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  “You know, it’s hard for me to believe you and Breanne were a couple. She’s so dynamic. A woman with exquisite taste in fashion, art, wine—”

  Winslow laughed. “She didn’t start out that way. When I met Breanne, she was a struggling journalist. She could barely afford the rent on her East Village walk-up.”

  “That must have been a long time ago.”

  “She was in her twenties. I was considerably older.”

  “The first marriage for both of you?”

  Winslow shook his head. “I’d been married for over a decade to a proper wife. I had two proper children, as well, and operated a proper pharmaceutical company.”

  “So . . . how did the two of you meet?”

  “Breanne interviewed me for a piece in New York Trends—”

  “You mean Trend, right?”

  “New York Trends doesn’t exist anymore. Breanne saw to that.”

  “Oh, I see . . . so what did Breanne interview you about, exactly?”

  “An antiwrinkle pill my drug company had developed. It was quite effective, in some ways revolutionary.”

  “Wow. Sounds lucrative. So what happened? Did you two fall in love during the interview?”

  “Love . . .” Winslow laughed. The sound was harsh and hollow. He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes as if envisioning the past. “Breanne was stunning back then, dazzling, even more of a beauty than she is now. It was hard for me to concentrate with her sitting across from me. She seemed impressed by my background, my academic records at Haverford and Princeton, my ‘patina of refinement’ as she called it. She was flirtatious and seductive. And so we had sex, lots of it.”

  “And you married her.”

  Winslow opened his eyes. “I didn’t want to, but Breanne wasn’t content with being a mistress. She found a way to inform my wife about our relationship.”

  “Was that really such a big deal? I mean, you probably weren’t happy in your first marriage, right?”

  Winslow shifted his wasted frame. “The breakup of my marriage caused me problems. My family was unhappy. They settled the Winslow fortune on my ungrateful offspring. At the time, I didn’t care. I still had my company, and I had Breanne. It was enough for me. It was not enough for her . . .”

  The man sighed, fished a vial of pills out of his pocket, and dumped a few into his mouth, swallowing them dry. Then he stared off into space.

  Come on, Clare. Find another button to press . . .

  “So why did you and Breanne break up exactly? It sounds like you had a pretty good thing going.” (If you can call a torrid extramarital affair capped by a heartbreaking revelation for the wife and kids a “pretty good” thing.)

  “Breanne wanted more than just a marriage. She always wanted more. It’s her defining characteristic.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “She worked at New York Trends, but she wanted her own magazine. So she convinced me to give her $250,000.”

  “For what?”

  “A pitch. That’s what she called it. A prototype and multimedia demonstration for Reston-Miller Publications.”

  “So your money helped start her magazine. That was really nice of you.”

  “Nice? I was a dim-witted dupe. Within a year the bitch dropped me like an out-of-season handbag. She started an affair with the photographer who shot her magazine’s first cover. Then she filed for divorce, the greedy little lying tart ...”

  Winslow’s mood was getting uglier by the minute, and I wondered what he was on right now. While I needed to push him off balance emotionally, the drugs were heightening his agitation, and I was starting to worry about physical safety.

  I wasn’t ready to give up yet. I wanted badly to nail this creep for Hazel Boggs’s murder. To do that, I had to get him to admit he wanted his ex-wife dead. Of course, I didn’t want to end up dead in the process. Quinn would never forgive me for being that stupid.

  “So, was the divorce messy?” I asked, pressing on.

  “Expensive is what it was. Bloodsucking lawyers, all of them. Of course, I still had plenty of money then so I didn’t pursue a percentage of her magazine. I wanted to be rid of her, and I assumed Trend would fail in its first year, anyway. Then those bureaucratic bastards at the FDA forced me into bankruptcy.”

  “The FDA?”

  Quinn had said something about Winslow’s company going out of business because of a multimillion-dollar lawsuit. I made a leap.

  “Was it the antiwrinkle drug? The one Breanne interviewed you about?”

  “There was nothing wrong with it!” Blue veins throbbed visibly on the man’s forehead. “The FDA trumped up false data about life-threatening side effects and forced a recall!”

