“You believe her?” Sampson asked.

  “I want to,” Mahoney said. “But Tull told us she’s polished, a gifted liar.”

  “I think eventually she’ll be an excellent witness for us. Not that we need it, with all the evidence against him.”

  I said, “I don’t buy that she hasn’t accessed Tull’s laptop in more than a week.”

  “We won’t know if that’s true until Quantico gets a look at his hard drive and tells us what has been accessed on that laptop and when.”

  Sampson said, “And what do we do with Moore in the meantime?”

  Mahoney said, “Release her for now. We’ll follow up with a request for her cellular data. Just to make sure she was with Liu when she says she was.”

  Even with that caveat, I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something off about the triangular relationship of Thomas Tull, Suzanne Liu, and Lisa Moore. “Let’s make double sure,” I said. “Bree’s in New York. I’ll ask her to go to Liu and get her side of the story, maybe get her apartment building’s security footage on the days Moore said she was there.”

  “Do it,” Mahoney said, yawning. “I’m calling it a day.”

  “Right behind you,” Sampson said, checking his watch. “Willow’s got the dress rehearsal for her ballet recital tonight and I don’t want to miss a second.”

  I went to the interrogation room and told Moore she could go. She seemed relieved and followed me out. On the sidewalk, the researcher thanked me, turned to leave, and stopped. “Would you talk to me about all this someday?” she asked. “When Thomas is behind bars? I think it’s important for me to understand what’s been going on right under my nose.”

  “I can do that,” I said and watched her walk away. I called Bree.

  She answered breathlessly. “Alex?”

  “Where are you?”

  “Being fitted for a dress.” She groaned and then explained she was staying the night to attend a gala with Detective Salazar and Phillip Henry Luster.

  “You’re going to end up in the society pages one of these days,” I said.

  “Do those still exist?” she said. She breathed deep. “God, Phillip, that’s too much!”

  “I’ll let you go,” I said.

  “No, why did you call?”

  “Tull’s researcher claims she’s the lover of Suzanne Liu.”

  “The book editor?”

  “Correct. If you have time between galas and cotillions, could you check it out with Liu in person?”

  “As long as tomorrow works.”

  “It does.”

  “Then I’d be glad to. Call you later! Gotta go!”

  She hung up. The air was pleasant for late April and I decided to walk home to get some exercise and take time to think.

  I’d covered no more than a block when my phone buzzed again. I didn’t recognize the phone number, which had a 703 area code. Northern Virginia.

  “This is Alex Cross,” I said.

  “Deputy Lance Conrad, sir, with Fairfax County Sheriff’s Department. I was blocking the road near Lake Barcroft when you went to the Allison residence?”

  “I remember, Deputy,” I said. “How can I help you?”

  “I apologize because it slipped my mind that I was supposed to call you with the contact info on Tim Boulter, the jogger with the Jack Russell terrier?”

  “Right. Can you text it over to me?”

  After a pause, he said, “I can, but I don’t think it will do much good.”

  “Why is that?”

  “I looked up him and the bakery he said he owned. Tim Boulter is the owner of the Sunrise Bakery. But the real Tim Boulter is no two a.m. runner. They’ve got lots of pictures of the real Boulter on the bakery website. He’s big. Beefy. Bald. Looks nothing like our lean running guy with the dog.”

  That came out of nowhere, and I paused at an intersection to collect my thoughts. “Send over the contact info he gave you anyway, Deputy Conrad. And I’ll take a look at that website. Thanks.”

  “Anytime,” he said and hung up.

  After looking at the Sunrise Bakery website and confirming the deputy’s observations, I spent the rest of the walk home trying to figure out who the runner was and why it was so important that he impersonate a baker and his dog out for a very early-morning jog.

  Chapter

  88

  Cipriani on Forty-Second Street was as opulent and grand a venue as Bree had ever seen. Were it not for the white evening dress Luster had literally sewn her into, she might have stayed longer to stare at the beauty of the Italian Renaissance architecture, the massive marble columns, the high ceilings, the inlaid floors, and the stunning chandeliers.

