Being in New York again, experiencing the sights and smells, was a homecoming of sorts for Grace. She felt safer in the city. Her new look helped, too: cropped, chocolate-brown hair, dark makeup, baggy, mannish clothes. One of the girls at Bedford had told her that altering one’s walk could dramatically change people’s perceptions. Grace had spent hours perfecting a longer-strided, less girlish gait. It was still unnerving, catching sight of her ‘old’ face whenever she passed a television or a newsstand. But as the days passed, she grew more confident that the combination of her disguise and the crowded anonymity of the city would protect her, for a while at least.
Her second day in the city, she’d braved a hole-in-the-wall Internet café and sent a message to the Hotmail address Karen had given her using the specified code: ‘200011209LW.’ Grace hoped this meant ‘please send $2,000 to zip code 11209 in New York in the name of Lizzie Woolley,’ but she still felt certain that something would go wrong. Was $2,000 too much to ask for or too little? She realized belatedly she had no idea how much money Karen’s friend had, or was willing to send her. On the other hand, she didn’t want to have to risk doing this every other week, not with half the country’s police departments out searching for her.
In fact, the pickup had been as smooth as Cora told her it would be. There was a Western Union outlet in the pharmacy on the corner. A fat, depressed man in his midforties had glanced at Grace’s ID and, not even bothering to make eye contact, still less examine her features, handed her an envelope full of cash and a printed receipt. ‘There you go, Ms. Woolley. Have a nice day.’
Grace began to focus less on being captured and more on her impending meeting with Davey Buccola. Davey had been researching the alibis of everyone she and Lenny had invited to Nantucket that fateful weekend. It still didn’t seem fully real to Grace, the idea that the Prestons or the Merrivales or even one of her own sisters could have done such a terrible thing – stolen all that money, killed Lenny, caused her to be imprisoned and gotten away with it. But what other explanation was there? She hoped that when she saw Davey’s research in black and white, it would make things clearer. Everything depended on that meeting.
Alone in her tiny studio room, Grace pulled a stack of newspaper clippings out of the desk drawer and arranged them on the bed. There they were: Honor and Jack, Connie and Mike, Andrew and Maria and, of course, John and Caroline. Among them, those eight faces held the keys to the truth. Next to them, set slightly apart, Grace placed a ninth picture: Detective Mitchell Connors, the man whose job it was to catch her. He was definitely attractive. Grace found herself wondering if he was married, and if he loved his wife as much as she had loved Lenny.
He would catch her eventually, of course. Her luck wouldn’t hold out forever. But eventually didn’t matter to Grace. What mattered was doing what she had set out to do.
Closing her eyes, she spoke to Lenny, her words half promise, half prayer:
I’ll do it, my darling. I’ll do it for both of us. I’ll find out who took you away from me and I’ll make them pay, I promise.
She slept and grew strong.
‘More tea, Detective? My husband should be back any minute.’
Honor Warner was visibly nervous. Mitch noticed the way her hands shook as she lifted the silver teakettle from its tray. Hot brown liquid spilled all over the white upholstered coffee table.
‘No thank you, Mrs Warner. It was really you I came to see. Has your sister made any attempt to contact you since her escape?’
‘Contact me? No. Absolutely not. If Grace had called, I’d have let the police know immediately.’
Mitch cocked his head to one side and smiled engagingly. ‘Would you? Why’s that?’
He was intrigued by this woman. She was Grace Brookstein’s sister. At one time, by all accounts, the two women had been very close. They even looked alike. Yet when Grace fell from grace, Honor Warner had vanished into the ether.
‘What do you mean? I don’t understand.’
‘Only that Grace is your sister,’ Mitch explained. ‘It would be understandable for you to want to help her. It wouldn’t be wrong.’
This seemed to throw Honor completely. She looked around her, as if searching the room for a means of escape. Or perhaps she was scanning it for hidden microphones or cameras? Did she think she was being watched? Eventually she said, ‘Grace made a lot of enemies, Detective. She’s in greater danger out of prison than she is inside. I’m thinking of her safety.’
Mitch fought back a smile. Like hell you are.
‘You didn’t go to the trial.’
‘No.’
‘As I understand it, you never visited your sister in Bedford Hills either.’
‘No.’
‘Why was that?’
‘I … my husband … we felt it was for the best. Jack’s worked so hard to get to where he is today. For voters to associate him with Quorum … well. You understand.’
Mitch made no effort to hide his disgust. He understood perfectly.
Reading his thoughts, Honor said defensively, ‘My husband has done a lot of good for his constituents, Detective. A lot of good. Is it right that he should be tainted by Lenny Brookstein’s greed? Grace made her own choices. I’m worried about her, but …’ She left the sentence hanging.
Mitch got to his feet.
‘Thank you, Mrs Warner. I’ll see myself out.’
It was the same story with Connie Gray.
‘My youngest sister has never learned to take responsibility for her actions, Detective Connors. Grace believes she’s entitled to wealth, to beauty, to happiness, to freedom. No matter what the cost to others. So in answer to your question, no, I don’t feel sorry for her. And I certainly haven’t heard from her. Nor do I expect to.’
With friends like Grace Brookstein’s, who needed enemies?
Talking to Grace’s compassionless, embittered sister, Mitch almost felt sorry for the woman whose greed had brought New York to its knees. Connie’s anger was like a physical presence in the room, emanating from her body like heat from a radiator. The atmosphere was stifling.
‘Is there anyone else you can think of? Anyone Grace might call, or lean on? An old school friend perhaps? Or a childhood beau?’
Connie shook her head regally. ‘No one. When Grace married Lenny, she got swept up into his world completely.’
‘You sound disapproving.’
‘Lenny and I … Let’s just say we weren’t close. I always thought he and Grace were a mismatch. In any event, there are no old friends. John Merrivale supported Grace for a while, I believe, until
