The Other Woman Read online

  “You’re over the line, Tucker.” Unbelievable. These reporters think they’re— “Use that photo, any of ’em, and I’ll nail you for trespassing on a crime scene. See how you like being the big reporter from the Nashua Street Jail.”

  “Okay, off the record, then.” Tucker stashed the camera in a pocketed canvas bag and started toward him.

  Jake crossed his arms over his chest. Holding his ground. “There’s no off the record. There’s no on the record. There’s nothing. There’s no Bridge Killer. And you’re on your way outta here. Now.”

  “I’m just saying,” Tucker persisted. Talking and walking backwards at the same time. “If you don’t know who the dead girls are, and you don’t know why they were killed, how ya gonna stop the Bridge Killer from killing again?”

  7

  “Mrs. Lassiter? It’s Jane Ryland. Do you remember me?”

  Jane sat in the damp chill of her apartment basement, perched on a plywood riser in her cramped storage space, holding her ancient Rolodex between her knees and her cell phone up to her ear. A bare bulb in the ceiling, string extending a too-short metal pull, gave just enough light. Lucky she’d kept her stuff. Lucky Moira Lassiter’s personal phone number still worked. Sorry, PR types. She’d tried playing by the rules. But too many doors kept slamming. It was eight Thursday morning, certainly not too early to call a candidate’s wife. Jane hoped.

  There was a moment of silence. In the textured static, Jane could almost hear Moira Lassiter deciding. She couldn’t let her make the wrong decision.

  “Mrs. Lassiter?” Jane persisted. Hoping the candidate’s wife would not hang up. Hoping being this pushy wouldn’t blow her chances for an interview. She had to reclaim her life, one story at a time. If Moira was hiding because her husband was having an affair, that was front-page news. No matter what Alex thought. She simply had to prove it.

  “You and I last saw each other, remember, at that fund-raiser for the Home for Little Wanderers? We had such a great talk that night. You told me all about—”

  An intake of breath on the other end interrupted her, mid-pitch. “Yes, of course, I remember, Jane. And I’ve always admired your work. I’m sorry for what happened to you. It seems—unfair. What can I do for you?”

  Moira was cutting to the chase. Skipping further niceties. Jane followed suit, fast-forwarding through her new job with the Register to her new assignment. She assured the candidate’s wife the interview would be nonconfrontational, no surprises, and exactly what the readers wanted to hear.

  “Voters, I guess I should say, not readers.” Jane, wrapping up, reminded Mrs. Lassiter what was at stake. “People love you. But your staff tells me—you’re taking a break? Just talk with me on background, maybe. If you decide to go on the record, we can discuss that later.”

  Jane squinched her eyes closed, hoping. Maybe she’d be able to give Alex some good news. Maybe, just maybe, there would be a story.

  “Jane?”

  “Yes?” Jane felt her stomach flip. In a split second, she’d know.

  “Maybe. Let me think about it.”

  Damn. “So when—?”

  Jane heard the unmistakable click as Moira Lassiter hung up.

  * * *

  Flash. No, no flash. There was certainly enough light in her apartment to take the photo without the flash, Holly knew, but it might look more perfect with the flash. She could try both ways, of course, then see.

  The green LASSITER FOR SENATE balloons caught in the eddies of the apartment’s aluminum heating vent, bumping and floating across the photos pushpinned to the bulletin board. Holly had tied a three-foot-long green satin ribbon to each balloon, then attached them all to the bottom left corner of the bulletin board.

  Then the heat came on, blowing the stupid balloons right in front of the pictures. Now she couldn’t see the Lassiter announcement, or the shot of the front of his campaign headquarters.

  She huffed out an impatient sigh. It shouldn’t be this difficult.

  Leaving the camera on her new tripod, she crossed the living room and slammed down the thermostat. She didn’t need heat. She needed the balloons to stay in place for the photo to be perfect. It wasn’t perfect. She needed one more shot. Could she get it today? She had to get it today.

  Taking a deep breath, she counted to five and thought about happy endings. A kiss in a corridor. A promise made.

  A promise broken.

  The timer apple dinged.

  Time to go.

