The Other Woman (44 page)

The city room was deserted, tomorrow’s first deadline past and the night shift not due for half an hour. She would have some quiet to get her thoughts together.

She rounded the corner, hoping Tuck wasn’t occupying their chair.

Great. Empty.

She plopped into the swivel in front of the desk, then quickly stood again. She was in the wrong cube. No Bridge Killer crime scene photos pinned across the bulletin board, no Snickers wrappers in the wastebasket, no bulging manila file folders taking up all the room on the desktop.

Jane paused, confused. But her own stuff was there, where she’d left it last night. Her envelope of photos. Her campaign brochures. Archive Gus’s file.

Only Tuck’s possessions were gone. Maybe Jane’s scoop snagged her an office of her own?

A footstep in the corridor. A cough. And then Jane’s phone beeped. A message.
Has to be from Jake.

“Jane?” Alex appeared at the cubicle entrance. He draped one arm over the low fabric-covered divider.

Had she ever seen him in a suit and tie before?
Hot Alex,
indeed. Her phone beeped again. Extra loud.

“Hey, Alex, listen,” Jane said. She stood quickly, smiling, eager to tell the story. Describe every detail. “You won’t believe what I just—”

Alex put up a palm. The twinkle was gone from his eyes. “Two things,” he said. “First, good news. You know about Patti Vick, right? Police released it, five minutes ago.”

“Patti? Vick?” Jane tried to figure out where this was going.
Arthur Vick’s wife?

“Confessed to killing Sellica Darden. Revenge. For her husband’s—affair. You see what that means.”

Jane sank back into her desk chair, one hand on the smooth metal desktop, needing to keep her balance. Her knees were not to be trusted.

“Didn’t Jake call you? You don’t know?”

Jane glanced at her phone. It beeped again. Alex had a funny look on his face.

“No, I—” Jane tried to think. She’d clearly missed Jake’s call.
Patti Vick?
She couldn’t wait to hear every—
Wonder if Leota Darden knows.
Jane reached for the cell.

“Before you pick that up,” Alex interrupted. “The bad news. We had to fire Tuck. She was seeing Laney Driscoll, the police PR flack. Turns out, he leaked her those crime scene photos. And a lot more. The superintendent just fired
him,
too. It’s a bad deal. All around. We trusted her, we printed it, we’ll back her in court. First Amendment, all that. But sleeping with a source? Any kind of inappropriate behavior? The
Register
will not tolerate that.”

Jane’s hand hovered over her cell phone. It beeped again. Insistent. And, since Alex obviously suspected who was calling, potentially career-ending.

80

Her car wasn’t there. Jake trolled Corey Road for the third time, barely touching the accelerator, just to be sure. Past ivy-covered brownstones, leafless trees, a fedora-wearing geezer walking an overweight collie. No Audi. He drove through the narrow alley in the back of her building. No Audi. She wasn’t home. Maybe at the
Register
?

That little boy, Eli, was scuffing through piles of fallen leaves on the front sidewalk. His mother stood beside him, pushing a stroller back and forth. But no Jane.

He checked again. No messages on his cell.

Jake flickered a rueful glance at himself in the rearview.
She’s got ya, bud, doesn’t she?
he thought.
And what of it?
he answered his own question.

He’d buy her flowers. Deliver them to her in person at the
Register.
As congratulations on her scoop.

What woman wouldn’t appreciate that?

*   *   *

Should she pick up the phone? If her voice mail was from Jake—and of course it was—she’d have a hard time hiding it. But Alex knew they were pals. Jake had recommended her for this job. Suddenly that wasn’t such a good thing.

Tuck’s empty bulletin board proved why.

But Patti Vick?
Confessed? That means Sellica’s death was not a result of her TV story. And that means …

Alex’s cell phone interrupted. He pulled it from his jacket pocket, glanced at the screen. “It’s Ellen. The
Register
intern. At the hospital. I’ve got her staking out Sarah Lassiter.”

“Is she—?” If Sarah died, they’d never find out what really happened. Owen and Moira Lassiter were at the hospital, been there since last night. Gable and Maitland—who knew. Maybe hiring lawyers.

“Okay.” Alex was checking his watch as he talked to Ellen. “Ten minutes.”

“Sarah Lassiter is awake,” he said. “I need you to get over to Mass General.”

“On the way.” Jane scooped up her belongings. If Sarah was talking, they were about to get some answers.