  “I can see they robbed you blind.” I gestured to the crumbling paint, the soiled rugs, the empty spaces where possessions once existed. “I guess that’s why Monica’s deal sounded pretty sweet then, huh? How did you two hook up, anyway?”

  “Oh, that . . .” He waved his hand. “Monica overheard me arguing with my ex-wife in her office. I only wanted the money the woman rightfully owed me.”

  “You mean that $250,000? The money you lent her to start Trend?”

  “I demanded every penny back with interest. She said no. I stormed out, and Monica followed me. We had lunch, and she asked me about my past with Breanne—just like you’re doing now. Stealing the rings was her idea.”

  “Yeah, Monica never could stand her boss. And Breanne made a complete fool of you, right? I’ll bet you wouldn’t mind seeing her get what’s coming to her.”

  “Oh, the bitch will get what’s coming to her. I’m sure of it.”

  “Are you? How? I mean . . . Do you need any help with that? I’m no fan of the woman, either. I wouldn’t mind seeing something happen to her. It could look like an accident. It’ll be easy.”

  Winslow froze for a moment after I’d said those words. He stared at me for a long, silent minute, then he stood and said, “You have to leave now. I’m going out.”

  “Out where? Maybe we can take a taxi together?”

  Winslow shook his head. “Come, miss. Time to go.”

  Dammit. I stood up slowly and followed him to the door, my mind racing. But I couldn’t think of what else to say. Abruptly, he turned to me.

  “When will I hear from you? About the rings?”

  “Soon,” I said.

  Before I could think of another ploy, Winslow unlocked the apartment door and opened it. Lieutenant Quinn and Sergeant Sullivan stood there, badges in hand, two men in uniforms behind them. In one fast motion, Quinn grabbed Winslow’s wrist and twisted his arm behind his back.

  “Stuart Allerton Winslow, you’re under arrest for the distribution of a controlled substance without the consent of a licensed and authorized physician.”

  Quinn slipped a handcuff around one wrist. From under his tangled hair, Winslow’s eyes caught mine. “You set me up?”

  I backed away from the enraged man.

  “You little bitch!” he shouted. “You set me up!”

  “Quiet,” Quinn said, twisting his arm a little more.

  Winslow howled and spat at me. “You’ll die for this, bitch! I’ll kill you myself, with my own—owww!”

  “Listen to me, asshole,” Quinn said as he cuffed Winslow’s other wrist, none too gently. “You have the right to remain silent ...”

  When he finished rattling off the man’s Miranda rights, he handed the prisoner over to Sullivan and the two young cops in uniform. Winslow continued to shout obscenities and threats until the elevator doors closed in his face.

  “Sorry, Mike,” I said, “I couldn’t get him to admit to planning the robbery or trying to kill Breanne.”

  “It’s okay, Cosi. You did good. Better than good. You got us a lot of material to use for interrogation. We should be able to soften Winslow up, get him to admit conspiracy in the robbery. A confession to murder might be harder to get, but he could slip up, admit he wanted his wife dead. Then we’ll go fr
om there, try to get him to admit to the SUV incident and the shooting of the stripper by mistake. We’ve got a search warrant on the way, too. Who knows?” He glanced inside the musty apartment. “We might find the murder weapon in this dump.”

  I shook my head. Quinn had wanted to use a policewoman, but I convinced him I could do the job. “Still—”

  Quinn lifted my chin. “Lighten up, sweetheart. You did what you came to do. With Winslow in custody, your ex-husband can rest easy. Breanne Summour is no longer in danger.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  “ I’D like us all to raise a glass . . .”

  Matt lifted his goblet of sangria blanco to begin a toast, but Machu Picchu’s dining room was currently displaying the noise level of a Times Square subway platform. When he realized few people had heard him, he climbed onto a chair, pulled a pen out of his pocket, and began loudly knocking it against his half-filled goblet.

  “Attention! Atención!”

  It was Thursday afternoon, and all of Matt’s coffee colleagues had shown for Madame’s special luncheon. They were having a grand old time, laughing, singing, and loudly conversing over cocktails and Peruvian-style tapas.

