Wish You Were Gone(48)
GRAY
Gray was one of those drivers she couldn’t stand. She was doing five miles an hour on Madison Avenue, even though the midday traffic was mercifully light. Cars and cabs kept flying up behind her, slamming on their brakes, then making a big show out of zooming around her. On a normal day, if she came up behind a Mercedes braking every two seconds, she would have leaned on her horn and cursed the driver out.
Where was Darnell? The app put him half a block ahead of her. But it was lunchtime, and all the ad agencies had belched out their suit-clad worker bees who were intent on tracking down their kale superfood salads. Usually, Darnell was easy to spot among a crowd, but not when half the men were tall and coiffed and athletic.
He’d explained away the letting go of all James’s disloyal clients as a necessary purging to reset the culture at Garrison & Walsh. The boys had come out for dinner on Tuesday and they’d all gone to their favorite sushi restaurant and had a lovely time catching up and not talking about James at all. On Wednesday, Darnell had taken the day off and played golf with some friends. She hadn’t decided, yet, what to do with the information she’d stolen from his computer and Darnell hadn’t mentioned it, so she was content to forget she’d ever seen it. For a little while there, Gray had even allowed herself to imagine that everything would be okay.
But she still broke into Darnell’s phone and installed the tracking app—the one her favorite private investigator had recommended because it was “virtually impossible” for the trackee to find on their device. And while yesterday Darnell had gone straight to work and home again, today, he’d gotten off the train and started wandering around South Street Seaport. When Dante called to say his father hadn’t shown up at work and he was worried, she hadn’t been surprised—she’d known exactly where Darnell was—but she had been spurred into action. She’d typed up a sick-day message to her assistant and gotten right on Route 4.
Now, an hour later, she was doing a very bad tail job and pissing off everyone on the road. Her cell phone rang and the light right in front of her car turned red. She slammed on her brakes.
“Call from Emma Walsh,” her car informed her in its soothing voice.
Gray couldn’t ignore a call from Emma. She hit the connect button on her steering wheel, scanning the crowd that had gathered on the corner.
“Hi, Emma. Thanks for calling me back. I wanted to let you know I hired the crew to come demo the garage.”
“Gray—”
“They’re coming on Thursday. I’ll send you the contractor’s number.”
“Gray!”
“His name is Zack and he’s—”
“Gray! Stop talking! I have something to tell you.”
Gray’s mouth snapped shut. The light turned green. And at that moment, she spotted Darnell. He was walking purposefully down the street, with his back to her. Unlike her, he looked like he knew where he was going. Thank God. She was starting to think that taking a sick day was going to end up being a total waste.
“It’s all true,” Emma informed her. “I found a Valentine’s gift from his mistress.”
“What?” Gray slammed on her brakes. The truck behind her stopped about half an inch from her back bumper. In the rearview mirror, Gray could see the sweaty man behind the wheel screaming at her. She glimpsed a spot up ahead and pulled in, even though it was right in front of a fire hydrant. “Emma, no. Are you serious?”
Up ahead, Darnell shoved open the glass door to a gray, granite high-rise. Gray killed the engine, said a quick prayer to the parking gods, and switched the call from her car to her phone. She climbed out and rushed over to the sidewalk.
“Yes. It’s a pair of expensive cuff links and the note says it’s from someone with the initials JM. I found them last night.”
“Who the hell is JM?” Gray asked, wracking her brain even as she rushed to catch up to her husband. She got to the glass-fronted building and brought herself up short. Darnell stood six feet away in front of a bank of elevators. If he turned even slightly to the left, he would see her. Gray stepped sideways, almost tripping over a dog leash held by an elderly woman, and stayed as hidden as she could behind a pillar, while keeping an eye on Darnell.
“I have no idea. I mean, I found some women on his Facebook page, but who knows if it’s them or not? He has over five thousand friends on there,” Emma said. “But at least now I have something to go on. I have to find this woman, Gray. I have to find out what she knows.”
Gray took a deep breath. Her pulse pounded in her temples. She had a decision to make here. Shut down Emma’s curiosity and put an end to this nonsense, or dive in. The thing was, she was starting to feel a bit curious herself. Did this JM person know something? Had she been close enough to James before he died to have intimate knowledge of his plans? And if Emma was right, and she’d actually been there that night… Gray couldn’t even go there.
“Send me a picture of the note,” she told Emma.
“What? Really? Why?”
Inside the building, Darnell stepped sideways to let a few people out of the elevator, then slid into the car. Gray waited five seconds, then strode into the lobby.
“I want to see if I recognize the handwriting. You never know.” She knew she’d never recognize some random woman’s handwriting—she just wanted to get off the phone. Later she could come up with an actionable plan.