I gritted my teeth, biting back the words. Hitting her with the truth would do no good. It would only alienate her, and I needed her cooperation.

"Do you have a cigarette?" Leah said, jerking me out of my furious thoughts.

I yanked the pack out of my pocket and tapped one out for her. I fired up a match. She leaned forward toward the light, cigarette stuck in her small mouth, laying a steadying hand on mine as she brought match and cigarette together. Then she took a pull, making a face before tilting her head back and blowing out a cloud of smoke at the ceiling.

"You must be a strong man to smoke such potent tobacco." She was giving me a half-lidded stare, one that sent a message that was impossible to mistake. On the wall above the sofa hung a large framed wedding picture of Leah Goldin and her husband. She was beaming again, all in white—her dress, her earrings, her necklace, her veil, and the bouquet of daisies in her hands. He was a lanky man wearing a three-piece gray suit and a self-conscious smile. He was looking directly ahead, but also appeared to be gazing down at us. I shifted slightly away from her, my back pressed against the armrest.

"About Esther Kantor," I said, "you two were friends?"

"Oh, yes. The very best of friends. We worked together, side by side, every day."

"You were already at Becker & Strauss when Esther was hired?"

"I started two years before she did."

"She settled in fine?"

Leah nodded. "I helped her of course, showed her where everything went, how things worked. She caught on quickly. Esther was a smart girl."

"She told you things about herself, about her life?"

"Of course. We would talk a lot. I remember feeling sorry for her because she had to raise a child all on her own. You know her husband drowned?"

So Esther had not revealed her true identity to Leah, and Leah had not seen through her lie the way Natalie Davidson had. But maybe Esther did share other parts of her life with Leah.

"Did she tell you about her lover?" I asked.

Leah blinked, clearly surprised. "You know about him?"

"Yes. Alon Davidson."

A glass ashtray lay on a side table by the sofa behind Leah. She twisted around, showing me her back while she mashed out the cigarette. She turned back to face me. "Yes. She told me about him."

So, I thought, Elena's eyes had not deceived her.

"What did she say about him?"

Leah hesitated. "Not all that much. I don't feel comfortable revealing intimate details."

She hadn't needed to tell me that last bit. I could tell as much by her tense posture and the shift in her manner. Her flirtatious bubbliness had evaporated. The gravity of the subject of our conversation had finally dawned on her.

"Did she tell you how serious they were? Whether they had plans for him to leave his wife?"