The Shadow of Your Smile

“What are you talking about?”

“Sue, I know how conservatively you invest. I’m being blackmailed. When I was drunk I told a person too much about the money we were taking from the foundation and about my brother’s investment firm. I told that person that I was sure Greg was doing some inside trading.”

“You what?”

“Sue, I was drunk. I know he is trying to dig himself out of a hole. If this person goes to the press, Greg could end up in prison.”

“Who is this person? A woman, I assume. God knows you had your share of them.”

“Sue, will you lend me a million dollars? I swear I’ll pay you back.”

Susan pushed back her chair and stood up. “I don’t know whether to be insulted or amused. Or maybe both. Good-bye, Peter.”

With despairing eyes, Peter Gannon watched the trim figure of his former wife as she abruptly left the restaurant.

35

At six o’clock, Dr. Ryan Jenner rang the bell of Monica’s office and waited expectantly. Maybe she’s in one of the back rooms, he thought, and rang the bell again. But after the third try, when he’d pressed the bell for an extended time, he decided that Monica had completely forgotten her promise to turn over the file of the O’Keefe boy to him.

He realized that he had been looking forward to spending the evening studying all of the diagnostic tests to see if there was any explanation for the advanced brain cancer to simply disappear.

Shrugging off his disappointment, he walked from the sidewalk to the curb and hailed a cab. On the way home, he wondered if he would find Alice Halloway waiting for him there. He had not been able to refuse his aunt’s request when she told him that Alice, “one of her favorite people in the whole world,” was coming up to Manhattan on a business trip and had asked to stay in the apartment. And did Ryan mind?

“It’s your apartment so how can I mind?” Ryan had asked. “She even has her choice of your two guest bedrooms.” In his mind he had expected that Alice Halloway would be a contemporary of his aunt, somewhere between seventy and seventy-five. Instead when Alice arrived last week, she had turned out to be a very pretty woman in her early thirties who was going to be attending a convention of beauty editors in Manhattan.

The convention had lasted two days but Alice stayed on. A few nights earlier she had invited Ryan to join her at the theatre. She had told him she managed to get two house seats for the sold-out revival of Our Town. They had gone to get a quick bite after the show, and it had been too late for Ryan’s taste when they finally got back to the apartment. He was operating at seven the next morning.

It was only when Alice tried to insist they have an after-dinner drink by the fire that Ryan had caught on to the fact that his aunt was trying to set him up with “one of her favorite people in the whole world,” and that Alice was more than willing to go along with it.

Now, in the cab on the way uptown, Ryan pondered what to do about the situation. Alice kept delaying her departure. She was always in the apartment when he got there, with cheese and crackers and chilled wine waiting for him.

If she’s not gone soon, I’m going to a hotel until she clears out, he decided.

Usually at the end of the day he was relieved and pleased to turn the key in the door of the large, comfortable apartment. Tonight, he grimaced as he pushed the door open. Then the enticing scent of something baking in the kitchen teased his nostrils and he realized he was hungry.

Alice was curled up on the couch in the living room watching a quiz show on cable. She was wearing a casual sweater and slacks. A small plate of cheese and crackers, two glasses, and a bottle of wine in a cooler were on the round table in front of her. “Hi, Ryan,” she called as he stopped in the vestibule.

“Hello, Alice,” Ryan said, trying to sound cordial. He watched as she unfolded herself from the couch and walked across the room to greet him. Planting a butterfly-light kiss on his cheek, she said, “You look done in. How many lives have you saved today?”

“None,” Ryan said briefly. “Look, Alice-”

She interrupted him. “Why don’t you shed that jacket and tie and put on something comfortable? Virginia ham, macaroni and cheese, biscuits, and a salad is the dinner I’m famous for.”

It had been Ryan’s intention to say that he had dinner plans, but the words died on his lips. Instead he asked, “Alice, I do have to know. How long are you planning to stay?”

Her eyes widened. “Didn’t I tell you? I’m leaving Saturday morning so you’ll only have to put up with me for two more days, a day and a half, actually.”

“I’m embarrassed. This is not my apartment, but…”

“But you don’t want the doorman smirking at you. Don’t worry. I already told him you were my step- brother.”

“Your step-brother!”

“Sure. Now how about that Virginia ham dinner? It’s your last chance. I have plans for tomorrow night.”

She’s leaving Saturday, and she’s out tomorrow night, Ryan thought with relief. I can at least be civil now. With a genuine smile he said, “I’m delighted to take you up on dinner, but I won’t be much company. I’m operating at seven tomorrow morning again, so I’ll be turning in early.”

“That’s fine. You don’t even have to help clear the table.”

“I’ll be right back.”

Ryan went down the corridor to his room and walked over to the closet to hang up his jacket. The phone rang but Alice picked it up on the first ring. He opened the door in case she called him but she did not. Must be for her, he thought.

In the kitchen Alice lowered her voice. A woman who introduced herself as Dr. Farrell had asked for Dr. Jenner. “He’s just getting changed,” Alice said. “May I take a message?”

“Please tell him that Dr. Farrell phoned to apologize for not being in her office to give him the O’Keefe file,” Monica said, trying to keep her voice steady. “I’ll make sure he has it in the morning.”

36

Now that positive identification had been made on the body of Renee Carter, the elaborate process of finding and apprehending her killer was set in motion. While her friend Kerianne sat protectively by her side, Kristina told the detectives the little she knew about her late employer.

Renee Carter had been an event planner who slept late, then was gone for most of the day, and was always out till very late at night. She spent little or no time with her child. “She showed a lot more affection to Ranger, the Lab, than she did to Sally,” Kristina recalled. In the short time Kristina had been there, Renee had had no company. She did not have a land line, so any calls that came while she was in the apartment rang on her cell phone.

“I just don’t know very much about her,” Kristina said apologetically. “I was hired through the agency.”

Barry Tucker gave her his card. “If you think of anyone we might contact, get back to me. You handled it very well by taking the baby to the hospital, so you go home and get some rest. We’ll be talking to you again.”

“What’s going to happen to Sally?” Kristina asked.

“We don’t know yet,” Tucker told her. “We’ll start looking for relatives.”

“If you do find out who her father is, I don’t think he’ll want her. Unless she was joking, the way Ms. Carter said that he was ready to finally cough up some money doesn’t sound as if he was supporting her.”

“No, it doesn’t.”