The Key

chapter thirteen

T he silence continued, unbroken except by the perky reporter, who was summarizing what the witness had told her for the benefit of those just tuning in. But nobody seemed to be paying attention anymore.

My face felt stiff, as if my smile muscles had been injected with Botox. “Well, I guess I’ll be getting to work now.”

The whispering started as soon as I turned my back.

I sat in my office with the door closed, a Diet Coke gripped tightly in one hand and my browser open to the New York 1 Web site, which offered an online audio feed of its live broadcast. The reporter didn’t have much new information, so she kept repeating what she already knew: Dahlia had been pushed onto the subway tracks and narrowly avoided being run over by an oncoming car that had screeched to a stop mere inches away, and her unidentified assailant, who was apparently a mirror image of me, had managed to escape in the ensuing chaos. Dahlia herself had been rushed to a hospital, unconscious.

I muted the sound from my PC and started to call Peter. The shock of the news had wiped the morning’s earlier events from my mind. But then it all came flooding back.

I definitely couldn’t call him unless I was ready to apologize, and I wouldn’t even know where to begin. No simple “I’m sorry” would suffice after everything I’d said. And I wasn’t even sure it would be fair to apologize, because it wasn’t in Peter’s best interests to forgive me. It was one thing for me to be completely screwed up inside my head, but it was inexcusable to take the screwiness out of my head and dump it on Peter. I was an emotional menace, and potentially a danger to society.

I thought about calling one of my friends, but it would be impossible to explain everything that had happened that morning over the phone, and I wasn’t sure if I could handle the inevitable lecture that was likely to follow, even if it was justified.

My next thought was to call Jake, but as soon as I started to dial, I could hear the hurt in Peter’s voice as he suggested I had feelings for him, and that my feelings were getting in the way of my judgment.

I put the phone down before I could finish dialing. I still hadn’t untangled the knot of emotions that had caused me to flip out at Peter, but it seemed like now would be a good time to figure out what, precisely, I felt for Jake before I tangled the knot further.

I couldn’t deny the flash of jealousy yesterday. Or the warmth in my cheeks at lunch on Monday.

But there’d also been Jake’s welcome support in a work environment that had been more than a little stressful of late. He’d helped me deal with Gallagher’s pass and all of the hostility that came after it, not to mention his ugly death. And he’d done it all with understanding and discretion. I’d trusted him with a lot, and he hadn’t disappointed that trust.

Maybe I did have a small crush-but it was harmless, the sort of thing that was bound to happen when you worked closely with someone who was interesting and attractive. It didn’t mean anything, really, and it didn’t change the fact that Jake had been nothing but kind from the moment we met. He was my friend, and I hoped he considered me his friend, too. He must, I thought, remembering his self-deprecating comments about his failed marriage-that wasn’t the sort of thing you shared with just anybody.

And just because I’d gone looking for trouble in my relationship with Peter didn’t mean I should go looking for trouble in every other relationship I had.

I picked up the phone again and dialed his extension but his assistant answered. “He’s on the other line,” she told me. “I’ll have him get back to you.” I probably was being paranoid, but I thought I could detect an iciness in her tone that had never been there before.

Frustrated, I tried to come up with someone else to call, but I was fresh out of names. Desperate for distraction, I began scrolling through my e-mails and even flipped through the new analyses Mark Anders had dropped off for the Thunderbolt deal, but I couldn’t absorb a single word or number.

Ten minutes later, Jake hadn’t returned my call and New York 1 had moved on to other topics. Meanwhile, my office walls felt as if they were closing in on me, and while the members of the department hadn’t yet grouped outside my door with pitchforks and torches, I suspected that plans to do so were afoot somewhere on the floor.

I could use some fresh air, I decided. I pulled my hat and scarf out of my bag and shoved them under the desk. “I’ll be back in a bit,” I told Jessica.

For a variety of reasons that seemed, in retrospect, not terribly well-reasoned, I had determined by my senior year of college that I wanted to pursue a career in investment banking. Most of the major investment banks recruited on campus, and I submitted my résumé to them all. Probably nobody was more surprised than I when several of them extended job offers.

My decision came down to Winslow, Brown and two other firms. All three were considered top-tier Wall Street institutions, but the other two took the entire “Wall Street” thing a bit too seriously. Their offices were actually located downtown, in Manhattan’s financial district. Winslow, Brown’s midtown headquarters, on the other hand, were around the corner from Saks Fifth Avenue and only minutes from the time-honored trifecta of Bendel’s, Bergdorf’s, and Barney’s.

The decision was an easy one, and the choice I’d made to return to Winslow, Brown after business school had been based on similar criteria.

I was back to operating on autopilot as I left the office, my thoughts consumed with questions about who my unknown twin was, why she would want Dahlia dead, and what the connection could be, if any, with Gallagher’s murder. My feet, either out of habit or because they had a better understanding of what was happening than my brain did, delivered me to the side entrance of Saks on East 50th Street.

