Her little apartment seemed sad after even just 24 hours in Alex
When she’d told Alex she just wanted to go get a few things from her apartment, she realized now, she’d half expected him to ask how long she expected to stay, or something else to not-so-quietly indicate that he’d had enough of her. He had to get ready for his big meeting in the morning, after all, and there was only so long he was going to want her to hang around.
She stared at her closet, trying to figure out what she should pack. Two pair of jeans would get her through a few days, as long as he didn’t kill any more zippers, but was that assuming too much? Should she just get clean panties and socks and head back? A spare toothbrush? Where was the overnight line?
If she’d been a typical southern girl, if she’d joined a sorority in college, she would know these things. After a few minutes of staring blankly at her clothes and trying to figure out what to do, she sighed and pulled out her phone.
The battery was barely at 15%, she noticed, as she tapped out a quick text to Alex. All the music earlier must have run it down a little more quickly than usual. I don’t know how much I should bring. Please help.
She stared at the phone, waiting for some sort of answer from him. If she was lucky, he’d be working with his phone nearby. If not—well. She’d just have to guess. As agonizing as that might be.
Her phone lit up with a phone call, but not from the contact she was hoping for. She stared at the number and name for a moment before she swiped to answer. “I thought you were going to call the police commissioner if I ever tried to contact you again.”
It was a mean thing to say, but she had found herself more and more frustrated with Cindy Walden as the day went on. She was the one who’d shown up with this mess and dropped it in their laps instead of taking it to the police. It was fair for them to ask for her help in cleaning it up. Besides, if she wanted Philip’s shares, didn’t that mean she should also want some of the responsibility?
It wasn’t something she was likely to say to either Cindy or Alex, but she just couldn’t understand how someone could plan out something as malicious and wretched as this, and expect to get away with it. From what she’d been able to find, both Arturo’s death and Thalia’s were showing signs of suicide, though of course they were still waiting for a coroner’s report to officially rule out foul play. But that was a big part of why she’d tried to press Alex into calling his friend Luke with his suspicions. If the cops were looking into the cases, with all of the available information, and still called the deaths suicides, then that would be the end of it. There was nothing else to be said. She hoped Alex would be able to see it that way, too. After all, she knew better than he that the media was never given all the information about a crime scene. It was an easy way to confirm a rule in or out whether or not a suspect had been at a scene, if they knew details about it that hadn’t been in the papers, or online.
Cindy had collected herself, apparently, after Zoey’s nasty-nice greeting. She spoke rapidly, her voice pitched low and quiet. “Ms. Gardener? I need to see you immediately. Please.”
The fine hairs on the back of Zoey’s neck stood at attention. “Ms. Walden? What’s happening?”
“Nothing,” the woman said. “Well. Nothing yet. I need—I need to give you information. About the twins.”
“Okay,” Zoey said. “Absolutely. Let me get a pen and paper.”
“No,” Cindy snapped, her voice wire-tight. “Absolutely not. No writing things down.”
Zoey resisted the urge to rub her temples. “I apologize, but I want to make sure that if you tell me something, I remember it accurately.”
“You need to come to my apartment,” Cindy said, reeling off an address. “I need to speak to you. Privately. Not Alex, not his sister, not a driver, no one else. I will tell no one but you.”
On the stupid subway jackoff story, she’d had a source that had been like this, acting like he was Deep Throat passing over the Nixon tapes, just to give her enough information to track down the dude whose kink involve masturbating on occupied subway cars. “I want to help you, Cindy,” Zoey said, hoping that using the woman’s first name again would create a little more connection between them. “I want to help keep the kids safe. But to do that, you need to trust me.”
“I do,” she said, and Zoey knew without a doubt that the woman had been crying. “I don’t trust the phones. Okay? Can you come here?”
“Sure,” Zoey said. If nothing else, the woman was distraught. Checking in on her seemed like a good idea. “I’m on my way. I’m across town right now, but I’ll be there as soon as I can.” She was pretty sure that the driver who’d picked her up—it wasn’t the constantly present David, but someone else in the same dark suit, tanned skin, and crisp haircut—wouldn’t say boo about driving her wherever she needed to go.