Finlay Donovan Is Killing It(Finlay Donovan #1)(35)

Desperate, I tracked down the number for the firm where Patricia was employed. The receptionist apologized, explaining Patricia had called in sick that morning, and she would be taking leave for the remainder of the week. I didn’t know much more about Patricia than I knew about Harris, but thanks to the note she’d left on my tray in Panera, I knew her home address.

North Livingston Street was already dressed for Halloween, cottony cobwebbing strung from the limbs of the trees and bright pumpkins dotting the front porches. I eased to the curb a block away from number forty-nine. The Micklers’ house was a modest 1960s split level, landscaped to blend in with its unassuming surrounds. Like most of the others in this zip code, the simple brick shell had probably been remodeled inside, with granite counters and ornate trim and sunken jetted bathtubs to suit the lofty price and high-end tastes of this corner of North Arlington.

The plantation shutters through the windows I could see were all drawn shut, and the driveway was empty of cars. As far as I could tell, no cops were poised to pounce outside.

I dialed Patricia’s number for the third time since I’d left my house, tossing my phone in my drink holder with a muttered swear when an automated voice told me her mailbox was full. I got out of my van, aiming for nonchalant as I strolled casually up the sidewalk toward the Micklers’ house. Most of the neighbors were probably at work, which was precisely where Patricia Mickler should have been.

She’d been foolish to call in sick the day after she’d paid someone to kill her husband. Or maybe she was just playing up the role of the worried wife. I hoped, wherever she was, she hadn’t skipped town. If she ran, the police would be sure to find her, and if they questioned her about her husband’s disappearance … Well, I didn’t want to think about what she might confess in exchange for reduced prison time.

Satisfied I wasn’t being watched, I crossed the street to Patricia’s house. The front stoop was neat: no stacks of mail, no knickknacks or Halloween decorations. I rang the bell. Its faint chime was just audible through the foyer window. No thump of approaching feet. No barking dogs. I waited a minute before rapping hard on the door. The house remained quiet. I peered through the window. The lights were off inside.

Where would she have gone?

I turned to go, pausing by the mailbox mounted beside the Micklers’ door. My hand hovered over the lid. I was pretty sure tampering with someone’s mail was a criminal offense, but if Harris’s mail was anything like mine, it contained plenty of things I didn’t want people to know about me.

I glanced over my shoulder, then both ways down the street, before cracking it open. The stack inside was thin. Slender enough to fit inside my coat without drawing notice. Before I could talk myself out of it, I tucked the mail into my open jacket and hurried to my van. Locking myself inside, I hurriedly thumbed through the envelopes.

A handful of bills, some coupons, a few advertisements … All the mail had been jointly addressed to Mr. & Mrs. Harris Mickler. Except a single monthly bank statement, addressed to an LLC—Milkman Associates.

Milkman, like the password to his cell phone.

I slipped my car key inside the flap and sliced it open, scanning the statement. This was clearly not an account he shared with Patri cia. There were no withdrawals for groceries or utility bills or mall stores. No hair salons or doctor appointments or routine expenses related to their house. My stomach went sour as I read the charges. Payments to upscale bars and high-end restaurants, a flower shop in Vienna, and the glitzy Charleston-Alexander jeweler in town. There were several recurring charges to the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, halfway between Harris’s house and The Lush. This must have been Harris’s operating account—the one he used to wine and dine his victims before he drugged and blackmailed them into silence.

I flipped the page and found a list of twelve deposits, all for the same amount—two thousand dollars—all bank-to-bank wire transfers on the first day of the month. Harris must have been doing some financial consulting on the side. And, apparently, his consulting business was doing well. By the looks of it, he had twelve regular clients on retainer, making payments every month. In the last week of September, Harris’s balance on the account had been a little more than a half million dollars. But the total in the account by the end of that month, when the statement closed, was … zero?

I flipped back to the withdrawals. Harris had withdrawn the full balance of his account the week before he was killed. A week before Patricia had attempted to hire me.

Or had he…?

I was going to use it to leave him. But it will be better this way.

Suddenly, it made sense how Patricia had come up with fifty thousand in cash so easily. She must have withdrawn it from her husband’s account, planning to use it to run away, hoping he’d never come after her. But then she’d met me and figured she had enough cash to ensure he never would. The missing money would fit the narrative she had probably planned to tell the police—that he’d cashed out his assets and run off with another woman. Meanwhile, Patricia had all the money she’d need to start a new life someplace else.

Only two questions remained: Who killed Harris? And where had Patricia Mickler gone?

As I tucked Harris’s bank statement in my pocket and prepared to return the rest of the envelopes to the Micklers’ mailbox, a sleek black Lincoln Town Car rolled slowly past my van. I ducked low in my seat as it stopped in front of the Micklers’ driveway.