  As it was, she grunted and said, “Even with the Spanx, I don’t think I fit into this, Phillip.”

  Rosella Salazar laughed. “I think I fit perfectly in mine, Phillip. Thank you!”

  The detective was wearing a simple but elegant full-length, flowing black gown that Luster had literally designed and made in under two hours. Looking at her move, you’d never have known she was pregnant.

  “Let’s hope the stitches hold in both of your dresses,” Luster said, offering an arm for each of them to take. They swept into the room, where guests were already crowding the tables and the bars to either side of the front door.

  “Where are we sitting?” Salazar said. “I have to get off my feet for a few.”

  “Table four,” the fashion designer said. “I’ll take you. Bree, could you get me a glass of champers? The rosé Taittinger, please?”

  “I could use one of those myself,” Bree said and got in line.

  A well-put-together woman in her forties in front of her turned and smiled.

  “I know absolutely no one here, so I’ll introduce myself,” she said, holding out her hand. “I’m Addie Wells.”

  “Bree Stone,” Bree said, shaking her hand. “Nice to meet you, Addie.”

  “Are you in fashion?”

  “A friend of a designer at Tess Jackson. How about you?”

  Wells said, “I was invited by an agent who’s trying to convince me to buy a book set in the fashion industry.”

  “You work in publishing?”

  “I’m an acquisitions editor. And you?”

  “Former police chief in DC and now a private detective for Bluestone Group.”

  The editor’s eyes sparkled. “Really? How exciting. I publish a great deal of true crime and crime fiction. I’ll bet you have a hundred stories to tell.”

  “More than a hundred,” Bree said and laughed.

  “Can I give you my card?”

  “Why not?” Bree said, and she reached in her purse for her business cards, pushing aside the small Ruger nine-millimeter she always carried to find them.

  Wells’s cell buzzed after they’d exchanged cards. She looked at the phone and grimaced. “Oh, dear, it’s my nanny. My kids must be on a rampage. We’ll talk again?”

  “I look forward to it,” Bree said.

  The editor walked away, finger in her left ear, cell phone pressed tight to her right.

  Carrying two flutes of pink champagne, Bree found table four and Detective Salazar, who had her black sneakers up on the adjacent chair.

  “Where’s Phillip?” Bree asked.

  “Over there, blowing air kisses with the one-percenters,” Salazar said. “He’s not happy with the sneakers or me putting them up on the chair. But I can’t help it. My dogs are aching.”

  “He’ll get over it,” Bree said. “He was miffed at me for wearing flats, but how tall can a girl be?”

  The detective laughed and looked around. “Amazing place, huh?”

  “One of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been in.”

  Salazar looked longingly at the champagne. “Another time, another place, I could use four or five of those.”

  Bree laughed. Salazar grinned. They liked each other. A lot.

  “But nothing’s stopping you,” the detective went on. “Tell you what, I’ll live vicariously through you drinking four or five of…uh-oh, here comes the trouble we’ve been waiting for.”

  Bree turned to look over her shoulder, noticing that the din in the room had dropped multiple decibels. She spotted Frances Duchaine moving through the throng by the bars, flanked by the same two bodyguards who’d thrown Bree out of the fashion designer’s estate.

  Chapter

  89

  It was fascinating to watch the crowd react as Duchaine swept deeper into the venue. Heads snapped around. Guests whispered about her presence to other guests and provoked more low murmuring and craned heads trying to spot her.

  Even though the scandal had no doubt damaged her brand, the fashion designer seemed to revel in the moment. Frances was the center of attention and knew it.

  Luster was suddenly standing there next to Salazar and Bree. “I can’t believe it. I didn’t think she’d come even after she said she would.”

  Bree said, “Well, it looks like she’s coming right to us, Phillip.”

  “I am the gala’s cochair,” Luster said. “She has to pay her respects.”

