After that, I’d ask her about the Ellingsons.
Then, I promised myself, I’d tell Tracy and Greer everything I was thinking. Let them look into this mysterious partner, financing, and other details that took time and computer databases I didn’t have.
While I focused on my friends.
IN THE loft, I stashed the soup containers in the freezer and changed my shoes. I was still dressed for work, but no matter. Arf and I headed out to stretch our legs. Clear skies for the first time in days. An orange glow touched the tops of the Olympics, and the air smelled clean.
Some friends and relatives think I’m crazy to walk alone at night downtown. But I wasn’t scared, and not just because of the fifty-pound dog beside me. Although he does have good guard dog skills.
If you project a sense of belonging—this was a trick I’d learned from Tag—a sense that this is your turf, people generally leave you alone.
It was easy. Grace House had been a terrific place to be a kid, and our family’s Montlake cottage the perfect next step. When Tag and I got married, we bought his great-aunt’s run-down bungalow in Greenwood and we’d worked hard to make it into a sweet home.
But living downtown felt right. Too soon to tell what all the changes in the city and in my life would mean. Whether downtown would still feel like home in five years.
As we walked, Arf pausing every so often to sniff something, I ran through the possible links between the two shootings. The same gun, but one shooter or two? The burglary gone wrong theory Detective Armstrong mentioned was one I’d leave to them. Again, they had the manpower. Or person power. The joint task force had kept busy over the years, checking every burglary suspect for a connection to Pat, but found nothing.
No, the link between the victims had to be the building. But what, and why?
Why had Pat, a committed soccer dad, changed his mind and stayed home from Gabe’s tournament?
And why was Special Agent Meg Greer following me?
Eighteen
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—I took the one less traveled by. And now I’m lost.
—T-shirt slogan, after Robert Frost
I STOPPED.
She didn’t.
“Pepper. Hello.”
I tightened my grip on Arf’s leash. She made no move to pet him, which seemed strange, but he gave none of the usual signals that something was amiss. “Are you following me, Agent Greer?”
“Actually, I’m not,” she replied. “I live up on Elliott. I decided to take a walk and ran into you.”
Elliott Avenue a few blocks north of the Market had become a haven of urban housing, home to apartment complexes that took up half a city block or more. I’d been in a couple of the apartments—very modern, very small.
Did I believe her?
Did it matter?
“Why would you think I was following you?” Greer asked.
I gave her a long look. “You better come up.”
“Well, don’t you have a spectacular view?” she said a few minutes later, gravitating toward the windows, as first-time visitors always do. “My place overlooks the swimming pool no one uses.”
In the kitchen, I started tea and chai masala brewing in the French press. It’s an easy shortcut, not as flavorful as brewing the tea and spices in a sauce pan with the milk, but I didn’t feel like going all out for Special Agent Meg Greer. I didn’t believe for one minute that she just happened to walk by my building, and I wanted answers.
I joined her at the windows and pointed at the lights glowing across the water. “That’s Alki, the northern tip of West Seattle. Beyond is Bainbridge Island.”
“It all looks so different at night. Love the way the lights shimmer on the water.”
Since the viaduct had come down, I’d begun noticing all kinds of lights and shadows that had always been there, even if I’d never seen them.
“Just so you know,” she said, her tone a shade darker than girlfriend-confidential. “I am armed.” She slipped off her jacket, exposing a small black gun in a small black holster on her hip. Like the other night at the houseboat, she wore black jeans and a turtleneck, and black boots.
“I assumed as much. It doesn’t bother me. I was married to a cop.”
“So I hear.”
It’s always disconcerting to discover that other people know more about you than you know about them. Especially when the other person is a cop.
The chai was ready. I set two steamy, fragrant mugs on the dining room table, and we sat.
“If you’re keeping an eye on me,” I said, “you know I spent the evening with Laurel and other friends at Kristen’s house. Is your partner following Laurel? Or is he at the hospital, guarding Maddie?”
She frowned. “We aren’t following you. And we aren’t guarding Ms. Petrosian.”
I wasn’t convinced, on either count. “Tell me, how did a nice girl like you end up in a job like this?”
One side of her mouth curled. “The FBI, you mean? I heard a recruiter speak in high school and I was hooked. My parents were baffled—he was an accountant, and she taught kindergarten.”
“So did my mother,” I said. She nodded ever so slightly and I realized she already knew. Had she had a nice sit-down with Tag, or run me through the databases? I could feel the heat rising in my chest and hoped it didn’t show on my face.
“You an accountant, too? Or a lawyer? I gather most FBI agents have some kind of professional training.”
“It can be helpful,” she said. “Particularly in this case.”
“Because Pat Halloran pursued fraud and financial crime. And because of this Joe Huang investigation none of you wants to tell me anything about.”
“It’s better that you
