The Other Woman Read online

  And tomorrow she’d be extra nice to Java Jim.

  Jane had beeped her new ID card through the security reader, waved to the guard at the front desk, punched the elevator button. Punched it again, for punctuation. She’d tackle this newspaper challenge, same way she’d tackled every tough problem. On her own.

  Except now, hearing her first assignment—it seemed semi-impossible. She reached up to worry her hair, a left-over-from-J-school nervous habit, but her hair wasn’t there anymore.

  “So, Jane?” Alex came from behind his desk, urging the manila file folder toward her. In tasseled loafers, wire-rimmed glasses, and loosened tie, casually attractive, he still seemed more rumpled-preppy street reporter than influential news executive. His wife—having removed him from Boston’s most-eligible-bachelor list—was some corporate honcho. “Here’s the background I had Archive Gus dig out for you. Lots of photos. Think you can find her?”

  No, she wanted to say. I can’t “find” Moira Kelly Lassiter, because she’s not lost. She’s just—home. Apparently not wanting to come out. Plus, Alex was assigning her the candidate’s wife? Like some foofy society reporter? Hardly destined to make headlines.

  “Alex, maybe she’s tired.” Maybe she could gently derail this idea. “Maybe Moira doesn’t like campaigning. Not all political wives are willing to keep standing in the background, staring adoringly at their husbands.” Jane pushed up the sleeves of her black turtleneck, glad that Alex also wore jeans. Newspaper work did have its fashion pluses. “I should look into campaign contributions, or that union thing. The crime bill. Profiling Moira Lassiter seems kind of—puff.”

  Alex had started shaking his head before she was halfway through her plea. “My other political reporters are covering those angles. But Moira, seems she’s suddenly off the radar. What if it’s a face-lift? Great story. Maybe rehab? Hell of a story.” Alex ticked the ideas off on his fingers. “Exhausted? Bored? Depressed? Sick? Unhappy? All front-page stuff. You’re with me on this, right?”

  “Ah, sure, Alex,” Jane said. She put her hand to her hair, took it down. She was the new kid now, and it was key to be a team player. “I’ll make some calls, sniff around, see what I get.”

  “We’ll play it up big.” Alex held up two fingers at a harried-looking man who’d arrived outside his glass-walled office. Two minutes, Alex mouthed. He turned back to Jane. “All set?”

  “I’ll have to go through Lassiter’s scheduling gorgons. If they say no—”

  “That means another door will open, right?” Two red lights flashed on Alex’s desk phone, his intercom buzzed, the man waited in the doorway. “We’re counting on you, Ryland. Find out what’s happened to Moira Kelly Lassiter.”

  3

  Kenna Wilkes opened the maroon-lacquered front door while the doorbell chimes still echoed through the front hall. On the expansive wooden porch stood the handsomest man she’d ever seen. Elegant. Regal. Silver hair, expensive suit.

  Holy shit.

  She fussed with her skinny white T-shirt, tucking it into the low-slung waistband of her new jeans, then looked up into those flinty eyes. Governor Owen Lassiter. Former governor.

  Over his shoulder, she could see his entourage. A guy wearing khakis and a green LASSITER FOR SENATE button on his oxford shirt hovered behind the candidate, clutching a metal clipboard. A sleek black car was parked at the end of the driveway, headlights on. A blue and silver van with an enormous crimson 11 painted on the side idled across the street.

  “Kenna Wilkes? We’d like you to meet Governor Owen Lassiter,” the young man was saying, as if announcing a state occasion. “He’s—”

  “Running for the Senate, as you may have heard, Mrs. Wilkes.” Lassiter’s voice, interrupting his campaign aide, came across honey and steel.

  Kenna hesitated, then took his hand.

  “It’s my Tuesday tour,” Lassiter said. “Hoping to meet registered voters who are still making up their minds.”

  He looked at her as if she were the only voter in Deverton.

  Kenna had tied her tumbling blond hair away from her face with a thin white satin ribbon. Used a hint of pink lip gloss, a blush of color on her cheeks. Tanned skin peeked between her T-shirt and jeans. Her hand was still in Lassiter’s.

  “If you have a few minutes, Mrs. Wilkes, perhaps we can answer your questions about our goals for this state and for this country. Unlike the negativity and fearmongering of the Gable campaign, we want to be a force for good down in D.C.” Lassiter squeezed her hand gently, a gesture she’d find patronizing if she weren’t so fascinated. “With your help, of course.”