*   *   *

Jake pulled into Casswell Boulevard, headed his Jeep in the
Register
’s direction. He shouldn’t have let Jane talk him out of—being together. A relationship. She’d been terrific, last night, in that chaos. No freaking out. No crying. Efficient, competent. And she was the one who’d figured out the Matt thing.

She was a knockout. All there was to it.

A clay pot of white tulips wrapped in crinkling clear cellophane teetered on the seat beside him, trailing a pink ribbon to the floor. She loved tulips.

He stopped at the red light, good cop. He’d never told Jane anything the supe could criticize. They’d simply have to agree to keep their professional and personal lives separate. They could be careful. It could work.

He missed her.

“Brogan? You read?” his radio interrupted.

“Brogan,” he said, pushing the button. He hit the accelerator as the light changed. “Loud and clear, D. What’s up?”

“Sarah Lassiter. You better get over here.”

Jake eyed the flowers. Then he flipped on the lights and siren and banged a U-turn across two lanes of traffic.

Maybe Jane will be at the hospital, too.

*   *   *

“What did Sarah Lassiter say? Where’s Trevor now?” Jane grabbed Ellen by the elbow, recognizing the elaborate braids and wire-rimmed glasses of the
Register
’s intern. Jane had parked in the Mass General garage, run down two flights of water-stained stairwell, raced past a couple of waiting ambulances, pushed through the glass front doors. Almost got to the elevator. When a security guard stopped her.

Now she was trapped in a windowless holding room with every reporter and photographer on the planet. At least Ellen had made contact with Trevor Kiernan.

Ellen pulled a spiral notebook from the back pocket of her jeans. “Sarah Lassiter? A nurse ran out of her room, freaking. Then all hell broke loose and I got booted down here. Owen Lassiter’s in Sarah’s room, and his wife, too. And about a million cops. I told Trevor Kiernan you were on the way.”

“What’d he say?” Jane had to talk to Lassiter. And Moira. Tell them what she knew. Warn them. They didn’t know about Gable. The
other
woman.

Ellen shrugged. “He said—thanks. Now, we wait.”

*   *   *

Outside Sarah Lassiter’s room, two uniform cops stood sentinel. Jake knew DeLuca was inside.

Owen Lassiter, arm across his wife’s shoulders, slumped on a low bench against the wall. She must have brought him a change of clothes—last night’s blood-spattered shirt was gone, replaced by a dark blue turtleneck. A tweedy guy holding a clipboard leaned close to Mrs. Lassiter, whispering.

All three looked up at Jake’s arrival. Faces drawn, exhausted.

“Detective,” Lassiter said, standing. “My daughter’s dead. She said she never meant to kill me—she was just—I don’t know. Trying to scare me. But she said I took her mother’s life. And, I suppose, I did.”

Moira made a soft sound, not quite a sob. Her head dropped into her hands.

“And my own son sacrificed his life for mine.” Lassiter’s shoulders went back, a muscle in his jaw working. He reached out a hand, almost caressing his wife’s hair. “We could have worked it out. Now it’s too late.”

Jake remembered that boisterous rally on the Esplanade. Candidate Owen Lassiter. Confetti and crowds and music and adulation. Confident, powerful, promising to save the world. Now he stood only in sorrow, facing a future of second-guessing and certain regret.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Jake said.

81

Jane punched the green button before her cell finished the first ring. She’d heard Jake’s messages, finally. Incredible about the Vicks. But if this was him calling back, she’d have to nip this whole thing in the bud. Right now. She wasn’t going to be the next Tuck.

“Jane Ryland,” she said.

“It’s Trevor Kiernan.”

Oh.
Terrific.

“Don’t say a thing. Don’t say it’s me. Come to room 415. It’s a private sitting room. The cops will let you by. Now.”

Trevor, waiting in the hallway, opened the door as Jane arrived. Someone had cracked open the room’s tall windows, revealing a wide-shot view of the Charles River, lights of Cambridge glimmering across the water, gauzy curtains shifting in the evening breeze. Moira Lassiter was a silhouette, framed in the gathering night.

“I’m sorry for the … intrigue,” Moira said. She came into the light, smoothing her already-smooth hair with one hand, adjusting a plush gray sweater across her shoulders. “But I owe you, Jane. I want to clear things up. Off the record?”

