The Widower's Wife: A Thriller (5 page)

“Good.” Tom turned toward the house. “You coming?”

“I’ll follow you up right after I shower.”

“I’m tired. I’m going to bed.”

“I love you.”

My words trailed him as he marched back to the house, stamping a path into the brittle remains of our once lush lawn. He didn’t seem to hear me. He didn’t look back.

5

November 17

T
he phone rang in Ryan’s ear, a mechanical tone that had twice before ended with a machine. The woman sitting perpendicular from him at a broad mahogany desk cast a scolding glance over her shoulder. She clearly didn’t think it appropriate for visitors to Derivative Capital to chat on their cells while waiting for her boss.

There was little cause for concern. He knew Robomaids wouldn’t answer his calls. If they’d intended to discuss a former client with an investigator, they would have returned his voicemails by now. He regretted not pretending to need a quote when he’d first phoned. Now he’d need to harass their answering machine until they called to make him stop.

A familiar Spanish accent picked up. “You have reached Robomaids. Out with the stains, in with the sparkle.” The woman spoke the line as though she read off a card, with difficulty. “Please leave a message with your home’s square footage, number of beds and baths, days you require the cleaning, address, and a contact number and we will call you back with an estimate.”

For the third time, he explained that he investigated Ana Bacon’s disappearance and needed to know if she’d been a client. The secretary stared at him the whole time he spoke. When he hung up, she finally relaxed into her chair, leaning back and angling her torso so that the boss behind the glass wall had a prime view of her improbable breasts.

The plaque on the woman’s desk read administrative assistant, but her outfit advertised an altogether different profession. Cleavage popped from the plunging neckline of her white button-down, which couldn’t have closed if she’d tried. Her black skirt barely covered her upper thighs when seated.

The outfit embarrassed him. He averted his gaze and fidgeted with the lock on the briefcase in his lap, feeling as though he was about to interview for a job above his pay grade. At times like this, he missed his NYPD badge—the way it forced people to stand up straighter, show respect, and above all, share information. Without it, he was just an employee of a private company, begging the favor of a conversation.

Ana’s old boss, Michael Smith, had agreed to a meeting, providing that Ryan “kept it brief.” No one would have dared say that to him when he’d been in the Financial Crimes Unit.

“Mr. Smith will see you now.”

Ryan turned to see the blurry image of a man waving behind a frosted glass door. Michael stood from his desk as Ryan entered. He wore a smug smile that advertised his wealth as easily as his custom suit and the thick, silver hair that fell low on his forehead.

The banker leaned across his desk to dole out a salesman’s shake, which Ryan returned with some awkwardness. Michael remained standing after his hand dropped to his waist, as though this last-minute meeting was keeping him from heading out the door. He cleared his throat. “So I understand that you have some questions about Ana Bacon.”

“I do.” Ryan pulled out a chair in front of the desk and settled in. He set his briefcase on the floor and removed a notepad. Michael’s eye twitched as he brought out the pen, a whistleblower spooked by a recording device. Ryan waved the pad. “Helps me remember.”

Michael’s mouth drew into a line. He glanced at a wall clock and then resumed his seat in a wide captain’s chair. “I’ve got a meeting soon.”

“I understand.” He did. He just didn’t care. “When did Ms. Bacon start working here?”

Michael’s eyes rolled toward his forehead, as though struggling to remember something years, not months, before. “I guess it was the beginning of February. She came in for an interview in late January and I hired her soon after.”

“She was your secretary?”

“My administrative assistant.” Michael gestured toward the glass wall and the woman sitting just outside it. “I need someone to keep my schedule, answer the phone, get coffee, that sort of thing.”

The mention of coffee alerted Ryan to the stale scent of java lingering in the air. It mixed with a musky cologne that Ryan could only assume wafted from Michael.

“Was she good at it?” he asked.

Michael’s self-satisfied smirk twisted at the edge, turning sheepish. “I hate to speak ill of the dead.”

“So she wasn’t good at it?”

“Well, you know . . .” He shrugged. “What can I say? Clients liked her.”

Ryan bet they had. Judging from the photos on the news, Ana Bacon was a good-looking woman with large, downturned eyes, a tawny complexion, and a straight, narrow nose. Nice figure. Pretty smile. The kind of woman most men enjoyed having around.