  The restaurant itself was a charmer, with terra-cotta walls, Incan art, and an impressive display of handmade clay pots. But Madame hadn’t chosen the hot, new Soho eatery for its food or decor. The place’s name was what attracted her, reminding her of a sweet memory long past: ascending the actual Machu Picchu with Matt’s late father decades ago.

  “Hello! Your attention, please!”

  Conversations diminished and heads turned. Matt cleared his throat and began again.

  “I’d like to start today’s toasts with one to a very special woman. A woman to whom I’ll always be indebted . . .”

  Standing next to her groom, Breanne looked sleek and gorgeous in a form-fitting white sheath. A stunning silver and turquoise necklace circled that swanlike neck, matching earrings hung from her delicate pink lobes. Her royal blue eyes were shining, her ivory skin (even more wrinkle-free than I remembered) appeared radiant, her alluring smile (more bee-stung than I remembered, too) widened with every new word of praise Matt lavished on her.

  “So please raise your glasses to someone I’ve always been able to depend on,” Matt finished, “a woman who really came through for me, my business partner, Clare Cosi!”

  What?!

  Breanne’s perfectly made-up face fell like an eggless soufflé, and I felt like an absolute heel. As sweet as Matt was to want to thank me publicly for saving his bride’s life, I couldn’t believe he was stupid enough to do it before toasting the bride herself!

  “Clare Cosi!” Everyone cried, lifting their glasses.

  Matt climbed down from the chair and grinned at me. Breanne curled her lips, too; it was the kind of smile the old crone gave Hansel and Gretel the morning she wanted to pop them in her oven.

  Matt turned to his bride. “Go ahead, Breanne. Don’t be shy. You can propose a toast to Clare, too.”

  Bree’s Beaujolais Red lips froze so stiffly I thought they were going to crack off and fall into her antichuchos. She set her small plate of diced, marinated, and grilled cow heart down on the room’s long bar, took a substantial hit off her white sangria, and said, “I’ll pass.”

  “You’ll pass?” Matt echoed.

  “You’ve said it so eloquently already, darling. Why would I want to gild the lily?”

  A vision of Breanne lowering me into a vat of molten gold came to mind. I shuddered—while maintaining my own plastic smile.

  “My mom’s the greatest, isn’t she?” Joy gushed beside us.

  I turned to my daughter and thanked her with a smile (sans synthetics). Matt and I had picked her up at Kennedy Airport the night before, and it was honest-to-God heaven having her home again. We ordered a fully loaded New York pie from Village Pizza, opened some ice-cold beer, and talked for hours (all three of us).

  I couldn’t get over Joy’s transformation. Her health was back, for one thing. She’d lost a great deal of weight a few months ago. After her false arrest, the murder of her friend, and her degrading expulsion from culinary school, she’d spent two solid weeks doing nothing but crying. Her skin had gone sallow, her bright eyes had dulled.

  The magnificent city of Paris had recharged her spirits and tempted her with its cuisine. Her too-thin figure had filled out again, her cheeks were rosy, her skin a warm peach. She said she and her roommate had gone down to Nice for a few days to catch a tan, not to mention the attention of a few cute-looking French boys from the cell phone pictures she’d showed me.

  She looked cute herself at the moment in a sundress the color of lemon pie. She’d arranged her glossy chestnut hair in a French twist as sleek as Breanne’s golden do. But she still had my green eyes, and they looked as bright and lively as this sunny spring Thursday—a huge change from the hollow, red-rimmed look she’d sported a few months back.

  It had been hard as hell, sending my broken daughter away. But seeing her so happy now recharged my own spirits. I was proud of the way she’d pulled herself together and dug into the demanding job she’d secured (with a little help from her grandmother’s connections). Working as a line cook in any restaurant had its challenges: long hours, low pay, difficult bosses. Joy was apprenticing under a demanding boss now, and the chef de cuisine and his executive staff weren’t cutting her any breaks. On her third beer last night she recited for us the long list of French obscenities she’d learned courtesy of her superiors on the Michelin-starred kitchen staff.

