Page 23

Every time I’ve caught an accidental glimpse of this photo, I’ve turned away in mortification.

Now, though, I look at it with the eyes of an adult, and I am angry.

I see a girl who was drunk, possibly drugged.

An eighteen-year-old virgin in a hot tub with a gorgeous, famous older man who wanted her, really wanted her.

I’d dated before that. Had a couple of boyfriends. Made out and fooled around, but it always felt not-quite-right. Like cakes baked in a toy oven. Those few minutes with Colt had been my first mature sexual experience, and as much as I hate the thought, I can’t deny it.

This is what enrages me about the photo.

It has taken that moment and thrown it to the world for titillation and ridicule.

I would always have regretted what happened, but I should have been allowed the memory of a regrettable e xperience, one I’ve learned from.

Instead, that private moment is forever public, online for the world to see.

What makes it worse is Colt’s expression. He’s looking up at me like a quarterback who just scored the winning touchdown. Pleased with himself. Utterly and confidently and smugly pleased, grinning at my pleasure as if to say, “I did this.”

It’s a self-satisfied grin, and it’s a proprietary one, too.

I won this girl. I’m going to have this girl, and I’m going to enjoy her, and I deserve this. By God, I deserve it.

Someone jostles me, and I glance up, startled. It’s just a passerby, but as soon as my gaze tears from that photo, I remember where I am and what I was doing.

I scroll past the photo and continue reading the article. It resumes to say that I’d been at Isabella’s hotel this morning, where I claimed to have been invited for breakfast.

Claimed? My hackles rise, but I smooth them down. This is CNR. Take everything with a ten-pound block of salt. I’ll get this sorted as soon as I show those texts to a lawyer.

I read the next line and almost continue past it. Then I stop and reread.

Callahan claims to have left Isabella Morales’s suite on finding the door open, but sources within the hotel say the police have evidence that she was inside when the hotel staff responded to an urgent call from Isabella.

The temperature plummets, goosebumps rising.

The police know I was in the room.

Did I really think I’d get away with that?

I didn’t think. Couldn’t, at the time, the primitive part of my brain screaming for me to flee. What I’d forgotten is that someone went to the trouble of luring me to the scene, which meant they’d find a way to prove I’d been in the room.

I need to admit to being inside before the police accuse me of it. Control the narrative.

As bad as this looks, I must remember that I was in my own hotel room when Isabella died. I arrived hours later after being lured to her hotel, which I can prove.

I’ve screwed up, and I may face criminal charges for my mistakes, but the murder allegations will be withdrawn.

I read the next line.

Sources at the hotel say Callahan and Isabella Morales argued yesterday during their afternoon meeting.

What? No. Isabella had met me with kindness and sent me off with a hug. There may have been tense moments, but even someone with their ear pressed to the door couldn’t accuse us of arguing.

Why the hell didn’t I test that recording? Why didn’t I make sure it worked? Well, maybe because I’m a music teacher, not a secret agent.

I force back the seething regret and read on.

Police believe Callahan returned in the early hours of the morning to confront Isabella Morales.

Hotel staff confirm she was seen exiting the hotel shortly before five a.m. She then returned at 6:45.

It’s believed she returned to remove evidence, most likely Isabella Morales’s cell phone, which is missing from the scene.

Returned and exited hours earlier? Staff can confirm it? Impossible.

But the rest… I was at the hotel at 6:45 – that’s a matter of record. I thought that would help prove my case. Who returns to a murder scene hours later?

Someone who forgot something.

Like a cell phone.

The phone I did take.

I skim the rest of the article, which says that based on this and additional evidence, police have a warrant out for my arrest. Below that is a photograph. I look at it and blink.

The woman wears a pressed white Oxford blouse, slim-fitting black jeans and black ankle boots, with a chunky necklace and big-buckled belt. Her hair swings and she’s just removed her sunglasses. A woman on a mission, her mouth set in a firm line, as if daring someone to get in her way.

It’s me. A photo taken by hotel security cameras. Yet for a moment, I don’t recognize myself. It’s the expression. It isn’t resting bitch face. It’s full-on active bitch face, and it’s as foreign to me as my expression in that hot-tub shot.

