After Wayne left, Jessica contacted the life insurance company and asked how she could collect the proceeds of the policy on James’s life. She explained that her son was undergoing an operation, and she needed the money quickly. The claims adjuster expressed her condolences and explained that the process was fairly straightforward: fill out a form and attach the death certificate.
Jessica wondered if there’d be a delay in processing the payment because James’s death was being treated as a homicide. She knew from the movies that there was some rule against rewarding murderers with benefits of their crime, like collecting on life insurance. That meant the payment might not be issued right away.
The irony of the situation was not lost on her. The fact that she desperately needed that money only made it more likely that the police would use the existence of the policy as evidence against her, which would in turn delay her receipt of the funds.
Worse than that, the moment the police discovered James was worth more dead than alive, they’d assume she’d killed him to save her son.
Gabriel was disappointed to hear that Annie had already been put down for the night. He had come home early just to see her.
“Don’t worry, you’ll get to see her at five a.m.,” Ella said with a laugh. “Earlier if you want to wake up for the middle-of-the-night feeding.”
“That’s okay. Besides, a quiet evening alone with my beautiful wife sounds pretty great.”
“You want a beer? You look like you could use one.”
He laughed. “No. I’m still in complete solidarity.”
“Well, partial solidarity, at least.”
When Ella became pregnant and had to swear off alcohol, as well as caffeine and sushi, Gabriel agreed to do likewise. He’d been able to keep that promise for the most part, but he’d confessed to her that he couldn’t function at work without coffee. And because he never really liked sushi anyway, her dig was on point.
“Touché. How was your day?”
“Same. Annie was perfect, but she’s not the best conversationalist. Tell me about the case.”
While Ella had been on maternity leave, her only connection to the justice world had been through Gabriel. In their pre-Annie existence, they would share their respective cop and prosecutor war stories over dinner each night. In the post-Annie world, it was a one-way street, but Ella always seemed excited to hear about Gabriel’s work.
“We seem to be looking for a skinny, short-haired woman in a haystack,” he said. “Asra contacted more than fifty galleries and auction houses, none of which had a short-haired, thin Allison on staff. Well, that isn’t entirely true. This glorified poster shop in SoHo claimed to have one, but when we hiked down there, it turned out the woman in question was actually named Alicia, and her hair wasn’t that short. She was pretty skinny, though, so one out of three. Needless to say, she had no idea who James Sommers was, so it turned out to be a dead end.”
“Maybe your mystery girl doesn’t exist,” Ella said.
“Why would Jessica Sommers make her up?”
“Maybe because her husband made her up, or at least gave her a false name and vocation.”
“Come again?”
“Maybe he was sleeping with this Allison, like you think. But he didn’t want his wife to know that, obviously. So, when she confronts him, he just makes up a name. And says, ‘Oh, she’s working with me on a deal, so it’s all legit.’ Without the real name, the wife can’t google her and cause a scene, and the fake job gives him a reason to be seen with her in public. Kinda brilliant if you ask me, in a lying-cheating-sack kind of way, of course.”
Even while on maternity leave, Ella was still a step ahead. Seeing things that he should have noticed.
“So you’re suggesting that James Sommers has a piece on the side, the ex-wife sees her or something and tells the current wife, then the wife confronts Sommers, and he says, ‘Oh, that’s my business partner, Allison.’ And Allison is a name he just made up to throw suspicion away from the actual short-haired, skinny woman he was with?”
“Yeah. Why not?”
Gabriel considered the possibility. That it might be right only highlighted how little evidence they had at the moment.
“So that means we need to add to our suspect list a skinny, short-haired woman not named Allison?”
Ella laughed. “I would.”
“Thanks for making more work for me.”
“Anything to help.”
They ordered in pizza, but Ella lit candles for the table, commenting that she wanted to take full advantage to make it a date night. Still, 95 percent of the conversation concerned Annie, so it wasn’t quite like a date.
Watching his wife through the candles’ glow, Gabriel realized just how lucky a man he was. His days were usually spent among people whose lives were in ruins, more often than not as a result of their own bad choices. Jessica Sommers was a case in point. Either she had lost her husband in the worst way imaginable, or she had killed him, which meant that she’d end up living out her days in the penitentiary. Either way, she was staring at years of darkness ahead. By contrast, Gabriel saw nothing but light in his future. With Ella, he had filled that space he hadn’t even fully realized was empty, and with Annie’s arrival, his cup truly runneth over with joy.
“What?” Ella said, although her tone suggested she knew what he was thinking.
“I love you, Ella,” he said.
“Yeah, yeah,” she said back. “Prove it.”
“Give me fifty years, and I will.”
She smiled the same full-on smile that Gabriel had first fallen in love with. “Deal.”
Owen couldn’t sleep. He kept touching his scalp, feeling the soft skin that had been hidden for the last few years.
Of course, that wasn’t the reason he was still awake in the middle of the night. To say that