Jane nodded. Waiting. A matching floral armchair and love seat flanked a low glass and metal coffee table. A paper cup, tea bag string dangling, bore a print of Moira’s plum red lipstick.

“I’ll leave you two,” Trevor said. The door closed after him with a soft click.

Moira sat on the love seat, tucking the charcoal pleats of her skirt underneath her, and gestured Jane to the chair. “Please.”

She’s already been through so much
.
Moira and her husband don’t even know the rest.
Jane wished she didn’t have to tell them about Gable and Maitland. A knockout story for her. A knockout punch for the Lassiters.

Moira took a tentative sip from her cup, holding the tea bag string with one finger. She looked past Jane, past the flutter of curtains, into the night.

“This all started with me,” she said.

“When you called me.” Jane remembered that day, Moira and her maybe-vodka, the request to find “the other woman.”

Moira shook her head, her lips tight. “No, Jane, long before that. Years before that.”

Jane nodded, transfixed.

“We were—in love. And just trying to be happy,” Moira said. “Owen had a miserable marriage. His wife was a constant battle. She’d … Well, who knows what she might have done. When he finally left, he was distraught. Inconsolable. But it was out of necessity, you know? Then, it got worse. She kept the children from him. Every time he tried to see them, she’d prevent it. Threatened him, sent him away. One day she just disappeared with them. Owen was devastated. She’d told him, again and again, Sarah and Matt loathed him. Apparently, Sarah actually did.”

Moira moved a hospital-issue paper napkin on the table, set her teacup on top of it. Her chest rose, then fell, her sweater draping as her shoulders momentarily sagged.

Jane had a thousand questions. But this wasn’t the time to ask them.

“Sarah—Kenna, she called herself.” Moira crossed her legs, crossed her arms, protecting herself. “All this time she was—taunting me. Making me suspect my own dear husband. That whole Springfield charade, Owen told me all about it. Last night in her hospital room, even with all those tubes, Sarah said she wanted to hurt me, and then hurt Owen. The way we hurt her.”

She took a deep breath, let it out slowly.

“But during the campaign? Owen never, ever did anything wrong. Now, both his children are dead. Because of me. Because all those years ago, I was—the other woman.”

She reached out, touching Jane’s arm with one graceful hand, her brown eyes brimming with tears. “You can choose your sin, Jane,” she whispered. “But you cannot choose your consequences.”

82

“This one belongs to you, Jane.” With a flourish, Alex handed her the first copy of Wednesday’s morning paper. “It’s a long way from Wrong-Guy Ryland, I must say.”

Jane stood up from her spot on Alex’s couch, bowing dramatically as she accepted the bulldog edition. Both of them were wired on two lattes each after yet another all-nighter in the
Register
newsroom.

“Talk about wrong,” Jane said. “The cops found an incredible stash of photos in Holly’s apartment. Apparently, she’d been stalking Lassiter for weeks, putting together her own political campaign to humiliate him, make him look like a womanizer. And I just found another batch of them in my mailbox, forwarded from Channel Eleven. From her, I guess. Her scheme could have worked, I bet. If Matt Lassiter hadn’t—ah.”

Jane sank back on the couch, folded newspaper in hand, leaning her head against the worn upholstery, propping her blue-jeaned legs on the coffee table. Thinking about Moira. “And Lassiter did absolutely nothing wrong during the campaign, you know? It’s terrible. Greed. Deception. Power. The whole thing.”

“But a helluva story,” Alex said.

“Got to admit.” Jane opened the paper, held up the front page.

Jane’s story, headlined
SENATE RACE SCANDAL—CONSULTANT CONS CANDIDATE IN ELECTION DOUBLE-CROSS
, covered the entire front page above the fold. Below, the follow-up to Patti Vick’s arrest—minus Tuck’s byline—rated one paragraph and a jump.
Jake was right. There is no Bridge Killer. Or, actually, there are four.

Alex plonked his feet on his desk, tilting in his chair. “Secretary of State Doniger insists she can’t call off the election. So next week, people will either choose a sleaze for senator, or vote for a dupe who can’t tell that his closest ally is actually working for the other guy.”

“The other woman, you mean.” Jane read her story yet again, scanning for the highlights. It was
all
highlights. Seduction. Betrayal. Murder. Jane had worked through the night, trying to make sense of all that had happened. Choosing exactly the right words so her story could explain it, clear and objective.