“There’s a financial incentive to going to the SEC, isn’t there? Does that hold true this way, too?
“No, but I don’t care. That’s not what this is about for me.”
Interesting, she thought
“So you’re going Friday?”
“Yup. At the latest Monday.”
“Monday?”
“Only if the right person isn’t available to meet with me on Friday.”
She rose from the couch and dragged her hands through her hair.
“I can’t believe this. It’s an ever-moving target. Every time I speak to you, you’re going on a different day.”
“Kit, I know it’s a very scary situation. But this is the smartest approach, for both of us. They’ll move against Ithaka more quickly.”
“It’s not just Ithaka that worries me. It’s the police. I’m withholding information from them.”
“You’re going to have to do your best to keep them at bay until Monday. And you’re also going to have to be extremely careful. For now, don’t leave the apartment you’re staying at. After this, we can speak by phone.”
His warning made her fear spike again. She glanced at her watch. It was almost ten.
“I should go,” she said, “before it gets any later.”
“Let me just put this stuff away, and I’ll find a cab for you. Would you be open to me taking you home?”
“That’s not necessary.” The evidence he’d presented had added to his credibility, but there was no way she was going to let him see where she was staying.
He started toward the bedroom and then pivoted, catching her gaze and holding it.
“I’m going to fix this, Kit. I promise.”
She nodded, not in agreement, but just acknowledging the comment. He turned back and continued into the bedroom, slipping behind the screen.
Maybe he would fix it. She wanted desperately to believe that. Though there was one thing she knew for sure: he’d never be able to fix what had happened to Avery.
Avery. An image rushed Kit again. She could see the ugly gash on Avery’s head, the mottled skin of her face and hands. And then Kit’s mind was snagging on something again, but this time it didn’t tear away so quickly.
“You know, there’s a detail about Avery’s death that completely confuses me,” she called into the bedroom. “Why did she take the stairs?”
“What do you mean?” Kelman said from behind the partially open screen.
“The elevator was working that night.” She stepped closer to the bedroom so he could hear. “Avery clearly came up on it and I rode it down later when I went out to see you. Someone could have forced her to the stairs, but I probably would have picked up the sound of any commotion in the corridor.”
She peered behind the screen. Kelman was just closing the closet door and reading a text on his phone simultaneously. He looked up, surprised by her presence, and tucked the phone back into his jeans pocket.
“Sorry,” he said. “I was just nudging my lawyer in light of everything we’ve talked about. . . . Doesn’t your elevator have one of those emergency stop buttons?”
She bit her lip, thinking, “Yeah, it does.”
“The killer might have taken the elevator to another floor, stepped out, and pulled the button, so it was temporarily out of commission. Avery would have been forced to use the stairs to go down. And then by the time you left, another tenant could have discovered the problem and undone it.”
“So the killer must have thought I was leaving for the evening.”
“Possibly. Or he might have been planning to lure you out somehow if you hadn’t.”
He started to close the screen, which resisted a little on the track. This wasn’t his apartment, after all, and he wasn’t familiar with the kinks. What had these past weeks been like for him? she wondered.
“Does anyone in your life know where you are?” she asked.
“Other than you and my lawyer? No. And it’s been bizarre moving around the city, trying to be incognito. I feel like a character in a movie, someone people assume has been murdered but is really alive and has snuck back to try to figure out who wanted to kill him.”
“What about friends? Aren’t they worried about where you are?” She was curious to see how he’d respond, what it might reveal about him.
“When I left New York, I told friends I was going off the grid for a while, just trying to figure out my next move after Ithaka, so no one’s expecting much contact. And as I told you in Florida, I’m not involved with anyone romantically.”