44
Margaret Lawson, the woman who was buying the Tribeca apartment Penny had tried to pass off as her own, arrived earlier than scheduled, less than five minutes after Laurie and Ryan left.
Thanking her lucky stars that she hadn’t been caught in an outright lie, Penny patiently waited while Lawson went over revisions she intended to make on the layout when she met with her contractor.
“Take your time,” Penny assured her. “Like my mother used to say, measure twice, cut once.”
“Given what this guy’s charging, I want to be sure he gets all this straight,” Lawson said grimly.
Penny tried to push away a pang of envy. Margaret Lawson was only five years older than she was, but was already a successful banker. She could afford not only to buy this apartment, but to remodel its perfectly nice bathrooms to her precise specifications. Someday, Penny vowed to herself, I’ll have a home as nice as this one, plus a beach house in East Hampton, right on the ocean.
When she had called the Under Suspicion producer, she really didn’t think she had anything relevant to say. She just liked the idea of seeing her face on the television, with “Penny Rawling, New York City Realtor” written across the screen. She had intended to be charming and articulate. She would speak warmly about all that she had learned from the Wakeling family and the trust Virginia had placed in her. She would seem like the type of person who attends the Met Gala, the type of professional a person of means might entrust with a listing.
And the fact that he didn’t want her talking to the producers was the icing on the proverbial cake. She still couldn’t believe that he’d had the gall to call her after nearly three years, only to pressure her not to speak to a television show. After the way he dumped her, he was the last person with a right to ask a single thing of her.
But the interview with the producers didn’t go the way Penny had pictured. She thought it would just be a few questions about Ivan and the party that night. She didn’t expect them to ask about her, let alone her relationship with him. Maybe I should have just told the truth, she thought, but that would have ruined the image I’m trying to project for my television appearance. I want to be seen as “Penny the Successful Realtor,” not “Penny Who Got Dumped by the Guy She Was Secretly Dating Behind Her Boss’s Back.”
She didn’t see the harm in denying the relationship, because it had nothing whatsoever to do with poor Virginia’s murder. But then they had kept pressing her for answers—about her boyfriend, about the family, about those little balls of paper in the garbage can.
Penny kept replaying Laurie Moran’s final question: “Did you tell Anna, Carter, or Peter—or anyone—about those notes you found? If they knew Mrs. Wakeling was going to change her will—”
After Margaret Lawson was finally finished with her renovation plans, Penny pulled up his number on her cell, still in her call list from when he had contacted her last week.
He picked up after two rings. “I’m surprised to hear from you,” he said. “Is everything okay?”
“That show called me, like you said they might.” She saw no reason to tell him that she was the one who had contacted them.
“I told you that you don’t have to talk to them.”
“Are you afraid of what I might tell them?” she asked.
“Of course not,” he said. “It’s just . . . no one really knew about us. Don’t you think that might be a complication?”
She felt all those old resentments returning. Of course no one knew about them. He had forbidden her from telling anyone, claiming that it could complicate her work for Virginia, that it could complicate the dynamics of the family, that his personal situation was complicated enough as it was. But the situation was never actually complicated. The truth is that he had been ashamed of her. She thought that after he saw her successfully mingling with all those fancy people at the Met Ball, he would see her in a different light. He would view her, finally, as an equal.
But he had ignored her all night, and then Virginia died, and things got even worse. She just didn’t matter to him.
“Is that the only thing you’re hiding?” she asked now. “Our relationship?”
“I’m not hiding anything.”
“I told you about those notes I found, including the ones about her will.”
There was a long silence on the other end of the line. She checked her screen to make sure they hadn’t been disconnected.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Penny.”
Was he serious? He was actually going to deny it? “What? Do you think I’m recording you or something? My God. Please tell me that you didn’t do it. Did you kill her because I told you about those notes?”
“With all due respect,” he said, “you sound like a crazy person. If you tell that show some ludicrous story about whatever notes you’re rambling about, I’ll tell them how Ivan wanted you fired because you didn’t work hard enough. That you shortcut your work to try to land a relationship with me instead. That we only went out a couple of times and you became obsessed with me. Is that really what you want?”
“Are you threatening me?” Penny demanded.
“I’m just speaking the truth. I could sue you for slander and tie you up in court for years. You might want to consider getting professional help, Penny. You sound unstable.”
The line went dead. Penny stared at the screen, wondering if there was anyone she could trust.