Albia Rothman standing by the huge windows, dressed in one of her power suits, a rich charcoal gray wool with a soft white silk blouse. She looked quite elegant, rich, intimidating.
“Albia! Oh my heavens, you scared me. What are you doing here?”
“I think the more significant question is what are you doing here, Nicola? I spend a great deal of time here, but you? You ran away, left John without a word, just ran. And now you’re back to try to hang him. He is a good man, a man this country needs. He is a visionary, a man of ideas, and here you are, trying to ruin him. I really won’t have it, Nicola. I won’t.”
“No one wants to hang John,” Nick said, facing the woman Savich, Sherlock, and Dane believed to be a killer. She wasn’t afraid simply because she wasn’t alone, not really. Sherlock was outside, as were a dozen people. All she had to do was yell and people would come running. No reason to be afraid of Albia. She could take Albia, all sleek in her three-inch high heels and tight skirt. She didn’t have much maneuvering room, but she was in better shape than Albia.
Most important, there was Sherlock, her biggest weapon. She said, “But it’s clear to everyone that since Cleo’s body was found, and she’d been struck with something on the back of the head-there are questions that have to be answered. Cleo was John’s wife. All of us have to face that reality. People think John would have had to know. Some people think John may have killed Cleo, Albia.”
“How did you get in here without the media attacking you?”
“I slipped in through the delivery entrance. It was real close going, but I was lucky. The media guy who was supposed to keep his eye on it was having a coffee break. I saw him go into the deli across the street. John told me about that entrance a long time ago.” Actually, both she and Sherlock had come in through the delivery entrance, but Nick didn’t want to tell Albia about Sherlock just yet. She wanted to make Albia feel safe, make her feel in control. Just maybe she’d say something, admit to something.
Albia said with a shrug of her elegant shoulders, “Vultures, aren’t they? But why did Mrs. Mazer let you in here?”
“I told her I wanted to see John. She suggested I wait in here, that he’d be back soon. Of course, I’ve waited for him many times in his office. I would have thought she’d tell me that you were here, but she didn’t.”
“That’s because,” Albia said, as she took a step toward Nick, “she doesn’t know I’m here.”
Nick forced herself not to move an inch. “How did you get in?”
Albia smiled at her, waved a graceful hand in dismissal. “When John took the lease on this building some ten years ago, he had the architect design a private entrance that led only to this office. Most people in his position have alternate ways of leaving their offices, in circumstances just like this one. I wonder why John didn’t tell you about the private entrance? I wonder-perhaps when it came right down to it, he didn’t really trust you, Nicola. Perhaps he did come to believe that you really were sleeping with Elliott Benson. You know, of course, that Elliott has always wanted any woman that John has, and vice versa, I might add. It’s been a competition between them since before they went to college. And they pretend to be close friends. Did you know that Elliott was in love with Melissa, the girl John was engaged to? Turns out she wanted both of them, stupid girl. She slept with both of them until she died in that car accident. It was a terrible thing for my poor brother.”
“Did he know she was sleeping with Elliott?”
“I have no idea. As for Elliott, I don’t know what he felt about Melissa’s death. It was a very long time before John became seriously interested in another woman. But he did, finally, and he and Cleo married. It wasn’t long before Elliott got to Cleo, screwed her brains out, and everyone knew-but not John, not until after she left. I suppose she was sleeping with Tod Gambol, too, since he left when she did.”
“But everyone knows now that she didn’t run away with anybody, Albia. Someone murdered her. And buried her, hoping her body would never be found.”
“Isn’t that interesting? Nicola, did you sleep with Elliott Benson?”
Nick didn’t answer her immediately. She was remembering how she once wondered how John had arrived at his office without her seeing him. A hidden private exit, what a good idea. Nick said, “Sleep with Elliott Benson? That’s a novel thought. Another man old enough to be my father. Oh, he’s as polished as an Italian count, as sleek as both you and John, but I’ll tell you the truth, Albia. Whenever I see him I am reminded of a Mafia movie character with his pomaded hair and his expensive Italian suits. Whenever he looks at me, speaks to me, I want to go take a bath.”
