The Ex(75)

My legs were shaking as I rose from the sofa. I had never seen Jack like this. “I saw your face when the ADA read Tracy’s name at the arraignment. I thought you were freaked out because she was so young, but you recognized her name.”

Jack opened his mouth but nothing came out.

“By the way, you’re on your own for this inspection,” I said, dropping my cup in his office garbage can. “And once the police are gone, I’d spend the rest of your time coming up with an explanation for why Tracy would be calling your old number. I figured this out, and it’s pretty obvious that Scott Temple did, too. The bail hearing’s in two days. You’re going back to jail.”


I EXITED THE ELEVATOR TO find Nick the doorman buttoning his blue blazer around his thick torso. “Good morning, Miss Randall. Normally I see you here when I’m on my way home.”

“I’m the early bird today, I guess. Hey, Nick. Do you mind if I ask you a question?” I rifled through my briefcase until I landed on a manila file folder, and then plucked out an eight-by-ten printout. “Have you ever seen this woman before?” It was Tracy Frankel’s booking photograph from her one drug arrest.

“Um—maybe? She looks familiar, I guess.”

“Do you mean from the newspaper?” I prompted. The media coverage of the shooting had been so focused on Jack and Malcolm Neeley that Tracy Frankel’s and Clifton Hunter’s photographs were rarely shown. But they had been featured in a few articles. “Something about the shooting down at the waterfront?”

Nick looked left and right, monitoring the lobby traffic before speaking in a hushed voice. “We’re under strict directions from the co-op board not to gossip about Mr. Harris’s . . . situation. Let the justice system do its thing, you know? Not for the neighbors to be all up in his business.”

“Sure. That sounds sensible.”

I was heading toward the revolving door when Nick called out behind me. “You know what? Come to think of it, now that you mention Mr. Harris, I do remember where I’ve seen her. She came here looking for him once, or maybe twice.”

I turned around and pulled the picture again from my bag, laying it on the marble counter before Nick. “This woman? She came looking for Jack Harris?”

“Yes. It was a while ago. You know, before the, uh—”

“Situation?”

“Yeah, exactly. But not long before, because I remember she wasn’t wearing a lot of clothes, you know? So it was hot out already. I described her to Mr. Harris, and he made it clear that I should ask her to leave if she came back. I thought maybe she was some bad-influence friend of Buckley or something, but it’s not my place to ask. Oh, wait, that’s right—yeah, it’s coming back to me. After he said tell her to leave if she comes back, I saw her one more time, talking to Buckley on the street, but she never showed up again, not that I saw. That was the end of it. Does that maybe help Mr. Harris with his . . . you know?” he whispered.

I thanked Nick effusively for his help, but, no, it was definitely not helpful to Jack’s case.

Jack had an affair with one of Buckley’s friends? No, Tracy was four years older, an entire generation in teen years; I couldn’t imagine a connection between them. There was another explanation.

The second I hit the sidewalk outside Jack’s building, I called Don. He picked up immediately. “That former client who works at CUNY, the one who told you that Tracy Frankel only enrolled in one class before dropping out? Any chance you can call him? We need him to look up Tracy’s college application. Her mother said she bounced around from school to school.”

“What exactly are you looking for?”

“A list of every school she went to, hopefully with the dates.”

“That’s a tall order.”

“And don’t say anything about this to Jack or Charlotte yet.”

“Okay. Am I allowed to ask what’s going on?”

“Jack’s been lying to us this entire time.”


BY THE TIME I GOT to the office, Don had the information I’d asked for. “I got hold of my guy at CUNY. I’ve never heard of any of these places, but I’m no expert on schools for rich, troubled city kids.” He handed me a sheet of paper. “What the hell’s going on?”

According to her one and only college application, Tracy had attended three high schools: the French School, Halton Girls’ School, and the Stinson Academy. “It’s a connection to Jack. Or at least it might be.” I showed him the crime report from the Penn Station shootings, listing Molly’s next of kin as Jackson Harris, along with his phone number. “Remember how Einer said Tracy called a shoe store in Soho three times? It bugged me at the time because if it had been a wrong number, she eventually would have called someone just one digit off. But she didn’t. She was trying to call Jack. The shoe store number used to be Jack’s landline at home, before Penn Station.”

Don looked confused. “And why would Tracy Frankel be calling him?”

“My guess is for money. She was an addict, and her parents had cut her off.”

“What am I missing here?”

“I think Tracy was blackmailing Jack. I just need to make a phone call to confirm it.”


I CALLED THE LAST HIGH school Tracy had attended.