She stepped into the room. As she saw the bed, with its pale-blue spread, she caught her breath. It made her think not of Jack but of Keaton. She could see his butchered body all over again, lying in the bloodied sheets.
Why did I come here? she felt like screaming as she stood frozen in place.
She needed a plan, she told herself, something to keep her from going crazy. She turned around and walked across the hall to the guest room. This will be my room now, she decided as she laid her duffel bag on the wooden luggage rack. She would organize the room and later tackle the garden. And next it would be time for dinner and then for bed. When she felt calmer tomorrow, she would work on the presentation.
After changing the bedding in the guest room and dragging in some of her possessions, she put on shorts, a T-shirt, and a pair of wilted gardening gloves. As she stepped onto the porch, the phone rang, making her jump. It can’t be the police, she thought, scolding herself for being so skittish. They had no idea she was here-unless of course they talked to Maggie.
She let out a small sigh of relief when she heard Molly’s voice on the other end of the line.
“So I’m sitting here on pins and needles,” Molly said. “Tell me what’s going on.”
“You don’t sound as if you’re on pins and needles,” Lake said. “You sound as if you’re in a car.”
“I’m just driving up to the fish market on Ninth Avenue. I’m doing a dinner tomorrow night. So tell me about Jack’s little visit. What was that all about?”
“He claimed he needed to get some papers-but it seemed odd to me.”
“Odd how?”
“Like he was looking for an excuse to come by.”
“Like he wants to get back together?”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Actually, no. How did he act toward you?”
“Molly, you can’t be serious. The guy just filed for full custody. That’s hardly a strategy for wooing me back.”
“Guys rarely behave logically when it comes to women.”
“Trust me, that’s not it. Here’s what I think-that his coming by for the papers was a ruse so he could snoop around the apartment to see what I’ve been up to.”
“You mean, like he’s trying to find incriminating evidence?”
“Maybe. God, I don’t know. He’s like a complete stranger to me now and it’s impossible to read him.”
“What if he did want to get back together? Would you?”
A month ago she might have answered yes, but she realized now that Jack’s custody bid had burned off the last feelings of love she felt for him.
“No. Not in a million years.”
“Okay, then. So tell me about the murder. The Post said the cops don’t have a clue who did it. Is that true?”
Lake wished she didn’t have to talk about Keaton.
“I have no idea. The police interviewed everyone at the clinic, but it’s not like they’re letting us in on anything.”
For a brief moment, she ached to confess everything to Molly. By coming clean she could ask for guidance, and potentially soothe the twisted, tortured feelings inside her. Yet she couldn’t. Her friendship with Molly was still relatively new, and she didn’t know if she could totally trust her. She also couldn’t put Molly at risk legally.
“Are you upset about it?” Molly asked. “It must be so weird for you.”
“Uh-yeah, the staff seems fairly freaked out by it.”
“But what about you personally? The guy was getting pretty flirty with you. It must be upsetting.”
“It’s not like I knew him,” Lake said, hearing the defensiveness in her voice. “And would you please drop the ‘He was getting flirty with you’ stuff. That’s the last thing I need going around.”
“You’re not a suspect, are you?”
“No-of course not. But the situation is a mess.”
Suddenly she wanted nothing more than to get off the phone. Talking to Molly was churning everything up again.
“Look, I better get going,” Lake said abruptly. “There’s stuff I need to do while I’m up here.”
“Are you okay up there by yourself? You’re not scared, are you?”
God, she thought, this is going from bad to worse.
“No, I’m fine. I’ve stayed up here many times without Jack. I mean, the kids have always been with me, but I’ve never felt unsafe.”
“And Smokey’s an attack cat, right? I’m sure he’ll protect you if necessary.”
“The only thing he’s interested in right now is taking down some poor little sparrow. I should go. I’ll give you a call tomorrow, okay?”
As soon as she hung up, she regretted how curt she’d sounded at the end, but the conversation had been vexing. She wondered if there was any chance the police would contact her friends as part of the investigation. In her imagination she heard Molly describing to Detective Hull how she’d suggested Lake engage in eye sex with Keaton. Wouldn’t that be great?
For the next couple of hours she worked in the garden out back, digging up weeds, dividing a few plants here and there. At one point Smokey appeared and slid his body along her bare calves. She realized that touch of his silky black fur was the only comfort she’d experienced in the past two days.
“Are you happy to be back here, Smokey?” she asked him.
He let out a soft meow and then slunk away, snaking through a row of deadheaded foxgloves.
She went back to the weeds, trying to focus, but her mind kept coming back to Keaton and the police. Would it make any sense, she wondered, to contact a criminal lawyer to see what advice they would offer her under the protection of client confidentiality? But weren’t lawyers obligated to report a crime-and hadn’t she committed one by not going to the police?
The sun was getting low in the sky. She returned to the house and showered in the guest bath. If they just catch the killer everything will be okay, she thought as she scrubbed at her dirty nails. And it won’t matter who Keaton had been in bed with that night. She glanced at her watch through the ribbons of water. It was almost six. The house had satellite TV and she would be able to catch the local news in New York. Maybe there would be some kind of update. After throwing on a robe, she hurried downstairs and turned on the TV in the little den.
A four-car collision on the Tappan Zee Bridge was the top story, but the Keaton murder was next. The anchors went live to a young redheaded reporter outside the apartment building on Crosby. Lake grimaced at the familiar sight.
“It’s been over two days since prominent fertility doctor Mark Keaton was found brutally murdered in his SoHo loft,” the reporter announced, “but police still haven’t made an arrest. There are no known suspects at this time.”
Before the story even ended, Lake regretted turning it on. She told herself that the kids needed her tomorrow, that she had to find a way to seem normal for them. She leaned back against the loveseat, closed her eyes, and tried to drive Keaton and Hull and McCarty all from her mind.
Later, after getting dressed, she dragged the grill from the small garage next to the house and set it up in the backyard. She lit the coals and waited for the flames to die down. The smell of the burning briquettes usually brought Smokey running, but he was obviously too busy to be bothered. Lake let her eyes wander toward the far end of the yard, to the western sky above the maple trees. The sun had set and the sky was the smooth, milky-blue color you find on the inside of a scallop shell. On nights like these, she and Jack and the kids used to sit in the backyard and watch the stars and fireflies come out one by one. Her heart ached from the memory of it.