I didn’t actually try anything on, but browsing through the designer collections occupied the better part of an hour, and the contemporary collections on the fifth floor took up the remaining part. My thoughts still weren’t very clear when I rode the escalators down to the ground floor and the accessories counters, but on some level I was already aware that it wouldn’t do to use a credit card and leave a digital trail of my whereabouts and purchases. Fortunately, I’d gone to the ATM a few days before and my wallet was stuffed with bills. I parted with some of them to pay for a pair of oversize black sunglasses, and I parted with some more to buy a black wool hat with a big, floppy brim.

I took the escalators back up a few flights and went into the ladies’ room. It was empty-Wednesday mornings in March tend not to be prime shopping time for most Manhattan retailers, and tourists were more likely to hit Bloomingdale’s or Macy’s than Saks. There was an elastic band in my handbag, which I used to anchor my long, curly red hair in a makeshift chignon. I liberated my new hat from its tissue wrappings and removed the store tags before placing it on my head. Then I slipped my new sunglasses over my face.

The reflection in the mirror was practically unrecognizable. But if I’d been thirty pounds lighter, several inches shorter, and clutching a Starbucks cup, I might be in danger of being mistaken for an Olsen twin.

The sun was shining brightly when I emerged from the store, so I didn’t even need to feel self-conscious about my wraparound shades, and it was fun to be able to stare at everyone around me without them even knowing I was staring. My office and the assorted responsibilities waiting for me there were beginning to exert their usual gravitational pull, but I wasn’t ready to go back to work, much less deal with the unresolved mess I’d made of my personal life. I crossed Fifth Avenue, thinking I’d do a bit more window-shopping.

There was a buzzing in my handbag, but I ignored it the first time. Unfortunately, it buzzed again a few minutes later, and then again a few minutes after that. The third time I grimaced and dug out my BlackBerry. I had a number of new messages, as the buzzing had indicated. One of the nicest things about Saks was that the cellular reception was lousy, so it was a good place to go if you didn’t want anyone calling you. At least, calling and actually getting through. But once I got outside, in clearer range of the closest cellular transmitter, all of the messages flooded in.

I scanned the list of missed calls. A couple bore the telltale number of the Winslow, Brown switchboard, a couple I didn’t recognize, and the last one had been dialed from my apartment. I was debating whether or not I actually wanted to listen to any of the messages when the phone rang. Once again, the number on the screen was that of my apartment.

Peter, I guessed. It would be just like him to call to apologize when I was the one who owed him an apology.

“Hi,” I said, trying to figure out what to say next. Maybe I could tell him that I was working on my apology and would get back in touch when it was ready?

“Fred,” he said. “Glad I caught you. It’s Peter Forrest.”

“It’s not Fred, it’s Rachel,” I said. “Who’s Fred?”

He chuckled, which was weird. Peter wasn’t a chuckler. “Listen, Fred. I’ve had an unexpected visit this morning, and I’m going to have to reschedule our meeting.”

I may have owed Peter an apology, and I may have been an emotional menace, but that didn’t mean I was in any mood for games. “Peter, what’s going on? This isn’t Fred. You know damn well who you called.”

“It’s funny, Fred-one of the guys reminds me of that O’Connell chap, from Boston. Or maybe more of that O’Donnell character we met last summer?”

Not only was Peter not a chuckler, I’d never heard him refer to anyone as either a “chap” or a “character” before. “Okay, now this is just stupid-”

Then I realized what Peter was doing. The two of us knew only a couple of police officers personally. One was a Detective O’Connell in Boston, whom I’d helped-more by accident than on purpose-to track down a serial killer a couple of months ago. The other was a Detective O’Donnell, who worked in a small town in the Adirondacks where I’d had the misfortune to discover the body of Emma’s former fiancé back in August. I leaned against a shop window and brought the phone closer to my mouth, using a hand to shield my words from the ears of passers-by.

“The police are in the apartment?” I asked.

“Sure, Fred. Your offices are pretty busy, too.”

“And they were looking for me at work?”

“That sounds great.”

“And you’re trying to warn me.”

“Right, right.”

“I’m a suspect? They think I killed Gallagher?”

“It could be even more than that,” he agreed, his voice still unnaturally jolly.

“And Dahlia? They think I tried to kill Dahlia?” It was hard to keep my own voice down given the wave of panic that was washing over me.

“Those projections seem to be on target. Listen, Fred, I have to go, but I’ll have someone get in touch with your team to reschedule.”

“My team?”

“What’s that, Fred? This isn’t the right number to use?”

“You’re saying that I shouldn’t call you. Because you think they’ll be tracing the calls you get?”

“Right back at you, Fred. Take care, now.”

“Wait-”

There was a click, and then he was gone.