  * * *

  “What is it about politicians, anyway?” Jane sat in the lumpy upholstered swivel chair outside Alex’s office. His door was uncharacteristically closed. She could see through the window that he was on the phone. She’d wait. Her thumbs moved swiftly over her BlackBerry keyboard.

  I mean, Ame, is everyone in DC sleeping with anyone who walks through the door? Are wives blind? Bored? Off with other men?

  She could picture Amy at her desk in D.C., probably holding a phone to one ear, sending e-mails on her computer, and texting with Jane at the same time. Jane wished she lived closer. It was difficult having your best friend five hundred miles away. Especially recently.

  “LMAO,” Amy texted back. “We got a guy, state rep, sleeping with his secty. Until wifey got wind. Now husb in doghouse sted of statehouse. Said he thot she’d never know. Moron. What up with hot Alex, sistah?”

  “How they think they get away with it? And the other woman. What’s in it for her? Sex? Power? Thrill of deception?” Jane hit Send. The screen stayed blank. Amy was probably talking to a real person. Then more green letters popped into view.

  Avoiding question, Janey girl. ☺ Hot Alex? All work and no play.…

  Jane smiled. She should never have mentioned him to Amy. Why did everyone on the planet think she should be hunting for a husband? She’d have one. Someday. Probably. “Married. Big time. He’s my boss, remember? End of story. Gotta go. xoxo”

  The office door clicked open just as Jane tucked her phone into her tote bag. Good thing Alex—Hot Alex—hadn’t been reading over her shoulder.

  “Sorry, Jane,” he said, gesturing her into his office. He used his heel to click a doorstop into place, keeping his door open.

  The job must be getting to him, Jane thought as she stepped inside. She noticed bags under his eyes, had never seen those before. He wore the same tweed jacket as yesterday. Maybe even the same brown turtleneck with his jeans. Stacks of file folders threatened to topple off his desk. A sleek white laptop, open and humming, sat in the center. Next to it a big PC showed the flickering Register home page.

  Alex flipped the laptop closed, then flopped into his chair. He swiveled toward her, keeping his left hand on the laptop cover. “What can I do for you? Moira say yes?”

  Jane stared at his hand.

  “Jane?”

  “Uh, yeah, matter of fact. Kind of. Maybe.” Jane looked at the diplomas on the wall, looked at the two still-unpacked cardboard boxes in the corner, looked anywhere but at Alex’s left hand.

  Which was no longer wearing a wide gold band.

  “So what’d she say? She give you a time? Wait a sec. Here’s a—” Alex thumbed through a pile of manila folders on one corner of his desk, then stood, reaching for a stack of papers stapled at one corner. The rest of the folders slid to the floor, scattering white pages across the mottled gray carpeting. “Shit. I mean—sorry.” Alex glanced at Jane, apologetic. “Sorry. Way to start the day.”

  He organized them back into a stack, then gave a little shrug. “Anyway. So. Moira?”

  “You okay?” Jane risked the question. Maybe she’d seen too many movies, but that missing wedding ring had to mean something. The messy desk, the repeat clothing, the tired eyes. Maybe the wife was having an affair. Or. Maybe he was. Maybe there was another woman, and Alex’s hotshot wife threw him out. None of her business, sure, but maybe that was why Hot Alex was trying to derail her Lassiter affair story idea.

  Alex blinked, silent for a beat. He sat back in his chair
, crossing one ankle on his knee. “Okay about what?”

  “Forget it. Just—anyway. Moira.” She filled him in on the morning’s conversation, painting in brisk strokes how the candidate’s wife had seemed sympathetic and left the door open for an interview. “She’s always been ‘the good wife,’ you know? Every time I’ve seen them together, she’s as doting as Nancy Reagan. Lassiter can do no wrong, say no wrong. That’s why I’m still thinking there’s more to this.”

  “More?”

  One more try. “Yeah. You think something’s going on with Moira, said that from the beginning. Now I think you might be right. But it’s not about Moira. It’s about Owen.”

  “How about the other woman?”

  “The other—?” Was he changing his mind on her story? She smiled, eager. “That’s what I meant. Exactly.”

  But Alex was shaking his head. He picked up a stack of papers, handed them to her. “No. I mean Eleanor Gable. Here’s a background file for you. While you’re waiting on Moira, put together a takeout on the glamorous Ms. Gable.”

