Influenced by Eva Robinson (best free ebook reader TXT) 📗

Ciara squinted at the logos. They looked like faces with large eyes. “Are those skulls?”

“I can’t tell,” said Michael. “They’re too small.”

“It looks like a cartoon skull. Like the hollow-eyed skulls on a Puritan grave.”

“That’s oddly specific.”

“I’ll check the elevator footage in a second, but first I’m going to look for when she comes out again.”

Ciara had entirely forgotten her dinner.

She pushed the fast-forward button, scanning ahead as a few dozen people came in and out. But it wasn’t long till she found the woman coming out again. “There,” she said. “She was only inside for thirteen minutes. And five minutes after this, Arabella called the police.”

“Stop it for a second,” said Michael. “Roll it back a little.”

She pulled the timeline back until the woman was in the middle of the frame again.

Michael pointed at the laptop bag. “Look.”

Ciara leaned in, squinting at the screen. Now, the laptop bag bulged, as if something else had been stuffed in it, and the top wasn’t closing.

“There we go,” said Michael. “That looks like it could be a second laptop to me, don’t you think?”

“That’s it.” She was sure of it now. Her pulse was racing, and not just from the chili. “Unfortunately, if someone wanted to hide something that was on Arabella’s computer, that computer will be completely destroyed by now.”

“Does the elevator have video?”

She closed the video, then searched the folder for the footage from the elevator. With the time stamps, it made it easy to find the right spot—just where Red Sox chick got into the elevator. And there it was—the same awkward angle of her head, shielding her face completely.

“Okay. I’m with you now,” said Michael. “She’s definitely doing that on purpose. She knows exactly where the cameras are.”

“You said Arabella would have been poisoned the next day, though, right? Let’s see if this chick comes back.” With the elevator footage, she scrolled ahead, using the time stamps to shift to the next day. “Any idea about the timing? Morning, maybe?”

“Early morning, I think. She was in hospital by late afternoon.”

She stopped scrolling when she saw Arabella herself getting into the elevator, rifling through a large and fashionable handbag as the elevator rose. She pulled out her phone, but it was impossible to see from here what was on it.

“If Adam were involved,” said Michael, “he wouldn’t come to the office to poison her, would he? And he wouldn’t need to send anyone in. He’d just do it at home. If no one’s coming in the next day hiding her face, maybe he dropped it into her coffee that morning.”

Ciara kept scrolling, looking for the woman with the hat. “But why send someone into the lab to steal her computer?”

“Maybe if he destroyed it at home, it would be too obvious.”

“True, but all you have to do is dump coffee on a laptop to kill it. I’ve done it before. He could have made it look like an accident.”

Michael frowned. “Maybe he didn’t think of it. Or—Arabella clearly didn’t trust him, so maybe she would have suspected something. Or maybe Adam really doesn’t have anything to do with it.”

“We know he’s the most likely statistically, and he has access to the chemicals. And I absolutely hated him. Like a visceral reaction. But no, it doesn’t feel right. Poison from his own lab, with a substance that’s tracked and catalogued? He’s not an idiot. He could easily do something less suspicious at home. An accidental fall down the stairs. A faked overdose on sleeping pills.”

Michael scrubbed a hand over his mouth, then he went still. “Okay. Well, whoever took the laptop might have turned it on after, right? We can check the Mac tracking software.”

Ciara’s mood brightened, and she kept scrolling forward in the video. “Yes. Good. The Find My Mac thing, right? What do we need to access that, a subpoena?”

“Or we can try to find her password.”

“We can ask Adam—” She froze. There on the screen was the woman again, on the elevator camera—black cap this time, neck bent down at an odd angle. She wore all black. “Michael. There she is again, trying to go unnoticed.”

Who was she? Someone else with strong feelings about Arabella, who wasn’t at all on their radar yet.

Someone still roaming around, undisturbed.

Twenty

Hannah stood on the balcony deck of Stella’s three-story Georgian home, sipping a glass of wine by herself. This was how she did parties—spending time by herself before she worked up the nerve to talk to anyone.

After a quick introduction to the hostess, she’d come upstairs to pour herself some wine. She should get back down, but it was beautiful and peaceful up here. The old wooden deck jutted out from the second story, overlooking a sprawling, labyrinthine garden that spilled out toward the marsh and pond. Far beneath her, the garden sloped downward, and twisting stone sculptures dotted the landscape.

In leafy alcoves, lanterns cast warm light, and candles twinkled on little round tables. A gravel path wended between the flowers, sweeping around to the front of the house. Someone sat in one of the alcoves playing a guitar; the sound floated in the spring breeze. Beyond the garden and a row of oaks, Fresh Pond glistened with little flecks of silver.

She turned away from the garden, surveying the home. It looked early nineteenth century, painted white with black shutters. On top of the flat roof, a widow’s walk stood stark and pale against the starry sky. Through the sliding glass doors, she had a view of the eclectic living room: shelves of Victorian antiques, a gilt-framed mirror, a wall of nude paintings of various sizes. A grand piano stood in one corner.

Stella, the hostess, wore flowers braided into her blond hair, and her skin glowed. She smelled like honey and musk. Right now, she was arranging fruit tarts in the garden below.

Hannah felt like she didn’t quite belong here. When she looked down at the gravel path beneath her, she felt a wave of