“But you didn’t like her?”

Michael rubbed the back of his neck. A tell, for most people. Smith was probably about to lie, maybe to avoid trashing a former employee. “I wouldn’t say I disliked her. She was nice.
Very
friendly.” Had he winked, the suggestion that Ana’s behavior had bordered on inappropriate could not have been clearer.

“Flirty?”

Michael tilted his head as if to rhetorically ask,
Aren’t they all?
A thick, platinum band glinted below the knuckle on his left ring finger. By age forty, about four-fifths of Americans had married. Roughly two-fifths of those got divorced. Ryan had never wanted to join the latter statistic.

“Was Ana’s
friendliness
an issue for you?”

Michael shook his head. “No. No. I didn’t care. Again, she was fine. Competent, for the most part.” He leaned forward. “Truth is, her husband was the real problem. He wasn’t working, but he couldn’t even remember to pick up the darn kid from daycare. She’d end up running out all the time to get her daughter.”

Ryan wrote
family emergencies
in his notepad. Below it, he scrawled,
Tom = Depressed?
“Do you have the name of the daycare?”

“Not sure. I think once I heard Apple something-or-other.”

“I guess the Bacons didn’t have a backup sitter?”

“I don’t see how they could have afforded one. We paid Ana well, of course, but she was just an admin, and she’d been out of work for a few years prior, so it wasn’t like she commanded top dollar. Her husband didn’t contribute anything.” Michael said the last comment with disdain, as if the worst thing a man could do was not make money.

“She told you that?”

Again, Michael scratched behind his neck. Ryan wondered what made the man more uncomfortable: the presence of an investigator or disparaging a dead woman.

“Well, she didn’t exactly talk to me about it, but I’m guessing she wouldn’t have returned to work if her husband had a bunch saved.” Michael leaned back and lowered his head, speaking down his nose. “Between us, the guy didn’t manage risk right. Trade blew up on him. Cost his bank a hundred mil.”

A smile cracked Michael’s mouth. Ryan got the sense that the details of Tom Bacon’s departure were an open secret on Wall Street, one that traders enjoyed sharing. Given that Tom’s wife had just died, Michael’s undisguised schadenfreude said something. But was it simply evidence of a competitive personality? Or did it have something to do with Ana?

“I take it that he would have had trouble securing other employment?”

“Losing that kind of cash on a single name would put anyone on the blacklist.”

Ryan wrote down
unemployable
beneath the Tom equation. Providing that Michael wasn’t exaggerating, he’d just handed Ryan powerful reasons for Ana to be depressed.

“Did Ana quit or did you fire her?”

“I guess I put her on notice.” Michael shrugged in a what-you-gonna-do way. “I told her that she couldn’t keep taking off. She probably left to avoid needing to explain anything on her record. When she quit, I gave her a sizable severance because I knew that she was going through a difficult time. Came out of my pocket, since I didn’t actually fire her.”

The boss emphasized the point with a poke at his breast pocket. Ryan thought of a silverback gorilla beating his chest, announcing to everyone in the vicinity
I am the Alpha
.

“And she used that pay to go on vacation . . .”

Michael’s lips pursed. The expression was the kind cocky men made when hearing about the misfortunes of others. He stood and extended his hand. “Sorry to cut this short—”

“When did she leave?”

His host’s face grew flustered. Ryan guessed he was used to people taking polite brush-offs. “I wouldn’t remember. You’d have to check with HR when she picked up her last check.”

“Whom should I talk to there?”

“Fernanda can help you.” Michael crossed the room and opened the door. “I hope I’ve been helpful. I’ve got to prep for an important call.”

Ryan pushed himself up from the chair. Michael had given him something. Now he had calls to make too.

6

August 12

S
ophia’s new daycare lay in the basement of a brick building, directly off the highway. Colors derived from sweets coated the inside walls: cotton candy pink, sour apple green, grape jelly purple, lollipop red. Such artificial brightness had to be jarring for a kid accustomed to the average wood and white Montessori school.

It was not yet seven
AM
. A few aides sat in a circle, strategizing a game plan for the day. Two kids lay in sleeping bags. Most working parents wouldn’t drop their children off for another half hour.

