The two men exchanged a glance that Devine couldn’t really read, but didn’t like.

  “When did this Hancock talk to you?” asked Ekman.

  “He was waiting for me at the train station near my place in Mount Kisco, this was on Friday. And he was waiting for me at my house the next day when I got home from work.”

  “And you told him where you were that night?”

  “Yes, and he wrote it down.”

  “Describe him,” said Shoemaker.

  “Black guy, around six one, bald, athletic build, in his forties. Dressed like you guys, and he said he was driving a coffee-and-cigarette motor pool piece of crap, at least in so many words. Because NYPD hadn’t bought new cars in ten years, at least that’s what he said. He also told me he lived in Trenton, New Jersey.” He looked between the two men. “Don’t you know him? How many homicide detectives are there in the city?”

  “Manhattan South Homicide, where we’re from, has ten of them, down from twenty-six in 2001. And you’re looking at two of them.”

  “He had a badge that looked real. And he talked like a cop. He was the one who told me that Sara hadn’t killed herself. That she was murdered.”

  “He said that?” exclaimed Ekman. “On Saturday?”

  “Yeah. And he knew all about my background in the Army.”

  “Exactly what about the crime did he know?” asked Ekman.

  Devine told them everything, including the straight-line ligature versus the inverted. But he didn’t tell them about the similar case in the Army that he had mentioned to Hancock. “He said that proved it was a murder and not a suicide.”

  Shoemaker gave his partner a nervous glance, one that showed he was no longer fully in control of the situation. His partner seemed to read this like a cue card.

  “Okay, let’s move on for now. Where were you between those times?” asked Ekman.

  “At home in bed until four. Then I was doing my workout at the high school next to where I live. Then I showered, dressed, and took the six twenty train just like always. Must be cameras in the station to show me coming in. Not that many people are there at that hour.”

  Shoemaker said, “You could have killed her that night, taken the train home, and come back into town on the six twenty.”

  “But again, the train station may have cameras, and the office building has a security guard.”

  “You didn’t have to take the train,” Ekman pointed out. “And the guard makes rounds.”

  “But you need a security card to get in the building. There’s a record of coming and going because of that.”

  And it shows me coming and me going at the critical time in question, so why are you jerking my chain on all this other crap? wondered Devine.

  “We’re checking all that,” said Shoemaker. “It’s taking a little time to pull the records.”

  And I won’t be happy with what you find.

  “You get up at four a.m. to work out?” said Ekman.

  “Doesn’t everybody?”

  “Anybody corroborate this?”

  “No. I slept alone and I worked out alone. Nobody else around.”

  “No roommates?”

  “Yeah. Three. But they were asleep at that hour, like most normal people. They can’t alibi me.”

  “How do you know?” asked Ekman.

  “Because I asked them if they could when this Hancock guy showed up and seemed to be trying to pin all this on me. But they couldn’t. And I wouldn’t ask them to lie.”

  Shoemaker studied him so closely that Devine was sure the man was going to read him his rights and cuff him. “What a nice guy you are,” he said, but there didn’t seem to be much acid behind it. The big cop just looked truly confused.

  “If you saw this Hancock again, would you recognize him?” asked Ekman.

  “Hell yes I would. I don’t like getting played. And why pick on me in the first place? That’s what I don’t get.”

  “Well, maybe there’s something special about you, Devine, at least when it comes to Sara Ewes,” said Shoemaker.

  Devine didn’t like any bit of that remark.

  The two men rose as though connected by string. “You don’t leave the area,” warned Shoemaker.

  “I have no intention of doing that. I have a job to do.”

  Shoemaker looked around. “Yeah, making dough at this place.”

  “That’s not the job I’m referring to.”

  And it wasn’t. He was thinking about Emerson Campbell and the mission. He was also thinking about dead Sara Ewes.

  Shoemaker and Ekman exchanged curious glances and then left.

  Devine sat there for a few minutes digesting everything that had just happened and trying to place it neatly into certain boxes in his mind that would make the most sense. Some of it did, much of it didn’t.

  Sara was pregnant and then had an abortion? This news was staggering to him.

  He ran a hand through his hair and closed his eyes for a moment, trying to process all this: Was I the father? We slept together once. I didn’t use protection because she said she was on the pill, but maybe she wasn’t. They didn’t say when she had the abortion. Did I lose a child and not even know about it?

  He rose and looked out the small window. Staring back at him was another building of equal height. He felt boxed in, trapped, blindsided beyond all reason.

  And they’re going to look at the entry log and they’re going to see my name as the only one. And then they’re going to be back. With an arrest warrant. And who the hell is Karl Hancock?

  But now it made sense why the guy had approached Devine away from the office both times. If he wasn’t a real cop, it was much safer that way.

  He lifted his lanyard from around his neck and looked at his security badge. He had not been in the building when Ewes had been murdered. So maybe someone had stolen his badge and then returned it before he woke up at his home in the suburbs, which he did not think was likely at all because the timing was just too tight. Or maybe someone hacked into the system and set me up as the fall guy. That was also not easy to do. But for the person who had sent an email that could not be traced by the best in the business, it might be a piece of cake.

