MARY CLARK: Every Breath You Take

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For Lee and Philip Reap With love

—Mary

For Danielle Holley-Walker With appreciation and admiration

—Alafair

Acknowledgments

Once again it has been my joy to cowrite with my fellow novelist, Alafair Burke. Two minds with but a single crime to solve.

Marysue Rucci, editor-in-chief of Simon & Schuster, is again our mentor on this journey. A thousand thanks for your encouragement and sage advice.

My home team is still solidly in place. They are my spouse extraordinaire, John Conheeney, my children, and my right-hand assistant, Nadine Petry. They brighten this business of putting pen to paper.

And you, my dear readers. Again you are in my thoughts as I write. When you choose to read this book, I want you to feel as though you have spent your time well.

Cheers and Blessings,

Mary

Prologue

Three Years Ago

On an unusually cold and wintery Monday evening, sixty-eight-year-old Virginia Wakeling was making her way slowly through the costume gallery of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. As she wandered through the exhibitions, she had no premonition that the glamorous evening would end in tragedy.

Or that she had only four hours to live.

The museum had been closed to the public because the most lucrative fundraiser of the year was about to begin, but for this hour the trustees were invited to privately study the gowns former first ladies had worn at inaugural balls.

Virginia’s own gown was a copy of one Barbara Bush had worn in 1989. An Oscar de la Renta creation, it had a long-sleeved black velvet bodice and a peacock-blue long satin skirt. She knew it looked both dignified and regal, exactly the impression she wanted to give.

But she still was not sure of the makeup Dina had applied because she thought it might be too vivid. Dina had protested, “Mrs. Wakeling, trust me. It’s perfect with your dark hair and beautiful skin, and it absolutely calls for a bright lip rouge.”

Maybe, Virginia thought, and maybe not. But she did know the carefully applied makeup took ten years off her age. She moved from one inaugural gown to the next, fascinated by the differences in them: Nancy Reagan’s one-shouldered sheath; Mamie Eisenhower’s with two thousand rhinestones on pink silk; Lady Bird Johnson in a corn-yellow gown with fur trim; Laura Bush in long-sleeved silver; Michelle Obama in ruby red. All of these women—so different, but each so determined to look her very best next to her husband, the President.

Life has gone by so quickly, Virginia thought. She and Bob had begun their lives together in a small, three-room, two-family home on the then-unfashionable Lower East Side of Manhattan, but their lives had begun changing immediately. Bob had been born with a knack for real estate, and by the end of their first year of marriage he had put a borrowed down payment on the house they were living in. That was the first of many brilliant choices he was to make in the real estate world. Now, forty-five years later, her homes included a Greenwich, Connecticut, mansion, a Park Avenue duplex, an oceanfront showplace in Palm Beach, and a condominium in Aspen for skiing vacations.

A sudden heart attack had taken Bob five years ago. Virginia knew how pleased he would have been to see how carefully Anna was running the business he had built for them.

I loved him so, she thought wistfully, even though he had a hot temper and was so domineering. That never really bothered me.

Then two years ago Ivan had come into her life. Twenty years younger, he had approached her during a cocktail party at an art exhibit in a small studio in the Village. An article about the artist had caught her eye, and she had decided to attend the show. Cheap wine was being served. She was sipping from a plastic glass and taking in the assorted mixture of people who were studying the paintings. That was when Ivan joined her.

“What do you think of them?” he asked, his voice even and pleasant.

“The people or the paintings?” she replied, and they both laughed.

The exhibition ended at seven. Ivan had suggested that if she wasn’t busy, she might want to come with him to a small Italian restaurant nearby where he guaranteed the food was delicious. That was the beginning of what had become a constant in her life.

Of course, it was inevitable that, after a month or so, her family wanted to know where she was going and with whom. Predictably, their response to her answers had been one of horror. After he graduated college, Ivan had followed his passion in the sports fitness field. He was a personal trainer for now, but he had a natural talent, big dreams, and a strong work ethic, perhaps the only traits he shared with Bob.

“Mom, get some widower your own age,” Anna had snapped.

“I’m not looking for anyone to marry,” she told them. “But I certainly enjoy having a fun and interesting evening.” Now a glance at her watch made her realize that she had been standing still for minutes, and she knew why. Was it because despite the twenty-year age difference, she was seriously considering the possibility of marrying Ivan? The answer was yes.

Shaking the thought away, she resumed her study of the dress forms of the former first ladies. I wonder if any of them realized or even suspected that they would have a day like this in their lives, she asked herself. I certainly never dreamed of how my life would change. Maybe if Bob had lived longer and gone into politics, he might have been a mayor or a senator, even a president. But he did create a company, and a neighborhood, and a way for me to support causes I believe in, like the museum.

This gala drew A-list celebrities and the city’s most generous donors. As a member of the board of trustees, Virginia would be front and center that evening, and she had Bob’s money to thank for the honor.

She heard footsteps behind her. It was her thirty-six-year-old daughter, Anna, whose dress was as beautiful as the one Virginia had commissioned for herself. Anna had scoured the Internet for a gown similar to the gold lace Oscar de la Renta that Hillary Clinton had worn to the inauguration in 1997.

“Mom, the media are arriving on the red carpet and Ivan was looking for you. He seemed to think you’d want to be there.”

Virginia tried not to read into her daughter’s words. On the one hand, “he seemed to think you’d want” was passive-aggressive, as if Anna knew better what her mother would want. On the bright side, apparently Anna had had a cordial conversation with Ivan and had come searching for her at his request.

Oh, how I wish my family would accept whatever decision I finally make for myself, she thought, slightly annoyed. They have their own lives and everything they will ever need. Give me a break and let me live my life the way I choose.

She tried to brush away the thought as she said, “Anna, you look gorgeous. I’m so proud of you.”

They walked out of the gallery together, Virginia’s blue taffeta rustling next to Anna’s gold lace.

Later that evening Virginia’s black hair and colorful gown were spotted by a jogger as he ran through Central Park. He stopped when he realized his foot had grazed an object protruding from the snow. He was shocked to see that the woman he was looking at was not only dead, but her eyes were still open and her expression frozen in fear and horror.