We’re accustomed to seeing ourselves in a very select number of poses – smiling for photos, or caught off guard for a photograph but still alert and calm.

This hotel photo shows a side of me I don’t see.

I wasn’t angry. Not even annoyed. I was steeling myself to see Isabella again.

Yet I look ready to mow down anyone in my path.

I look like a bitch.

I look like a woman who could kill.

I glance up to see a fifty-something man across the road, frowning down at his phone. He looks up at me. Back at his phone.

My heart stops. He’s reading about me. CNR might get exclusive firsthand knowledge, but that won’t keep others from reposting their article, linking to it, sharing it on Twitter and Facebook…

The man looks up again. He smiles. There’s no fear or trepidation in that smile. It’s interest mixed with hesitant flirtation.

He’s not reading anything online about me. He glanced up from his phone to see a younger woman looking straight at him. Then he returned to his phone, only to look up and find her still watching him. He thinks I’m checking him out. I could almost laugh at that.

I give the man a quick wave with an embarrassed smile and shrug, which I hope conveys the message that I mistook him for someone else.

I turn… and there’s a woman about my age, staring at me.

Showing her phone to her companion, whose gaze rises to meet mine, her face slack with horrified recognition.

I turn on my heel, stride around the corner and duck into the first building I see.

It’s a housewares store. I move quickly down aisles of specialty peelers and designer juicers until I’m at the back with a view through the front window.

The women do not walk past. Of course they don’t – they just spotted a murderer.

They’re calling 911 on their phones right now, thirty seconds before posting #KillerSighting on Instagram.

I’d gone through hell in 2005, when social media wasn’t truly a thing. What would it be like now, in the age of Twitter and memes and hashtags? Even thinking of it, I have to b ite my cheek to keep from throwing up on the housewares shop floor.

The store clerk is busy on the phone with a customer and didn’t see me come in.

I slip past a curtain into the hall. There’s a door leading out the back.

A sign reads Emergency Exit Only. Does that mean it’ll set off an alarm?

Only one way to find out. I push down the handle.

No sirens sound, but I’m already gone anyway, darting past trash and recycling bins.

I’m quick-marching along the side street when my phone rings. It’s Mom. I keep moving as I answer.

“I have someone,” she says.

“Oh, thank God,” I murmur. “It’s hit the Internet. Well, CNR, but it’s already spreading. My photo is out there along with the news that I’m wanted for Isabella’s murder.”

Mom has a few choice words for CNR. Epithets like “bottom feeders” and “terrible people.” After her G-rated tirade, she says, “I’m texting you the lawyer’s address.

A friend from church recommended him. She said he’s one of the best criminal lawyers in New York City, and when I called, I left a message at the desk, but he phoned back two minutes later.

He’d love to take your case, and he said I was absolutely right to tell you not to turn yourself in. You’ll do that with him.”

“Perfect,” I say as I read her text with the address.

“He’s expecting you at his office. He asked if you’d like a car to pick you up.”

“No, it’s about a mile from here. I can walk. Tell him I’m on my way now.”

I take a few basic identity-disguising steps along the way.

I wear my sunglasses. I change into the lounging-around-t he-hotel-room-wear I’d grabbed from my suite – leggings and an oversized off-the-shoulder tee.

I also buy a floppy hat from a street kiosk and sweep my red hair under it.

Good enough. It’s not as if my photo is flashing across the screens in Times Square. Not yet, at least.

I make a wrong turn heading to the lawyer’s office and end up at the rear of the building. I don’t see a door, so I’m circling around when I’m passing the parking garage and…

There’s a police cruiser just inside the garage entrance. I slow and then take three steps backward.

Once again, I tell myself the police aren’t here for me, but once again, I decide to behave as if they are. I lose nothing by being cautious.

I head around the other way. As I do, I take a closer look at the building.

It’s in a decent part of town, but it’s no executive office tower.

Mom’s friend seems to have exaggerated when she called Daniel Thompson “one of the biggest lawyers in the city.” Right now, though, I’m a beggar who can’t be choosy.

I find a side door and slip inside. The lawyer’s office is on the tenth floor. Mom said to text Thompson when I arrived, so he could come down and meet me. I decide to skip that step. If there are police officers in the building – for any reason – I want a lowkey entrance. The stairs it is, then.

