MARY CLARK - Every Breath You Take

“Your plan won’t work,” Laurie muttered.

“Shut your mouth!” he snapped.

“Listen to me. There was another woman here,” Laurie said. “She has a recording of Tiffany talking about the bracelet and about where she was at the time of the murder. The police will know that Tiffany lied about being with you when Virginia went to the roof. If you hurt us, they’ll put two and two together.”

“The tall woman in the blue coat?”

“Yes.”

“Who is she?”

“Jane Martin,” Laurie said, recalling the name Charlotte had planned to use for her undercover work. “She works at my television studio. She tricked Tiffany into believing she was a book publisher asking questions about her grandmother.”

Laurie did not reveal that she also had a copy of the recording in her email. Tom hadn’t seemed to notice when she dropped her cell phone as he grabbed her on the sidewalk. Her only hope was that someone would find it and try calling the home number stored in her phone to return it. Her father would know something was terribly wrong and send police to the spot where the phone was found. On the other hand, maybe no one would find it, or the finder would make no attempt to return it. She shook away the thought. She had to cling to any sliver of hope.

“I saw her leaving when I arrived,” Tom said. “I should have stopped her the second I saw her speaking to you. Call her,” he demanded, picking up the handset of a cordless phone on the end table. “Make up a story to get her to come back here with that recording. If you say one word to indicate something’s wrong, I’ll kill you both.”

Laurie felt her hand tremble as she took the phone. She quickly scanned the other areas of the house visible from this vantage point. She did not see another handset.

This might be her only shot to save them.

75

You sure you don’t want some bread or an appetizer while you wait?”

Alex thought he detected a note of pity in the waitress’s voice.

He checked his watch again. 7:40 P.M. “No, I’m fine, thank you.”

Once the waitress was gone, he rose from the table and maneuvered near the entrance to call Laurie from his cell phone. It rang four times and then went to voice mail. “Just checking in to see if you’re on your way. Let me know if you want me to send Ramon to pick you up.”

Laurie had said she might be on a tight timeline if she ran home first to see Timmy, but he had never known Laurie to be forty minutes late, let alone without a text or a phone call.

He checked his phone once again a few moments later for any new messages from her. Nothing.

If she wasn’t here and hadn’t contacted him, something was wrong.

This time, he didn’t bother leaving his table to make the call. It was too urgent.

Leo picked up almost immediately. “Alex, shouldn’t you be having an extravagant dinner with my daughter?”

“Did she go home after work to see Timmy?” Alex asked.

“No, she said she was going straight to dinner with you.”

“She’s not here, Leo. She must be in some kind of trouble.”

76

Leo put Alex on hold to pull up Find My Friends on his cell phone. Laurie had taught him how to do this so the two of them could find Timmy—or at least his cell phone—at any moment.

A map immediately appeared on his screen, showing the location of the phones in their shared friends group.

One spot on the map was the location of Laurie’s apartment, indicating that Timmy was here. Leo felt a pain in his chest when he saw a second circle on the far right side of his screen. He used his fingers to zoom into the map. According to this location tracking program, Laurie was in Queens.

He tried to keep his voice calm when he clicked back over to his call with Alex. “I checked her location with my phone. Can you think of any reason Laurie would be in Queens?”

“Queens? No. She said she had some work to do—that something was bothering her about a witness and she couldn’t let it go. She was going to try to swing by the apartment to see Timmy before dinner if she had time, but she didn’t say anything about leaving Manhattan.”

A beeping tone interrupted their call. Leo checked his screen. He didn’t recognize the number, but answered anyway. He did not want to take a chance of missing a call from Laurie.

He recognized her voice immediately. He had barely breathed a sigh of relief when his panic resurfaced. “Hi, Jane, this is Laurie Moran.”

“Laurie? Where are you? What’s wrong?”

“I’m sorry to bother you again when you thought you were finally free for the night. I’m here with Tiffany and she wants to go over the statement she made.”

It was obvious to Leo that his daughter was speaking under someone else’s direction. He also knew that his daughter was deliberate and creative. She would find a way to give him the information he needed.

“Try to use your boss’s name if you’re in imminent danger.”

“I’m sorry to be in such a rush, but Brett is pushing us on this deadline. And don’t even get me started about Charlotte. You wouldn’t believe the things she has to say about the show. Can you bring the recording you made back to the house so we can go through it line by line with Tiffany? She wants to make sure she didn’t mischaracterize anything about her date with Tom.”

“Got it,” Leo said as his blood froze.

“You remember where Tiffany lives, right?” She recited the street address slowly and clearly. It lined up with the spot on the map where her cell phone was currently located.

“We’ll be right there,” Leo said.

“See you soon.”

Leo clicked back over to Alex’s call. “She is in trouble. She is talking like someone is forcing her. I know where she is. I’ve got to go.”

“Where is she? I’ll take my own car.”

Leo knew he would only be wasting time to argue. He gave the address to Alex and made him promise not to approach the house without him.

• • •

Leo’s next call was to Laurie’s friend Charlotte Pierce, whose number he found in Laurie’s contacts on her iPad. He knew that Laurie must have used her name for a reason.

The phone was answered by someone saying “Hi, Laurie.” She must have recognized Laurie’s home number on her phone.

“Charlotte, it’s her father, Leo.” He told her quickly about the strange phone call from Laurie. “What do you know?”

“I do have that recording of her witness’s statement. A woman named Tiffany Simon. She told a tall tale about the stolen bracelet. Laurie is sure that she lied about being with Tom Wakeling.”

Now Laurie was calling from Tiffany’s house, asking “Jane” to return to the house with the recording. There was only one explanation: Tom Wakeling was at the house, and he wanted that recording destroyed.

He would be on the lookout for police. If Leo called 911, he knew what would happen. It would turn into a hostage situation. The SWAT team would look for a clean shot through the windows, but Laurie and this woman Tiffany would be in terrible danger.

He had another plan. “Charlotte, I’m sorry to involve you in this, but you’re the only person who can get him to open that door without a confrontation.”

“I’ll do anything for Laurie.”

“I’ll have a patrol car pick you up. Where are you?”

“P.J. Clarke’s by Lincoln Center.”

“The driver of the patrol car will take you near the house. I’ll meet you there.”

77

Leo glanced down the hall toward Timmy’s room and was glad to see his door was closed. He wanted to make sure he could not hear the phone conversations his grandfather was having.

He called one of his friends, a captain on the force, and quickly arranged for a patrol car to pick him up in front of Laurie’s building.