Chapter 4 - ALLIE’S HUSBAND WAS ALIVE
Alive.
That word changed Allie completely.
For three years, I had known her as quiet.
Efficient.
Invisible when she wanted to be.
Now she became furious.
“He let me bury him.”
“We don’t know that.”
“I buried a closed casket.”
That sounded familiar.
Too familiar.
I studied her.
“Who identified the body?”
“Police.”
“You?”
“No.”
“Family?”
“He didn’t have any.”
Another convenient death.
I called a contact inside Cook County records.
Evan Carter’s autopsy file contained no dental comparison.
No DNA.
Body too damaged for visual identification.
Identification had been made from wallet, wedding ring, and employment badge.
Allie laughed bitterly.
“I cried over somebody else’s body.”
I understood more than she knew.
We returned to the estate after dark.
Dominic was waiting.
“Where were you?”
“Bank.”
His face gave nothing away.
“Find anything?”
“Nothing useful.”
I lied easily.
He nodded.
Too easily.
Then Lily ran into the foyer.
“Mr. Murphy!”
She carried Fantasma like a sack of flour.
The cat looked offended.
Dominic glanced toward the child.
Something changed in his eyes.
Tiny.
But I saw it.
Recognition.
“Cute kid.”
Allie stepped immediately closer to Lily.
Dominic noticed.
So did I.
That night I moved Allie and Lily into the guest suite beside my own.
At 1:38 a.m., I heard crying through the wall.
Not Lily.
Allie.
I stood outside her door for nearly a minute before knocking.
She opened it wearing an old sweatshirt.
“What?”
“I heard you.”
Embarrassment crossed her face.
“I’m fine.”
“No.”
She laughed weakly.
“Do you always argue with people about their emotions?”
“Usually nobody has them around me.”
That actually made her smile.
Then Lily appeared behind her carrying the gray blanket.
“You need this?”
I looked down.
“No.”
She stared.
I sighed.
“Maybe.”
She handed it over.
Allie watched me wrap it around my shoulders.
Something softened between us.
Dangerous.
I stepped back.
“Lock your door.”
“Murphy.”
She had never called me that.
I looked at her.
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For believing Evan might be alive.”
“I believe evidence.”
“Still.”
I walked away before I said something foolish.
At 3:07 a.m., an alarm triggered in the north garage.
I arrived armed.
The Mercedes hood was open.
Someone had entered through a maintenance tunnel.
Gone before security arrived.
But they left something on the windshield.
A child’s drawing.
Yellow dress.
White cat.
Gray blanket.
Lily.
Beneath it, one sentence:
STOP LOOKING OR THE GIRL DIES.
Dominic appeared behind me.
“What happened?”
I turned slowly.
He looked at the drawing.
Then said:
“Jesus.”
May you like
But his eyes had gone to the maintenance tunnel before I mentioned anyone entered that way.
He already knew.
