KATRINA

Katrina

FIVE DAYS BEFORE

Caffe Reggio is a New York City institution filled with lots of dark wood and antique framed photographs of Hemingway and Dorothy Parker. At nearly 6:00 p.m. on a Tuesday evening, it was also packed with cranky NYU students waiting for a table, shooting daggers at the middle-aged lady who'd been hogging a table to herself for fifteen minutes.

Aidan was late, as usual. The only real question ever was how late he would be. Aidan ignored banal things like time, like these concerns were beneath him. Of course, once you had a child, someone needed to keep an eye on the clock—a child needed to eat at set times, go to school, have a regular bedtime. That someone had always been me. Not that it had curried any lasting favor with Cleo. And fair enough. Just because I'd been denied basic caretaking as a child, providing it for my own daughter didn't make it some kind of prize.

Also, Cleo might have preferred a little more chaos in her childhood in exchange for a mom who was less of a drill sergeant.

Cleo had, of course, taken Aidan's call about the two thousand dollars. According to him, talking in person over coffee about what Cleo had confided would be "more productive." That had ulterior motive written all over it, but what choice did I have?

And so I'd been left to worry all day about Cleo, on top of grappling with my strange and unexpected grief about Doug. It didn't help that I had no one to share it with. I hadn't met Doug's daughter or any of his friends. I knew he had two brothers, one in Chicago who was a doctor, and one in San Francisco who was a teacher. They both had families. But what was I going to do, call them and say, "I dated your brother for three weeks and I was really starting to like him and I'm sad"? Besides, what I felt was mostly loss for what Doug and I might have been someday—not what we had already become.

I couldn't suppress a nagging tug of suspicion about his accident, though. It could have been my overactive work brain, but the timing seemed an odd coincidence given the whole college blackmail situation. Doug had decided to ignore that first text a few days ago, hoping that they—whoever they were—would go away. Not a terrible tactic. More often than not, blackmailers didn't escalate, certainly not to some kind of, what, assassination by automobile only days later? Was that what I was thinking? Not a great strategy to kill people before they paid up, much less so quickly. But, according to Doug, they had made at least two further demands within only a couple days. And criminals didn't always behave in ways that made sense.

I'd already done some poking around through my contacts at the NYPD. I had a Rolodex filled with connections I'd spent years cultivating with favors: free legal advice (real estate, wills, divorce), legal-assistant positions for college-aged children, firm box seats to games, and theater tickets. Among them were therapists, criminal defense attorneys, immigration and licensing officials, people who were good at breaking into places and good at keeping others from doing so. People who could be called upon at a moment's notice to lend a hand. My contacts were loyal. And discreet. I was very attached to some of them.

"Not an accident," Detective Larry Cross of the Bronxville Police Department had said after my old pal Gil Suffern, a lieutenant in the Central Park Precinct, of all places, had convinced him to talk to me. "That's all we know."

I'd felt stunned, even though that was exactly why I'd called—to confirm my suspicion that it hadn't been an accident.

"What do you mean?" I'd asked.

Detective Cross cleared his throat. "Indicators at the scene don't align with an accident. Looks intentional."

"Intentional?" I asked.

"A suicide," he said, like this should have been obvious.

The thought that Doug might have killed himself felt even more absurd than the idea of a blackmailer killing him before he'd paid up. Or was that because I didn't want to think he would have committed suicide when I thought we were falling for each other?

After I ended the call, I'd found myself on the Advantage Consulting website, unsure of exactly what I was looking for beyond proof that I was right. The site was predictably unremarkable, the testimonials about their tutoring and application support glowing, the descriptions of their successes suitably over the top. That said, it all looked very professional and slick. It made no sense that they'd blackmail their own, very lucrative clientele.

But maybe it wasn't people in the office itself, but someone associated with the scheme who'd demanded money from Doug. That person could be an amateur, the type who went too far, too fast in applying pressure, and Doug had accidentally ended up dead.

