her alone.”
“We’ve never trusted each other enough for that. We’ve always chosen public places.” Again, the muffled voices. Were she and Claire fighting? “How is Sandberg doing? And her wife?”
“They’re upset. Sad. As can be expected.”
Andy dodged a running toddler on the sidewalk, a dad in sweats chasing her down. “Are you going to the funeral?”
“Yes.”
“And Sandberg’s speech on Monday?”
“That too, yes.”
“Could be trouble.”
Kate laughed, but it wasn’t a warm sound. “Darling, I can’t remember a time without trouble.”