whole body felt limp, as if her bones had begun to melt. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the investigator slide two photos from the envelope and lay them on the table.
“Ms. Finn?” Molinari said. “Why don’t you take a look now.”
She grabbed a breath and directed her full attention to the first photo. Only the head was visible, surrounded tightly with blue draping paper, so that it looked like a stage performer popping his head out between the curtains for a pre-show peek at the audience. Her hand flew to her mouth in shock.
“Omigod,” she exclaimed.
“It’s him?” Molinari asked.
“No,” Kit said, her voice sounding nearly strangled. “It—it’s Matt Healy. The real Matt Healy. The one I met in New York.”
chapter 5
Molinari stared at Kit, her lips parted in confusion.
“Wait,” she said. “Are you saying this is the man whose wallet was stolen, the one working at the hedge fund?”
Kit glanced briefly at Molinari and then wrenched her attention back to the photo, still struggling to grasp the truth. There was no mistake. Though Healy’s eyes were closed and his skin almost clay-like in color, she was certain it was him. But it made no sense. What had he been doing in Miami—with her business card in his pocket?
“Yes,” she said, bewildered.
“You’re certain it’s not the other man?”
“The other man had red hair but a brownish red, not strawberry blond. And some facial scruff. It never occurred to me when you described the victim that it might be Mr. Healy.”
“And you gave him a card, too?” Molinari asked.
She shook her head. “Uh, no. I gave a card to the man in Florida but not to Matt Healy.”
Molinari studied her for a moment, questioningly. An alarm buzzed in Kit’s brain. Did the detective think she was lying?
“Why don’t we stop by my office so we can sit down and talk, okay?” the detective said.
“My flight—it’s at four.”
“I’ll be sure you make it. This is important.”
Kit nodded in consent. Better to cooperate, she realized. She’d somehow stumbled into a horror show and she needed to be careful, make Molinari grasp that she was an unwitting bystander who knew absolutely nothing and had played no role.
They returned to the lobby. Molinari suggested Kit wait there, where it would be cooler, while she retrieved the car. Kit stood by the window, watching the detective put her phone to her ear as she hurried across the parking lot, probably filling a colleague in on the body I.D. Someone would surely be designated to get in touch with Matt Healy’s family and the higher-ups at Ithaka while Molinari was busy questioning her.
The lobby was empty and utterly silent now, but Kit could hear her heart thumping in her chest. She was still struggling to come to terms with what had just happened in that sad little room. She’d stood there dreading the sight of X’s body, and then suddenly she was staring at a photo of Healy’s face, his mouth parted in a terrible grimace. It was like plunging your hand into what you think is ice-cold water, knowing it’s going to sting, and then finally realizing it’s scalding hot instead. She barely knew Healy but she felt shaken by his death.
What exactly had he revealed to her about the trip he was taking? Just that he was headed out of town on business but he’d never said where. She wracked her brain for more. Suddenly she recalled that at the bar in the Italian restaurant she’d told Healy about X’s plans to visit Miami.
And then another memory: she’d handed her business card to Ungaro at one point. Based on what Healy had said about not being able to join the meeting, she’d assumed he was going right away, but he might not have taken off until later, and Ungaro could have turned the card over to him.
What if instead of leaving town on business, Healy had actually hightailed it to Miami in search of X, and managed to find him? Could X have murdered Healy? If that was the case, Kit had unwittingly set off a grisly chain reaction.
Kit felt fear snake its away around her ankles. If X had killed Healy, that shifted everything about the past days. It meant that the man she’d been to bed with—and been so charmed by—wasn’t just a thief, he was a killer. In the Ithaka meeting, Ungaro had suggested X could have purposely targeted her, and Kit had wondered if he might have been