When I called the office, I'd spoken with an assistant who said that Brian Carmichael, president and owner of Advantage Consulting, would call me back. I was still waiting. My plan was to get in there and feel around a bit. If I couldn't grieve for Doug in a way that felt satisfying, I could at least try to get to the bottom of what happened to him.

I'd also had a client emergency crop up, which had been a helpful distraction. Ben Bleyer, the CMO of Play Up, a new, shockingly successful site dedicated to kids' sports, had run afoul of yet another inpatient rehab, this time for trashing his very expensive room. I'd spent two hours on the phone with the director, convincing her to give him another chance. Play Up was about to go through Series C funding. They needed Bleyer at the meetings, and they needed him clean. He could not seem to stay sober, but he was very good at his job. Lucky for Play Up, so was I. Because it had been one of those exhausting situations where the director was simply a good person, trying to do the right thing for all her patients, which meant my only choice was to muster up the emotional energy to convince her not only that I—Ben's best friend from parochial school in Kansas—was also a good person but that deep down Ben was, too. In reality, he'd seemed like a childish prick the one time I'd met him.

I scanned the sidewalk through Caffe Reggio's front window. Aidan was now nearly forty-five minutes late. The irony, of course, was that it was Aidan's confidence that had drawn me to him. He was ten years older than me, with a failed acting career behind him and a new, just-as-uncertain career ahead as a documentary producer when we met. And yet he'd been so self-assured. In retrospect, there had been something a little entitled about it, but Aidan was also infectiously charming, which made that easy to overlook. And what a relief it was to be with someone who moved through the world sure that everything would work out fine. Especially when he was also sure about me.

We'd actually met in a café similar to Caffe Reggio, way uptown, near Columbia. I'd been studying for law school exams when Aidan had appeared at my table.

He was very good-looking and tall, with an electrifying smile.

"Hey," he'd said. "I couldn't stop thinking about you, so I came back."

"Oh," I said, resisting the urge to look around and confirm he wasn't talking to someone else.

"You didn't notice I left before, did you?"

"I didn't notice you at all." It was true, but it had come out harsher than I'd intended. A bad habit.

But Aidan had only laughed, unfazed. "There's this thing you do when you're concentrating—you stick your tongue out a tiny bit," he said, almost like a question, but not quite.

"What?" I could feel myself flushing. "I do not."

At least, I hadn't thought I did anymore. I'd trained myself out of it at Haven House.

"Anyway, it's adorable," Aidan said. And I'd thought, It's nice, someone seeing me differently than I see myself. "Wanted you to know."

I nodded. "Oh … thanks?"

"Let me take you out to dinner?" Aidan had added. "I promise not to mention your tongue again, which I realize now was probably inappropriate."

By the end of that first dinner, I'd been totally smitten. Aidan wasn't put off by my wary nature the way so many men were. And he wasn't afraid to pursue me, and pursue me hard. He was that sure of himself. He was also openly emotional in a way that I could never imagine being myself, probably because of his warm, caring parents and the older brother he was very close to and the beautiful house he'd grown up in. It was disarming. Even my posture had loosened by the time our pastas were delivered.

"I love your laugh," Aidan commented at one point, a compliment I had never received before. Probably because I didn't often laugh so loudly, or freely.

Aidan's family's money was largely gone by then, thanks to his father's compulsive spending and some unfortunate late-in-life investments. But the money had never been what made his childhood special, Aidan insisted; it was the love and security, which did indeed sound enviable. In fact, it sounded like exactly what I'd been longing for my entire isolated life.

It wasn't until we had been dating seriously for a while that I explained how I actually did have money. Thanks to Gladys Greene, who had been old enough to be my grandmother when she'd whisked me away from Haven House at the age of four teen. Gladys donated money over the years and had been a regular volunteer at the home, but she hadn't ever been considered a candidate to adopt. And rightly so. Gladys's age and noticeable dementia clearly made her unqualified. Of course, I'd skipped all of that when I explained my adoption to Aidan, including the reason Gladys's unfitness had suddenly ceased to matter.

I'd also left out the part about having murdered someone.

