15th Affair (Women's Murder Club 15)

Ten minutes later, I was in my jeans and a T-shirt in Joe’s office, going through his things again. I talked to Julie as she bounced in her jumper seat.

“I don’t know what I’m looking for, Jules,” I cooed. “I don’t know what I could possibly find that would trump what Daddy told me an hour ago. He’s a spy on active duty. Yes. Active duty.”

Julie let loose with a peal of laughter.

I got up from Joe’s desk and went over and kissed her.

I said, “I want to make sure I haven’t missed something, little girl. I just want to know what he was doing all those months when he was here with you playing Mr. Mom.”

There was a box of Joe’s stationery in the top drawer, right-hand side. I’d opened it before, frisked it with my fingertips, but this time, I took out the note cards and envelopes and found a stubby little key Scotch-taped to the bottom.

The key had a number.

It could be to a safe-deposit box.

For all I knew, it could be to a safe-deposit box belonging to us, a fireproof lock box with life insurance policies and the deed to our condo.

Or it could be a secret trove of love letters and boarding passes and locks of Muller’s hair.

I put the key in my pocket and lifted Julie out of her chair. I took her into the bedroom, pulled the curtains closed, and got into bed with my baby. Martha curled up on the rug beside us.

It was completely still. We were alone. Maybe we’d always been alone. I had had to accept the depth of Joe’s deceit. That I’d been betrayed by my husband, my best friend.

“Country first,” he’d told me. “This is what I do.”

That son of a bitch.

CHAPTER 81

I SET UP a conference call with Rich and Cindy, and after some back-and-forth, we reached agreement on my plan.

I called Brady, saying, “I need to see you out of the office. It’s important.”

He said, “You sound—terrible.”

Brady had called me out. It was as if barbed wire were coiled around my chest and forehead. My breathing was shallow, and pressure was building behind my eyes.

He said, “Are you home? I can stop by after work.”

“Great. Buzz me and I’ll come down.”

Maybe I’m paranoid, but last week two spooks had dropped by my apartment to warn me off my search for Alison Muller. It was possible, even probable, that a mic or two had been planted in my apartment.

At 7:20 Brady texted me to say he was on the way, and twenty minutes later, he buzzed up from the intercom. I grabbed the baby and ran down the stairs.

I found Brady leaning against his Buick with his arms crossed over his chest and his hair blowing across his face. He opened the car door and I got in with Julie in my arms.

“How sick are you?” he asked. “Or was this a mental health day? You should take a couple days—”

“Thanks, Brady, but I’m not sick and I’m not falling apart. I have news on the hotel murders, and my place could be bugged.”

I held Julie against my shoulder as I caught Brady up on Cindy’s tipster, who’d gone by the name of Jad. I told him what Jad’s video had revealed: that our murdered Jane and John Doe had been working for the CIA and that now, thanks to Cindy, we had their nicknames: Chrissy and Bud.

“Cindy’s running their pictures today with those names.”

Brady said, “

Good. A positive ID could come out of that.”