I told you. Not a good guy.
Matthew…
I shook my head. God, she was driving me crazy, and she wasn’t even real.
“We tried your friend with the CIA,” Eric was saying. “And the FBI. And the NSA. Carson bought them all. No one gives a shit, Zola. Except you, apparently.”
Derek rubbed the back of his head and sighed as he scanned the pictures once more. “Not much for neat crimes, is he?”
“We already knew John Carson liked a spectacle,” I said. “The man literally stopped Jane and Eric’s wedding in front of a thousand rich New Yorkers. His grudge against the de Vrieses was all over the Post for weeks.”
“Well, that gives you a motive, doesn’t it?” Derek tapped his finger on a picture of Jane wrapped in Eric’s arms. The moment of rescue.
I stared at it for a long time. Eric, like all these types of suits, generally wore the inscrutable mask of the ultra-wealthy. He was terse and unreadable, just like the rest of his caste. But in the photo, with equal parts pain and love were all over his face like they had been etched with a knife. He clutched the girl like he’d never let her go again. Like he’d been certain she was gone forever.
Do you believe in love at first sight?
It had just fallen out of my mouth in the early morning hours, as instinctual as the way my fingers stroked her skin.
And then, to my utter fuckin’ shock, she’d answered.
Not until I saw you.
Fuck it. You only met the love of your life once. Some of us only got one night. But others might get a lifetime.
If they were lucky.
Who was I to watch someone else tear down that chance when I might be able to help?
“We can’t do anything about this,” I said, ignoring the way Eric’s shoulders slumped in defeat. “We just need to find a crime here to prosecute.”
“What’re you thinking, Zo?” Derek asked.
“One thing is bothering me. Eric, do you know who actually turned you in for securities fraud? If you were indicted, it should have gone to discovery. Were any witnesses named in the documents?”
“No. That’s why it was dropped. There was no documentation, and the single witness’s testimony was both anonymous and without corroboration.” Eric shook his head with disgust. “It shouldn’t have made it to trial to begin with.”
“You don’t have any idea who might have offered testimony, though? Someone close enough to you to actually be a witness?”
Eric opened his mouth to protest, then shut it again. “Well—no.”
“What were you going to say?” I asked.
He looked uneasy, but decided to go with it. “Look, it’s just a feeling. No one ever came out and said anything—not after the will was read. But I’m fairly sure at least some family members weren’t exactly happy I inherited the company after so long away. The accusations about securities fraud were linked more to requests made by Carson…but the evidence for them could have come from a few different people.”
I looked at Derek, who nodded and made some notes. It was vague, sure. But it was still a motive. Eric’s gut might lead us in the complete wrong direction, or it might give us exactly what we needed to close this bitch of a case. There was only one way to find out.
“I gotta get going, but I’ll look into it,” Derek said. He nodded at Eric on his way out. “Mr. de Vries.”
We waited until Derek was gone and the door had closed to speak again. Eric had already picked up his coat from the back of the chair, no doubt eager to get back to Jane.
“How is she?” I asked.
The Jane de Vries I knew was a vibrant woman with more attitude than a teenage rebel. The ghost in these pictures was her polar opposite.
Eric expelled a labored breath. “She’s…” He stared out the window toward the New York City skyline for a long time. “She’s as good as can be expected, I suppose.” He glanced toward the door again, then back at me. “But it might be better if you come to the house from now on. Aside from the fact that you really shouldn’t be seen here in case Carson has people watching, I think it would be good for her to hear about your progress for herself.”
I nodded. I really couldn’t promise to do much. After all, Derek was right. For me to be any help at all, I needed to find a crime that John Carson committed within Kings County. And then he needed to be in New York for Derek and his guys to make the arrest. It was a long shot, if there was anything at all.
But the look in Eric’s eyes—the pure, unadulterated sorrow—kept me from saying as much.
Instead, I extended a hand. Tentatively, Eric reached out, and we shook.
“I’ll do whatever I can,” I promised. “I’ll be in touch.”
Chapter Two
Nearly six weeks after my meeting with Eric de Vries, I found myself in Manhattan, having just finished a meeting in midtown interviewing a witness for another trial. As I sometimes did on days where I worked out of the office, I had my assistant forward my calls to my cell phone for the rest of the afternoon so I could wander. And just like all those other times, I was walking circles around the Upper East Side.
Up Fifth Avenue to the northeast corner of Central Park. Take a right into the farthest, fading reach of Spanish Harlem, then walk back down Lexington Avenue until I reached the upper Sixties. Hang another right past the Church of St. Vincent Ferrer, and repeat.
It was early March, so the trees hadn’t quite started blooming. The last of winter hung over the city like a chilly dream, including a few heaps of snow from one final blizzard just a week before. But small buds hanging off the branches held the promise of color and light again. Tiny signals that change was afoot. Something was about to happen.
Just like the rest of New York, I was thoroughly tired of winter. Even so, the storms and the snow hadn’t kept me from my patrols of these tired city blocks.
It was a dream that did it. A dream that woke me in the morning feeling like a part of me was missing. My chest would ache, my jaw would be tense, my throat tight with her name on my tongue.
It usually started with one part of that night or another. The things that were burned into my memory. A heated gaze. A prolonged conversation. Sometimes even the feel of her body, clenched around mine so tight I’d cry out in my sleep.
“Do you ever wear red?” I found myself asking, despite the fact that I’d never see her in it, even if she did. “Like this?”
Nina just watched the progress of the bud as it traveled down her side, over one leg, to flirt with the delicate curve of her ankle. She cleared her throat. “Well, no. Not really.”
“Not even lipstick? Maybe your nails?”
“Grandmother always thought it garish. Unfitting for someone like me.”
“Someone like you?” I drew the flower over the hook of her heel.
Nina shrugged. “Someone of my ‘station,’ she would have said.”
“She probably knew you’d attract a trail of lovers. Like the pied piper, except with color instead of song.”
As I trailed the rose back up her other leg, I found myself wondering what Nina would look like with a bright red mouth, puckered with want. Scarlet fingernails digging into my skin. A crimson silk negligee, begging to be torn off.