Standing in the bathroom of Haven House that night all those years ago in the oversize gray sweatshirt Director Daitch had thrown at me after he'd summoned a staff member to dispose of my bloody top, I had felt absurdly grateful. And so when he told me that leaving with Gladys would keep what had happened a secret and keep me out of jail for murder, I jumped at the chance. I would leave and Daitch would erase me; that was the deal.

It was weeks before the bloodstains beneath my cuticles disappeared completely.

The entire time I lived with her, Gladys thought I was her younger sister, who'd died when she was a girl. And I probably did a lot more caring for her—cooking and cleaning and sometimes bathing—than she ever did for me. Still, those were some of the happiest years of my life. Because even if Gladys's love for me had really been for her sister, it was still love. She'd died in her sleep shortly after I'd gone to college, so sad to be alone again maybe. The real surprise was that she'd left me a large chunk of her estate, nearly four million dollars. Three and a half million of which I still had. I didn't want to spend it. I earned a good living, and I preferred knowing we had the safety net. Also, Gladys's cousins had sued—a lawsuit that stretched on until after I was married, and I was still worried that someone else might show up someday, staking a claim to the money.

When my phone rang, the two students at the table to my right shot me annoyed looks. Aidan telling me he was running even later, no doubt. I accepted the call before it could ring again.

"Hold on one second," I said quietly as I headed toward the door. "Where are you?" I snapped once I was on the sidewalk. I was not in the mood to listen to his excuses.

"Oh, hello there!" boomed a male voice. "Ms. Thompson?"

Karen Thompson: my go-to pseudonym. It was impossible to verify anything about someone with such a common name; all searches led to an avalanche of results. I'd used my Thompson alias in the message I'd left with Advantage Consulting.

"I'm sorry, who's this?" I asked, playing dumb.

"Brian Carmichael."

I stayed quiet another beat.

"Advantage Consulting?" He sounded vaguely irked, like he was a celebrity giving a dim-witted person a moment to acknowledge his importance. "Sorry to call so late, but the day got away from me."

"Oh, yes, of course, Brian. I'm so sorry!" I exclaimed. "Thank you so much for returning my call. I feel so overwhelmed these days, it's hard to remember whether I'm coming or going."

"No problem!" he said. "I have two kids of my own. Believe me, I understand how stressful this can be."

"As I mentioned in my message, it's about my daughter Sophia," I began. "We were hoping we could get some help with her transferring. She's at Columbia right now, and she's really not happy."

"Well, first off, congratulations on Columbia. That's a terrific school. Just wonderful." I moved the phone away from my ear; his voice was so loud. "Doesn't mean that it's the right place for her, of course. And transferring can be complicated, it goes without saying, but the good news is that you're starting from a strong place."

"Great," I said, clearing my throat. "Your assistant said the next step was to set up an in-person consultation?"

"Yes, an in-person consultation, exactly," Brian went on. "I like to establish a personal rapport with a family before we go any further. We'll sit down with Sophia, talk about her objectives, her likes and dislikes, and life goals. Every family is different. Every child is different. Every school is different. We're looking to assemble a complex puzzle, and this process works best when we all work together to align our objectives."

"A consultation would be great," I said. "We'd like to move quickly, though. Sophia would like to transfer as soon as possible. Ideally to Amherst."

Couldn't hurt to zero in on the same school Doug's daughter had gone to, if my plan was to eventually ask about him.

"Not a problem, Ms. Thompson," Carmichael said, using precisely the extra-gentle voice I reserved for clients who were permanently fucked. "I understand that completely. We can expedite as necessary, I assure you. I'll have my assistant reach out to schedule ASAP."

"Oh, how wonderful," I said, making sure to sound relieved. "Thank you. This has been very stressful."

"We will get Sophia where she needs to be, Ms. Thompson," Brian said. "You're in excellent hands, I assure you."

As I dropped my phone in my bag, I saw Aidan closing in on the sidewalk, hands jammed in his pockets. He'd aged well into that "hot dad" thing, looking easily the same age as me now, instead of a decade older. I could only imagine the women he had to chase off, who surely mistook him—as I had—for a security blanket.