Guilt tugged at my heart more strongly than Sophia’s grip on my arm. During the drive, she’d become resigned to spending another day away from home. I’d said that Daddy was busy looking for a new job, though I knew he’d spend most of the day in the man cave, online, with a Scotch in hand. Sophia hadn’t fully bought my lie.

She led me into the room. One of the aides, a Jamaican woman named Earlene, acknowledged her with a warm smile. The others kept talking among themselves.

“Mommy, stay with me.” Her voice sounded low and scratchy, like a toy running out of batteries. A cold had moved into her throat.

I bent to her level and held her hands. “I wish that I could, sweetheart, but I need to work. You’ll play with your friends. Daddy will get you before you know it.”

She pulled away and drifted to a row of child-height shelves, where she selected a book before slumping against the bubblegum-colored wall. To Sophia, a book without an accompanying adult was just a series of illustrations.

“Excuse me.” The head aide, a heavyset woman named Donna with dyed red hair and a thick South Jersey accent, acknowledged my words with a sideways glance. “I know you have a policy about kids not bringing items from home. But since my daughter comes so early, would it be possible for me to leave her with coloring books? She can put them away when the other kids come.”

The woman gestured to the two sleeping toddlers. “Most of the children who come at this time take a nap. We’ll start in a bit.”

“I know. But my daughter is here now. If she had a coloring book—”

Donna shook her head slowly, as though scolding a young child. “Individual items create fights. It’s better that they all have communal toys. It’s good for kids to learn to share. Dontcha think?”

I didn’t have time to argue. Dr. Seuss’s
The Cat in the Hat
lay in Sophia’s lap. At least she knew the story. “Sweetheart, Daddy will pick you up this afternoon. You just play and—”

“He was forty minutes late last time,” Donna said. “I didn’t charge ya, but I can’t keep doing that. He said the car broke down.” The woman’s eyebrows rose, inviting me to join in her disbelief. Two-year-old Maseratis didn’t just quit.

“I’m sorry. I’ll make sure he’s here today at four.” I looked away from the annoyed aide to Sophia. I blew her a kiss. “I love you.”

My little girl stretched to catch the phantom smooch. She pressed it to her mouth and then tossed back a pucker with a loud smack. I heard it as I hurried out the door.

*

I slipped into my chair at 7:40. Better than 8
AM
, when the entire trading desk arrived, but not early enough to beat my boss. I
could see Michael’s blurry form through the glass wall behind me. He sat at his desk, head tilted to his shoulder. On the phone. He’d answered his own call. Shit.

I logged into his calendar and printed two copies of the day’s itinerary: one for him, one for me. I grabbed a yellow highlighter and a light-blue marker from a coffee cup with Sophia’s photo printed on the side. Time to categorize the day’s meetings: yellow for client facing, blue for internal. Representatives from the Sovereign Wealth Fund of Dubai would arrive at noon. That was an important meeting, potentially worth billions to the hedge fund. I colored it in yellow then underlined it. I made a mental note to remind Michael once he hung up.

I glanced over my shoulder into his office. The desk held papers, but no coffee cup. He was still on the phone. Time to start the morning routine.

Though the office had a fancy coffee maker in the kitchen, Michael didn’t like the “motor oil” that came from it. A Starbucks sat across the street from our building. Throngs of commuters made it almost impossible to get a timely coffee—unless one happened to tip the male barista a twenty for his cell number. I dialed Jason on my work line and placed the order that I knew would be waiting for me by the time I got across the street.

The phone still hung off Michael’s ear when I approached his door with his coffee, minutes later. He waved me through the frosted glass. I slid my cup onto my desk and grabbed the schedules before entering.

“All right, then. Sounds good. My next appointment is here.” His wife, Jessica. I could tell by his tone of voice. Soft and a touch condescending. He spoke to his spouse like a trainer whispering to a wild horse. They’d been married twenty years. I wondered if he’d always spoken to her that way.

Michael smiled at me, a pained, closed-mouth expression that deepened the lines around his mouth and invited me to express similar frustration with the person refusing to free him from the phone. I didn’t join in. I’d been the woman on the other end of those calls for far too long.