“Cleo didn’t think he was bad at all. To be honest about this, I didn’t believe so either, at least not at first. Yes, he was my lover for a time as well. Too bad it wasn’t because he adored me, no, he just wanted something else that belonged to John. I suppose I’m included in that group. And, fact is, he’s not a very good lover. Sure, he maintains his body well, and says all the right things, but he’s selfish. He’s used to expensive call girls who lick the bottoms of his feet if that’s what he wants. He has difficulty remembering to give as well as receive when he’s with a woman he isn’t paying. And like I said, the both of them still pretend to be friends. What games men play.”
“Albia, do you think it makes any sense at all to sleep with another man when you’re engaged to be married? Why would you even be engaged if you wanted to sleep around?”
“Any number of women do it all the time. They want the power, the money that marriage would bring them and they want the excitement a lover brings. It’s not a big mystery. Don’t be coy, Nicola.”
Nick walked over to John’s desk, sat down in his big, comfortable leather chair. It steadied her, sitting behind his impressive desk. She picked up a pen and tapped it against the beautiful maple. She remembered Linus Wolfinger doing the same thing until everyone wanted to strangle him. She tapped the pen again, then once again. She said, seeing the look of annoyance on Albia’s face, “Did you spread rumors about me sleeping with Elliott Benson?”
“Of course not. It was common knowledge.”
“I see. How odd that I didn’t know. I do know you are the one who wrote me the letter supposedly from Cleo. It couldn’t be anyone else, and you also wrote with great detail about Melissa.”
Albia was framed by that beautiful window, the sun surrounding her. She looked powerful, otherworldly, her stance, the tilt of her head identical to John’s.
Nick felt the sudden taste of sour bile in her mouth. It tasted like fear, fear of this woman whom everyone saw as an elegant creature they admired and respected, a woman who was powerful in her own right. They didn’t see Albia Rothman as a person who could have started off her adult life murdering someone. For John, for her little brother, whom she adored.
“I didn’t write you anything, Nicola.”
Nick let it go for the moment. What had she expected? A confession? She said after a moment of silence, “I can’t believe Cleo ever slept with Elliott Benson. Nor with Tod Gambol. She loved John.”
“Oh, but Cleo was a little harlot. John wouldn’t believe me until I finally showed him photos that I had a private investigator take of her and Elliott, all cozied up in his small house on Crane Island. It’s all private, you know, the nearest neighbor is a good half mile away. I might add that he and John both have used that house. If they happen to have each other’s woman at that house, they make sure to leave a small token, a small trace of it. Perhaps you’ve been there, Nicola?”
Nick shook her head. “I don’t believe it. I knew her. I really liked Cleo. She loved John, I’m sure of that.” She realized that only about fifteen feet separated them. She said, “Albia, it’s time to admit that you wrote me the letter, that you made up that journal confession to save me, to make me leave Chicago and leave John. You did it to help me, didn’t you? Please tell me. You wanted to protect me, didn’t you?”
Albia shrugged. “Yes, all right, no reason to lie about it now. Yes, I wrote you the letter, for all the good it did. You’re back and now you want everyone to pay. John didn’t try to kill you, Nicola.”
Nick’s heart was thudding so loudly she believed that surely Albia would hear it, that Albia must know she was so scared she was ready to pee in her pants. The words just came out, she couldn’t stop them. “If it wasn’t John, then was it you, Albia?”
A perfectly arched eyebrow went up a good inch. “Me? Goodness, no.”
“You hired someone to try to run me down, to burn down my condo, with me in it.”
“It strikes me, though, that just maybe you were the one to set fire to your own condo.”
Nick laughed, couldn’t help it. “That’s idiocy.”
Albia shrugged. She took a step back, leaned against the window, crossed her arms over her chest. She looked mildly amused. “So it was your lover who tried to kill you. It was Elliott Benson. I called him, you know. He told me all about you, told me that poor John had picked the wrong woman yet again. And he laughed then, a very