  She hadn’t been prepared for this. His charisma. His power. She’d been told he’d arrive this afternoon, between three and four, as part of his “Lassiter for Your Neighborhood” meet and greet. She’d seen the candidate on television. But no screen was big enough to contain him.

  “Who dis?” Four-year-old Jimmy, Tonka dump truck in one hand and a half-eaten peanut butter sandwich in the other, toddled into the entryway, then rested his head against Kenna’s thigh.

  “He must be the only one in Massachusetts who doesn’t know,” Kenna said, laughing. She took back her hand to tousle Jimmy’s dark curls. She had to get herself and this situation under control. “Still, Jimmy’s only four. Back when you were governor, of course, he wasn’t born yet.”

  “Hey, gunner,” Lassiter said. He leaned down, close to both of them. “I’m Owen. Pretty nice truck you got there.”

  Kenna breathed a hint of citrus and spice. When he looked up at her, she couldn’t read his expression.

  “You’re lucky, Mrs. Wilkes. My wife, Moira, and I don’t have kids.”

  Lucky? Not exactly how I’d have described it. She turned on a welcoming smile. “Would you like to come in? It’s not like you’re a stranger.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Wilkes,” Lassiter said. “We won’t stay long.”

  “Kenna,” she said.

  “Kenna,” he acknowledged. He turned to his aide. “Trevor? We’ll be—” He looked at Kenna, confirming. “—fifteen minutes?”

  Trevor raised the clipboard, apparently a signal to an unseen person in the black SUV. The headlights clicked off. But the door of the Channel 11 van slid open. Kenna could see bare legs and black high heels emerging from the passenger side.

  “Mrs. Wilkes?” Trevor said. “Channel Eleven is tracking the campaign today. Would it be all right if they came in?”

  Not a chance. “I’d rather not. If it’s not a problem? I’m not really comfortable having our picture taken.” Kenna made fluttery gestures at her hair and jeans.

  “No television.” Lassiter frowned briefly at the aide, who performed an exaggerated thumbs-down at the news van. The stiletto-clad legs swung back in; the door slammed. “We’ll talk privately. The two of us.”

  His expression softened. “And Jimmy.” Lassiter paused at the sound of Trevor’s jangling cell phone.

  “Hold on,” the aide said into the phone. “Governor? Your schedule. Maitland’s found another problem with—”

  “Tell Rory I said to deal with it. No more interruptions.”

  And he stepped inside.

  * * *

  “See her, Alex? Right there. The tall twenty-something in the red coat.” As if dealing a hand of solitaire, Jane placed the glossy photos on the city editor’s cluttered desk. She stabbed a finger at the fuzzy crimson image. “I found that woman in at least five of the recent photos Archive Gus gave us. I’ve been down in the archive room most of the day, looking for more. Every time she’s behind the rope line, but right in front of the crowd. Look. Down in Cohasset. Up in Lawrence. Way out in Worcester.”

  Jane looked at Alex, checking for signs he was buying her pitch. Funny to be on the same team with him, instead of battling for sound bites. Wonder why he was never a TV reporter. Those shoulders. Those cobalt eyes. All that hair. She reached out a hand, trying to persuade him, almost touching his jacket.

  “I’m telling you, Alex, it l
ooks like she’s—”

  “She’s another Lassiter groupie.” Alex shook his head, dismissive. “Or some political activist. Wants a job in D.C. Wants Lassiter to vote for the omnibus bill. It’s an election. Everyone wants something.”

  “But what if there’s something between them? Look at the Cohasset shot. See how she’s looking at him? That’s—” Jane paused, analyzing the photo. “—it’s lust. What can I tell you?”

  “She is hot.” Alex yanked off his glasses, held the photo under his desk lamp. His wide gold wedding band glinted in the light. “No mistaking that.”

  No mistaking? Was that some sort of crack? She didn’t make mistakes, damn it.

  Jane held up a different photo. “Who would wear this slinky getup outside? In October? She’s at least thirty years younger than Lassiter. And she sticks out like high beam headlights. You think she’s just doing her civic duty?”

  “You can be a knockout and still be a political activist, Ryland.” Alex slid the photos into a pile, tamped down the edges, handed them to her. “These were to give you a sense of the campaign. Not to send you into reporter fantasy land.”

  “Two little words,” Jane said, tucking the photos into her tote bag. “Monica Lewinsky.”