But at least I didn't feel angry at the sight of him. All I felt was relieved. Because Aidan wasn't my problem anymore, thanks to those texts from Her. Literally—that was how she appeared in his contacts. They were from Bella, Aidan's assistant. I'd known it instantly. I'd been suspicious as soon as he'd hired her, a former student from the New School program where he'd been an adjunct. She was twenty-six and gorgeous and worshipful. Aidan always lit up around Bella, basking in her admiration as he dismissed my suspicions as paranoid and delusional.

Aidan had gotten good at weaponizing what he knew of my troubled history when it suited him—the subtle suggestions, the gaslighting. After initially denying it, he did eventually admit Her was Bella. He fired her immediately in an attempt to make amends. Though it was already far too late for that.

"Hey?" Aidan asked now, ducking his head to meet my eyes. "Everything okay?"

"Sorry, I was on a work call," I said reflexively, then immediately regretted apologizing.

Aidan had never bothered to hide his contempt for my "soulless" corporate legal work. As though we didn't live off my income. I could only imagine what he'd have said if he knew how I actually spent my days.

"Don't let Mark run you so hard on that hamster wheel," Aidan said. "You look tired. Great, too. But tired."

"Well, one of us does need to earn a living." It just popped out.

"Nice, Kat, really nice."

"I'm sorry," I said. Bickering with Aidan wasn't helpful now. "Can we just—What did Cleo tell you, Aidan?"

He opened the door and made a show of ushering me in. "Getting right down to business, huh? Can we at least sit down inside like actual humans who made another human together?"

"Listen, Aidan," I went on more gently once we were finally sitting in a booth against the wall. "I'm grateful you went back to Cleo, really. That you're able to talk to her at all. But I'm also worried, so if you could get to the point."

"Sure, but can we first finish our conversation about division of the inheritance?"

Division. Last time hadn't he described it as a loan?

" Before you tell me about our daughter you want to talk about money you need?"

"Well, Kat, it's a little hard not to feel used right now. I've done what you asked with Cleo, even though it wouldn't necessarily have been my way of doing things. And yet you won't answer a very simple, very reasonable question. In light of our twenty-two years of marriage, and co-parenting of Cleo, asking if you can advance me my portion of the inheritance doesn't seem so unreasonable. I mean, the money will be half mine once the divorce is finalized, and it's your idea to wait on that. By the way, it was also your idea to break up our family."

"You had sex with your assistant," I snapped.

"And I've apologized for that. Countless times," Aidan said very slowly and condescendingly. "I wanted to work on our marriage. You're the one who's not willing. And listen, I know it's hard for you to trust people given where you—"

"You had sex with your assistant, " I repeated.

"And I'm sorry. I really am. But people do make mistakes! I still love you, Kat. I have always loved you." Aidan paused for a moment and cocked his head; someone was playing saxophone on the sidewalk outside. I took a breath and tried to calm down. Nothing good ever came of me losing it with Aidan. "Hey, you remember that first apartment we had? When you hadn't started work yet and Gladys's money was still in probate?"

"You mean the one with the water bugs?" I shuddered. "Impossible to forget."

"Remember when our neighbor took up the violin? How we were freaking out about the walls being thin? We were awake half the night after we saw him bring it home. You were so determined to be nice about it."

"And you were plotting to break in and steal it." I laughed a little. "And then he was so—"

"Good!" We said it at the same time.

"It was like a free concert every night," I said.

"Which was lucky, because that was all we could afford," Aidan added. The saxophonist appeared to have moved down the street. He sighed. "Kat, I want to save our relationship. I've said that countless times. These things do take work. You know that. Or maybe you don't. Or maybe you don't care. Sometimes I have no idea."

Even now, Aidan could still make me feel like he was speaking down from some moral high ground. A place only people who came from nice families in Westchester could occupy.