  “Why?” Salazar said, taking her feet off the chair.

  “Because Frances is the other cochair,” Luster said as Duchaine came closer, nodding to some in the crowd and ignoring others, while the buff white bodyguard and the buffer Black bodyguard kept their eyes sweeping the crowd.

  Duchaine walked right up to Luster. “Phillip, how wonderful to see you.”

  “Frances, dear, how are you holding up?” Luster said and blew a kiss past each cheek.

  Duchaine kept up the charade, murmuring something to him, then caught sight of Bree and Salazar standing on the other side of the table. The detective had been in the news a lot with the killings at Paula Watkins’s home, and Duchaine clearly recognized Bree from Greenwich. She retreated from Luster, stared at him coldly. “I can see whose side you’re on now, Phillip. I wish you had told me.”

  “What are friends for, dear?”

  Enraged, she pivoted and strode off with bodyguards in tow. They took three seats at a table two rows away.

  Duchaine ate barely two bites of her entrée before murmuring to both bodyguards; they set their utensils down and rose. Bree watched her make her excuses to the other guests and start toward the front door.

  Salazar leaned across Luster and said to Bree, “Let’s trail her a little. Let her know she’s still a target.”

  Luster said, “I love it. I really do. Tell me everything she does!”

  Bree and the detective got up and walked across the venue and out the front door. Duchaine and her bodyguards were standing about twenty feet away, scanning the traffic on Forty-Second and Lexington. The blond guy was on his phone.

  It was seven thirty in the evening in midtown Manhattan. Traffic was heavy but flowing, at least in the eastbound lane of Forty-Second Street.

  The blond guy must have seen the car he was looking for because he raised his hand. Bree caught a driver about ten cars back wave in return just as a cream-colored utility van floated into the near lane and stopped.

  Cars behind it began honking.

  The side door to the van opened. Three men in black hoods leaped out carrying pistols; they aimed at Duchaine and her bodyguards and opened fire.

  Chapter

  90

  Frances Duchaine took multiple bullets in the chest and torso at close range; she stumbled back and fell, dead before she hit the sidewalk.

  The bodyguards, shot in the face and neck, were down before they got their weapons drawn. Pedestrians screamed and tried to get away.

  The assassins turned and ran east on Forty-Second toward Lexington and the van they’d come in, which was still rolling. Bree and Salazar, both with years of training, took off after the assailants.

  Bree had a federal firearms license and a permit to carry, and as she ran, she dug the Ruger from her purse. Salazar pulled up her gown as she half ran, half waddled, found her backup weapon in a thigh holster, and drew it.

  The van crossed Lexington just as the yellow light turned red, the gunmen in close pursuit. The detective shouted, “NYPD! Stop!”

  They didn’t slow. A New York taxi headed south on Lexington took off on the green light, streaked across the intersection, and intentionally hit the slowest gunman in the leg. He stumbled, hit the curb, rolled on the sidewalk, and came up shooting. Salazar and Bree fired from the middle of Lexington and hit him square in the chest.

  As she ran, Salazar screamed at the pedestrians, the taxi, and the other cars stopped in the intersection, “NYPD! Call 911! NYPD!”

  The other two gunmen were still on Forty-Second, heading east toward Third Avenue and the van, which had slowed.

  “Don’t let them get in it!” Salazar yelled.

  Bree felt stitches in her dress burst as she lengthened her stride, trying to catch up to the two gunmen. A woman came out of a Foot Locker store and almost knocked her over.

  Bree lost sight of the assassins as she struggled to keep her balance. A second later, she spotted one of them not thirty yards from the van, which moved at a crawl as it approached Third.

  Where’s the other shooter? Where is he?

  Bree cut diagonally off the sidewalk onto Forty-Second, looking for a clear shot at the gunman who was almost to the van, when the other shooter appeared from behind a sidewalk planter about thirty feet ahead of her. He fired and hit her in the left arm; she spun around and fell on her side in the gutter.