  “Three little words,” Alex replied. “Leave it alone.”

  “But—”

  “Jane. Listen to your editor. Don’t go near this in print. This close to the election, it’s ethical quicksand. And if he’s having an affair? It’s hardly even news. They all do it.”

  “But—” But Alex was ignoring her, swiping pages on his iPhone and almost turning his back. Dismissed. Fine. She had listened to him, exactly as he asked. But if “they all do it”? That simply confirmed there was a story. She was determined to find it.

  4

  “Jimmy never knew him.” Kenna made an infinitesimal adjustment to the photo on the polished mahogany fireplace mantel, caressing it for a moment as she spoke. “He was a month from coming home.”

  The black-framed photograph of the marine, dark curly hair, desert fatigues, squinting into the sunshine, held the place of honor in the cozy Deverton living room. A folded American flag in a stark wooden box sat next to it.

  “You must have been so proud of your…” Lassiter hesitated.

  “Husband.” Kenna finished the sentence, slowly sliding her hands into her back pockets, the toe of her silver ballet flat tracing a pattern in the pile of the creamy shag rug. A blond curl escaped from the ribbon, fell across one cheek. She looked at Lassiter from under her lashes.

  “Yes. I still think of James every day. Jimmy was less than a year old when it happened. Three years later, I’m still working on explaining it to him. Why he doesn’t have a father.”

  “You—,” Lassiter began.

  She turned to Lassiter, earnest. “No, please, this isn’t about me. Or even Jimmy.” She gestured through an archway toward a toy-littered playroom. “He’s happy entertaining himself with his trucks. Today is about you. And your campaign, Governor.”

  “Owen,” he said.

  Kenna agreed, with a shy smile, then tapped her silver-linked watch. “I believe you said your schedule allowed fifteen minutes here, Owen. That means only twelve minutes left for you to win me over.”

  * * *

  “May I speak to Mrs. Lassiter, please? This is Jane Ryland at … the Register.” The new title snagged her. “Sure, I’ll hold. I’m following up on the interview request from this morning.”

  About six hours ago.

  The scruffy chair rattled over the murky once-gray carpeting as Jane swiveled to get comfortable at her new desk. Her half of her new desk.

  Tuck—was he the flannel-shirted surfer-looking guy in the photo pinned to the peeling corkboard?—had graciously cleared off one of three adjustable wooden bookshelves and emptied one of four battered metal desk drawers. Someone’s idea of sharing. He’d scrawled a note on a Post-it pad: “Welcome, Roomie.” Someone’s idea of camaraderie.

  She thought of her old office at Channel 11. Sleek built-in corner shelves holding her kept-from-J-school tattered reference books. Lighted mirror. Huge bulletin board covered with dangling plastic-sleeved press passes, happy snaps, and souvenir campaign buttons. Mike the mailroom guy delivering fan letters, the occasional skeevy plea from a creepy admirer, sometimes even rants from hostile viewers. After the trial, she’d gotten a few particularly unpleasant ones, ridiculous, but she’d told Jake about them, just in case. Where’s the mailroom here, anyway? Back then, she’d had a door that closed. And locked.

  Good-bye to that. This was her new domain. Fabric-covered cubicles. Tops of heads of strangers. Fragrance of aging coffee. Buzzing tubes of fluorescent lights. Half an office.

  Now some huffy press assistant was asking, could she take a message?

  “No,” Jane replied. “I prefer to talk to Mrs. Lassiter directly. Do you know when she’ll be available? And wouldn’t it be better if she took a break, as you called it, after the election?”

  Silence. Then a tinny Sousa march as someone hit the Hold button.

  Slipping the phone between her cheek and shoulder, Jane typed her password into the coffee-smudged beige computer on the desk, puffed the dust from the monitor. She pushed aside a haphazard stack of Tuck’s file folders, the one on top marked LONGFELLOW BRIDGE, and clicked into the Register’s Web site. The front page of the latest edition appeared on the screen.

  The “hold” music stopped.

  “Jane?” The new voice was soothing, conciliatory. Sheila King introduced herself.

  Another press secretary. And soon after, yet another refusal of the interview.

  “Sheila? I’m confused.” Jane leaned back in her chair, the heels of her boots stretching past the cubicle divider. “I’m simply looking for the standard-issue candidate’s-wife interview. No surprises, no big deal. Just, hey, how ya doin’. How goes the campaign.”