  He held up his hands, bracketing his words like a scriptwriter pitching his next big-screen story. “‘Can a gorgeous rich girl from the North Shore parlay her family’s wealth and her crowd-pleasing style into a seat in the U.S. Senate? Eleanor Mead Gable like you’ve never seen her.’ Something like that. You can handle both, right?” Alex nodded at her encouragingly, as if trying to get her to nod along with him.

  She didn’t. When did Alex-the-journalist turn into a tabloid headline-hunter? Maybe that’s what happened when a reporter went management. Now he was obviously trying to sell papers. All that cheesy POLICE DENY BRIDGE KILLER stuff. Maybe he wasn’t as attractive as she’d thought.

  “Well, I figured this would be a good time to do some research on Moira.” She tried for a positive spin. “Background. Check out her roots, her background, what she did before signing on as a politician’s wife. Get inside. You know?”

  “Get Gable,” Alex said. He stood up, looked at his watch. “We done?”

  8

  It was disconcerting to feel so anonymous. Here she was, in the midst of hundreds of Lassiter supporters, all from Boston probably, and not one of them recognized her. With her hair chopped, without the Channel 11 TV camera beside her, and wearing her cropped Levi’s jacket, black turtleneck sweater dress, and flat black boots, Jane could be a professor stealing a break from her classes at Emerson College. Or a Back Bay art collector, shopping the Newbury Street galleries.

  The light turned green. Jane and the Lassiter crowd crossed Beacon Street, trooping up the steep ramp to the pink stucco pedestrian bridge over Storrow Drive. College-age kids, mostly girls, some wearing green LASSITER FOR SENATE baseball caps, iPod buds in their ears. Young mothers pushing complicated strollers, one carrying a crayoned sign reading LASSITER 4 YOUR KIDS. Beacon Hill matrons with heirloom hats and predictable shoes. Everyone with LASSITER FOR SENATE buttons, some more than one. So far, no gorgeous woman in a red coat.

  Jane checked her watch. The rally was scheduled to start in half an hour. She’d called Gable HQ, as Alex instructed. They hadn’t called back. Plenty of time to scout.

  The crowd began its descent from the arched bridge onto Boston’s Esplanade, a verdant stretch of still-green grass and fading willow trees on the banks of the Charles River. To the right rose the Longfellow Bridge with its salt-and-pepper shaker-shaped turrets. To the left, the Boston University Bridge. Across the whitecapped water, past the sailing J-boats and mallards, the pillared halls of MIT.

  Jane felt a hard jab at the small of her back.

  “Don’t move. Or it’ll be the last thing you do. And do not scream.”

  She felt the man’s soft breath in her ear. Then his hands clutched her, hard, holding both her shoulders. His body pressed insistently against her. The crowd around her blurred into a mass of color. All she could see was the Longfellow Bridge on one side, the BU Bridge on the other. The Charles in front of her. A river, by a bridge.

  No one was noticing them.

  Is this how he began?

  In the middle of a campaign rally?

  She clutched her pen and whirled, trying to escape his grasp, ready to poke and kick and—and why not scream? She saw his face.

  He was laughing.

  “You incredible idiot.” Jane stamped a foot, then softly kicked Detective Jake Brogan in one blue-jeaned shin. “I thought you were the stupid Bridge Killer. I could have stabbed you, or screamed, or, or—”

  “Yeah, but I’m a cop. Who you gonna scream for? I’m already here.” Jake smiled, the same caught-in-the-hall-without-a-pass smile that successfully extricated him from annoyed females and detention halls ever since he’d been the preteen heartthrob of Boston’s tony Back Bay. Jane was first exposed to his wattage at a Boston Police Department news conference, where she’d pushed him for details of a murdered city councilor’s financial skullduggery. He’d avoided the question. And after the news conference, he asked her out to dinner. She declined. He continued to ask. She continued to say no. Until, one night, when she didn’t.

  “And now I might have to arrest you for assaulting a police officer.” Jake tucked her arm through his, just for a moment, holding her close. “Taking you into custody might not be a bad thing, come to think of it.”