But no matter how irritated I was now, those early days with Aidan had bright spots. He was warm and funny and full of life. He was great at playing with Cleo when she was little—Twister for hours was his specialty. And when she was a preteen, he always seemed to be able to get her out of a bad mood by being silly—ridiculous faces and bad jokes galore. Truthfully, he'd gotten me to lighten up, too, ignoring my defenses and demanding that I join in the fun. It was a breath of fresh air, for a time. But that window it had briefly opened inside me had eventually closed amid all our other problems.

"What are you asking for, exactly, Aidan?"

"It's … I'm stressed," he went on, his entire demeanor shifting. His eyes were soft, imploring now. "The new movie—we've had a couple significant setbacks. And we're already so far in the hole financially. If we don't try to see it through and claw the investment back with a sale to a distributor, it will be … disastrous. The company will go under. I—I need some help right now to bridge the gap. That's all, Kat."

And what kind of person didn't respond to a genuine plea for help, especially from someone with whom they'd shared more than twenty years of marriage and a child? Only a bad one, obviously. And the thing was, I did have the money. More than three million dollars still in a separate account, the exact amount Gladys's cousins had sued for. We'd used some of it over the years, but I'd always replaced it over time with my bonuses.

"Call it a loan if you want, for now. I don't even care. But it is money I'm entitled to." He gave his head an indignant shake.

"Entitled?" I asked. Because that exactly did sum up so much. "It's money I inherited."

"And then put it into an account with my name on it," he said. "You squirreling away the account numbers and passwords doesn't change that fact."

It was true. I had put Aidan's name on the account. But only because I'd known he'd be mortally wounded otherwise. I deliberately hadn't researched the legal implications. I'd had a bad feeling what they might be. In my defense, I hadn't thought we'd ever get divorced. But now the money really might end up half his. How could I have been so stupid?

"How much money do you need this time?"

Now his eyes turned down to the table. "It's a lot. I'm acknowledging that right off the—"

"How much, Aidan?"

"Two million dollars," he said, then took a sharp breath. "Well, really two point seven five. I obviously wouldn't ask if it wasn't really important, Kat. This movie—it really has the potential to change things. To have a real impact."

I willed myself to stay calm. "I hear you, Aidan, and I understand. We can absolutely discuss it. After we discuss Cleo, which was why I thought we were here. What did you find out?"

He squinted at me for a long moment. This was a game of chicken now.

"We don't need to worry," he said finally. "That's the bottom line."

"Okay, and what did Cleo say?"

"That we don't need to worry."

"That's it? Aidan, you asked specifically about Kyle, right?"

"Of course I did. And she's not seeing him. Like I said. Which was my point about not worrying. My point exactly."

"Then what was the money for?" I asked.

"I don't know … specifically, " he said. "But Cleo assured me that she is okay and otherwise asked that I respect her privacy."

You can't be that stupid.

But had I actually expected that he'd get her to admit that she was back with Kyle, even if he'd asked? Cleo had gotten pretty good at lying right to our faces.

"Well, at least she doesn't have the money," I said, mostly to myself. Because quite genuinely it was the only comforting thing I could think of.

"What do you mean?" Aidan looked confused. "Yes, she does."

"What are you talking about? I didn't see any transfer."

"I wired it from my work account." His "work account" being a business credit card on which I eventually paid the balance.

"Aidan, you didn't."

He shook his head. "I know how much you like to control everything and everyone, but I don't need your permission to do what I know is best for our daughter. And that's trusting her. She's not a child anymore. She's practically—she is a grown woman. She's allowed to have secrets."

"She was just dating a drug dealer! He got her to work for him. She almost failed out of school!"

"That's a bit dramatic, don't you think?"

"It's accurate!" I gritted my teeth. I needed to calm down. "Aidan, get the money back from Cleo. Please. "

"I'm not going to do that, Kat. Our relationship is based on mutual trust and respect."

"You mean that you're her friend and not her father?"

"Throw all the stones you want, Kat, because your relationship with Cleo is going swimmingly, right?"

"Fuck you, Aidan."

Aidan closed his eyes and stayed quiet for a minute.

"Listen, I'm sorry, Kat," he said. "You know I didn't mean that. I'm having a hard time. That's all." He gestured with a hand in my direction—me, the separation. "With all of this."