  He shuffled back to work, with what felt like a knife sticking right in his gut.

  CHAPTER

  29

  WHEN DEVINE RETURNED TO HIS office, he found several of the other Burners staring daggers at him as he walked in. He retook his seat. Something was up. Somebody knew what was going on and had shared it with others. Emails and texts must have been flying since he’d been gone.

  Devine had a few people here he’d gone out with on occasion for beers or meals and a couple of concerts, and he counted Wanda Simms as a friend. His direct supervisor had lots of newbies just like Devine to oversee, and the unwritten rule at Cowl and Comely was you never got close to any Burner because chances were very good they would be gone in less than a year. And the competition here was so fierce that close friendships were just not possible, at least that was the perennial vibe around here.

  But he knew what his fellow associates were thinking.

  Devine has the cops all over him. Devine killed Sara. I knew he looked creepy. Maybe PTSD. Asshole. Hope they fry him.

  Maybe that was overkill on his part, but he was still feeling it.

  He lumbered through his tasks. His job right now was to help analyze a slice of risk on a deal between two corporate titans, on which Cowl and Comely was advising the buyer. On the other side was the mobilized army of venerable Morgan Stanley. Both clients wanted this spin-off of a subsidiary in a management-led buyout to be completed, so the dealmaking was fairly amicable. It was what was known in the business as a “shit sandwich.”

  The management was buying the company on the cheap because that was part of the plan. It was all front- and back-end-loaded with fees for the M and A boys. The sub would then issue debt that it never intended to repay. They would use the proceeds from the debt offering to pay management a huge dividend. Then they would go back to the bankers, wrap the junk debt with some decently rated stuff into a CBO, or collateralized bond obligation, and then sell it off to pension funds, police unions, and grandmas. Management would next bleed the company dry, sell whatever of the assets it could make money off of, fire a quarter of the workers, raid the pension plan in such a complicated way prosecutors would never be able to prove anything, and eventually leave the remaining workers hanging without paychecks or health care. When the debt went bad, which it was designed to do, they would go back in, peel off the good stuff, and make even more money off that, while the grandmas and the workers went to the poorhouse. They had no recourse because to have recourse you needed to hire lawyers. And even if the grandmas had any money left, folks like Cowl already had the best attorneys in the business. The litigation would take years and by the time appeals were done, the deep pockets would have vanished under a wall of legalese and there was no money left to pay off any judgment.

  Heads I win, tails I win even bigger. And you, Grandma, you lose every single damn time.

  He hated every tap of the keys. He despised every dollar moving across his screen. He loathed the fact that the rich were getting unbelievably richer by pitting everyone in this room against one another. And in twenty years the ones who survived would be at the top looking down at a new crop of suckers and doing the very same damn thing. It was a hamster wheel of plutocratic proportions, aiming straight for something maybe even worse.

  The man next to him got up abruptly, holding his stomach and looking a bit green.

  Devine knew he was from Connecticut and had gone to Yale. His father was the CEO of a Fortune 100. The guy really wanted to be a full-time gamer, he had told Devine. But the old man had threatened to cut him off if he did. So here he was, looking ready to puke.

  When Devine gazed up at him, he stammered in an embarrassed manner, “S-stomach b-bug. Had it all night.” Then the man rushed out of the room.

  Thanks, bud, you’ve only been sitting next to me all morning.

  He glanced over at the guy’s screen, which had not gone blank yet. Streams of numbers flew across it. He didn’t know what his fellow Burner was working on, so the data lines didn’t make much sense to him. Actually, nothing made much sense to Devine now.

  At lunchtime he swam against the current once again and rode the elevator down to the third-floor dining hall. He got his food and was going to sit by himself. Until he saw her.

  Jennifer Stamos, looking stricken and lost, was sitting alone at a table with a nice view of the East River. However, from her expression, the woman didn’t appear to even be seeing it.

  He carried his tray over to her and said, “Want some company?”

  She looked up at him in a daze. “Um, okay.”

  He sat, sipped his iced tea, and looked her over. Her makeup had hidden some of the dark circles under her eyes, but not every fragment of them. Her face was pinched and her normally luxuriant hair seemed thinner, less robust.

  “You doing okay?” he asked.

  “No, I’m not.” She glanced at him. “I heard the cops talked to you earlier.”

  “They were asking about me and Sara. Did you know she was pregnant?”

  Stamos tensed for an instant. “How do you know she was?”

  “Because the cops told me she’d had an abortion.”

  She said aggressively, “Did they want to know if you were the father?”

  “They did, actually.”

  “And were you?”

  “No.”

  “How would you really know whether or not you’re the father, if you had sex with her?”

  “Who says I had sex with her? And I didn’t kill her.”

  “Some guys kill women who are pregnant by them.”

  “But she had already terminated the pregnancy. So where’s the motive to kill her?”

  Stamos looked at him funny. “I . . . You . . . I guess you’re right about that.”

  He looked out the window and bit into a celery stick.

  “What else did the cops want to talk about?” she asked.

  “The usual stuff. Alibis, polygraphs. They lied to me to try to get me to confess.”

