“What is it?” He sounded very tense, but short of alarmed.
“Doug Sinclair was on his way to meet Phil the night he died.” I waited for it to sink in. Surely, Mark would connect the dots on his own.
“And?” he said.
“What do you mean,and?” It came out sharper than I’d intended. “You already knew that?”
“I did,” he said. “Doug Sinclair was having problems at work, competency issues, as we’ve discussed.”
“So the Darden general counsel asked to meet him in a Yonkers strip mall at eleven o’clock at night?” I asked. “And now he’s … dead?”
“Apparently,” Mark said, a tinge of exasperation in his voice.
“Mark, seriously, what the fuck?” It had popped out. Mark wasn’t the delicate type, but I also didn’t usually swear at him.
“Listen, it’s terrible what happened to this guy. He had a daughter, I know. And Phil feels bad, of course, that the accident happened on his way to that meeting. It’s an awful, regrettable tragedy. But Doug Sinclair is not our client, Kat—Darden is. As you are aware, we have a fiduciary obligation to do what is in their best interest.”
“Right,” I said, because Markwascorrect, technically. About Darden’s being our client. But I wasn’t buying that this meeting with Phil and Doug’s accident were some sort of coincidence. It was utter bullshit.
“Sounds like you have the phone records now? I’m assuming that’s where this new information about Phil came from—is there anything in there about this blackmail situation?”
“Not that I’ve seen,” I said, the lie a reflex. I was beginning to wonder whether Mark’s friendship with Phil, or the firm’s financial situation, was clouding his judgment. “I need to go through them more closely.”
“Great. Come into the office,” Mark said. “We can do it together.”
I crossed my arms, even though I was alone in my house. OrwasI even alone? I wondered if there was a black sedan out there, watching me. All of this was suddenly feeling far too close to home.
“Okay,” I lied. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
With a fair amount of I’m-a-worried-mom cajoling, I eventually got the security guard in Cleo’s dorm to confirm that she’d swiped in that evening at about 7:00 p.m. and had still not swiped back out an hour later. Now darkness was settling quickly as I sat on a sidewalk bench alongside the quiet end of Washington Square Park, near one of those unexpected New York City honeysuckle bushes, the kind that always made me feel transported to some bucolic upstate town. I was facing Cleo’s dorm across the street, watching to make sure she stayed safe and sound and inside. I was also waiting for Janine. She’d called while I was on my way into Manhattan. She wouldn’t say why she wanted to talk, only that she was happy to meet by campus—circumventing my excuse for why I couldn’t meet right then in Park Slope.
I racked my brain trying to think of what Janine could want. After an exhausting day smoothing the feathers of cranky clients, I wasn’t sure I could muster the energy for any more drama. Could it be that she knew about Annie and Kyle? I was agonizing over whether to tell her Annie was using. What if she already knew and had decided she was okay with it? She was the cool mom, after all.
“Kat!” Janine was striding toward me, dressed in jeans and red platform sandals, her hair back in a chic red-and-yellow bohemian head scarf.
“What are you doing over here, looming in the shadows?” Janine laughed when she finally reached me. But then she looked up to where I’d been looking. “Oh, I see,” she said. She sat down on the bench, resting her Balenciaga bag on the bench between us, the brand name emblazoned on the side. “I wondered why you wanted to meet by the park. Which window is Cleo’s?”
Janine’s face had softened. She knew exactly what I was doing: stalking my own daughter.
“Second from the corner.”
“At least her light is on,” she said. “Do we know whether she’s in there?”
We—such a little thing, not to be alone with my worry for that small moment.
I cleared my throat. “I’m pretty sure she’s home.”
“Well, at least there’s that,” Janine said, like this entire situation was par for the course. “Eighty percent of what’s dangerous is out in the world. Okay, maybe sixty percent.” She checked her watch. “I told Annie I’d meet up with her and some friends for dinner. She’s dying to take me to this little Thai place she found.”
I shook my head. “Cleo wouldnevertake me out to eat with her friends.”
“Iampicking up the check.”
“I think Cleo would pay menotto have dinner with her.”
“Ha, well, Annie does plenty of mean things to me, too. Don’t worry. Every daughter is a monster in her own special way.”
Was this a hint about Annie and the drugs? I hoped it wasn’t some sort of test to see if I would offer up what I knew, because I was waiting for an actual question.