I stood up. I'd had enough manipulation for one day.

"Get Cleo to tell you what's going on. We need proof this time—actual evidence of where that money went," I said, driving my finger into the tabletop. "I don't care what you have to do to get it. But if you don't, I am not giving you a dime."

As I walked toward the West Fourth Street station, the anxiety came in waves. I couldn't leave this in Aidan's hands, couldn't just go home to stew. And so I decided instead to do what I would have done if Cleo were a client's child mixed up in something: investigate. Want to know what someone is really up to? Watch them. Of course, when it was client-related, I never felt guilty doing it.

From a bench in Washington Square Park, I could barely make out the entrance to Cleo's dorm. I had no idea if she was in there or not. I felt so relieved when I finally saw the light go on in what I knew was Cleo's third-floor window. I'd counted the balconies on move-in day.

My phone buzzed then with a text.

I know everything. And it's about time the rest of the world does, too.

My anonymous friend, again. I was gripping my phone so tightly, my fingers were burning. I considered telling whoever it was to go ahead and set a price. I was willing to pay quite a lot for this person to go away. But offering money before someone demanded it significantly weakened your negotiating position. Pushing back hard, on the other hand, was always a safe place to start.

Fuck off, I replied.

When I glanced up, Cleo was on the sidewalk in front of her dorm— very short skirt, very tall boots. She was with two girls I didn't recognize. One of the other girls was a brunette, the other a blonde, neither half as striking as Cleo. She was a standout kind of beauty. I'd told her this once, but she took it as an insult. I still didn't understand why. But your kids didn't give you points for intent, only for how you made them feel.

I was relieved as I watched the girls start off together, arm in arm. Good normal fun, a regular night out. But then Cleo peeled off suddenly and headed the other way. Alone. Shit.

Without thinking, I was on my feet, following her carefully—at a safe distance, on the opposite side of the street. When Cleo's stride turned quick and purposeful, a determined march more than a walk, I almost had to jog to keep up. She looked like she was off to do something she'd talked herself into, and all I kept thinking was Don't do it. Don't do it.

I followed as she continued deep into the West Village on Christopher Street, pausing in front of a building with a crystal shop on the ground floor and a basement store of some kind, lit up and cheerful enough, though I couldn't make out the sign from across the street. Cleo drew her shoulders back. Like she was steeling herself. Don't do it.

She retrieved an envelope from her bag before descending the stairs. I thought about running across the street, dragging her back up the steps, away from whatever lay at the bottom. But of course I could not. Soon a woman in expensive-looking athleisure descended the same steps, talking on the phone. After her came a young, attractive banker type in a very expensive suit. At least these people did not look associated with anything criminal. And it appeared to be a safe, public space.

I jumped when my phone rang, the volume up too loud. Another unknown number.

"Hello?" I answered tentatively.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" I jerked the phone away from my ear. "You have to stop avoiding me!"

Vivienne. Perfect.

"Do not yell at me, Vivienne," I said calmly.

"I've called you ten times today and nothing." She was still shouting. "But I call from my husband's phone and you pick right up? What kind of lawyer screens their clients' calls?"

"Vivienne?"

"Yes?"

"I'm hanging up now."

"You can't do that." Her tone was more plaintive now. Vivienne's belligerent bark was, I'd learned, rather easily disarmed with nonreactivity.

"I can. And if you want my help, which believe me you do, I suggest you go for a walk, get yourself calmed down." My tone was icy but not angry. "Then wait for me to call you back, which I will. As soon as I have a suitable opportunity. Now, good-bye."

"You can't just—"

I hung up just as Cleo reemerged at the top of the steps. Hardly down there for two seconds. And she looked … happy. She was beaming, in fact, as she paused to look down at her phone, typed out a quick text. When she'd tucked her phone back into her jacket pocket, she started down Christopher Street in the direction of her dorm, still smiling. I watched until she was gone, swallowed by the distance and the crowded sidewalk. While there I sat, alone in the gathering dark.