House on Fire

59

We returned to my friend’s apartment on Central Park South late that night. Sukie was exhausted and fell asleep before I did, but in the morning she woke me with her hand between my legs. Which I didn’t mind.

Later, when we were debriefing about Megan, I said, “She sounds like a piece of work.”

“She and Hayden hate each other like a couple of alley cats,” Sukie said. “Have for years.”

“But is either one of them a killer?”

She shrugged. “How could I possibly know?”

“You don’t.”

“If you told me that Natalya, who loves the outdoors and nature, shoved Maggie off the cliff in the middle of the night, that wouldn’t surprise me.”

“How can I get to her?”

“Natalya? She’s always reaching out to me to get together in the city. Always emailing me invitations. She knows what I think of her, and she’s campaigning. She’s trying to bond with each of us, one by one.”

“How about you accept her invitation?”

She smiled. “You like dogs?”

“I do,” I said. One of the drawbacks to my constantly traveling life is that I’m gone too much to take care of a dog.

“Then I’ll arrange it.” She hesitated. “Uh, Nick — yesterday I said something I shouldn’t have.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“I said I no longer feel alone in this, this — what’s going on. That I knew you were in it with me. That was totally presumptuous of me. I shouldn’t have said it.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m a client. A former client, anyway. I was in a business relationship with you. And when this gig is over, you’re back to Boston.”

“Come on,” I said.

“It’s presumptuous to think you could ever be committed the way I have to be. I am a Kimball. You’re an outsider.”

I wasn’t sure how to respond, so I said, “We’ll see this through together. I promise.” Just then my phone rang. It was Dorothy. “Excuse me,” I said, and I answered the call.

“I’m getting some interesting stuff on your favorite security director, Fritz,” Dorothy said.

“Interesting how?”

“A sealed domestic abuse charge. From around twenty years ago. Around the time of his divorce. Allegations of physical cruelty. Sounds like a lovely man.”

“Yep,” I said. “Oh, I had a thought.”

“About?”

“The encrypted folder. Try Neil D. Tyson. All one word.” I remembered the photo of Tyson with Scavolini, the little stone quotes from Tyson on his desk. Scavolini clearly had a man crush on Neil deGrasse Tyson.

“Nope,” she said, clackety-clacking away. “Not all one word, caps and smalls.”

“Try all the variations. You know.”

“Okay,” she said. “But so far, nothing.”

“Keep trying,” I said. “Maybe we’ll get lucky.”