Piece of My Heart (Under Suspicion #7) - Mary Higgins Clark Page 0,80
Lindsay to the sofa, and then positioned herself in the adjacent gray swivel chair.
“Your office is beautiful. If I’d known that a career in media might lead to a sleek suite sitting above the Rock Center ice skating rink, I might have skipped law school altogether.”
“So you’re a lawyer?” After everything she had heard about Michelle Carpenter from her mother, this was not what she had been expecting of Michelle’s friend and neighbor.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I assumed you knew. I know your fiancé, Alex! Oh, and congratulations, by the way. Your engagement was quite the buzz on the legal gossip circuit when it was announced. We all thought he’d remain a bachelor for life. I was so sorry to hear about his nephew. That poor little boy. I hope they bring him home safely.”
Laurie thanked her for her thoughts. She’d had no reason to mention Lindsay’s name when she told Alex about her meeting this morning. The sound of her fiancé’s name from this alluring lawyer’s lips immediately evoked memories of Alex’s former reputation as a man about town, spotted on Page Six and the society pages at various high-profile functions, in the company of similarly well-known women. She reminded herself, though, that she was the one he had fallen in love with. He had chased her, not the other way around.
“How do you and Alex know each other?”
“I’m a white-collar defense lawyer in Philadelphia, but my firm has an office here. We’ve had a couple of cases that overlapped.”
“And you were Michelle Carpenter’s neighbor?” Laurie asked. “I apologize, but I got the impression from her mother that Michelle was living in… difficult circumstances.”
Lindsay barely disguised a roll of her perfectly mascaraed eyes. “Of course you did. Michelle’s mother didn’t even know her own daughter anymore. She probably pictured a rat-infested tenement. Michelle wasn’t rich by any means, but she rented a very well-appointed garage apartment behind the house next to mine. The homeowners are an older couple, snowbirds who spend most of the year in Florida. Michelle and I became fast friends when she moved in. She was one of the best-hearted people I ever met, but she told me her mother was convinced she was a failure and a loser.”
“And why was that?”
She shrugged. “Because Michelle didn’t live up to the big dreams she had as a younger woman. Life threw her a curveball with an unplanned pregnancy, and she made the painful decision to place that baby with a loving family. She said it was the hardest thing she ever did, but also the act that made her most proud. But to her mother, it was like Michelle was marked by a scarlet A for the rest of time.”
“But did Michelle ever suggest her mother could be violent… or erratic? Or if she ever indicated any resentment over her grandson’s adoption?” It was becoming clear that Sandra hadn’t been the most supportive mother, but Laurie was trying to figure out if the woman was capable of kidnapping Johnny.
Lindsay shook her head. “As judgmental as her mother was, I got the impression the adoption was the one decision of Michelle’s that Sandra actually supported.”
“My understanding is that Sandra believed that drugs killed Michelle long before she actually died.”
Lindsay’s eyes sparked with anger. “That’s so unfair. Michelle had been clean for nearly two years. That was the whole reason she moved to Philly. She wanted to get away from old influences and bad habits. Sandra refused to believe she’d turned her life around. Too much disappointment after so many failed attempts in the past, I suppose. So, of course, when the police told her that Michelle died of an overdose, she immediately believed them. The case was open and shut without a second glance.”
“But not for you. You think she was murdered.”
“The night I found her, we were supposed to do takeout and TV at my house. We’d get together every couple of weeks to keep up with shows we both liked, but mostly to gab. I texted a couple of times when she was unusually late. I could see her car parked in the driveway, so I finally went over to see what was going on. I knocked at first, but then opened the door to check on her.”
“It was unlocked?”
Lindsay nodded. “That was her usual, though, at least at that hour. We live—lived, I suppose—in a very safe neighborhood. I knew immediately something was wrong. Her apartment was usually so tidy, but not that day. The place