k. come get me in my room.
I lean back against the seat, drained. Will Halligan even care that I’ve got a weird feeling based on a Plutarch quote? There’s one person, I realize, who can fill in some blanks.Alison Handler.Though I can’t stand the thought of hearing her voice again, I call her anyway. After half a ring, the call goes to voicemail, meaning she’s probably declined it. I can hardly blame her. I suggested her husband might be a murderer.
“Alison, I know it’s late,” I say, “but I need to speak with you tonight. It’s urgent.”
To my shock, I hear back from her several minutes later.
“I didn’t want to be rude and not take the call, but we can’t communicate after this,” she says. “It’s not fair to Jeffrey.”
So now she’s a fan of fairness.
“I won’t call again if you answer one question.”
“One question—and really, that’s all.” She’s speaking at a normal volume, so Jeffrey is either out for the evening or she’s sneaked over to the studio to guarantee herself privacy.
“Did you once have an affair with Morgan Kroll?”
I hear the intake of breath, and I can almost feel her weighing whether to answer or not.
“Please, Alison. It’s critical that I know.”
Silence follows. I wait, praying she has the decency to tell me.
“Yes,” she says finally. “But Jeffrey can’t know about it. I confessed to him about Melanie, and I told him there was someone else around that time, someone I’d been seeing since the summer, but he never knew that person was Morgan.”
My pulse, finally slowed from the parking lot, starts to race again.
“It started when she worked for your husband?” I ask.
Another pause.
“The attraction began before then, if you must know. We’d met on campus—when we were both in grad school at SUNY Albany—and I suggested her for a freelance job with Jeffrey. And eventually one thing led to another.”
“It sounds like the relationship overlapped with Melanie.”
“Why is that relevant?”
“Justtellme.”
“Yes, for a while. But as I made clear before, I’d lost my way as an artist. I finally broke it off with Morgan once things intensified between Melanie and me.”
I swallow, trying to calm myself.
“And how did Morgan take it?” I say.
A few seconds pass before she responds.
“First, I need you to know, I’m not an unprincipled person. I’d always been clear with Morgan that our relationship was a casual thing, but she’d convinced herself otherwise. When it ended, she was furious—furious at me, furious at the idea there might be someone else. She even stalked me for a while.”
I don’t even say goodbye. I just end the call and let the phone drop in my lap.
Morgan Kroll had been replaced as Alison’s paramour, sending her into a rage. Maybe while stalking Alison, she saw her with Mel, and started stalking her, too.
And then, around that time, Riley stumbled into Morgan’s life. Riley with her crushing story about being raped and almost killed by a sexual predator.
What if the “one person” who Riley said knew the real date of the attack was simply Morgan? Perhaps the morning Riley showed up in the English department reallywasthe next day, meaning that Tuesday morning, not almost a week later. No wonder her bruises looked fresh and she seemed “in shock.”
This would mean that Morgan learned everything she needed in order to get rid of her rival without anyone guessing who the killer was.
