But she didn’t.Her hands tightened around the back of one of the chairs.“What’s going on?The Housekeeper’s Mistresshad a single print run and barely sold a thousand copies.I’m having a hard time believing you want to turn it into a feature film.”
But—you’ll notice—she’d still come.Just in case.Hope is like that.
“I’m sorry for the deception,” I said.“I actually wanted to talk to you about Simona Wolf—”
Her face shuttered.She gave the chair a shove, so that it banged against the table.“You havegotto be kidding me.Don’t you people ever give up?You have no right to tell any part of that story.And if you try, I’ll sue.”
Then she spun and started for the door.
“Ms.Smith—wait!Whitney!”
I caught up to her before she reached the exit.A few of the other patrons were staring: a young man watched, his phone forgotten in one hand; a woman with a child in a stroller had frozen, a spoonful of baby food hanging in midair; another woman had stopped in the middle of stirring her latte.
“Get out of my way,” Whitney said.
“Is everything okay?”the guy said.
“We’re good,” I said.“All good.”In a lower voice, I said, “I’m not going to do anything without your permission.I wanted to talk to you.There’s nobody elseleftto talk to.”
“Nobody needs to talk to anybody,” she said.“It happened a long time ago, and it was horrible, and there’s nothing to say about it.”
“Please,” I said.And then I played my trump card—the one I had waited to play, because I needed to see her face when I did it.“Forget what I said in my email.I know this is going to sound crazy, but I think whoever killed Robert Kessler killed Vivienne Carver and Steven Block.”
Shock.
Pure and total shock: wide, empty eyes, and then incomprehension slowly fragmenting into confusion, the labored effort to understand.Her cheeks reddened.And then tears welled in her eyes.
It might not have been real, but if it wasn’t, I didn’t know how to tell.
“Please,” I said again.“Even if you can only give me five minutes.”
She nodded and swallowed.“Let me—ah, let me get a coffee.Just a minute.”
I returned to my table—and to my marshmallow crème shaken espresso, which was exactly as delicious as it sounded, and which I was going to recommend to Tessa as an immediate addition to the menu at Chipper.At the counter, Whitney stumbled through her order, still blinking rapidly to keep tears from falling.When the barista asked her something—if she was okay, I guessed—she shook her head and then nodded and laughed.After paying, she waited while the barista prepared her coffee.It wasn’t until she had it in hand that she made her way over to me.
“So,” she said as she settled into the seat opposite me.The color was still high in her face.“You’renottrying to make a TV show about—about all of it?”
“Uh, no.Sorry.I didn’t know how else to get you to meet with me.”
“You could have tried asking.”
I could have.But then I wouldn’t have gotten to see her face.
“What do you want?”she asked.“Really?”
“My name is Dash Dane.I’m an author—”
“Oh God, I know who you are.IknewI’d seen you before.In the lobby, remember?When you were talking with Vivienne?”
I mean, seriously—was iteveryone?
She took a sip of her coffee—which, from the label turned toward me, I discovered was a soymilk latte without sweetener.(Blech.) “I don’t understand.You think…what happened has something to do with Simona?”
“I do.In fact, I think it has everything to do with it.”I paused, trying to read her face, but it was still that superficial mixture of disbelief and tears.“Do you believe Simona killed Robert Kessler?”
She set her coffee down.And then she turned the cup in the circle of her hands.In a quiet voice, she said, “She was convicted.”
“But do you believe she did it?”
