again, Max said, “You know why.”
“Yeah, Camille told you the tests came back saying you were infertile.”
Max scowled at him. Alex had never been a fan of Camille’s. Even knowing that his friend had been right didn’t change things. “I saw the damn test results.”
“You saw what Camille wanted you to see.”
They’d been over this before and Max was tired of the trip. So he cut his friend off at the pass. “Look, I don’t want to talk about ancient history. I just need you to take care of these details, all right?”
“Sure, Max,” Alex said with a shrug. “I’ll take care of it. How soon do you need it done?”
“The wedding’s in two weeks.”
Alex whistled, low and long. “I’ll have to hustle to get it all set up.”
“Well, my friend,” Max said with a self-satisfied smile, “that’s why you make the big bucks, isn’t it?
Now, let’s eat. I’m picking Julia up in an hour to go see the police.”
“At least that much makes sense to me,” Alex said, picking up his leather-bound menu to peruse it. “Who’re you going to be talking to? Do you have a name?”
“A Detective McGray,” Max said, sliding his gaze over the restaurant’s offerings. “He’s in charge of the investigation into the death of the woman who lived in Julia’s building. I figured, the blackmail’s in the building, too. Might as well see the man who’s already investigating what’s happening at 721.”
Detective Arnold McGray looked tired.
His salt-and-pepper hair stood on end and his eyes had dark shadows beneath them. A five-o’clock shadow stubbled his jaws, and his dark blue tie had been loosened at his undone collar.
“Let me see if I have this straight,” he said, glancing down at the notepad he’d been writing on since Julia had started talking. “You’re being blackmailed and you have no idea who might be behind this?”
“That’s right.” Julia stiffened, instinctively uncomfortable in the bustling detective area of the local NYPD precinct building.
Around her, overworked and underpaid police officers were hunkered down over desks littered with manila file folders, towering stacks of papers and ringing phones. The cacophony was deafening. A drunken homeless man was singing to himself, a hooker in a bright red dress was trying to proposition her way out of an arrest, and a bearded younger man rattled the handcuffs that kept him locked in his chair.
This was so far out of Julia’s everyday world, she didn’t know where to look.
“And you think this might have something to do with the death of Marie Endicott?” McGray’s voice was pitched just loud enough to carry over the noise.
“What?” Julia shook herself and frowned. “No, I mean, I don’t know. It’s possible, I suppose …” She glanced at Max, sitting beside her.
Even in this setting, his personal stamp of power was easy to read. He didn’t look intimidated or threatened by the surroundings. Clearly, he was a man completely at home and confident of himself wherever he was.
As if picking up on her uncertainty, Max took the thread of her conversation and finished it himself. “Detective McGray,” he said, “the truth is, my fiancée and I have no idea who might be behind this blackmail attempt. My feeling was that we should bring the matter to you, as it could very well be part of what’s happened at my fiancée’s building.”
Julia had to force herself not to jerk in reaction to the word fiancée. He’d used it twice, as if making a point either to her or the detective. Which? she wondered, and then asked herself if it mattered.
She’d already agreed to marry him. And though a part of her was worried about what would happen, another, more cowardly part was grateful for the reprieve Max had offered her. The fact that the child she carried actually was his, was, she thought, ironic.
“I appreciate you bringing the matter to my attention,” McGray said, slumping back in his tattered chair. “Frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a connection.”
“Really?” Julia asked.
“Seems unlikely that two such unrelated events would happen in the span of a couple of weeks—in a place that’s seen no trouble at all in more than ten years.”
“My thoughts exactly,” Max said, reaching out to give Julia’s cold hand a squeeze.
“Well, I’ve got all I need for the moment,” the detective said, standing up behind his desk. “I’ll look into this and if I find anything, I’ll be in touch.”
Max stood up, too, and held out one hand. When the older man shook it, Max thanked him. Then almost before she knew what was happening, Julia found herself being steered out of the police precinct and led outside.
“Do you really think the blackmailer has something to do with what happened to Marie Endicott?” Julia asked when they were alone.
He glanced over her head at the teeming streets, then led her down the steps to the sidewalk. Lifting one hand to hail a cab, Max glanced down at her. “My gut says yeah. They’re related.”
“Then that means …”
“We’re not sure what it means,” he cautioned, his green eyes going cold and hard. “But yes, your blackmailer could have been involved in that woman’s death.”
“Oh, God.” Julia hadn’t wanted to think of Marie committing suicide. But the thought of a murderer walking free through 721 Park Avenue was even more disquieting.
A chill swept over her, making her shiver despite the cloying heat and humidity pounding down on the city.
Five
Max stared up at the edifice of 721 Park Avenue, craning his neck to take in the entire fourteen-story brick facade. A prewar structure, 721 was a classic in the old style. The building settled into the corner of Park and Seventieth like an old woman in a comfortable chair.
The city itself had grown and changed over the years, but the old building remained the same, sitting in the heart of the most expensive slice of real estate in the United States. Politicians, celebrities, old money and new, all gravitated to the Upper East Side of New York. And this place was one of the crown jewels of the neighborhood.
All around him, the city pulsed with life and energy. People streamed past him on the sidewalk, and on the streets car horns blasted out a cacophony of sound.
Max ignored it all, though, as his gaze fixed on the roof and his thoughts turned to the woman who’d fallen to her death from that very roof. Then he thought about the blackmail attempt on Julia and asked himself, just what the hell was going on at 721? He agreed with the police detective they’d spoken to the day before. It seemed highly unlikely that two such-out-of-the-normal events could happen within a couple of weeks of each other and not be related somehow.
Lowering
