Page 125 of The 6:20 Man

“It’s Travis, got a minute?”

She opened the door and eyed him appraisingly. “Jill told me about the mugging and your warnings to her—to all of us. How bad was it?”

“Could have been worse.”

“Only it wasn’t a mugging, was it?” said Speers.

“It was the guy who was pretending to be NYPD, and a pair of thugs. They had guns and knives. That’s how I got this scratch.” He held up his hand.

“Impressive you got away alive, then,” she said coolly.

“More luck than not.”

“I doubt that. The Army taught you well.”

He looked over her shoulder at the stack of books. “How’s the studying coming?”

“It’s coming. Torts are easy. Criminal law is harder.”

“That’s what all the criminals say,” quipped Devine.

“I’ve seen the news. Jennifer Stamos is dead.”

“Yes.”

“Was she the one who came here to visit you the other night?”

“Yes.”

“And you told me she was having an affair with Brad Cowl and you had proof of it.”

“Yes.”

“That does not look good, Travis. For you.”

“I didn’t kill Stamos, Helen. Why would I?”

“You keep lobbing legal softballs at me. Your motive is she decided to call your blackmail bluff and threatened to expose you. So you silenced her. Do you have an alibi?”

“No, but I found out that Cowl got called out at just around the time she died. And now he’s pulled a disappearing act. So either he killed her, or else he found the body, called the police, and went into hiding.”

Speers said, “Maybe he killed her and called the police.”

“Why would he do that?”

“Guilt, or thinking it might help him somehow. People under stress do strange things.”

He looked over her shoulder at the pile of books again. “Well, I’ll let you get back to it.”

As he walked off he had a brand-new problem. And that problem was Helen Speers.

Because those books and study guides hadn’t been touched since the last time he’d seen them. They were all in the exact same position.

She wasn’t studying for the bar. She might not have graduated from law school. Her name might not even be Helen Speers. He had had no reason to check before.

Now he did.