I’m passing the ninth floor when I hear my name. Of course, my gut reaction is, “Paranoid much?” but I still step toward the door and ease it open.

“You’re milking this for all it’s worth, aren’t you, Thompson,” a woman’s voice says.

“Of course I am,” a man replies, “for my client’s sake.”

The woman snorts. “For your sake, you mean. You love seeing your face on TV.”

“I am drawing necessary attention to my client’s case. She’s been wrongly accused of murder.”

“Yeah, according to her mother . I could skin cats on national TV, and my mom would claim it was all a misunderstanding.”

“Lucy Callahan is innocent, and I will prove it.”

“Save it for the cameras. Just remember, you owe us one, Thompson.”

“I owe you ? I’m delivering the most wanted fugitive of the–”

“–morning?”

He continues. “You’re getting the arrest, on camera no less.

All I ask in return is that you stay here until I text you.

I don’t want to spook her. She’ll notify me when she arrives, and I’ll speak to her in my office.

Once she’s calm, I’ll text you. You come to the door, and I’ll persuade Ms. Callahan that it’s for the best.”

“And you’ll claim you have no idea how we found her at your office?”

“Presumably, you tracked her phone.”

“Yeah, it’s not that easy. But whatever. Just hold up your end of the deal, or I’ll report you to the bar association. Pretty sure this is a hanging offense with them.”

Thompson tut-tuts her threat away. I withdraw and do what I should have done already. I search on Thompson’s name.

The first thing that appears is an ad for his services, showing a man in his late thirties, blond with bright green eyes and perfect teeth.

Then another ad. And another. Below that are articles on cases he’s represented.

He is a legitimate lawyer, one who seems to do well, but he’s also the sort who advertises his services on the side of buses, his handsome face plastered larger-than-life.

Mom said her friend recommended him as one of the biggest lawyers in town.

Probably because her friend saw his billboard advertisements or heard his radio jingle.

He’ll happily take my case and my money and probably do a decent job of representing me, but he’ll wring every ounce of publicity from the job, and I’ll be the one who pays that price.

I send Thompson a quick text.

Me: It’s L. Callahan. I’m stuck in a taxi on Broadway. The driver says I’m twenty minutes from you, but it might be faster to get out and walk. So sorry! Be there soon!

I actually hear his phone chime with the incoming text. A moment later, he replies.

Thompson: No problem. Take care, and text when you’re close. I’ll come down to meet you.

The officer had grumbled about the bar association, but I’m not sure this is actually a violation. I suspect Thompson treads that wire with care.

Hey, no, I didn’t breach confidentiality. She wasn’t my client when I notified the police.

I don’t care how legal or ethical it is. All that matters is that I got a heads-up before I walked through the front door. Score one for paranoia.

Speaking of paranoia, I take off my boots so I don’t clip-clop down the steps. On the fifth floor, a man walks through the stairwell door. His gaze goes to the boots in my hand, only to nod and smile as if he trusts in the logic of unknowable female fashion choices.

He climbs to another floor, and I don’t encounter anyone else. At the bottom, I yank on my boots and fly through the stairwell door.

I can’t ask Mom to find me another lawyer.

She’s a school teacher in Albany. Her contact list is filled with church-lady friends and book-club friends and golf-game friends, plus a few discreet male friends that I’m not supposed to know about, because God forbid I find out my mother is dating a mere quarter-century after my dad died.

Unless one of Mom’s hook-ups is an NYC defense attorney, she’s not the person to find me a lawyer.

I need to handle this myself. Yes, part of me wants to hide until my mommy sorts it out, but I’m not that girl anymore.

Take control of the narrative.

Go to the police. Not the ones upstairs.

That would seem as if I tripped over them and went “Whoops, uh, so… I’m turning myself in.

” This must be a clear act of initiative.

Find a police station. Walk in and announce who I am.

Say that I wanted to find a lawyer first, but the one I contacted seemed shady – there’s your TV-ready soundbite, Daniel Thompson – so I decided to do this on my own.

I’m heading for the side exit while searching my phone for a police precinct. The bathroom door opens. A young woman steps out. I see her pretty face, her perfectly coiffed hair, her equally perfect makeup… and the little microphone clipped to her lapel.

A reporter.