had defended. Murderers, some of them rich. Most too high profile to do it again or not crazy enough. But they did it once, as Marta had. Did you get one free murder if you were a Richter client? Did she? Marta trembled on the bench, waiting to feel like herself again. Hoping the quaking would pass, and the questions.
She wiped her eyes on a clean part of her coat sleeve and rose stiffly. Her knees wobbled and she groped for the shower wall. She found the front door, felt for the bolt, and drew it back with fingers that were slick with warm blood. The door swung open. The sight was grotesque. Bizarre.
Bogosian was still standing, dead on his feet.
Marta gasped. She didn't know people could die standing up. Maybe there wasn't enough wind under the house to knock him over, or his feet were too big. It made her sick to think about it. Then she felt a momentary tingle of fear. He was dead, wasn't he?
Marta forced herself to step closer to check. Bogosian's dull brown eyes were rigid, fixed. His coarse features were frozen in agony. Blood streamed from his head in rivulets. Marta looked away, sickened. She'd seen enough autopsy photos to know Bogosian was dead. She wasn't about to feel his pulse.
She hurried by the corpse. The Magnum must have fallen in the snow, but she didn't see it. She didn't need it anyway. She didn't even want to touch it. She hustled under the deck to the beach, then turned into the wind.
Marta made a beeline for Steere's house, the only light on the beach. Wind filled her hair and briny snow pelted her face. This time the mist from the ocean felt cool and cleansing. She scooped a handful of snow and rinsed her cheeks and hands. It was freezing, but it heightened her senses. Her relief. She was alive. Safe.
She began to run to the house. Alix was locked in the office, and there was a lot Marta wanted to know. What had Alix been searching for? Did it have to do with why Steere killed Darning? Her stride lengthened as her plan took shape. She would get Alix to give a statement in return for immunity, then turn it over to the D.A. It would put Steere away forever. He might even get the death penalty.
And what about Marta? Steere would retaliate and send somebody else after her, but she would have hired security by then. She had the resources to protect herself. Money would do that. Insulate her behind anonymous walls. Pay for plane tickets to her different houses. Send her to deserted islands in the Caribbean. Get her lost. Marta didn't care if she didn't practice law again. She couldn't turn back now anyway.
She inhaled a lungful of cold, salty air, and it sped her like a spinnaker toward the house. Time to close this case. She would bring Steere to justice. The lights of the mansion house got closer, jittering with each hasty step, and soon Marta could see the French doors to Steere's office. Something was flapping there, fluttering.
She squinted against the driving snow. Sheer curtains flew from the doors in the wind, sucked from the room like an incubus. The French doors were slamming back against the house in the wind. Steere's office was empty.
Alix was gone.
* * *
Once inside Steere's office, Marta tried to shut the French doors against the storm. The wood around the doorknob had been broken and was too splintered to close completely. Why hadn't Alix unlocked the door from the inside? It must have been locked with a key, one she couldn't find in her haste. Alix had apparently escaped off the second-floor deck, taking her answers with her. And Marta's hopes of learning the truth about Darning's murder.
Marta spun around in frustration and surveyed the ransacked office. Walnut file drawers hung open and folders spilled onto the floor. Messy papers blanketed the glass top of the desk. A cushy leather desk chair had rolled to the wall. The computer on the desk had been disconnected and its fifteen-inch monitor lay smashed beside the French doors, gray wires dangling from its back. Alix must have used the monitor to break the doors. It was the heaviest thing in the office. But what had Alix been looking for? She undoubtedly didn't find it. She would have run from Bogosian without continuing her search.
Marta's gaze fell on the cardboard box that Alix had tried so frantically to open. She knelt before it and yanked on the box top. Trifold brochures were stacked inside, describing a resort development deal. Was that what Alix wanted? Unlikely. Marta closed the top, leaving a watery red print of her own palm. This wouldn't do. She'd leave blood everywhere. It gave her the creeps.
Marta got up and found a bathroom in the hall that connected to the master bedroom. She flicked on the light with her arm. The glistening white counter was well stocked with cosmetics. Lipsticks plugged the holes in a plastic organizer; eye pencils rolled around a Lucite tumbler. It must be Alix's bathroom. A magnified makeup mirror extended over the sink, and Marta caught sight of her reflection.
She almost screamed. Her magnified face was red with watery blood. Her hair hung in thick ropes around monstrous blue eyes. Marta couldn't go around looking like this, especially if she went back to the city. She'd have to shower. On the bathroom sink was a white tube of facial cleanser. Clarin's Doux Nettoyant Moussant, it said. Alix's self-important face wash. Marta grabbed it and took it into the shower.
* * *
After a warm shower, Marta padded into the bedroom to find something to wear. Just as she'd suspected, a walk-in closet next to Steere's was stuffed with women's clothes. Marta scanned the perfumed clothes, and picked out a tan cashmere sweater and camel pants. What the well-dressed mistress will wear. She slipped into the clothes, then searched the closet for good measure. She went through the silk blouses on padded hangers and looked behind the dresses. No clues of any sort. She moved on to the night tables and storage bins under the bed. Nothing. Marta thought a minute. Alix had been searching office papers.
Marta hurried back to Steere's home office and the drawers Alix had ransacked, hoping she'd find what Alix hadn't. Hair dripping wet, she yanked open a drawer and read through the labels of the accordions in it. A divider read BUSINESS PROPERTIES and contained manila folders for five different areas of Philadelphia. One folder read CENTER CITY, and Marta pulled it out and opened it up.
Steere's major buildings and the loan documents for each. He had more property than she thought and it was highly leveraged. There were lenders in and out of state and the notes were spread among a number of different banks. No single bank would know how much Steere owed, and from the looks of it, his debt was huge. Hundreds of millions of dollars. Marta closed the manila folder and reached for the next.
BUSINESS PROPERTIES— NORTHEAST. More properties, more loans. Even a criminal lawyer could see that Steere's business operations were precarious, the properties heavily leveraged. Each lease was held in a corporate name and Marta counted at least twenty different names. None of them appeared to have partnerships, since no partners had signed on any of the notes. Steere was the key man in every transaction. Marta closed the file folder and replaced it. It was intriguing, but it wasn't what Alix had been looking for. What had she wanted, and why
