Wish You Were Gone(49)

“Okay. I will. Thanks, Gray. You have no idea—”

“I’m so sorry, Emma. I have to go,” Gray said. “But I’ll call you back as soon as I can and we’ll figure this out.”

She hung up on her friend. She had to concentrate. One glance around the lobby gave her nothing. It was just another building with marble floors, potted plants, and piped-in jazz music. Gray stepped over to the elevators and her eyes scanned the directory. Doctors’ offices. Dozens of them. She waited for Darnell’s elevator to stop, which it did on the twelfth floor. Then it turned around and started its descent. Bingo. Gray found the twelfth floor on the directory. Doctors Mira Patel and Helena Wellhammer.

Gray had never heard of either one of them, but if their offices took up the entire twelfth floor of a building this size, they must have been doing well for themselves. She took the elevator up to twelve and exited into a smaller lobby with a double, smoked-glass door dead ahead. The names PATEL & WELLHAMMER were etched into the glass in gold. The door opened and Gray stepped to the side, worried it might be Darnell or that he’d be standing just inside and see her. A short, thin gentleman with a mustache and beard stepped out. He smiled and made to hold the door, but she shook her head and followed him back to the elevator.

“Excuse me,” she said, as they waited. “What sort of medicine do doctors Patel and Wellhammer practice?”

“Neuropsychology,” he said, his brow knitting over the odd question. What was she doing on their floor if she didn’t know?

The elevator arrived and they stepped in, but Gray was now on autopilot. This couldn’t mean what she thought it meant. It just couldn’t. On the bottom floor, the man got out and looked back at her. “Are you all right, miss?”

“Fine!” She forced a smile. “Just fine.”

She walked back outside, no longer caring if she had a ticket or if the car had been towed. Darnell was consulting the doctors for a client. That had to be it. That was what she would tell herself to get her ass home safely and to make herself act normal for the rest of the day. Her car was, in fact, still there, and she got behind the wheel. She’d call Emma once she got over the bridge. Let her friend’s marital problems distract her from her own. Alive or dead, the men in their lives were causing nothing but stress.





EMMA


“Hi, Zoe. It’s Emma Walsh.”

“Emma! Hi!” Zoe trilled. “I just got your email.”

“Oh, good. Let me know if you have any questions once you’ve had a chance to go over it.”

Emma had finally compiled a list of friends and acquaintances for Zoe to invite to James’s memorial. This had been accomplished through more stalking of his Facebook page, as she’d jotted down the various former Little League coaches and parents of Hunter’s friends who’d left condolences. It had, at least, justified her spending more time on there, but she’d yet to uncover any more women with the initials JM. She had discovered a few men with those initials, but she wasn’t even allowing her brain to go there.

“Great. Will do,” Zoe said.

There was an awkward pause and Emma knew it was her turn to speak—her turn to ask the question she’d called to ask. She closed her eyes and sat down at the kitchen island.

“Zoe, would you happen to know whether James had any important contacts with the initials JM?”

“I’m sorry?”

Emma could hear typing in the background. Clearly, Zoe was attempting to multitask. She thought about simply hanging up. Putting herself out of her misery before it really ramped up. Zoe might be a tad silly, but she wasn’t stupid. She was going to see right through this line of questioning. Emma had to ask herself how important this really was to her. Was it worth her pride? Worth not being able to look Zoe in the eye at James’s memorial?

Answer? Yes.

“The initials JM,” Emma repeated, pressing the pads of her fingers into the marble countertop. “Maybe he used it as shorthand on his schedule? It would have been someone he met up with regularly. For lunch or dinner or… drinks.”

Sex. Someone he met up with for sex.

“Ummmm… not that I know of,” Zoe said. She stopped typing. “I’d have to check his emails and his calendar. Is this important? Because I’m pretty busy just now. I could maybe take a look and call you back?”

Emma had the distinct feeling that Zoe was rambling—trying to buy herself time. She knew something. She had to know. The assistant always knew. But why bother protecting James at this point? Emma wanted to ask, but she felt a momentary pang of pity for Zoe. She didn’t need to be put in the middle of her former boss’s marital drama.

“That would be great,” Emma said. “Just let me know when you have a chance.”

It wasn’t until she hung up that she thought it odd that Zoe didn’t ask why she was asking. Yes. She definitely knew something. At this very moment, Zoe could be calling JM and warning her that the wife was suspicious. Shit. That call had been a complete tactical error. She shouldn’t have needed Zoe to check his calendar because she should have been able to check it herself. But she still had no idea where his computer was. That was what she should have asked Zoe about—whether his laptop was still on his desk at the office. Such an innocent question. So easy to answer. And getting hold of his computer would help tremendously.