Smoke

mother, and child support from Dylan, she was able to swing it. It was the one thing on which she and Dylan were able to agree, that Benjamin should have the very best education no matter what other sacrifices they all had to make. And he was thriving there; he loved it. That was priceless to her.

She wound up Riverside Drive and eventually merged onto the Henry Hudson, getting off at the Fieldston exit. She passed through oak-lined streets with multimillion-dollar homes nestled on perfectly manicured lawns. The leaves were turning and the sun, which had decided to shine on Riverdale at least, created a brilliant light show of amber, rust, and green.

“My friend Stone lives in that house,” said Benji. “He has a pool and a hot tub.”

“Wow,” said Jesamyn. Stone, she thought. What kind of name was that for a kid? The house looked like a monastery to her with a stone facade and a large varnished wooden door with a wrought iron knocker in its center, a barrel-tiled roof. Two million, at least. At least.

“Is he nice?” she asked, having a hard time imagining that Stone was not a spoiled brat. But that was just her bias. “That’s more important than the things he has, I think.”

“I know, Mom,” said Ben, rolling his eyes. He’d heard the lecture a hundred times before. “Yes, he’s nice. Very nice. He also has a bed shaped like a race car.”

When she pulled up the winding drive toward the large brick buildings, through the expansive grounds, past the soccer field and the giant library, she was, as always, washed with gratitude that she had been able to give that to her son. She felt like he could go on to be anything he wanted from this place.

“Okay, see ya,” said Ben, undoing his seat belt and grabbing his Lord of the Rings backpack from the floor in front of him.

“Don’t forget, Grandma will pick you up after soccer and I’ll see you for dinner.”

“I won’t forget,” he said as she hugged him and kissed his face.

“I love you, Benji,” she said.

“I love you,” he said with a wide smile.

She watched as he met up with a couple of other kids on the steps and ran into the school. She caught sight of another mom, standing on the sidewalk gazing after a little girl wistfully. They exchanged a look and knew each other’s hearts too well.

The traffic was bumper to bumper down the Henry Hudson and it took her nearly an hour to make it to the precinct where Mount was waiting for her by the Caprice. She parked her car in the lot. Some of the guys were playing a pick-up game of basketball in the playground next door. They mock catcalled and whistled at her as she waited to cross the street. She gave them the finger, smiled at their whooping response, and jogged over to Mount. He looked annoyed, like he’d been waiting.

“What?” she said. “Did you sleep here?”

“Actually, I did.”

She shook her head and patted him on the elbow. “You really need to get a life,” she said. “Or at least a date every now and then. You live like a monk.”

“Tell me about it.”

Mount was kind of cute in spite of his size. He had thick dark hair, with equally dark eyes that communicated his kindness and depth. But there was sadness there, too. She would call him intense, smoldering even. But he was just so awkward; she figured women might find it kind of a turn-off. Maybe if he were a basketball player making millions, he’d have more luck with women. But he was a cop. A really big cop.

“You just need to find the right kind of woman,” she advised as he bounced her around the Caprice trying to get himself in.

“And what kind of woman is that precisely? Someone who can see beyond my physical deformities? Is that what you mean?”

“Oh, stop feeling sorry for yourself. You’re not deformed. You’re tall. There’s a difference. You should go on the Internet. Maybe there’s a website, like ‘I dig tall guys dot com.’ ”

“That’s very funny. And I mean hilarious.”

“Can we stop at Starbucks?”

He sighed heavily. “This is New York City and you want to stop at a chain. Support the independents. Resist the homogenization of America.”

“Can you pull over, please?”

He pulled in front of Veselka, a neighborhood Ukrainian restaurant that had become an East Village institution, and she popped in for coffee for both of them, as was their ritual when they worked mornings. She had only brought up Starbucks to aggravate him.

The downtown offices of Lily’s bank were all oak paneling and navy blue carpets, ecru walls. Everything about it said staid, reliable, and discreet. The phones rang constantly in a low electronic hum, the receptionist answering in a mellow, barely audible voice. The lighting was pleasant, having a slightly pinkish hue-not the harsh white typical of fluorescents.

“I should have been a banker,” said Jesamyn, flipping through the pages of Money magazine. She sat on a soft leather chair so deep her feet barely touched the floor. Matt sat on a love seat near her, taking up the entire thing.

“Why’s that?”

“I don’t know. Less stress. More money.”

“Yeah, but you’d have to be nice.”

“Hmm. That would be hard.”

They both looked up as they heard a door push open and a fit-looking young man entered the room.

“Detectives Breslow and Stenopolis?” he said. “I’m Brian Davis, head of branch security.”

Jesamyn smiled to see the young man’s eyes go wide as Matt stood to his full height.

“Whoa,” Davis said. “Wow. I hope you play basketball.”

Matt shook his hand. “Only when I’m not rescuing kittens from trees.”

“Sorry,” he answered with an embarrassed smile. “You must get stupid comments like that all the time.”

Davis shook Jesamyn’s hand and held onto it a second longer than he needed to. Jesamyn found herself forced to look into a set of warm blue eyes set in relief against ink black hair and paper pale skin. In a millisecond, she’d processed the expensive cut of his charcoal suit, the lack of a wedding ring on his left hand, the scent of his cologne. Cute, she thought, and smiled.

“No offense,” said Matt, which was usually what he said right before he offended someone. “You look a little young to be the head of branch security.”

“Well, thanks, I guess,” he said, seemingly unperturbed. “I came to the bank after a few years in the FBI small-business investigation division. So I guess I skipped some rungs on the ladder.”

Jesamyn found herself wondering how old that meant he was but couldn’t ask without it sounding like she was flirting so she kept her mouth shut. Davis escorted them through a door, down a long gray hallway, and finally to a conference room. More oak wainscoting and navy carpets. The lights in the room were a dim orange. A flat-screen monitor hung on the far wall and the highly varnished table was surrounded by very ergonomic-looking black chairs. Very posh and high tech at the same time.

“Have a seat,” he said. “Can I get you anything?”

“No, thanks,” said Matt. “We just really need to look at that tape. The information is going to be vital to our investigation.”

He nodded quickly and moved over to the screen without another word. He punched a few buttons on a remote and the monitor came to life.

The bank was crowded that day, a Friday afternoon. People depositing checks and getting cash for the weekend were dressed for a coldish October afternoon with light jackets, some with hats. Jesamyn was scanning the faces in the crown for the face that had become so familiar to her that she was seeing it in her dreams. A youngish face-pretty, sweet, an open honesty to it.

“Right here,” said Davis, hitting the pause button. “Naturally, our fraud department was very concerned about your suspicions.”

A young girl stepped up to the counter wearing a navy blue coat and a red beret-type hat. Her silky hair fanned out around her shoulders. They both recognized her right away. It was Lily.

“Is that why it took you so long to get us the video?” asked Matt, leaning in closer to the screen.