  Jane stared at the dingy ceiling tiles as the press secretary spun out excuses and double-talk. Give me a break. She snapped her chair upright and clicked down the Register’s online front page.

  The main headline, byline Tucker Cameron, read POLICE CONTINUE TO DENY SERIAL KILLINGS. Below that, a Tuck sidebar, POLICE INSIST NO “BRIDGE KILLER.” My elusive deskmate is getting some big ink. She clicked on “Politics.” There, the headline read GABLE GAINS IN POLLS, LASSITER LAGGING. Maybe Alex was on to something.

  “No, you listen,” Jane said into the phone. “You’re telling me Moira Lassiter’s ‘not available’? ‘Not now. Not tomorrow. Not next week.’ That sounds a lot like ‘not ever.’ Might I ask why?”

  * * *

  “Dump truck. Box truck. And what’s this one?” Lassiter had folded his soft charcoal suit jacket over the back of the overstuffed couch and sat on the living room floor, legs akimbo, surrounded by a convoy of miniature vehicles.

  Kenna clicked red and green Lego blocks together and apart, watching the man who wanted to be the next senator from Massachusetts play with a four-year-old. Fifteen minutes had long passed.

  Over one cup of coffee, then two, she had drawn him out about his campaign, his policies, his strategy. She was fascinated, of course. Riveted. It was almost too easy. Lassiter had answered a second phone call with a terse: “I know what time it is. I’ll call you.”

  “Dat is a oil truck!” Jimmy crowed. He grabbed the plastic vehicle from Lassiter’s hands. “I know it!”

  “Maybe he can help with your Middle East policy,” Kenna said, smiling. She uncoiled herself from the chintz armchair, tossed two Legos into the rubber bowl. “Or transportation.”

  “Absolutely. We can use a guy who recognizes his trucks.” Lassiter leaned back against the side of the couch, stretching his legs across the oriental rug. “The campaign could also use a well-informed mom who cares about his future. Ever thought about volunteering? Work for the Lassiter campaign?”

  With an insistent buzz, Lassiter’s phone vibrated across the glass-top coffee table. The doorbell
rang. And rang again.

  “Your master’s voice,” Kenna said, looking at the phone. “I guess our time is up, Governor.”

  “Will you do it?” Lassiter clambered to his feet and punched off his phone. “Join our merry band?”

  “You’re a hard man to resist.” Kenna stood, hands on hips. “But I’d better answer the door before your staff comes looking for you, don’t you think?”

  By the time Kenna returned, Trevor and clipboard in tow, Lassiter had rebuttoned his suit jacket and adjusted his tie. Jimmy, making vrooming sounds, was running the oil truck up the side of the couch.

  “Mrs. Wilkes has volunteered for the campaign.” Lassiter pointed a finger at his aide, delegating. “Make sure she gets the information and paperwork she needs. Tell Maitland to expect her downtown.”

  He turned back to Kenna. “Right?”

  She held out one hand, palm up, agreeing. “You got yourself a campaign worker. I like what you said about the environment. And your foreign policy is … well, James would approve, I’m sure.” She saw Lassiter’s eyes soften.

  “I’m sure you’re right, Mrs. Wilkes.”

  Standing in the doorway, Kenna waited until the entourage drove out of sight. She slid open a drawer in the foyer’s mahogany desk. Took out a cell phone. Dialed. Waited for the beep.

  “Slam dunk,” she said. She paused, taking a deep satisfied breath. “Now. Come take this damn kid away.”

  5

  Would anyone answer this time? Detective Jake Brogan stepped back from the front door, angling himself sideways on the concrete front steps in case the response to his second round of knocking was a bullet. He’d almost lost a partner that way, back when he and DeLuca were rookies.

  Tonight DeLuca was on call, and Jake was scouting solo. Fine. Couldn’t solve a murder, two murders, from the couch of his condo. He didn’t have to touch the Glock under his shoulder to know it was there.

  He strained to hear what might be going on inside the Charlestown three-decker, its white-vinyl façade a copy of the one next door and the one next door to that. Black shutters, random shrubs. Streetlights mostly working. Down the block, newer brownstones, carefully gardened, pumpkins on stoops, gentrified the neighborhood into class battle lines, townies versus yuppies, all in the shadow of the Bunker Hill Monument. The granite obelisk in the middle of Charlestown marked the slaughter that began the Revolutionary War. People around here were still fighting authority.