but I’m loving my time in London, and your flat is in good hands. Write to me with any news. Sorry, again. Corbin
Kate read it twice. Why would he deny that he had been involved with Audrey Marshall? Why didn’t he use her name?
Before writing him back, Kate looked through her other e-mails. Mostly junk, but there was one from Martha Lambert, who lived on the first floor of her building in London. When Kate had first moved in—nearly a year ago—Martha had immediately assigned herself the role of new best friend. Kate hadn’t minded, even though Martha’s sole interests were going to the pub and landing a man. When Kate moved to London she’d been determined to be a little bit social, and Martha, with her constant invites, had at least made that part easy. Her e-mail, not surprisingly, was about Corbin:
Miss you, Kate, but I am v pleased with your replacement. He’s gorgeous, as you know. You should have seen Michael’s jaw drop when he saw him down the pudding. He’s friendly, too, but I won’t go too much into that right now. How is it over there? What’s his flat like? Kisses, darling, I really do miss you. Martha
Kate opened up a reply window and stared at it for a minute, not knowing what to write. Should she warn her? Something moved in the periphery of her vision, and her heart stutter-stepped. It was Sanders, returning to the room from his tour of the premises. He sat back on his haunches and looked quizzically at Kate.
“He’s not here,” she said aloud.
To her surprise, Sanders answered back, a querulous meow.
She got up and went and opened the front door, and Sanders pranced off, brushing his tail against her leg on the way out. She shut the door and pressed her eye against the peephole to see where the cat went, but he was already gone from the hallway.
She returned to the e-mails. Should she tell Martha to be wary of Corbin? She should, of course, but she knew Martha well enough to know that it would totally fall on deaf ears. Instead she wrote:
Don’t you dare do anything in my bed, that’s all I ask. Boston is nice, and Corbin’s flat is bigger than mine. More later. Still jet-lagged. Kate
She didn’t want to say too much more about the flat. If Martha knew how rich Corbin was, her predatory instincts would become even more heightened.
Kate opened up a response box to Corbin, then paused. What should she tell him? She decided to tell him the basic truth, leaving out what she’d heard from Alan, leaving out Alan altogether. So she wrote him back, telling him that the police had asked to search his place and she’d agreed, and she mentioned the key. This information, at least, would give him a chance to let Kate know that he didn’t want the police in his apartment without a warrant. She hit send. It would be past midnight in London, and she wondered if Corbin was even up.
Before putting her laptop away, Kate searched for any new information on the death of Audrey Marshall. She found a story that indicated that the body removed from 101 Bury Street had been positively identified as Audrey Helen Marshall, and that her death was being treated as suspicious by the police.
Kate finally put her laptop away after clicking on several other news stories that all had the same, limited information. She went to the bedroom and got her datebook. Even though she knew that her first design class in Cambridge began the following day at one in the afternoon, she double-checked it. She’d already decided to leave early, give herself time to figure out the public transportation, and how to get to the school from the Porter Square T station. She sat on the edge of the bed, exhausted suddenly, but instead of leaning back, tucking herself up under the covers, and going to sleep, she grabbed the Dick Francis she’d started earlier, plus her well-worn copy of I Capture the Castle, a book she’d read many times.
She brought both of the books, plus the quilted comforter, across the expanse of the apartment to the leather couch in the den. She stretched out and opened the Dick Francis novel. She read one paragraph, then her eyes closed, the book still propped on her chest.
She was back in Audrey’s apartment, and Alan was there, crouched on the floor, his head tilted up and back, and