The Perfect Marriage(33)

He was right. With effort, Jessica put her suspicions aside.

“Are you coming home to get a change of clothes?”

“No time, I’m afraid. I’ll have to wear the same suit for tomorrow’s meeting. Maybe I’ll buy a shirt on the way down.”

“Okay,” she said, then debated how much nagging she wanted to do. One more, she told herself, and then she’d stop. “Just promise me one thing, will you?”

“Anything, Jessica.”

“You’ll be home first thing in the morning.”

“Yes,” he said with a chuckle. “I swear to you that, come hell or high water, I’ll be on the first Acela in the morning. Reid will be angrier at me than you if I’m not, believe me. He wants his money yesterday.”

“Okay. You have a safe trip. I’ll miss you.”

“I’ll miss you too, Jessica. I love you.”

“Love you too.”



Haley ordered her second martini even though it was not yet four. For reasons that she was certain Dr. Rubenstein could make sense of, nearly being caught the other night had scared her to the core, but not enough to keep her away from Sant Ambroeus to see what today might bring. Her appetite whetted, she was craving more.

Not a minute after she arrived, Haley saw Reid enter James’s office building. A few minutes after that, the skinny, short-haired woman from the other night went in.

Haley was trying to make her drink last when she saw Reid exit the building. She caught only a glimpse, but he looked angry. About a half hour after that, the woman left. In sharp contrast to Reid, she had a self-satisfied smile on her face.

“Another round, miss?” the bartender asked.

“Yes, please.” She smiled at him. “It looks like I’m gonna be here awhile.”



Wayne was uneasy. He tried to calm himself, but he knew that was a losing proposition. Even a couple of beers had done nothing to ease his nerves.

Owen arrived exactly when the pizza did. At dinner, he barely said a word, no matter how Wayne tried to engage him. Wayne knew it was because of what awaited his son tomorrow at Sloan Kettering, a final determination as to whether he’d be admitted into the protocol. Other kids his son’s age were worried about their college acceptances, whereas Owen was waiting to hear whether he would live or die.

“Can you text me as soon as you hear?” Wayne asked. “I wanted to be there tomorrow, but we have this mandatory faculty thing. I tried to get out of it, but—”

“It’s fine. Yeah, I’ll text you as soon as I know.”

“And not like you texted me as soon as you got on the subway tonight, right?”

Owen offered a sheepish smile. “No. I’ll actually do it tomorrow. I promise.”

Wayne began clearing the table, but when he reached Owen’s seat, rather than grab his son’s plate, he placed his hand on Owen’s shoulder.

“I love you, Owen. I’m so proud that you’re my son.”

Wayne had said such things countless times to Owen in the past. He assumed that such expressions of affection were like white noise to a teenager. Owen certainly never reciprocated the sentiment, but Wayne didn’t care about that. He wanted his son to know that he was loved and valued, something Archibald Fiske had never thought important to convey to Wayne.

Owen averted his eyes, his usual reaction to any effort at intimacy. He looked, if anything, embarrassed rather than loved. Still, Wayne was glad to have said it. He wanted his son to know that he would do anything for him.





PART THREE





10

Haley awoke momentarily confused. It was still dark outside, and even though she could not see a foot in front of her, she knew she was in a foreign place. Then she saw Malik’s chiseled bicep above the blanket, and it all came rushing back.

Little more than twelve hours earlier, she had been at Sant Ambroeus, sitting at the bar. She got there at four, and although she hadn’t checked the time, she assumed it was hardly past five when she went inside James’s office. She’d fled like a bat out of hell no more than five minutes later.

Her plan thereafter had been simple: go to Malik’s apartment, immediately get him into bed, and when they were done, try to confuse him about what time she had arrived. Her hope was that after enough carnal activity, he would believe she’d shown up an hour earlier than she actually had, and therefore would later tell the police that she’d been with him from five o’clock until morning.

Malik worked what he called “freelance.” She thought that was a euphemism for not too often. He did something computer-related but was never too descriptive about how he spent his days, and she’d never had any reason to care. She did have a reason last evening, of course. If he hadn’t been home or was on his way to work, her entire plan would’ve been shot to hell.

She’d assumed Malik’s walk-up building north of the Grand Concourse in the Bronx had limited security, but she didn’t take any chances. She’d pulled her hood over her head and kept her face down. Then she’d pressed the buzzer and uttered a silent prayer that he answered.

It took longer than she imagined it should for Malik to cross what she knew to be a small apartment. But she eventually heard his voice coming through the intercom.

“Who is it?”