  “How did they even know to talk to you?” asked Stamos.

  “I’m sure they’re talking to lots of people.”

  “I wouldn’t be too sure about that.”

  “Did you get a strange email the day they found Sara’s body?”

  She sat forward, tense once more. “Strange email? No, I didn’t. You asked me that before. Did you get one? You mentioned it talked about details of Sara’s death. What exactly did it say?”

  “I think it was just somebody trolling or something,” he said vaguely. “I couldn’t really understand it. It was all over the place. And I have no idea who sent it.”

  Stamos didn’t look like she believed him. He decided to change the subject before she pushed him further on it.

  “Someone I talked to said there were no suits on the fifty-second floor that morning.”

  She stared at him, puzzled. “There should have been.”

  “I know. Sara’s office was on that floor. But there was a seminar at the Ritz that morning for the M and A Division. All hands on deck. And the support staff don’t show until nine.”

  “What are you saying?” she asked.

  “Just that it’s either a coincidence that there was a seminar that morning. Or it wasn’t.”

  She processed this and came away looking even more stricken.

  He said, “I was in here having lunch on Saturday. Brad Cowl was here with some of his usual posse.”

  “I’m surprised you would do that. I’m surprised you’re here now.”

  “Hell, I’m probably not going to make the cut. So why not enjoy a few good free meals until they give me the boot?”

  “You sound like a prisoner awaiting execution,” she noted.

  “And maybe some people would be fine with that.”

  She didn’t comment on this jarring statement. “Why did you mention Cowl?”

  “Because he gave me a look that I can’t explain. I mean, why would the guy even know who I am?”

  “You’re a rookie, Travis. And he knows it, even if you think the guy doesn’t notice the newbies. Brad Cowl lives and breathes this place. And he was probably pissed to see you in here. You’re supposed to be eating crackers at your desk and busting your ass to make him more money. So you got the look.”

  “What’s he really like?”

  “How should I know?” she said.

  “Come on. You’re a star, Jennifer. Don’t sell yourself short. And Cowl is a smart guy. He takes care of his stars. So you must know him better than most at this place.”

  Her response was unexpected and chilling. In a lowered voice she said, “You saw us, didn’t you?”

  “What!”

  “That bullshit explanation about calling me ‘sweet cheeks.’ ” She leaned forward and spoke in an even lower voice. “You were in the building that night. You didn’t leave your phone behind. You went up to the fifty-second floor. And saw us. And you’re here trying to, I don’t know, blackmail me? Or make me feel like shit. Or both.”

  “If I knew what the hell you were talking about, I’d answer you. But I don’t.”

  She gave him a patronizing look and he answered it with one of bewilderment. He didn’t know if it carried the day or not. He sort of doubted it. Stamos hadn’t gotten to where she was by being thick-headed.

  But maybe I’m thicker than a log, since my security card would not only show I entered the building that night at a certain time, it also would show I went to the fifty-second floor at the same time they were doing their thing on the desk. Cowl must have found that out and told Stamos. And she would have told him about my “sweet cheeks” comment. That explains the evil eye from the guy and this confrontation with her.

  She stood. “You know, you might want to try the truth for a change.”

  Devine felt like saying, Look who’s talking. But what would have been the point?

  She walked out, leaving him staring moodily out the window at the bright sky.

  Who knew there could be so much resolute darkness in the middle of the day?

  CHAPTER

  30

  AS DEVINE WAS LEAVING THAT evening a man in a dark suit and a blood-red tie and sporting a self-important demeanor approached him in the lobby of the building.

  “Mr. Devine. I’m Willard Paulson, special assistant to Mr. Cowl.”

  “Okay.” Devine recognized the man as being part of Cowl’s official harem. He was thin, narrow-shouldered, and in his late thirties, already balding, and as bland and innocuous as Cowl was showy and pretentious.

  “Mr. Cowl would like to meet with you.”

  “Okay, but I’m surprised you’re conveying the message. There’s a chain of command here that rivals what we had in the Army.”

  “Normally this would go through your immediate supervisor, but Mr. Cowl preferred to go outside the normal channels.”

  “And why is that?”

  Paulson bristled at this response, obviously not expecting any reply other than Yes sir, thank you, sir, for this gift from Heaven to meet with Emperor Cowl. “He didn’t say.”

  “Where and when?”

  “At ten this evening. Here’s the address.” He handed him a slip of paper.

  Devine took it but didn’t look at it. “Is this really necessary?”

  “You must be joking. It’s Mr. Cowl. Do you like working here?”

  “Best job I’ve ever had,” he said with as much sincerity as he could muster, which, granted, wasn’t much.

  He headed to the subway, unfolding the piece of paper and reading off the address.

  Well, this could be instructive. Or maybe disastrous.

  Devine took the train to Mount Kisco and walked quickly home, sucking in the heat and humidity. His mind was going a million miles an hour and still getting him nowhere fast.

  Valentine, with his gamer headphones on, was lying on the couch working on his laptop, as always. A beer was on the floor next to him. He looked up as Devine came in, his expression anxious. He had apparently been awaiting Devine’s return.