  Shocked, disoriented, she raised her gun and searched for the shooter. She saw him just as he took three steps forward and aimed his weapon at her. A gun went off.

  Part of the gunman’s head erupted and he died on the spot.

  Bree tried to push herself up, but it was too painful; she saw Salazar passing in that odd waddle, her gun up as she stepped over the dead man. The last shooter was at the rear bumper of the rolling van.

  “NYPD!” she shouted. “Drop your weapon!”

  He half turned, swinging his pistol toward her.

  The detective pulled the trigger.

  There was an audible click.

  The gunman’s pistol was almost on Salazar when Bree, ignoring the fire in her left arm, pushed herself up, pointed her pistol, got a sight picture, and shot.

  The shooter doubled over like he’d been kicked by a mule, but he did not fall and he did not drop his weapon.

  Bree shot him again and again, and finally he spun around, fell, and lay sprawled out in the street.

  The van accelerated away.

  She was aware of being dizzy, of Salazar coming toward her, and of sirens screaming far and wide.

  Chapter

  91

  The detective squatted next to her, panting. “You just saved my life, Chief.”

  “You saved mine first, Rosella,” Bree said, becoming less confused but also more acutely aware of the agony in her arm.

  “You’re bleeding good,” Salazar said, helping her to her feet.

  Bree’s vision went blurry for a moment but then cleared enough for her to see the crowd gathered and the third attacker, the one she’d shot, lying on the street, gun a few feet away. His leg moved.

  “He’s alive!” Bree said.

  Salazar left her, did a fast waddle over, and pushed the gun away with the side of her sneaker. Bree took a few tentative steps toward the detective and heard her say, “He’s wearing body armor, but you caught him good with that last shot.”

  The shooter moaned.

  Salazar grabbed the top of his hood and yanked it off. There was blood all over the side of his face from a deep gash on the side of his head.

  “I’ll be damned,” the detective said.

  Bree felt a little nauseated. “What? You know him?”

  “It’s the wolf your husband was asking about,” the detective said, a sudden pained expression on her face. “Dusan Volkov.”

  “The Russian? Tull’s Russian?”

  Patrol cars and ambulances were arriving on the scene. Salazar did something on her phone and got an EMT to look at Bree. Two other medics worked on Volkov in the street.

  Salazar’s boss, Lieutenant Ellen Larkin, arrived, saw Bree, recognized her from the massacre at Paula Watkins’s home, and became furious.

  “Are you telling me a civilian was blazing away with her gun in the streets of New York and you let it happen, Salazar?”

  The EMTs lifted the Russian onto a gurney and moved it toward the ambulance.

  The detective pointed at him. “If I hadn’t, I’d be dead, and that guy? Dusan Volkov? He would have gotten away.”

  Larkin’s attitude changed. “That’s Volkov?”

  “He killed Frances Duchaine,” Bree said. “Right in front of us. The bodyguards too.”

  Salazar said, “They’re back there on the sidewalk outside Cipriani.”

  “Jesus Christ,” the lieutenant said. “Jesus H. Christ.” She pulled out her radio and walked off a few feet, barking orders into it.

  The EMT said the bullet had passed through Bree’s arm and did not appear to have hit bone, but he wanted to take her to the ER to have it examined.

  Salazar said, “After I’m done here, I’ll come see how you’re—” She stopped suddenly, that pained expression on her face again.

  Lieutenant Larkin walked toward her. “Rosella, the chief and the chief of detectives want you to write up a full—”

  Holding her palm up, Salazar said, “Can’t. I have to go to the hospital. Right now. With Chief Stone.”

  “That’s a flesh wound, and you’re needed here, Detective.”

  Salazar waddled away from her toward the rear of the ambulance, thumbing something on her phone again. “Sorry, Ellen, I’m needed somewhere else a whole lot more at the moment. My water just broke.”

  Chapter

  92

  Two minutes later, the ambulance squealed around the corner of Lexington and headed south, lights flashing and sirens wailing.