  “I learned so much from my mom,” Joy told Breanne (which I certainly hoped didn’t include a long list of obscenities—in French or any other language). She glanced at me then and raised her glass once more. “And I owe her a lot, too.”

  I almost pinched myself. Given the rough ride I’d endured with my child over the past few years (which mainly consisted of Joy telling me—with a great deal of attitude—to butt out of her business), I often wondered whether we’d ever again be as close as we were when she’d been a little girl. Her maturing outlook gave me hope.

  “Despite what your lovely daughter implied,” Breanne told me in private a few minutes later, “I don’t feel that I owe you anything.”

  “You don’t owe me,” I said. “That’s true.” We were standing alone at one end of the bar. Matt had taken Joy by the arm to proudly introduce her around the room, leaving Breanne and me to talk alone. “What I did, I did for the father of my child, as a wedding gift. And I hope you know the only reason Matt thanked me was because I saved the thing he most wanted in his life right now: you.”

  “Right now.” Bree rolled her eyes. “You’re so transparent, Clare.”

  “I am?”

  “You want him back.”

  I nearly choked on my sparkling water. After last night’s beers, I’d declined any alcohol. I suddenly changed my mind.

  “Pisco Sour,” I told the bartender.

  Hoping to shake Breanne’s interrogation, I gave her my back, turning my attention instead to the bartender. With swift, efficient movements the young man mixed the Pisco (a brandy made from grapes grown in Peru’s coastal valley) with lemon juice, sugar, and ice, garnished it with Angostura bitters, and handed me the tumbler. (It was Matt who’d introduced me to the cocktail. He’d sampled it in Lima during one of his Andes buying trips.)

  “Answer me, Clare,” Breanne hissed in my ear. “You won’t deny it? You want him back?”

  Oh, for pity’s sake. Can’t this woman take a hint? I turned to face Breanne (since she gave me no choice) and took a nice long, unhealthy hit of my cocktail. The flavor was sweet yet tart; and though the drink itself seemed mild at first, the ninety-proof Pisco carried a kick you had to respect. I main-lined it into my quiet reply: “All right, Breanne, listen to me, and listen good. You’ve got the Tiffany’s engagement ring and the big, lavish wedding. On Saturday, you’re even acquiring the optional accessory to your grand event—a worthy groom. So why don’t you foc
us on that instead of what I do or don’t want in my life because, frankly, I’m sick to death of your superior attitude.”

  “And I’m sick to death of your meddling.”

  Meddling?! Unbelievable! I risk my life for this woman, and this is what I get?

  “You know what, Bree? You’re a big girl. I think it’s time you heard the unvarnished truth: I don’t want Matt back, and do you know how I can prove that to you for once and for all? If I had wanted him back, you wouldn’t be planning this wedding.”

  Breanne’s royal-blue eyes narrowed. “Don’t you dare imply that I’m sloppy seconds,” she hissed, her ivory cheeks turning the color of her lipstick.

  “I’m not implying anything that crass. I’m trying to get you to remember that Matt’s going to put Nunzio’s ring on your finger a few days from now. Not mine.”

  “Hey, kids . . .” Matt walked over, a big, clueless grin on his handsome face. “How are two of my best girls doing?”

  Breanne turned on him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  The man’s puppy-dog smile fell.

  Congratulations, Matt, you finally picked up on your bride’s mood. What did it for you? The acid tone or the murderous scowl?

  “What?” He scratched his head. “What did I say?”

  Breanne rolled her eyes. “Two of your best girls?”

  “That’s right.” Matt shrugged. “I’ve got my daughter here today, too. And my mother. I have a lot of important girls in my life, Breanne, you know that.”

  God, Matt, just open your mouth and put your Bruno Magli shoe in already.

  Breanne took another drink of her sangria. “I need something stronger than this.”

  “Allow me.” I turned to the bartender and ordered Bree her very own Pisco Sour.

  “Everything’s okay, isn’t it?” Matt said, his gaze darting from Breanne to me and back again.

  “Ask her,” I said.

  Breanne waved her French tips. “I was just telling Clare that although her concern was appreciated, I really don’t think my ex-husband was anything more than a nuisance. The entire episode was blown way out of proportion.”