  Jane whapped him with her notebook and untangled herself from his grasp as they walked toward the rally. She pulled her jacket back into place. “Like I said, you’re an idiot. First, there’s a million people here. You know we agreed about this. We’re friends, only friends. Second, I’m working. Third, well, there is no third. We discussed this. I’m a reporter, and you’re a—”

  “We discussed it on my couch,” Jake interrupted again. A squawk from the loudspeakers brought a groan from the crowd; then the Sousa blared again. “After a few glasses of pinot and my famous burgers. Before you decided to keep your clothes on, if I remember correctly.”

  As if she could forget. He was verging on irresistible—tawny hair, green eyes, leather jacket, his own gorgeous cop cliché. Harvard education. Prominent family. Devoted to his work. He’d even rescued a golden retriever, Diva, whose tawny fur and cajoling eyes made them copies of each other.

  Jake and Jane. She’d thought about it more than she liked to admit.

  But Mr. Perfect’s job was the deal-breaker. Dating a potential source? She couldn’t believe she’d let herself come so close to such a career-complicating decision. One minute more on his couch, one second more, and she’d never have been able to change her mind.

  If they were … together? Both their careers would be over. She’d never be able to cover the crime beat. No one would believe he wasn’t feeding her confidential stuff. He’d know things he couldn’t tell, and so would she. They’d never quite trust each other.

  So they’d agreed—reluctantly, longingly, as one magical summer night became the reality of the next morning—that they’d have to remain just pals. And, because appearances mattered, to the rest of the world they’d be acquaintances. Professional. Separate.

  Even though she could still feel his touch, there’d be no Jake and Jane.

  “Thanks again for calling me with the lead on the Register job,” she finally said. She turned to him, drawing a finger, gently, briefly, down the front of his jacket. The battered cordovan leather was sleek and soft. “Thanks for calling them. You saved my sanity. I was pretty sad there, for a while. And hey. Thanks for sending all the pizza. And for staying away while I was trying to figure things out.”

  “You took a huge hit, Janey. Pizza. Least I could do.” He gave her that twinkle. “And even with your clothes on, we’re still friends.”

  Jane rolled her eyes, hit him with her notebook again. “Enough with the clothes.”

  “But listen, seriously,” Jake went on, ignoring her. “Sellica ever call you? Admit she was your source? I can’t believe she walked, and you’re the one who got nailed. Any more ugly letters from—whoever it was? I know you think it
was Arthur Vick. I also know you know you should hand them over to us.”

  “Good try, Sherlock. You know I can’t talk about that.” No letters had arrived recently, anyway. And TV reporters always got mail from cranks and wackos. If you didn’t, you weren’t doing your job.

  Jane scanned the crowd. Realized she was looking for Sellica. Stupid. Sellica Darden would call her, get in touch, someday. She has to. “But, Jake. How’d you know I’d be here?”

  “I didn’t.” Jake waved toward the Charles, waggling his fingers as if announcing the title of a bad horror movie or a tabloid headline. “Bridge Killer.”

  “You think there’s a Bridge Killer?” Jane’s voice changed, all business now. Jake was pretending to kid her, but this was new. News. The cops never said Bridge Killer. They’d dodged every question about serial and pattern. But if Jake was assigned here, even calling the guy the Bridge Killer, that meant the cops knew a whole lot more than they were telling.

  Jake was walking again, toward the river. Jane trotted to keep up with him. “Jake, wait. You think he takes his victims during the day? You think he’d do it here, with all these people? All these cameras?”

  She grabbed his sleeve, stopping him. “Do you guys have pictures of him? At political rallies or something? How do you know it’s him? Are you getting photos from the Lassiter people? Is he connected with the campaign?”

  “Hey. Since when are you covering this story, Miss Jane? I thought it was that Tucker kid. And listen, since it’s your paper now, tell your editor for me—it’s a cheap shot, all that crap about ‘police deny serial killer.’” Jake looked down at her, his face now shadowed with annoyance. “The more they play up how the brass denies it, the more it looks like there’s some cover-up. There’s no cover-up. Why can’t the truth just be the truth?”

  “Jane Ryland? Are you Jane Ryland?”

  Jane took a step back, startled at the interruption. She saw Jake do the same thing, in one quick move, keeping a respectable distance. Acquaintances.